A JOURNEY CHRISTOPHER WITH COLUMBUS STUART A KALLEN Lerner Publications Minneapolis
Introduction The Old World Meets the New The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus first landed on a Caribbean island on October 12 1492 A few days later Columbus made an entry in his journal He said he was searching for a village where our Indians inform us we shall find much gold Columbus’s journal about his voyage to the New World is known as a primary source Primary sources are documents and objects that make up the raw materials of history Other primary sources from Columbus’s era include drawings and paintings tools trade goods clothing and diaries written by people who lived at the same time as Columbus Columbus wrote this letter in November 1493 to describe his second voyage to the New World Because we can read his words we know what he saw and thought hundreds of years ago even though he can’t tell us in person 4
Columbus’s original journal in which he described his experience exploring the New World no longer exists But another colonist Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote his own version of the events That text pictured includes direct quotations and summaries of Columbus’s words That history is the version of Columbus’s words that modern scholars use The value of primary sources can be seen in the sentence Columbus wrote in his journal He called the Native people Indians because he believed he was in India Columbus never knew Hispaniola modern Dominican Republic and Haiti is in the Caribbean Sea thousands of miles from India When Columbus mentions gold he reveals an important reason for his journey Columbus was driven by dreams of wealth and power During the four voyages Columbus made to the New World between 1492 and 1504 his goals were finding gold and spreading his religious views Although Columbus visited the New World more than five hundred years ago his journal opens a window on his journeys Taken together the primary sources of the era provide a snapshot of a distant time After people of the Old World came face-to-face with those of the new neither world would ever be the same 5
