THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA BEGAN WITH THE EXPLORATION OF THE EUROPEAN. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS LOBBIED SPANISH MONARCHY TO BANKROLL HIS QUEST TO DISCOVER A WESTERN SEA ROUTE  TO A NEW WORLD.WHERE DID AMERICA NAME COME FROM?

Nina is a short or a nickname for this ships, but its real name was Santa Clara. Like the other ships, it was like a caravel type of vessel shaped.  As many of they say and as the history tells this ship was by far Columbus favourite. It was almost 60 tons in weight. Also, its length was approx. 50 feet on deck. Also said that it had three masts with square and triangular sails. This ship was a small trade ship among all the 3, built purposefully to sail the Mediterranean Sea.  This ship became the only ship to survive the hurricane that came in 1495 and reached safely to Spain in 1496. Under Columbus captainship and command, it logged around 25000 nautical miles

Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. The Age of Exploration began in earnest with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and ended, at least where present-day Virginians are concerned, with the founding of Jamestown in 1607. While the colonies may have established it, “America” was given a name long before. America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. A map created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller was the first to depict this new continent with the name “America,” a Latinized version of “Amerigo.”When Columbus stumbled into two unknown continents, hehad been looking for a quick route to the Far East, and, for decades to come, explorers focused on discovering that passage almost as much as they did on exploiting the New World. Early in the sixteenth century, the Spaniards conquered three major civilizations in Central and South America, and in the process unleashed a devastating biological exchange that killed an estimated 95 percent of the area's inhabitants between 1492 and 1650. The Spanish then turned their sights north, planting short-lived colonies on the shores of present-day Georgia and South Carolina and pursuing what came to be known as the Chicora Legend: the belief that the best land, as well as a passage to China, could be found in the area of the Chesapeake Bay. While the French and later the English explored the far northern latitudes of the Atlantic Ocean, the Spanish slowly worked their way up the coast from present-day Florida, a quest that ended only when a Virginia Indian called Don Luís (Paquiquineo) led a fatal attack on a group of Jesuit missionaries in 1571. This defeat helped make room for the English, whose failed colonies at Roanoke in 1585 and 1587 led, finally, to the permanent settlement at Jamestown.But actually America was discovered many times. The first people to come to North America were Asians who crossed the Bering Strait and entered Alaska at least 30,000 years ago. Over many centuries, they and their descendants spread across the Americas. These original Americans developed many cultures in the thousands of years that they controlled the land.Europeans first came to North America around the year 1000. Vikings from northern Europe reached the eastern coast, but both disease and resistance from the native people drove them away. It is believed by many scientists and historians that some Vikings landed in the area where Massachusetts is located today. There are also remains of a Viking settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadow, in Newfoundland, Canada.One of the events that led to the next discovery of North America was the Crusades. During the 1100s and 1200s thousands of European Christians joined these holy wars to recapture Palestine from the Muslims. On the Crusades the Europeans bought new and exotic goods from the East, such as silk, spices, and precious jewels. As the demand for these goods grew, trade routes to Asia sprang up. Merchant ships departed from such Italian towns as Genoa and Venice, which soon became wealthy centers of business. The ships returned to Europe with new ideas as well as goods. In this way the Europeans' views of life began to change.This time period, known as the Renaissance, saw the rebirth of an interest in learning. Europeans developed a new spirit of discovery. Rulers wanted to find new water passages to Asia for their own countries because Italians controlled all the Mediterranean routes. Soon, Spain, Portugal, France, England, and Holland also began to search for new ocean routes.This search paved the way for the "discovery" of North America by Christopher Columbus. Columbus knew that Earth was round, as did most educated people of the time, and believed that he could find a route to the East by sailing west from Europe. Backed financially by the king and queen of Spain, he sailed in 1492. He failed to reach the East because of a great landmass that lay in his way. Columbus had rediscovered North America. Because Columbus believed that he had sailed to India, he referred to the land as the "West Indies" and the natives he found as "Indians."Columbus's discovery of America led to a period of European exploration and colonization. A country colonizes land when it sets up settlements, or colonies, or people and controls the economies and governments in them.The Spaniards founded the first European colonies in America. When Columbus returned to Spain, he claimed that he had found the western route to the East. Many Spanish explorers sailed west expecting to find the rich spices and silks of Asia. Instead they found different kinds of wealth in a "New World."Not all Spaniards who came to America were searching for instant riches. Many came to build homes and make new lives for themselves. Spanish colonies thrived in California and Florida as well as in Mexico, Central America, and South America.France, Holland, and England also sent explorers to America, but they didn't establish permanent colonies during the 1500s. French trappers traveled inland to trap otter and beaver for European markets. They also set up trading posts to buy furs from Native American trappers. France then sent explorers and colonists to claim and settle lands in North America. The city of Quebec became the center of their holdings in America.During the 1500s the Dutch sent fishing boats to North America. In 1609 Henry Hudson claimed for Holland the land along the river that still bears his name. Dutch farmers and merchants began settling along the Hudson River, and soon the port town of New Amsterdam was busy and prosperous.

While Christopher Columbus was sailing his second expedition, he came across Indigenous people which he named them Indians.  In the article, Christopher Columbus, “Columbus established a forced labor policy over the native population to rebuild the settlement and explore for gold, believing it would prove to be profitable.  While Columbus was traveling, he also had men who were not nice to the Indians.  According to the article, Columbus Controversy, “In an era in which the international slave trade was starting to grow, Columbus and his men enslaved many native inhabitants of the West Indies and subjected them to extreme violence and brutality” ("Columbus controversy,").  The torture that Columbus put the natives through is very harsh.  “Within four years of the time Columbus set foot on San Salvadorian soil, his men had killed or exported a full third of the native population.

Columbus was an Italian-born navigator sailing for the Crown of Castile in search of a westward route to Asia, to access the sources of spices and other oriental goods. This led instead to a discovery of the New World between Europe and Asia. Columbus made a total of four voyages to the Americas between 1492 and 1502, setting the stage for the European exploration and colonization of the Americas, ultimately leading to the Columbian Exchange.For Europeans of the Late Middle Ages, the known world was relatively small, mysterious, and imbued with Christian symbols. On their side of the line, the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. Those American Indians they did not kill, they enslaved and attempted to convert to Christianity. In 1545, the Spanish founded Potosí, a mining town in present-day Bolivia. Within the decade they were unearthing hundreds of metric tons of pure silver annually and transporting it in galleons back to Europe, where King Charles V and later his son, King Philip II, used it to pay for Spanish wars against Muslims and Protestants.In the meantime, exploration continued. Amerigo Vespucci sailed down the coast of South America in 1499, and in 1500, the Portuguese mariner Pedro Alvares Cabral, looking to follow Vasco da Gama's lead and navigate around Africa, instead was blown west and into Brazil. He claimed it for Portugal. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese captain sailing for Spain, led a crew that circumnavigated the globe in a voyage that lasted from 1519 until 1522. As Columbus did with the Atlantic, Magellan showed the way across the Pacific Ocean before being killed in the island group now known as the Philippines. By the 1570s the Spanish had claimed these islands, named them for their king, and established ports connecting the spice trade of the East with the resources extracted from the New World. Western Europeans were finally at the hub of a new and fully global economy.A popular kind of map, the T-O map, divided the world into three regions Asia, Europe, and Africa separated by the T-shaped intersection of the Mediterranean Sea and the Don and Nile rivers. All of this was contained within a large circle with Jerusalem at its center. For some mapmakers, the T shape called to mind the cross on which Jesus had died, and they seized on this image to incorporate Christ into the geography of the world. Many Europeans thought the history of civilization would follow the same path as the sun: rising  in the east and falling (occidens) in the west. In the twelfth century, the German bishop Otto of Freising wrote "that because all human learning began in the Orient and will end in the Occident, the mutability and disappearance of all things is demonstrated." In other words, the apocalypse would happen somewhere in the West, and it was important to many Christians that nonbelievers be baptized before the end came. Although this helped motivate the explorations that led Europeans to America, it does not explain them.When the Age of Exploration began, the Far East was more advanced than Europe in terms of technology, economy, and culture. Still, the Mediterranean Sea was already a zone of thriving trade and those who did business there, including the Chinese, had little motivation to seek out other lands. Western Europe, by comparison, was poor in wealth and resources. Although western Europeans had benefited from thousands of years of Eastern innovations in farming, mining, language, and religion, they lived far from economic and cultural centers and, for that reason, had an interest in finding new connections.Geography aided this search. Although early in the 1400s western Europeans were far behind the Chinese in their understanding of navigation, they took advantage of their Atlantic coastlines and used the century to catch up. First, European explorers claimed many of the Atlantic's nearby islands. In 1402 soldiers from the kingdom of Castile landed on the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, near present-day Morocco and Western Sahara, and conquered the natives who lived there. Portugal then claimed the island of Madeira, just north of the Canaries, in 1418; the Azores, farther out in the Atlantic, in 1431; and Cape Verde, off the coast of present-day Mauritania and Senegal, in 1456.They used these new lands to establish sugar plantations run on enslaved labor and as outposts for explorations farther west into the open Atlantic and farther south along the coast of Africa. These conquests also helped to demonstrate how western Europeans might fund their new empires: loans by Genoese merchants funded ships and crews, and were repaid through the profits reaped from slave sales and sugar production.distinction between the Europeans and their Far East counterparts was the European idealization of the adventurer. Certainly the 1490s proved to be a golden age for adventurers. In 1492, the Genoese captain Christopher Columbus convinced the king and queen of Spain to sponsor his exploration west across the Atlantic Ocean. He mistakenly believed the world to be much smaller than geographers had previously estimated, and for this reason he argued that by sailing west he could find a quick route to the (East) Indies, still a lucrative trade zone.Columbus assumed he had found the Indies. It took him and his fellow Europeans a while to understand that he had, in fact, come across two previously unknown continents: North and South America. Even then they assumed that the land mass must be narrow enough to provide easy passage to China. So while Columbus established a colony on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), navigated the coast of Cuba, and touched the tip of South America, another Italian, John Cabot (Zuan Chabotto), set off from England. Cabot went in search of the so-called Northwest Passage to China, hoping to connect Bristol to that region's spice trade. Like Columbus, he failed. (He did, however, discover Newfoundland.) Not until Vasco da Gama sailed around the southern tip of Africa and arrived near Calicut, India, in 1498, did Europeans navigate by sea to the actual Indies—a place, as it happens, where their trade goods were of only mediocre value.These western voyages, especially the four led by Columbus, were important for several reasons. One was Columbus's discovery of a reliable sailing route west using the Atlantic system of trade winds. By following the northeasterly trade winds south and then west, and the westerly trade winds back east, Columbus demonstrated how others might make the round trip in the future. Another was the discovery, by Juan Ponce de León in 1513, of the Gulf Stream off the coast of what he named La Florida. This strong ocean current, caused by the sinking of cold water and the rising of hot, allowed Spanish captains an even quicker route to the westerly trade winds and back home.A third, more critical result of Columbus's voyages was their effect on the indigenous populations of America. Prior to Columbus, there had been virtually no biological interaction between Europe and Asia on the one hand and North and South America on the other. With Columbus and his followers arrived new people, new plants and animals, and new diseases in what the scholar A. W. Crosby has dubbed the Columbian Exchange. The exchange went both ways, of course, but for various reasons Europeans were much less vulnerable. Scholars estimate, for instance, that between 1492 and 1650, 95 percent of all the inhabitants of the Neotropic ecozone, an area covering Central and South America, died of disease. This massive depopulation resulted in significant changes in the environment and may even have led, according to at least one scientist, to a cooling of worldwide temperatures.In 1537, even before Narváez's fate was known for sure, the Spanish king granted Hernando de Soto the right to explore the newly created province of La Florida, an area that stretched from the Delaware Bay in the north to Mexico's Pánuco River in the south, and included much of the present-day American Southeast, Texas, and parts of northern Mexico. Soto landed near Tampa Bay in 1539 and traveled north to the abandoned site of Ayllón's 1526 settlement. From there he marched west instead of north, and by the spring of 1541 he had reached the Mississippi River.Despite that achievement, or rather because Soto had found nothing to rival the silver of Potosí, the Spanish king seemed to lose interest in Florida. True, he guarded America jealously, even making plans to wipe out a French colony that was planted near present-day Quebec during explorations by the French captains Jacques Cartier and Jean-François de La Roque de Roberval. (The colony failed before an attack could be made.) But there were no major expeditions until, as it happens, the French spurred Philip II to action. Worried that his European rival planned to stake a claim in La Florida, he ordered that a settlement be established at the Point of Santa Elena, near present-day Parris Island, South Carolina.What followed was a bloody test of wills between Spanish Catholics and French Protestants, with the Spaniards' designs on present-day Virginia ending only when a baptized Indian killed three Spanish Jesuits in 1571.By 1664 England had forced Holland out of North America, and New Amsterdam was renamed New York.In the late 1500s England made several unsuccessful attempts to start colonies. Finally, in 1607, a private company sent a group of about 100 English settlers. They landed in Virginia and named their settlement Jamestown after their king. At first the colonists spent more time looking for gold than planting crops. But under the leadership of Captain John Smith, Jamestown did survive.In 1620 another group of English colonists known as the Pilgrims arrived. The Pilgrims weren't looking for riches; they wanted religious freedom. On the coast of New England they founded Plymouth Colony, which succeeded with farming advice from nearby Native Americans. Soon other English settlements grew up all along the eastern coast.

For nearly five months, Columbus explored the Caribbean, particularly the islands of Juana (Cuba) and Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), before returning to Spain. He left thirty-nine men to build a settlement called La Navidad in present-day Haiti. He also kidnapped several Native Americans (between ten and twenty-five) to take back to Spain only eight survived. Columbus brought back small amounts of gold as well as native birds and plants to show the richness of the continent he believed to be Asia.When Columbus arrived back in Spain on March 15, 1493, he immediately wrote a letter announcing his discoveries to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had helped finance his trip.

The Spanish King was named Ferdinand, and the Spanish Queen was a beautiful woman named Isabella. When Columbus told them of his belief that the world was round, and of his desire to help the heathen who lived in this far-off country, they listened attentively to him, for both King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were very earnest people and very desirous that all the world should become [166] Christians; but their ministers and officers of state persuaded them that the whole thing was a foolish dream of an enthusiastic, visionary man; and again Columbus was disappointed in his hope of getting help.Still he did not give up in despair. The thought was too great for that. He sent his brother over to England to see if the English King would not listen to him and give the necessary help, but again he was doomed to disappointment. Only here and there could he find any one who believed that it was possible for him to sail round the earth and reach the land on the other side. Long years passed by. Columbus grew pale and thin with waiting and hoping, with planning and longing.Sometimes as he walked along the streets of the Spanish capital people would point their fingers at him and say: "There goes the crazy old man who thinks the world is round." Again and again Columbus tried to persuade the Spanish King and Queen that if they would aid him, his discoveries would bring great honor and riches to their kingdom, and that they would also become the benefactors of the world by helping to spread the knowledge of Christ and His religion. Nobody believed in his theory. Nobody was interested in his plan. He grew poorer and poorer.At last he turned his back on the great Spanish court, and in silent despair he took his little son by the hand and walked a long way to a small seaport called Palos, where there was a queer old convent in which strangers were often entertained by the kind monks who lived in it. Weary and footsore he reached the gate of the convent. Knocking upon it he asked the porter, who answered the summons, if he would give little Diego a bit of bread and a drink of water. While the two tired travelers were resting, as the little boy ate his dry crust of bread, the prior of the convent, a man of thought and learning, whose name was Juan Perez, came by and at once saw that these two were no common beggars. He invited them in and questioned Columbus closely about his past life. He listened quietly and thoughtfully to Columbus and his plan of crossing the ocean and converting the heathen to Christianity.Juan Perez had at one time been a very intimate friend of Queen Isabella; in fact, the priest to whom she told all her sorrows and troubles. He was a quiet man and [168] talked but little. After a long conference with Columbus, in which he was convinced that Columbus was right, he borrowed a mule and getting on his back rode for many miles across the open country to the palace in which the Queen was then staying. I do not know how he convinced her of the truth of Columbus' plan, when all the ministers and courtiers and statesmen about her considered it the absurdly foolish and silly dream of an old man; but, somehow, he did it.He then returned on his mule to the old convent at Palos, and told Columbus to go back once more to the court of Spain and again petition the Queen to give him money with which to make his voyage of discovery. The State Treasurer said the Queen had no money to spare, but this noble-hearted woman, who now, for the first time, realized that it was a grand and glorious thing Columbus wished to do, said she would give her crown jewels for money with which to start Columbus on his dangerous journey across the great ocean.This meant much in those days, as queens were scarcely considered dignified or respectable if they did not wear crowns of gold inlaid with bright jewels on all public occasions, but Queen Isabella cared far more to send the gospel of Christ over to the heathen than how she might look, or what other people might say about her. The jewels were pawned and the money was given to Columbus. With a glad heart he hastened back to the little town of Palos where he had left his young son with the kind priest Juan Perez.But now a new difficulty arose. Enough sailors could not be found who would venture their lives by going out on this unknown voyage with a crazy old man such as Columbus was thought to be. At last the convicts from the prisons were given liberty by the Queen on condition that they would go with the sailors and Columbus. So, you see, it was not altogether a very nice crew, still it was the best he could get, and Columbus' heart was so filled with the great work that he was willing to undertake the voyage no matter how great or how many the difficulties might be. The ships were filled with food and other provisions for a long, long voyage.Nobody knew how long it would be before the land on the other side could be reached, and many people thought there was no possible hope of its ever being found. Early one summer morning, even before the sun had risen, Columbus bade farewell to the few friends who had gathered at the little seaport of Palos to say good-bye to him. The ships spread their sails and started on the great untried voyage. There were three boats, none of which we would think, nowadays, was large enough or strong enough to dare venture out of sight and help of land and run the risk of encountering the storms of mid-ocean.The names of the boats were the Santa Maria, which was the one that Columbus himself commanded, and two smaller boats, one named the Pinta and the other the Nina.Strange, indeed, must the sailors have felt, as hour after hour they drifted out into the great unknown waters, which no man ever ventured into before. Soon all land faded from their sight, and on, and on, and on they went, not knowing where or how the voyage would end. Columbus alone was filled with hope, feeling quite sure that in time he would reach the never before visited shores of a New World, and would thus be the means of bringing the Christian religion to these poor, ignorant people. On and on they sailed, day after  day far beyond the utmost point which sailors had ever before reached.Many of the men were filled with a strange dread and begged and pleaded to return home. Still on and on they went, each day taking them further and further from all they had ever known or loved before. Day after day passed, and week after week until two months had elapsed.The provisions which they had brought with them were getting scarce, and the men now dreaded starvation. They grew angry with Columbus, and threatened to take his life if he did not command the ships to be turned back toward Spain, but his patience did not give out, nor was his faith one whit the less. He cheered the hearts of the men as best he could. Often telling them droll, funny stories to distract their thoughts from the terrible dread which now filled all minds.He promised a rich reward to the first man who should discover land ahead. This somewhat renewed their courage, and day and night watches were set and the western horizon before them was scanned at all hours. Time and again they thought they saw land ahead, only to find they had mistaken a cloud upon the horizon for the longed-for shore. Flocks  of birds flying westward began to be seen. This gave some ground for hope. For surely the birds must be flying toward some land where they could find food, and trees in which to build their nests. Still fear was great in the hearts of all, and Columbus knew that he could not keep the men much longer in suspense, and that if land did not appear soon they would compel him to turn around and retrace his steps whether he wished to or not.Then he thought of all the benighted heathen who had never heard of God's message of love to man through Christ, and he prayed almost incessantly that courage might be given him to go on. Hour after hour he looked across the blue water, day and night, longing for the sight of land. In fact, he watched so incessantly that his eyesight became injured and he could scarcely see at all.At last one night as he sat upon the deck of the ship he was quite sure that a faint light glimmered for a few moments in the distant darkness ahead. Where there is a light there must be land, he thought. Still he was not sure, as his eyesight had become so dim. So he called one of the more faithful sailors to him and asked him what he saw. The sailor exclaimed:Another sailor was called, but by this time the light had disappeared and the sailor saw nothing, and Columbus' hopes again sank. Still he felt they must be nearing land. About 2 o'clock that night the commander of one of the other boats started the cry:"Land! land ahead!"You can well imagine how the shout was taken up, and how the sailors, one and all, rushed to the edge of their ships, leaning far over, no doubt, and straining their eyes for the almost unhoped-for sight.Early the next morning some one of the sailors picked up a branch of a strange tree, lodged in the midst of which was a tiny bird's nest. This was sure evidence that they were indeed near land, for branches of trees do not grow in water.Little by little the land came in sight. First it looked like a dim ghost of a shore, but gradually it grew distinct and clear. About noon the next day the keel of Columbus' boat ground upon the sand of the newly discovered country. No white man had ever before set eyes upon it. No ship had ever before touched this coast.At last after a long life of working and studying,  of hoping and planning, of trying and failing, and trying yet again, he had realized his dream.The great mystery of the ocean was revealed, and Columbus had achieved a glory which would last as long as the world lasted. He had given a new world to mankind! He had reached the far distant country across the ocean, which scarcely any of his countrymen had even believed to have any existence. He now knew that the whole round world could in time have the Christian religion.He sprang upon the shore, and dropping on his knees he first stooped and kissed the ground, and then he offered a fervent prayer of thanks to God.A learned attorney who had come with him across the water next planted the flag of Spain upon the unknown land, and claimed the newly discovered country in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.Wonderful, wonderful indeed were the things which Columbus and the sailors now saw! Strange naked men and women of a copper, or bronze color, strange new birds with gorgeous tails that glittered like gems such as they had never seen before; beautiful and un-  known fruits and flowers met their gaze on every side.The savages were kind and gentle and brought them food and water. They had little else to offer as they had no houses, nor streets, nor carriages, nor cars, nor conveniences of any kind. Do you know, my dear children, that this strange, wild, savage country which Columbus had traveled so far and so long to discover was our country, America?But it was not long until after Columbus had gone back to Europe and told the people there of the wonderful things which he had seen in this far, far away land that ship-loads of white people, who were educated and who had been taught to love God and to keep his commandments, came over and settled in this wild, new country. They plowed the land and planted seed; they built houses for themselves, their wives and little ones, and in time they made school-houses for the children, and churches in which to worship God. Long and hard was the struggle which these first white men had to make in this strange, new country.Year after year more and more white men came. These new settlers prospered, and new towns were built, and roads were made from  one town to another, and stores and manufactories began to be seen.At last the little handful of people had grown so strong that they established a government of their own, which welcomed all newcomers, providing they were law-abiding citizens. The poor and oppressed, the persecuted and discouraged in other lands came to this new shore, where they found wealth if they were willing to work for it.Here they need no longer fear the persecutions from which they had suffered. Here they gained new hope and became honored and respected citizens.Little by little the small country grew into a great nation, the greatest on earth, because it is the freest, and each citizen in it has his rights respected. But for the courage and determination and self-sacrifice of Columbus this great new world might have remained for hundreds of years unknown to men.Four hundred years afterwards the children of the children's children of these early settlers, had a grand celebration in honor of the brave old man, Christopher Columbus, whom the people of his day called crazy, and all the nations of the earth were invited to bring  their most beautiful, their richest and rarest products to this celebration, in order that not we of America alone, but the whole world might celebrate the wisdom and the courage of the great Columbus, "the finder of America."In the rejoicing and in the celebration the nations did not forget the good Queen Isabella, who was willing to give up her most precious jewels in order that she might help Columbus in his voyage of discovery.