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E! True Hollywood Stories:
Christopher Columbus:
The man behind the myth
In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue…
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So what was happening 500 years ago in the year
1492??
In Europe…
– The Spanish Inquisition-
 Began in Spain in 1480
 Spread of Catholicism; Persecution of Jews and Muslims
 Theological development that amassing wealth and domination was
key to salvation
 Cruel Punishments: People who were suspected of ‘criminal’ acts,
depending on the crime, faced severe punishment. The most
merciful was being hanged. Other punishments ranged from cutting
off criminals’ heads, arms, legs, hands, or feet to being burned at
the stake in front of large audiences.
1492 Continued…
– The Renaissance Period
(1400-1600): the rebirth of
humanism
 The Printing Press and increased
literacy
 Advances in science, mathematics,
and arts
– Myth: Columbus was first to think
that the Earth was round, all
others thought Earth was flat
(Began in Washington Irving’s
biography of Columbus in 1828)
– Truth: There is evidence that this
was known by the Egyptians
thousands of years ago and also
more evidence provided by Greek
mathematician Pythagoras in the
6th century B.C.E.
A current ad for stock brokers!
1492 in terms of
exploration…
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Myth: Sea exploration began with Europeans in the 1400’s…
Fact: There is evidence of many other cultures exploring the world
by ship before Columbus’s time.
– The Portuguese called their ships “caravels”, derived from the Egyptian word
“caravos”
 Evidence that Egyptians and Phoenicians sailed around Africa in 600 B.C.E.
– Accounts of two Native Americans shipwrecked in Holland in 60 B.C.E.
– Ancient Roman coins found by archeologists in America
– Map found in Turkey dated 1513 of the coastlines of South America and
Antarctica that was based from the library of Alexander the Great
– The Viking expeditions to Greenland, Iceland around 1000
– Indigenous peoples living in Americas when Columbus landed
Exploration continued…
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Strong evidence that West Africans arrived in Mexico in 750 B.C.
– Heads of basalt that stand along the eastern coast of Mexico dated around
750 B.C. are realistic portraits of West Africans
– When Columbus reached Haiti, the Natives had spear points made of guanine
(identical to a material made by West Africans) of which they told Columbus
they had received from black traders
– Traces of diseases common in Africa have been detected in corpses in Brazil,
dating before Columbus
These rock
heads are called
Olmec heads and
are located in
Mexico
So apparently Columbus was NOT the
first to discover America!

How can you really discover something
that is already populated and owned by
people??
Christopher Columbus:
The Beginning of his Journey…
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Was born in 1452
Facts about life are very
uncertain
– May have been originally Jewish
but converted to Christianity
– Said to have been born in Genoa,
Italy but some historians suggest
he may have been from Portugal
 Could not write in Italian
 After asking other countries to sponsor his
voyage, Columbus finally received the financial
backing from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel
of Spain for a voyage to find a trade route to
India for spices. Some historians suggest that
he may have been on another mission
altogether, and only told the Queen and King
this in order to get funding. It is known,
however, that his main quest was to search for
gold and wealth.
In fourteen hundred and ninety-three
Columbus stole all he could see…

Altogether, Columbus sailed on four
voyages to the new world.
– The first voyage, Columbus reached
an unknown Caribbean Island in
October 1492
– The second voyage Columbus
landed in what is now Haiti
The Native peoples of
the first voyage…the
Arawaks
According to the journal
Columbus kept:
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October 12, 1492:
They were very well-built people, with handsome bodies and very fine
faces, though their appearance is marred somewhat by very broad
heads and foreheads…Their eyes are large and very pretty, and their
skin is the color of Canary Islanders…They are in fact well
proportioned.
October 13, 1492:
I cannot get over how docile these people are. They have so little to
give but will give it all for whatever we give them, if only broken pieces
of glass and crockery.
Although Columbus viewed the Natives
favorably, his motives for them were not
October 12, 1492:
They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they
repeat very quickly what we say to them. I think they can
easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion.
If it pleases Our Lord, I will take six of them to your Highness
when I depart
 Columbus first read to the Natives was called the Requirement, a
document that all Spaniards read after landing on an island, justifying their
later treatment of these people:
I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take
the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not do it, I tell you
that with the help of God I will enter powerfully against you all. I will make way
everywhere and every way that I can…The deaths and injuries that you will receive
from here on will be your own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the
gentlemen that accompany me.
The Second Voyage to Haiti
Video:http://www.history.com/video.do?nam
e=culture&bcpid=1676043212&bclid=16759
79280&bctid=1577897715
 When Columbus could not locate gold, he
created a tribute system.
 Every three months, every person of 14
years old or upward had to pay so much gold
dust or 25 pounds of cotton. If the native did
so, he received a brass or copper token to
wear around his neck.
 If an indigenous person was found without
the medallion he was punished.
 In 1501, Columbus sent 5,000 slaves from Haiti to Spain. 5,000
more were made slaves for colonists in Haiti.
Slavery was not uncommon during this time. Many Native Americans had
other Native Americans as slaves, as did Africans of other Africans, and
Europeans of other Europeans. However, this did cause other countries to
become interested in capturing the American indigenous people to sell for
In Haiti, the indigenous
population before Columbus
arrived was 8,000,000
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By 1555, the indigenous
population was gone.
Reasons: Disease from the Europeans (Smallpox); Indians
forced into hard labor in mines rather than in fields to grow
their foods; Many of the indigenous people committed suicide
because of poor condition.
 Tonight:
Read the handouts given. One
is a letter written by Columbus to
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel
and the other is to Lord Raphael
Sanchez. Write about your
thoughts on the letters.
 Tomorrow:
We will go over the effects of
Columbus’s “discovery” of America.