The discovery of America took place thanks to the events that promoted support for navigation projects . Like the conquest of the kingdom of Granada in 1492 with the surrender of King Boab-dil in the city of Santa Fe . In this way, the way was left open for Castile to adopt an aggressive policy that would stop the progress achieved by Portugal in the conquest of the Atlantic and in the markets of Black Africa.
The Catholic Monarchs were willing to help any shipping company that achieved the goals they set for themselves in their competition with Portugal.
In these circumstances, an unknown pilot and navigator appears before the kings who promises eastern towns in exchange for a helot with which to travel to the West, to reach Cipango and Catay (China and Japan).
Christopher Columbus
It is believed that Columbus was born in Genoa, where he claimed to come from in multiple writings, despite the fact that no written paper was ever found in his own handwriting that was not in Spanish. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but it is estimated around 1451. Several cities in Italy dispute his birthplace. He has also been considered Galician, Extremaduran or Catalan, and there is no lack of those who affirm a Hebrew ethnic origin.
Offer to Portugal
His conviction that the Earth was round (although he believed it to be smaller than it really is) and, consequently, that the Atlantic had less extension, a fundamental idea for the discovery of America, led him to offer his services to John II of Portugal and to present him with a project for navigation to the west. Upon consulting with his advisors and maritime advisers, the monarch received a resounding refusal. Since Portugal was determined to do the opposite, to find a way to the East, following the circumnavigation routes of Africa to the east.
Christopher Columbus meets Fray Juan Perez
In 1484 or 1485, Columbus requested lodging at the La Rábida convent, where he met Fray Antonio de Marchena and Fray Juan Pérez, one of Queen Isabel's confessors. He convinced the friars of the feasibility of his endeavor and Fray Juan Pérez put him in contact with the prestigious sailor Martín Alonso Pinzón. This one, after listening to him, joined the company.
Some authors maintain that Columbus was certain that there were lands to the west, which would have involved Fray Juan Pérez, who in turn would have told the queen, an assumption that would explain the diligence of the kings and the support they gave Columbus. .
Interview with the king and queen of Spain
In 1486 he obtained an interview with the Catholic Monarchs, who submitted Columbus's ideas to two councils of experts, one in Córdoba and the other in Salamanca. In the second, luck will smile on him, thanks to the intervention of Fray Diego de Deza, Prince Juan's tutor, who will fully support his thesis. Two years he will live under the hospitality of the Duke of Medinaceli, an Andalusian landowner who wanted to participate in the glory that he sensed in the company.
The queen, jealous of the exclusivity of the Crown to sponsor the task, decides to undertake it on her own. But, faced with excessive requests from Don Cristóbal, she rejected the project.
Columbus retired to La Rábida, with the decision to leave Spain. But the prior of the convent of Santa Maria wrote to the queen begging her to resume dealings with the navigator. Columbus returned to Santa Fe to meet with Isabel and again the negotiations failed.
Thanks to the intervention of Luis de Santángel, clerk of the Crown of Aragon, the queen accepted Columbus' onerous conditions.
Santa Fe capitulations
Once approved by King Fernando, the capitulations were signed in Santa Fe (April 1492). Compromise more than beneficial for Columbus who, according to his terms, if he discovered something, would become the richest and most influential character in the country. The illusions, ideas and enormous ambition of him will make him the Grand Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
The voyages of discovery of America
For the voyages of discovery of America, the Crown procured two caravels that it "ordered" from the residents of Palos de Moguer by royal mandate. As well as "requested" the coastal cities of Andalusia victuals, supplies and military supplies for the company. Columbus was exempted from payment of duties and was granted the status of Their Majesties' Ambassador to the Great Khan.
It was not easy for the Genoese to assemble a crew. For the sailors, Columbus was a stranger with a reputation for deluded, so they were surprised by the support that the royal certificate read in the church of San Jorge in May 1492 supposed. Martín Alonso Pinzón lent Don Cristóbal decisive support. Thanks to the intervention of Fray Juan Pérez, he sought the levy of the crew for the three caravels, already prepared. Enlistment began in June 1492.
First voyage of discovery of America
The first voyage of discovery of America was made with three caravels, the Pinta , the Girl and the Santa Maria (this last property of Juan de la Cosa, who embarked on it as master or pilot), under the command, respectively, of Martín Alonso Pinzón, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Colón himself. They went to sea on August 3, 1492 in the port of Palos and headed for the Canary Islands, where they stopped to repair some damage to the Pinta and the Girl and for Columbus to make a few visits before he braved the ocean.
They continued their journey on September 1st from Las Palmas, driven by favorable trade winds.
Two notable incidents occurred on the slow voyage:the deviation observed in the compass needle (which they blamed on the variation of latitude), and the increasing nervousness of the sailors, after a month of navigation without results. The concern became critical on October 7, shortly before sighting land, when logs, pelicans and floating land plants already indicated their proximity. Colón and the Pinzón brothers collaborated to put down some attempts at rebellion.
Land sighting
In the early hours of October 12, Rodrigo de Triana launched the cry of land! The expedition arrived at a small island in the archipelago of the Lucayas or Bahamas, which the natives knew as Guanahaní and which the sailor called San Salvador (probably the current VVatling). Columbus took possession of it on behalf of the Crown of Castile and Aragon, thirty-two days after leaving the Canary Islands.
After visiting several islands, where he stopped briefly, he arrived on October 27, guided by the news received from the Arawaks, to a larger island, Cuba. He landed at the port of Bariay at the eastern end of the island, which he baptized with the name of Juana. Next, he explored the island of Santo Domingo, which he named Hispaniola. In it he loses the Santa Maria When he ran aground near the northern coast and with his wood he made the fort he named Natividad, in which he left a small garrison.
Return to Spain
Columbus began his return to the Peninsula on January 16, 1493. The Pinta and the Girl They got separated on the way due to a storm. The Pinzón brothers arrived in Galicia on the Pinta and the Admiral, on the “Niña” (which had landed in the Azores, where he had legal difficulties with the Portuguese from the islands) arrived at the port of Lisbon. After many inconveniences he returned to Palos, from where he moved to Barcelona, to meet with the Catholic Monarchs, who received him as befitted the magnitude of the undertaking carried out.
Second voyage of discovery of America
Given the success achieved by the Genoese navigator, the kings, once the bull Inter caetera of Pope Alexander VI, who ratified, de jure and before God, the possession of the islands and lands discovered in the name of the Crown, hastened to organize a second expedition since the Portuguese were preparing to prepare another and to try to vary the terms of the bull
Treaty of Tordesillas
On June 7, 1494, a treaty was signed in Tordesillas, by which the new lands were divided by a meridian three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Basis of the rights that Portugal will claim for its colony of Brazil. The entire area west of the line belonged to Spain; the one to the west, to Portugal.
Start of the second trip
Columbus departed from the port of Cádiz on his second voyage with a powerful fleet of seventeen ships on September 25, 1493. The ships were loaded with supplies, settlers and soldiers, as well as domestic animals and European plants. The company had twelve missionaries and the famous Antonio de Marchena, Juan de la Cosa, Diego Colón, Alonso de Ojeda (conqueror of Santo Domingo), the father and an uncle of Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ponce de León, among others. others. The expedition, financed by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, landed in La Gomera on October 5 to provide food and water.
On Sunday, November 3, Columbus touched American soil for the second time, on a small island, which he calls Dominica and, later, on other islands that he baptized as Marigalante and Guadalupe, in honor of the Extremaduran virgin. He discovered the island of Puerto Rico on November 16 of the same year, which he called San Juan (the natives called it Boriquén).
Arrival in Hispaniola
Arriving in Hispaniola, he experienced a deep disappointment, because he found the Christmas fort burned down and its inhabitants killed by the aboriginal tribes, led by the caciques Caonabo and Guacanagi. Shortly after founding another fort, La Isabela, he toured the southern coast of Cuba and named its innumerable keys Jardines de la Reina. Convinced the navigator of being in the Moluccas or East Indies, he also discovered the island of Santiago (Jamaica).
The expedition - a nautical feat - was showing more and more as an economic failure. The harsh conditions of the place, the scarcity of comforts, the excesses of some expeditionaries and the hostility of the Indians, created many problems for the Genoese.
Columbus decided to head back to the Peninsula, after convalescing for five months in Fort La Isabela, the only European colony on the American continent at the time.
Return to Spain
He resumed the return trip, in the midst of difficulties and errors caused by some abuses by the colonizers and by the navigator himself. He appointed Bartolomé Colón, his brother, Adelantado of the island, and set out on the "Niña" on March 10. After an eventful journey, he landed in Cádiz on June 11 with a group of Indians led by Caonabo himself (who died during the voyage). The kings welcomed him and granted him the favors he requested; Columbus rejected, however, the titles of nobility that were offered to him. Despite the bad reputation he had acquired for his treatment of his subordinates, he was able to mount another expedition on behalf of the Crown.
Third voyage of discovery of America
On the third voyage of discovery of America, Columbus sailed from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on May 30, 1498 with six ships. He made a stopover in La Gomera and, after capturing a corsair vessel, headed for the New World. After crossing the dead calm zones, which exhausted his supplies, he sighted a wild land on July 31, to which he imposed the name of Trinidad (which he still retains).
Rebellion of Francisco Roldán
On August 1, he landed for the first time on the Venezuelan mainland on the Paria and Cumaná peninsulas, which he mistook for islands.
He went back to Hispaniola where he learned about the depopulation of Fort La Isabela and the founding of Santo Domingo, on the banks of the Ozama River. Columbus, very ill with gout and ophthalmia, faced the rebellion of Justice Francisco Roldán and a general disorder arose in the colony that the Admiral could not prevent.
The Crown sent Commander Bobadilla, who accused Columbus and sent him to Spain in chains. But upon reaching the Peninsula his prerogatives were returned to him. Bobadilla's measures were annulled and Nicolás de Ovando replaced him in office.
Restitution of Colon's privileges
Columbus was rehabilitated in his old privileges, which were extended to his heirs, although he was not confirmed as viceroy of those regions, a position that he never regained, so he resigned from exercising command in Hispaniola.
Consistent with his promise to raise an army to liberate the Holy Places from Turkish domination, he attempted at his own expense to carry out a levy, aroused by his religious zeal and deep mysticism.
But his eagerness to discover prevented him from putting the plan into practice and, although old, still energetic, he undertook his fourth and last seafaring adventure. Still convinced that the lands discovered by him preceded Asia, proposing the crazy plan of going up the river found near Trinidad, the Orinoco, until reaching the Red Sea and, from there, accessing the Holy Places, to liberate them from the oppression Seljuk.
Fourth voyage of discovery of America
On the fourth voyage of discovery of America at the expense of the public treasury once again, Columbus armed four ships (three caravels and a small boat) that sailed from Cádiz on May 9, 1502. With the recommendation not to approach Hispaniola except in case of great need.
He set foot in America for the last time, on June 13, 1502, on an island he named Martinino (Martinique). But he had to go, much to his chagrin, to Hispaniola, where Ovando denied him permission to dock. So he had to protect himself from a cyclone in Puerto Bello, in the west of the island. Ovando, ignorant of Columbus's advice and his experience in tropical waters, put to sea. In which he lost twenty ships with his men and treasures, including the enemies of Columbus, Roldán and Bobadilla.
First news of the Mayan Empire
From Hispaniola, the admiral set out for Jamaica, in search of a passage to the Indian Ocean. He crossed the Jardines de la Reina and arrived at an island that he named Guanaja, some forty miles off the coast of Honduras. There he captured a large canoe loaded with rich copper objects and weapons that announced a more important culture than those known to them until then, that of the Mayan empire. Columbus's eagerness to reach India prevented him from paying attention to those indigenous people, who he assumed belonged to the empire of the Great Khan.
Aboriginal hostility
He sailed to Cape Gracias a Dios (between Honduras and Nicaragua) and the Isthmus of Panama. He tried to colonize the coast of Veragua, but the mosquitoes and the hostility of the aborigines prevented him. After more than two months of bad weather that damaged the ships and damaged the health of many men, the admiral landed in a bay he called Belén. And in this one he tried to leave a garrison under the command of his brother, Bartolomé, and ask for reinforcements from the Peninsula. But the aggressiveness of the Indians forced him to re-embark. Faced with these setbacks, he returned to Cuba in May 1503.
He then left for Jamaica, where he was received peacefully and remained there for a year. His poor health and the abuse of his people created countless problems for him. The Indians cut off his food supply, but he cunningly got it back by announcing an eclipse that he knew about in advance.
Return to Spain and death of Columbus
The belated relief from Hispaniola arrived in June 1504. Columbus remained in Santo Domingo until an expedition took him to Spain on November 7, 1504. After a thousand hardships and a severe attack of gout that prostrated him. A few days later his protector, the queen, died. Columbus went to see the king in Segovia, seat of the Court, in May 1505. He died on May 20, 1506 in his villa in Valladolid. In the midst of general oblivion and in the belief that he had discovered the western way to the Indies and the Great Khan. Without realizing that it was a huge intermediate continent, completely new and unknown, which would be America.