Monday, September 11, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Christopher Columbus (ca. 1451-1506)
-Debate about Columbus: hero or villain?
-"discovery" vs. "encounter"
-European and Native American perspectives
-a man of his time
Sources:
-journals, letters, eye-witness accounts, books from Columbus's library:
Ptolemy and The Book of Prophecies
-Self-taught
-Debate about Columbus: hero or villain?
-"discovery" vs. "encounter"
-European and Native American perspectives
-a man of his time
Sources:
-journals, letters, eye-witness accounts, books from Columbus's library:
Ptolemy and The Book of Prophecies
-Self-taught
Born in Genoa
-son of a wool-worker and merchant
-sought more
Moved to Portugal by 1477
-center of shipping innovations
-technology: caravel, lateen sails, rudder
-religion: deep sense of mission
-economics: sea route to Asia, gold, silver and spices
Living in Spain by 1486
-studies in cartography, book-selling
-Franciscans
-Royal patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella
Four voyages
First (1492-1493); Second (1493-1496); Third (1498-1500); Fourth (1502-1504)
-miscalculations
-tension between commercial and religious ideals
-loyalties
-Columbus sent back to Spain in chains 1500.
