Several of the captains who led Renaissance voyages of exploration from Europe to the west, from Columbus to Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539-83), were looking for a shorter route to Japan, China, and the East Indies. For nearly 20 years before his 1492 voyage, Columbus had corresponded with scholars about geographical and cartographic questions. He concluded that the Asian landmass was much larger than it actually is, an error that would have located Japan much closer to Europe. Columbus began discussing his ideas for a western voyage to the Far East in 1485, attempting to persuade the Spanish Crown to finance his expedition. Meanwhile, his brother approached the king of France as well as the king of England, who declined. Finally Queen Isabella I (1451-1504) decided to support the endeavor. In 1492 Columbus thought that he had reached islands near the Orient. Instead, his first sighting was of present-day Watling’s Island in the Bahamas, where the flagship, Santa Marta, along with the Pinta and Nina stayed for three days. Before Columbus reached Hispaniola (the island where present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic are located), the captain of the Pinta sailed away and the ship was missing for a time. After claiming Hispaniola for Spain and exploring the island, Columbus set sail to return across the Atlantic. Almost immediately the Santa Marta was smashed on a reef, and the Nina returned to harbor. Columbus had no choice but to leave some of his men as settlers, ordering them to construct a small fort with timbers from the wrecked ship. Thirty-nine settlers remained on Hispaniola as Columbus captained the Nina toward Spain. His ship met the Pinta along the way back, but that ship’s captain abandoned Columbus once again to return to Spain before him. Queen Isabella refused to grant him an audience, and Columbus was credited with the success of the expedition. After he described the infinite riches of the islands and exhibited the Native Americans whom he had transported to the court in Barcelona, Columbus was given an impressive command of 17 ships and some 1,500 men. His passengers included craftsmen, government officials, a surgeon, and other potential settlers lured by tales of the fortunes to be made in Spain’s new dominion.
Landing at Hispaniola, Columbus founded another settlement (Isabela) because the first group of settlers had been killed by local inhabitants. After exploring the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica for five months, Columbus returned to Isabela to discover hostile natives and sickness among the settlers. When he returned to Spain, his brother moved the Isabela settlers along the coast to the location of Santo Domingo, thus founding the oldest European town in the New World. Once again Columbus, who had taken back solid evidence of gold and other riches, was hailed as a conquering hero in Spain. During his third voyage (if not during the second— the point is disputed), Columbus reached the American mainland in 1498. He sailed into the Gulf of Paria, claiming Venezuela for Spain, along with the pearl fisheries in the gulf. Arriving at Santo Domingo, Columbus found the settlement close to mutiny and learned that these conditions had been reported to the Spanish authorities. Columbus and his two brothers supposedly governing the settlement were placed in chains and taken to Spain. Isabella, nevertheless, had him released and put in charge of a fourth voyage. Off the coast of Honduras, he came upon a canoe in which the natives had copper vessels and other indications of a relatively advanced civilization (Mayan and Aztec). Instead of exploring the land from which they had sailed (Yucatan), Columbus persevered in his attempt to find a strait through which he could reach the Orient. This was his final voyage of exploration, which ended with his being shipwrecked and marooned for a year before returning to Spain.
As soon as letters from Columbus about his first voyage were published, the kings of England and France became interested in exploring the new lands. Early 16th-century reports increasingly persuaded Europeans that the territory was indeed not the Orient, but a New World, which came to be called America. While Spaniards certainly dominated the
Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe
9.5 Portrait of Christopher Columbus. Engraving in Jean-Jacques Boissard, Icones. . . virorum illustrium (Portraits of famous men, 1597-99). (Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc.,© 2003)
Exploration and Travel
California coast, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South A/merica, and southeastern North America, both France and England had settlements in North America. England first explored the new lands to the west in an official way when John Cabot (a citizen of Venice) sailed from Bristol in 1497, across the Atlantic, and along some part of the northeastern seaboard. On his second voyage, Cabot may have traveled as far south along the coastline as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Although he founded no settlements, Cabot was credited with informing the English about the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. This section of the Atlantic became a very productive fishing ground for Renaissance mariners. The first English settlement was established in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), on Roanoke Island (off the coast of present-day North Carolina). The colony failed, however, and the survivors were taken home by Sir Francis Drake (1540 or 1543-96) in one of his privateering ships that had been menacing the Spanish. A second group of settlers on the same island became known as the “lost colony” because all traces of them disappeared.
In 1523 Giovanni Verrazano (a Florentine) sailed under the flag of France to search for a sea passage to the Orient. Landing on the North Carolina coast, he turned north and became the first European to explore the harbor of present-day New York City. The French king’s determination to locate a Northwest Passage by sea to the Orient resulted in the French exploration of what would become Canada. Financed by the French Crown, Jacques Cartier set out from Saint Malo in 1534 and explored the Gaspe Peninsula and surrounding coastal regions. Returning to France with reports about three Indian kingdoms in the north that might be comparable to the rich kingdoms of Mexico, Cartier was outfitted by the king for another voyage. With captured natives to guide him, Cartier traveled nearly 1,000 miles up the Saint Lawrence River, to the site of present-day Montreal. Though a climb up Montreal’s mountain showed Cartier that land stretched as far as he could see, he remained hopeful and returned home with more captives and stories of potential wealth. During his final voyage of 1541 Cartier founded the colony of Cap Rouge (near present-day Quebec City), but the previously friendly natives withdrew their support when their relatives taken as “guests” did not return home, and the colonists suffered from the frigid winter. The colony ended in 1543 when the settlers sailed back to France.
World History
