Christopher Columbus Activities

On Hispaniola, Columbus built a fort. This was one of the first European military bases in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad Spanish for " Christmas ". He left thirty-nine crew members there, and ordered them to find and store the gold.


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Columbus noticed that some of the Arawaks had gold earrings. He took some of them as prisoners and ordered them to lead him to the gold. However, they could not. Replica of the Santa Maria. On September 24, , Columbus left Spain with enough ships, supplies, and men to invade and make Spanish colonies in the New World.

He had 17 ships and 1, men. These men included soldiers and farmers. There were also priests , whose job was to convert the natives to Christianity. On this voyage, Columbus explored some of the islands of the Lesser Antilles. He also sailed around most of Hispaniola and explored the sides of Jamaica and Cuba he had not seen on his first voyage.

Then he went back to the Navidad fort. He found the fort burned down. Eleven of the 37 soldiers Columbus left at the fort were buried there.

The Age of Discovery

The rest had disappeared. Historians think this happened because of disease and fights with the Arawak people. While Columbus was away from Navidad exploring Jamaica and Cuba, his soldiers stopped working on building a new fort and farms. They made the Arawaks give them food. They also stole things from the Arawaks. This made the Arawaks decide to fight back against the Spaniards. However, Spain had many weapons that the Arawaks had never seen, including steel swords , pikes , crossbows , dogs, and horses. This made it much easier for Spain to win fights against the Arawaks.

Columbus also took revenge against the Arawaks for killing his soldiers at Navidad. There was not much gold on the parts of the island Columbus took over. To avoid getting their hands cut off, many Arawaks tried to run away from Columbus and his men. However, Columbus's soldiers used dogs to hunt them down and kill them. In February , Columbus started the transatlantic slave trade. Only could fit on Columbus's ships, so Columbus told his men they could take any of the rest as slaves.

They took and let go. Of the natives that Columbus shipped to Spain as slaves, about died on the trip. Half of the rest were very sick when they arrived. This was the first time people had ever been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as slaves.

Christopher Columbus - HISTORY

Columbus made another voyage in On his third voyage, Columbus wanted to find this continent. Before the voyage, Queen Isabella reminded Columbus that he should treat all of the native people well and make them into Christians. On this voyage, Columbus sent three ships straight to the West Indies the Caribbean.

He led another three ships: He also explored part of South America and the islands now called Tobago and Grenada. On August 19, , Columbus returned to Hispaniola. He found that many of the Spanish settlers there were unhappy. They thought there would be more gold in the New World. Some of them had rebelled while he was gone. Columbus had five of the rebellion's leaders hanged.

Christopher Columbus

He also tried to make the rest of the settlers happy by giving them land in Hispaniola. However, the settlers kept sending complaints to Spain. She gave him the power to do whatever he thought he should do. When he arrived in , the first thing he did was to have Columbus arrested and sent back to Spain in chains. When he was trying to make Spanish settlers happy, Columbus started the Encomienda system in Hispaniola. Under this system, Columbus would give a piece of land in Hispaniola to an individual Spanish settler. Sometimes, he would give away a whole native village.

Any natives that lived in that area had to work for that Spanish settler. Natives had lived on this land for centuries.

Biography of Christopher Columbus for Children: Famous Explorers for Kids - FreeSchool

Columbus was giving their land away, and then forcing them to work on that land. He was sent to Spain in chains in October He was released on December 12, , and taken to court.

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Luckily, Columbus had important friends, like Dukes , other noblemen , and powerful Italian merchants. These friendships helped him get out of trouble. Columbus died of heart failure and arthritis in Valladolid , Spain, at the possible age of Columbus's relatives said that Columbus was born in Genoa , Italy. Today, no historian can say for sure where Columbus was born. The impact for the Americas and their ancient cultures was devastating.

Millions were wiped out by diseases such as smallpox and syphilis against which they had no immunity. Others were murdered, enslaved and brutally treated by Europeans obsessed with gold and plunder. Their population was decimated, their culture brutally destroyed and their lands stolen. The European powers benefited enormously from their new conquests as treasures from the New World poured into the Old. A range of new foods and materials such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cocoa and avocado were all imports from the Americas. Wheat, horses and other livestock were introduced from Europe to the New World.

Access thousands of brilliant resources to help your child be the best they can be. He was the first European to land on the South American mainland. Columbus did not discover the Americas. An estimated million people were living there already, a number roughly equal to the population of Europe at that time. People in Europe wanted to find a new route to the Indies , which was the name they gave to the Far East.


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  • Since the fall of Constantinople in the old Silk Route , along which silk, spices and other luxury items had been traded for centuries, had become difficult and costly to use. Columbus hoped to find a new route east. He believed he could do this by sailing west. When he landed in the Americas he was convinced he was actually in the East Indies and so called the native people Indians. Columbus approached the monarchs of Portugal, England , France and Spain seeking support for his plan. Finally Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain agreed to back his voyage of exploration. Their first stop was the Canary Islands where they collected supplies before settling out across the Atlantic on the 6th September of the same year.

    Land was first sighted on the 11th October and on the 12th October Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas which he called San Salvador. The second voyage on the 24th September was made by 17 boats with men. The aim of the voyage was to colonise the new discoveries and convert the native people to Christianity. Columbus made four voyages to the New World.

    Christopher Columbus

    The native peoples of the Americas were treated very cruelly by Columbus and his men who exploited and enslaved them. Allegations of mismanagement on Hispaniola led to Columbus being returned in chains to Spain in and being stripped of his governorship. It was Amerigo Vespucci who realised that a new continent had been discovered, so the Americas were named after him rather than Columbus.

    Columbus born in Genoa, Italy. Columbus makes his first sea voyage.


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