European Exploration: A Quest for New Lands

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During the Time of the age of exploration, soon after the earth was proven round, European countries traveled far and wide. Searching for new land to colonize, find natural resources and spread thier various religions. Overseas exploration had now defined the European culture. Searching for new wonderlands full of treasure. Most of the famous explorers we still know today could not afford the basic necessities needed to travel, resulting in the navigators turning towards the over meant in hopes of a charter. 1942, the date we know as the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We think of him as the man who bravley sailed to America and conquered the land. We celebrate this navigator every October with a three day weekend. However most Americans …show more content…

maybe the beginning of the start of the Americas. There were also many other discoverers who had also discovered the Americas long before Columbus that did not do such great evil as Columbus did. Columbus Day should have some recognition as a day in history much like the date of a historic war or a presidents birthday, however because his discovery was due to miscalculation of the globe, and wasn 't the original explorer to discover the Western Hemisphere, and led the genocide of an entire race, Columbus should not be celebrated as a hero. 1. In the fifteenth century, Europeans had taken a liking to Asian goods. A merchant named Marco Polo had found a route to the new Far East, however, due to the new restriction by the countries he was passing through, and the skyrocketing taxes that had to be payed to be passed through them, the trail was unable to be used. The merchants then sought a sea route to get to their precious Asian goods. Sailing down the Atlantic Ocean, and moving past the tip of Africa and back up to land in Asia. A myriad of other routes had been hypothesized and tried. This voyage was very long because of the ships having to doge an entire …show more content…

The difference between the original discovers and Columbus was preservation of life. (Whoever discovered it first) and (whoever else 's) Came respecting the land, whereas Columbus and his men destroyed everything, committing mass genocide and killing nature to settle in the area. When Columbus first discovered the land, he landed in the Bahamas, returning to spain with captured natives as a gift to their majesties. He then returned again, landing in the Hispaniola. Creating a short lived colony and returning back to Spain again. On his third voyage, he and when the native went out to the ship to greet the sailors. Once on the ship, it was noticed that they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears. If Columbus wasn 't coming back empty handed and definitely not without gold. Once he reported to the king and queen in an exaggerated letter that there was gold everywhere, he returned to back to Spain. When he got to Spain, he was granted 17 ships and more than 1,200 men. Promising to deliver, he began his search for gold. Instead of commanding his men to search for the gold, he had them enslave the indigenous people to search for it. Forced to supply a certain amount of gold every three months, earning a copper necklace when achieving thier goal, and getting their hands cut off and hung around their neck. With the lack of gold in the area, approximately 10,000 of the slaves died handless. In the first couple years of thier search, around 250,000 aboriginals were dead. Many,

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