Urban World History: An Economic and Geographical Perspective

Chapter 8 - The Discovery of America and the Return in Strength of the Occident

CHAPTER 8 The Discovery of America and the Return in Strength of the Occident© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 297 G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 297 10/02/09 13:40:13 10/02/09 13:40:13 © 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 298 G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 298 10/02/09 13:40:13 10/02/09 13:40:13 Born in Genoa, in 1450 or 1451, from a weaver father, Christopher Columbus probably began his career of sailor as a corsair in the service of René I the Good, duke of Anjou, count of Provence and former king of Naples, in 1472–1473. Around 1476 or 1477, sixteen or seventeen years after the death of Henry the Navigator, he settled in Lisbon where his brother Bartholomew was a cartographer. In 1479, Christopher Columbus got married with a noble Portuguese whose father was governor of the Madeira Islands. Soon after his arrival in Portugal, looking at a map drawn by the Florentine cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli, the idea came to him that it could be possible to find a route towards India by sailing to the west. The idea of Eratostenes, shared by Claudius Ptolemaeus, said Ptolemy, that the Earth was a sphere was then becoming popular, and their calculations of the Earth’s circumference were debated in the circles Columbus frequented. Eratostenes’ estimation was right to within about 300 kilometers, which implied that the distance between Portugal and Asia by the route of the west was immense, and impossible to cover with the ships that existed then. However, Ptolemy’s calculations underestimated the Earth’s circumference by about thirty percent and suggested that, to the west, Asia was much closer to Europe than it actually was. Toscanelli’s map was greatly influenced by Ptolemy’s calculations, and proved Ptolemy right instead of Eratostenes, which implied that the distance that had to be covered to reach India by the west was reasonable. Columbus got completely hooked on that idea and tried to convince the Portuguese King John II to sponsor an expedition aimed at discovering a route for India by the west. The king, advised by the best experts of the time, stuck to Eratostenes’ calculations and, around the end of 1484, refused to invest in such an enterprise despite the fact that Portugal was then the European country most interested in exploring new maritime routes. Columbus then tried to convince Charles VIII of France, Henry VII of England, the duke of Medina-Sedonia (of the House of Guzman), and the count of Medina-Celi© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 299 G1588_ch8_EP4.indd 299 10/02/09 13:40:13 10/02/09 13:40:13 300 Urban World History© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés (from the House of La Cerda). All of them refused. After passing eight or nine years in Portugal, in 1485, Columbus approached the kings of Spain, Isabel the Catholic and Ferdinand of Aragon, who answered that they were unable to finance such an expedition as long as the Reconquista was not over. On January 2, 1492, Granada was captured, and the Moslem presence in the Iberian Peninsula ended, which allowed...