Page 42 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

columbus, christopher 391

It is not down in any map; true places
never are. • Herman Melville
(1819–1891)

linked Genoa to the East but that were now in Muslim reaching Asia by sailing west more attractive.A short trip
hands. Portugal attracted the Genoese because Por- of a few weeks would bring him to the Indies.
tuguese sailors were sailing down the west coast of Africa Obviously, Columbus did not achieve what he set out
and out into the Atlantic, where they had discovered four to achieve, although he never accepted that fact. His four
island chains: Canary, Cape Verde, Madeira, and Azores. voyages to the New World—1492–1493, 1493–1496,
To the Genoese these voyages held out the promise of 1498–1500, and 1502–1504—never reached Asia and
finding a water route that would give them direct access never found the trade route that he sought. Seen in that
to the markets of the Indies. In Portugal Columbus came light, he was a failure.
to know the Atlantic as he participated in voyages to Seen in terms of world history, however, Columbus
ports in the Gulf of Guinea, to the Azores, Ireland, per- achieved a great deal. His voyages demonstrated that the
haps even to Iceland. Atlantic could be crossed and recrossed in relative safety.
Just as we cannot draw a precise map of Columbus’s This fact in turn encouraged others to extend the range
travels, we do not know the extent of his formal knowl- of exploring expeditions, eventually leading to the Span-
edge of geography and related matters. He claimed to ish explorer Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean in
have read the Roman scholar Pliny’s Natural History and 1513 and then to the Portuguese navigator Magellan’s
the works of contemporary cosmographers (scientists fleet circumnavigating the globe during the period 1519–
who study the visible universe) such as the Italian Paolo 1522.The discovery of the extent of the oceans radically
Toscanelli and the Venetian traveler Marco Polo, a copy transformed the European conception of the earth’s sur-
of whose book Columbus annotated. He was also ac- face, making it possible to sail to all corners of the earth,
quainted with the tradition that fore-
told the preaching of the Gospel to all
humankind followed by the end of the
world.
During the forty years preceding his
first voyage, Columbus acquired a
great deal of knowledge about and
experience of the Atlantic world, not
all of which proved accurate. For exam-
ple, he asserted that the circumference
of the earth is approximately 32,000
kilometers instead of 40,000 kilome-
ters, the estimate that was accepted by
some of his critics and that was close
to accurate. His error was linked to his
search for patronage: By accepting the
smaller estimate of the earth’s size and
by accepting the theory that the surface
of the earth is largely land, not water,
he was able to make the notion of

Christopher Columbus at sea.