Columbus believed he had successfully discovered a water route to Asia The natives he thought were from an island in the East Indies near Japan or China He called them Indians But Columbus was still thousands of miles from Asia What he didn’t know what no European knew was that North and South America blocked the way from Europe to Asia In reality Columbus was on the shore of an island in the Bahamas south of Florida Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in a small wooden ship with sails I therefore gave red caps to some and glass beads to others They hung the beads around their necks along with some other things of slight value that I gave them And they took great pleasure in this and became so friendly that it was a marvel They traded and gave everything they had with good will but it seems to me that they have very little and are poor in everything I warned my men to take nothing from the people without giving them something in exchange The Log of Christopher Columbus Today I made 180 miles 289 69 kilometers at a speed of 71⁄2 knots I recorded only 144 miles 231 75 kilometers in order not to alarm the sailors if the voyage is lengthy The Log of Christopher Columbus 6
THE TAINO PEOPLE No one knows for sure which island Columbus landed on The natives called it Guanahani These islanders were probably Taino Columbus described the Taino people as being tall and tan They had straight hair which they knotted in the back They had a custom of binding their heads which made their foreheads wide and flat Columbus often referred to the Taino as a kind gentle people At the same time he considered them primitive in part because of their lack of clothing and guns In reality the Taino had a highly developed culture The Taino were skilled farmers They made cotton cloth pottery and wood carvings They built large wooden canoes that could hold more than 100 people The swift boats were used for fishing The Taino also paddled to nearby islands where they traded with neighboring communities The natives lived close to one another in thatch houses They often gathered at a central plaza for meetings and dances Boys and girls played games with rubber balls Tobacco leaves were lit and passed around as an act of friendship In fact the word tobacco comes from the Taino as do other words such as hammock hurricane and canoe An illustration from the late 1800s shows Columbus and members of his crew soon after landing in the Bahamas The Spaniards brought small objects such as beads and bells to trade with the native people 7
A map from the 1500s shows the coast of present-day Virginia Columbus died insisting that he had landed in Asia He would have been sorely disappointed to learn otherwise However his voyage turned out to be much more important than he could ever imagine From Europe’s point of view Columbus had discovered the New World These new lands promised great wealth Soon Spain Portugal Great Britain and France began sending more explorers They competed with one another to find land and claim it for their countries European settlers arrived and set up colonies on the land In the decades following Columbus’s 1492 journey explorers sailed around Africa They sailed up and down the east coast of the Americas The map of the world was entirely redrawn This period in history came to be known as the Age of Discovery 8
I sent the ship’s boat ashore for water and those on the island with very good will showed my people where the water was They even carried the full casks to the boat and took great delight in pleasing us The Log of Christopher Columbus 9
