Post: #1

Columbus was funded by Queen Isabella of pain to find a sea route to India going West.

Upon arriving in the Carribean and returning to Europe, he wrote a letter documenting what he had seen. Of course he believed he was in the islands of South East Asia.

The letter is short and amazing. I can not believe that going through college I never read this. To think of the amount of nonsense I did read without this being included in a class...

Anyway it is available in Columbuses original Spanish or translated into English here, you can read it online or download a PDF. This is truly a remarkable document, an amazing moment in history.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NPXCTYx...&q&f=false

Columbus only stayed some few weeks on his first trip. He says some things in the letter that make you scratch your head.

He shares information learned from Indians he has met. How in the world could they have learned to communicate in such a short amount of time? He states that he sailed from one island to another as quick as he could. How could such a speedy trip allow him or his crew the time to learn to converse with natives?

He says they took him to be from the heavens because of his clothing, ships, etc and would tell others he was from the heavens. Yet at other points he indicates that he could not understand their speech.

He relays stories that there is an island of only women, and a part of an island where people are born with tails. Who knows if he made this up or was actually told as much.

Anyway a fascinating read.

Post: #2

It's easy. How?

He made up a lot of things because he figured it would hey him more money

Post: #3

This is extremely interesting, but anything available with out purchase? Maybe even some excerpts...

Post: #4

Dude was obviously drunk and couldn't read a compass or follow the stars or he would have ended up in Canada or North America instead of the West Indies. I'm amazed he made it back to Spain at all.

Post: #5

You can read the letter in the original Spanish or translated to English at this link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=NPXCTYx...&q&f=false

Here are some remarkable excerpts:

"As I know that you will have pleasure of the great victory which our Lord hath given me in my voyage, I write you this, by which you shall know that, in twenty days I passed over to the indies with the fleet which the most illustrious King and Queen, our Lords, gave me: where I found very many islands peopled with inhabitants beyond number. And, of them all, I have taken possession for their Highnesses..."

"The lands thereof are high, and in it are many ranges of hills, and most loft mountains incomparably beyond the Island of Tenerife; all most beautiful in a thousand shapes, and all accessible, and full of trees of a thousand kinds, so lofty that they seem to reach the sky. And I am assured that they never lose their foliage; as may be imagined, since I saw them as green and as beautiful as they are in Spain during May."

"The people of this island, and all the others that I have found and seen, or not seen, all go naked, men and women, just as their mothers bring them forth; although some women cover a single place with the leaf of a plant, or a cotton something which they make for that purpose. They have no iron or steel, nor any weapons; nor are they fit thereunto; not because they be not a well-formed people and of fair stature, but that they are most wondrously timorous. They have no other weapons than the stems of reeds in their seeding state, on the end of which they fix little sharpened stakes. Even these, they dare not use, for many times has it happened that I sent two or three men ashore to some village to parley, and countless numbers of them sallied forth, but as soon as they saw those approach, they fled away in such wish that even a father would not wait for his son. And this was not because any hurt had ever done to any of them:--on the contrary, at every headland where I have gone and been able to hold speech with them, I gave them of everything which I had, as well cloth as many other things, without accepting aught therefore-; but such they are, incurably timid."

"I forbade that anything so worthless as fragments of broken platters, and pieces of broken glass, and strap-buckles, should be given them; although when they were able to get such things, they seemed to think they had the best jewel in the world."

"And they knew no sect or idolatry; save that they all believe that power and goodness are in the sky[heavens?], and they believed very firmly that I, with these ships and crews, came from the sky[heavens?], and in such opinion, they received me at every place where I landed, after they had lost their terror. And this comes not because they are ignorant: on the contrary, they are men of very subtle wit, who navigate all those seas, and who give a marvelously good account of everything--but because they never saw men wearing clothes nor the like of our ship."

Post: #6

Reminds me of this excellent, fascinating book I read a few years ago. I highly reccomend this if you are interested in this kind of topic.

http://www.amazon.com/Over-Edge-World-Te...B0001GDR12

Post: #7

To explain last post: It is a book called 'Over the Edge of the World' I would be surprised if I am the only one here who has read it. It is about Magelan's voyage and the first trip circumnavigating the globe. It is full of history, and very well written, reads like a story. I find these topics very interesting.

Post: #8

You have to understand that Columbus was looking to fund further exploration so this is in large part a sales pitch to get more money...a lot of Columbus' writing tilts toward huge exaggeration because of this motivation. Im not saying it isn't fascinating, but it should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Post: #9

(11-30-2014 06:33 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Dude was obviously drunk and couldn't read a compass or follow the stars or he would have ended up in Canada or North America instead of the West Indies. I'm amazed he made it back to Spain at all.

Atlantic winds/currents possibly, the journey back to Spain is quite simple too because of those.

Post: #10

It sounds like one of Dash Global's datasheets.

Post: #11

They say he died thinking that he had discovered a Western route to Asia.

Does anyone know when Europeans realized that America was in fact not Asia?

Post: #12

(12-03-2014 07:07 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  They say he died thinking that he had discovered a Western route to Asia.

Does anyone know when Europeans realized that America was in fact not Asia?

When Leif Eriksson landed in Newfoundland in the year 1000.

Post: #13

Did Lief Erikson have any concept of Asia existing, or that the land he found had likely never been contacted by his people before?

Or did he just go fight some Eskimos and hed back

Post: #14

(12-04-2014 08:56 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Did Lief Erikson have any concept of Asia existing, or that the land he found had likely never been contacted by his people before?

Or did he just go fight some Eskimos and hed back

Well the concept of Asia existing was known to the Europeans well before the times of Vikings. Vikings did invade Russia and trade with asian civilisations.

Leif actually created a settlement which died out, he himself went back to Greenland. L'Anse Meadows or something it was called. This was known throughout the Norse world due to 4 books written about it. Especially in Iceland where the sagas were a part of history.

In terms of the latin europeans it's not difficult to establish
Balboa was the first European to see the Eastern Pacific, he did a land journey across Panama in around 1513
Columbus did always maintain it was Asia

However Amerigo Vespucci is the man who the 2 landmasses are named after and he infact whilst Columbus was still alive established that it was a new continent.

4 reasons:
huge land mass
extending further south than Asia
different flora and fauna
different peoples

Here is a map from 1507, the latin above and below gives a clue

Post: #15

It's crazy to me that only 500 years ago that's what they thought of the earth...and now I can pull up Google Maps and Earth and zoom down to unbelievable detail to anywhere.

Crazy

Post: #16

(12-04-2014 08:56 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Did Lief Erikson have any concept of Asia existing, or that the land he found had likely never been contacted by his people before?

Or did he just go fight some Eskimos and hed back

The Vikings were in contact with many cultures - they definitely knew about the middle east and almost certainly Asia. A Muslim Arab (Ahmad ibn Fadlan) wrote about a Viking funeral he attended (this was around the time of Lief Ericson):

Quote:In the case of a rich man, they gather together his possessions and divide them into three portions, one third for his household, one third with which to cut funeral garments for him, and one third with which they ferment alcohol which they drink on the day when his slave-girl kills herself and is burned together with her master.

Post: #17

The Vikings were adventurers unlike the world had seen before to be honest. Sure the Phoenicians did a lot of seafaring and probably made it out into the Atlantic but the Vikings moved across land too.