Robert G. Ahearn - American Heritage History of Early America: 1492-1776

Before dawn on October 12, 1492, three small vessels commanded by a Genoese sailor named Christopher Columbus pushed their way westward near a tiny island in the Bahamas. Suddenly Rodrigo de Triana, a lookout on the Pinta, sighted a shadowy form dead ahead. It was too massive to be a floating object. With the cry Tierra! Tierra! he brought the ship awake, and quickly its captain signaled Columbus of the discovery. You did find land! Columbus shouted to him. I give you 5,000 maravedis as a bonus. With sails shortened, the Santa Maria, Pinta, and Nia hove to, their crews waiting impatiently for sunrise.

Daylight brought a view of the first land seen in the Western Hemisphere by any Europeans, save perhaps the earlier Norsemen. On the western side of the island, the seamen found a protected bay and, as the startled natives ashore looked on, a small boat bearing the royal standard of Spain was landed. After kneeling on the sand and thanking God for a safe voyage, Columbus arose and named the bit of land San Salvador. Relations then began with the natives, whom the newcomers called Indians. Red caps, glass beads, and other articles of small value were bartered for skeins of cotton thread, parrots, and darts. European contact with the American native would continue for nearly 400 years, until he was traded out of almost all his land and belongings.

After a day or so of rest, the explorer took his ships deeper into the Caribbean, sighting Cuba, which he explained to his men was Japan. In December, they discovered Hispaniola and there put up a small fort, garrisoning it with a handful of men. By March of 1493, Columbus landed at Lisbon and announced to the world that he had seen the Indies. The Portuguese were both excited and dubious. Here was a man who had accomplished by sailing westward what they had taken a century to do by rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

What caused Columbus to make a journey of such length and danger? Did it mean that Europe was overcrowded, fully exploited economically, shorn of all its opportunities? Or was this simply a breed of man endowed with an overdeveloped sense of adventure? The answer perhaps lies in Spains eagerness to keep abreast of the Portuguese, Europes most renowned navigators, and to participate in the greatest expansion the Christian world had yet experienced.

During Columbuss century - the fifteenth - Europe began to emerge from its old local isolations. The feudal system, tied to the local authority of minor warlords, was beginning to give way to the modern national state, a more powerful and permanent political organization. As the authority of the feudal lords dwindled, many of those who had lived under them moved toward the cities. Europe, still predominantly agricultural, was now going in a direction that took men away from a mere subsistence economy, where they raised most of their necessities on a small plot of ground, to a money, or profit, economy. As the artisan class began to grow, and articles for sale were produced in larger quantities, the enterprising merchant (the traveling salesman of his time) began to move out in an ever-widening circle from his hometown. Local trade routes, little used for hundreds of years, now saw a growing traffic, and peddlers passing through told fascinating tales of other areas. This resulted in a curiosity to know more about lands farther away. The increased travel and trade meant that the methods of transportation, particularly by water, were soon to be expanded and improved. It also meant the rise of the city.

The rise of the city was extremely important to later explorations. Although by 1500 only one-tenth of Europes population was urban, the growing towns were strategically located from the standpoint of commerce. London, Hamburg, Antwerp, and Lisbon were built near the mouths of rivers, while Paris, Mainz, and Ghent stood close to river junctions. By todays standards, these places were small. When Columbus sailed for America, London had only 50,000 people. Constantinople, Europes largest city, had 250,000; Paris, 200,000; Ghent, 135,000. But they were populous and important for their time, and the association with water transportation destined them to be the metropolitan areas of the future. It can be questioned whether, without such places, we would have had universities, great inventions, or a flourishing art - or, for that matter, whether Columbus would have made his great find. As centers of trade, Europes cities now became not only powerful independent bastions, but springboards for further economic venture.

If Europe at this time was broken into small political segments, it still had a religious unity. The Catholic Church was dominant and all-powerful. Yet the Church served as a stimulant rather than a deterrent to most businesses and to commerce. For example, its crusading fervor took men to all parts of the known world in search of converts, and as they moved around, they could not help noticing new and different articles that would be useful in trade. Even the monastic orders produced such salable goods as wine, grain, and cloth. Finally, extensive travel back and forth from all Europe to the Continents religious capital, Rome, served to broaden mens knowledge of opportunities throughout the land.

The Crusades, which during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries attempted to free the Holy Land from non-Christians, stirred Europe considerably. In some cases, the great movement amounted to a nationwide effort as kings were persuaded to employ large forces in the Middle East. The overall result was that thousands of individuals, from baronial knights down to propertyless workers, traveled farther away from home than they ever had before. Eastward, beyond the Mediterranean, they encountered a strange new civilization, rich beyond belief. Spices, silks, and other luxury items excited their imaginations, and if they could not all bring home samples of their finds, they certainly carried back stories of all they had seen.

Transportation facilities developed rapidly, as always, when wars are fought at a distance. More soldiers had to be moved farther than ever before, and out of the need arose an important shipbuilding industry at such places of embarkation as the Italian cities. No sea captain likes to come home with an empty vessel, and before the religious wars were very old, large quantities of Eastern goods made appeared in Europe. Livestock in Europe was small and rangy, all muscle and bone, and its meat was much more palatable after an application of such spices as pepper. Here was a type of merchandise the seamen could bring back in quantity and sell at a high price. Then there were the nobles, eager to bedeck themselves in fine cloth and jewels that would distinguish them from the lesser nobles or even their own serfs. No enterprising businessmen could overlook this market. Out of the possibilities for sudden gain arose a powerful and active merchant class. These men were ingenious, ambitious, willing to take a risk, and always desirous of finding new sources of goods and new methods of bringing them to market. If they read of Marco Polos travels, their determination to expand operations doubtless rose to new heights.

But in 1453, a trade barrier appeared. The Turks captured Constantinople, at the crossroads of this new and rich trade route, and with the conquest of Cairo in 1517, they would complete their domination of the Near East. This did not mean the end of trade, but only added another middleman to the string that already handed on the goods from faraway lands. The Europeans now would have to deal with the Turks, or find a new route that would cut out these hopeful associates. It was not any refusal on the part of the Turk to join the new gold rush that caused European Christians to seek other routes. By circumventing the interlopers, merchants simply could realize greater dividends from their ventures. If an all-water route to the East could be found, it would mean cheaper transportation, larger profits, and the pleasant prospect of dealing the Turks out of a new and highly profitable game. The idea encouraged men take long chances.