History of America Columbus and the Journey to the New World Written by Nadia Higgins Rourke Educational Media rourkeeducationalmedia com Scan for Related Titles and Teacher Resources
Chapter 1 The Arrival of Columbus The crew aboard the Niña the Pinta and the Santa María was getting restless The 90 men had been at sea for more than two months already Where were they Would their food supplies hold up long enough Would they be able to find their way back to Spain Their captain Christopher Columbus knew that he was about to have a mutiny on his hands But Columbus was not ready to turn around He had promised King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that this voyage would be a success Perhaps more important he had spent most of his adult life planning this trip Columbus swore that he could sail west from Spain halfway around the world He was determined to be the first to find a water route to the Indies the eastern part of Asia Christopher Columbus 1451 1506 4
Columbus anxiously scanned the seas for any sign of land Then on October 7 1492 birds were sighted Land had to be close by Columbus declared that the first sailor to spot land would receive a handsome reward At 2 a m on October 12 1492 a Spanish sailor aboard the Pinta woke up the men shouting Tierra Tierra Land Land Dimly lit by moonlight the shore lay above the black water Later that morning Columbus became the first European to step on the white sand of that land Almost immediately natives arrived at the beach with great curiosity The islanders were unlike anybody the Spaniards had ever seen Most of them were naked Their bodies were decorated with black red and white paint One story goes that Columbus’s crew cried when they lost sight of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa Those islands were the last familiar piece of land the men would see for months 5
