The World Awakens

Grade 5.1.1.3

As Europe learns more about the world, navigators seek new routes to the treasures of Asia. Columbus plans a voyage to the Orient.

 In this age of jet planes that soar across the ocean in a few hours, it is difficult to imagine how much smaller was the world of a thousand years ago. If you had lived in Europe then, the chances are that from birth to death you would never have trav­eled more than a dozen miles from your home. Everything you needed to exist would be produced in the town or manor of your birth—all the food you ate, the sim­ple clothes you wore, the crude tools you used. If by luck you had been born a lord, you would have spent your time hunting or jousting or carrying on small wars over boundaries and hunting rights with the owners of neighboring manors. You would have administered the affairs of your castle, conducted its religious life, and depended for your own food upon the labors of the many who were your humble serfs (slaves).

   Gradually, however, there came a change, especially in the towns along the sea. Ships appeared from strange lands, bringing war at first, but in time bringing trade. Behind the walls of these growing towns a new class of people called merchants began to appear. In the open squares of the town, daily or weekly markets were held. To ac­quire goods with which to barter, farmers increased the products they grew. Weavers of cloth, or carpenters, or makers of candles, among others, began to give the world its first manufactures. Men from western Eu­rope, journeying into distant lands, learned from the Moslems new ideas about food and clothing and customs. What a wonder it must have been for the first time to touch materials like muslin or damask, to dis­cover the taste of rice or sugar, of lemons or apricots, or of food seasoned with garlic!

By the time the year 1300 arrived, traders and missionaries, crossing overland to many parts of Asia, had made the world a much bigger, more exciting place in which to live. From the Orient came new wonders: pre­cious stones, fabrics of cotton and silk, rugs, glassware, perfume, dyes, ivory, medicines, spices. Europeans worked longer hours to produce articles of trade: woolen fabrics, wines, furs, sulphur, oil, honey, grain. Travelers told of cities with walls of silver and palaces with roofs of gold. Marco Polo told stories of his fabulous adventures in the strange, mysterious kingdoms of Asia. For the first time Europeans learned of life behind the Great Wall in China. They learned, too, of the islands in the Pacific called Japan, Java, and Sumatra, and of re­mote regions in Siberia where men traveled by dogsled and rode reindeer.

Astrolabe

PORTUGUESE  SAILORS EXPLORE THE COAST OF AFRICA

Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal set up a school for the study of geography and navigation. When he died in 1460, his ships had sailed along two thousand miles of the coast of Africa. Portugal grew wealthy on the gold, ivory, and slaves its sailors found in these jungle lands. Map makers were kept busy charting the new trade routes. The invention of instruments like the compass and astrolabe enabled navi­gators to set their courses with greater ac­curacy. Some educated men began to be­lieve that the world was round. If that were true, a ship sailing due west should be able to reach the Orient.

At this time, a boy named Christopher Columbus was growing up in Genoa. The son of a weaver, by day he helped his father at the loom. In the evening he listened eagerly to the exciting tales told by the sailors at the wharves. He longed to go to sea, and he taught himself Latin because that was the language in which all the books on geography were written.

He read and dreamed and awaited his chance. It came when he was about nine­teen. He signed aboard a Genoese galley seeking a crew to fight pirates off the Bar-bary coast of northern Africa.

The more Columbus sailed the sea, the more he loved the life he had chosen. He learned to reef a sail, to steer, to measure distance by eye, to recognize the signs of approaching storms. On one voyage off the coast of Portugal, the Genoese ships with which he was sailing were attacked by a French and Portuguese fleet. Sailors drowned by the hundreds in the bloody battle, and Columbus himself was wounded. He fought on furiously until his ship was rammed, then leaped into the water, grasp­ing an oar that had floated free. Resting on the oar from time to time, he managed to swim the more than six miles to shore. Even this narrow escape did not make him lose his love of the sea, and he went on other voyages, going as far north as Ireland.

Ferdinand and Isabella

COLUMBUS  PLANS  HIS VOYAGE

Columbus now began to talk about his great dream. He could sail a ship straight west and reach the Orient with its riches of gold, gems, and spices. When friends asked how far he thought the voyage would be from Portugal to Japan he gave the dis­tance at about three thousand nautical miles. This would have placed Japan in the approximate location of the Virgin Islands.

Old sailors laughed, and muttered that he was out of his mind. Undiscouraged, Columbus appealed for help to King John II of Portugal. The king's advisors on navi­gation called his plan nonsense, and the king himself was shocked by the demands Columbus made. If his voyage should prove successful, Columbus wanted noble rank, the title of admiral, a share of the profits, and governorship of any lands he discov­ered!

Columbus carried his dream to Spain and at first he did no better in the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Spain was at war with the Moors and could spare no money for Columbus. And the Spanish experts laughed as loudly at his wild idea as had the Portuguese.

But Queen Isabella did not laugh. If necessary, she would pawn the crown jewels to fit out an expedition for Columbus. To keep her from taking this step, the royal treasurer somehow raised the money. In round figures, it came to $14,000.

By:                 Earl Schenck Miers