Christopher Columbus Discover America

      Christopher Columbus Discover America

        Christopher Columbus arrived on the American continent in the 15th century. He had traveled west from Europe and hoped to reach India by a new route.

                           

He hardly expected that instead of reaching India, he was going to reach an entirely new continent where he would meet new people. Before his discovery, the Europeans had no idea that a continent existed in the west.

Native Americans or Indians

When Christopher Columbus reached the American continent in 1492, he thought he had reached India. When he saw the natives of the region and met with them, he thought he was meeting with people of India, who were called Indians.

So he decided to call the Native Americans as Indians. He soon realized his mistake and found out that he wasn’t in India but on a new continent. However, the name ‘Indians’ stuck and it has been used to refer to the Native Americans to this day.

Red Indians

When Europeans discovered the American continent in the 15th century, European colonialism was at its peak. European nations often considered other races as inferior to them.

They created names based on the skin color or appearances of other races. For the Native Americans, they used the term ‘Red Indians’. This was a term used to distinguish them from the Indians who lived in the Indian subcontinent .   In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Europeans established settlements on Newfoundland.

At the time, the Native American tribe of Beothuk lived there. The Beothuk had a unique cultural practice. They would paint their bodies with red ochre as a part of spring celebration every year.

They also used red ochre to paint weapons, canoes, houses and various items of everyday usage. Red ochre had strong cultural significance for the tribe and served as tribal identity as well.

When the Europeans came into contact with the Beothuk, they named them ‘Red Indians’ for their use of red ochre. This name eventually became a common term used to refer to all Native American tribes .

          Red Indians and Redskins are often used interchangeably. Red Indians, as stated above, originated when Europeans saw the Beothuk.

Some researchers believe that this is also the origin of the term ‘Redskins’. However, many Native American chiefs and tribes used the term ‘redskins’ to distinguish themselves from the ‘white skins’ or the Europeans.

During the 19th century, a number of Native American tribal leaders used the term ‘redskin’ in their speeches, letters and other forms of correspondence.

Why not use the term?

Native Americans do not like the terms ‘Red Indians’ or ‘Redskins’. They consider these terms as derogatory and racist. This is especially because they believe these terms were coined by the Europeans during the colonization of the Native American tribes.

Although ‘Redskin’ may have originated with the Native American tribes, it was used as a racist term. This is why the Native Americans do not like to be referred to by these terms .

     Native American History

Native Americans or American Indians are the people who have been living on the American continent for thousands of years. They migrated to the continent long before Europeans arrived. By the time Columbus discovered Americas in 1492, the Native American tribes were already living all over the continent.

The history of these indigenous people of American continent is a fascinating saga. Following are some of the key events and highlights of this history.

Arrival of the Native Americans

In the Ice Age, Alaska was connected with Asia through a land bridge. This is called the Bering land bridge by researchers today. During the Ice Age, human tribes from Asia started migrating to Alaska by traveling over this land bridge. These migrations probably took place in waves. The last of these waves is estimated to have taken place 12000 years ago.

Different Native American tribes came through this route and settled in different parts of the American continent. At first, they settled along the western coast which was closest to their route. But gradually, they spread all over the American continent.

Farming and Hunting Development

As Native American tribes settled all over the American continent, they developed their own distinct cultures. Some of them started farming, others took up hunting as their primary source of food. Some tribes also learned to raise animals like turkeys and guinea pigs for meat. The tribes who settled along the coast indulged in fishing and traded their catch with the tribes living inland.

                              

Development of Native American states and kingdoms

By 2000 B.C., many Native American tribes were large enough to create their own states. In some cases, many tribes banded together to create a unified political front. The tribes established links with each other, developed trade routes and grew significantly in terms of their population.

As time went by, some of the Native American tribes became so powerful that they created their own kingdoms and empires. In Central America, Mayans and Aztecs created great civilizations. In South America, Incas created a vast empire which stretched over an extensive area of South America. The Mayan, Aztec and Inca strongholds still existed when Europeans arrived in 1492.

Arrival of the Europeans

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set out to reach Asia by going west from Europe. He stumbled across the American continent on his way. This brought the newly-discovered American continent to the attention of the Europeans. European nations like Spain started sending exploratory groups to find out more about the continent.

When the explorers came into contact with the Native Indians, the indigenous people were exposed to new diseases such as smallpox and measles. These diseases wrecked havoc on the population of Native Americans tribes. Large portions of their populations were wiped out as they didn’t have natural immunity towards these new diseases.

Conquest of Native American lands

Soon after the discovery of the Americas by Columbus, European powers started thinking about conquering these new lands and exploiting its resources. These efforts were led by Spain which was a large and powerful empire at the time. Spain sent many military expeditions led by conquistadors to subdue the Native American tribes and gain control of the region.

The most notable of these was the expedition led by Hernan Cortes. Cortes arrived in the Americas in 1519. By 1521, he had defeated and conquered one of the most powerful political entities in Central America, the Aztec Empire. His efforts led to the slow colonization of the Americas and the end of Mayan states as well.

                        

The End of the Inca Empire

In the 16th century, the Inca Empire was the largest and mightiest Native American power in the Americas. It stretched across modern-day Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and parts of Chile. Spanish military expedition under the conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived at the empire’s borders in 1532.

In a short period of time, the Spanish had captured the emperor and gained control of some of the most important areas of the empire. In subsequent years, the Spanish gradually fought off the resistance and consolidated their conquest of the Inca Empire.

Contact with European Settlers

While Spanish Empire was busy conquering the areas in Central America, other European nations started sending groups of settlers to North America. The French arrived first and formed settlements. Then in 1607, the first group of British settlers arrived. These settlers established contact with the indigenous people of American continent.

With the help of the Native Americans, the French established a rich fur trade business in the region. Slowly, the British colonies who were initially situated along the eastern coast began to expand inland. This led to conflicts and battles with the Native Americans.

War and colonization of Native Americans

The British colonies on the east coast wanted to expand so that they could have more land. But most of the land in North America was under the control of the Native American tribes who had been living on it for a long time. When the settlers tried to expand onto their territory, this angered them.

The result was a frequent conflict between settlers and Native Americans. Initially, the Native Americans had some success against the European settlers. But slowly, they were overwhelmed by the superior weapons and technologies of the Europeans and slowly, they were pushed out of their lands .

Birth of USA and defeat of the Native Americans

In 1776, the United States of America was born. This came about after a long fight between Britain and the American colonies. Several Native American tribes had favored the British in the war, so now they had to pay the price. US armies gradually marched on their lands and subdued them.

After many wars and a lot of fighting, nearly all the Native American tribes in North America were removed from their ancestral lands. They were moved to special reservation sites. For most of the 20th century, the Native Americans were given very few rights. But political and social movements in recent decades have led to increased rights for them, such as the right to practice their religion .

            Americans get a day off work on October 10 to celebrate Columbus Day. It's an annual holiday that commemorates the day on October 12, 1492, when the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus officially set foot in the Americas, and claimed the land for Spain. It has been a national holiday in the United States since 1937 . It is commonly said that "Columbus discovered America." It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that he introduced the Americas to Western Europe during his four voyages to the region between 1492 and 1502. It's also safe to say that he paved the way for the massive influx of western Europeans that would ultimately form several new nations including the United States, Canada and Mexico .

                                

      Amerigo Vespucci is supposedly the person after whom American gets its name. Vespucci was the first to suggest that the land discovered by Christopher Columbus was a whole different continent. Later, Martin Waldseemuller, a German cartographer, was the first person to name this continent America, which is a Latinized version of Amerigo. This name was given on a map by the German cartographer in the year 1507 .

       Christopher Columbus discovered America on October 12, 1492, but it was all by chance – a mistake. The explorer had been looking for an easier route from Europe to Asia when he came across the huge land that no one from Europe even knew about. But who was Columbus and what led him to his life of sailing and exploration?

Christopher Columbus was the son of a wool merchant and was believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. He started working on a merchant ship as a young teenager and continued working on the sea until pirates attacked his ship in 1476. Although his boat sank, he was able to reach shore safely by floating on a scrap of wood.               

A depiction of Christopher

Columbus claiming possession of the New World, 1492. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Young Christopher didn’t go back to work on ships for a while, instead he turned his efforts to studying mathematics, cartography (drawing maps), astronomy, and navigation. During this time, it was very hard to get to Asia by land from Europe. The journey was long and dangerous. Portuguese explorers took to the sea, sailing along the West African coast and then around the Cape of Good Hope. This was still a long voyage, so Columbus came up with another idea.

He wondered about sailing west across the Atlantic instead. Although his idea was good, unfortunately his math was not. He believed the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than it is and that an undiscovered Northwest Passage would be a much easier route. He explained his idea to leaders in Portugal and England, but no one would help. In 1492, Spain’s Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile decided to take the risk.

A deal was made and Columbus looked forward to receiving 10% of whatever he found along with a noble title, and he would be named governor of any lands he discovered. With that promise in mind, the explorer set sail on August 3, 1492 with three ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

                            

On October 12, the ships reached land – but it wasn’t the East Indies, as Columbus had planned. Instead they landed on one of the Bahamian Islands. He and his crew spent months sailing from island to island trying to find riches. Disappointed by not getting as much treasure as he’d hoped, Columbus set sail for Spain in January 1493, but he left several dozen of his men in a temporary settlement on “Hispaniola” – what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The settlement was destroyed, but Columbus had returned and tried to make it work. He left his brothers in charge, but the colonists of Hispaniola revolted against Columbus’ brothers. A new governor had to be sent to set things right. He was arrested and taken back to Spain in chains for his mismanagement.

In 1502, most of the charges against Columbus were dropped, but he was not allowed to keep his noble titles. He died in 1506 .

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Suvendu Singha & Mamata Singha ( Asia, India, Odisha, Balasore )