i was watching the colombus video on pbs and they said that the main reason europeans didnt go crazy about exploring the atlantic was that because they didnt want to go into “open seas” with no idea where they where going. however the aborigenes did exactly that and went all other the pacific. i mean three misely ships- cmon. they knew asia was on the other side anyway so it wasnt a stab in the dark.
They asked the obvious question: where’s the money? Outfitting an expedition was expensive. Columbus only managed to get funding by wildly overstated the benefits and wildly understating the costs.
Wildly overstating the benefits? I think Spain more than recouped it’s original investment.
how was he overstating. they were supposted to go to indochina. he wasnt selling the american continent. champlain wanted to do the same thing and no big big fuss was made.
i just cant imagine entire europe not wanting to explore the world even for the heck of it (not counting the prospect that new landmasses might be found)
The main reason is the differences between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. The Pacific is scattered with islands, many within sight of each other, and with simple tools the Austronesians were able to navigate to those that were out of sight. The Atlantic, on the other hand, has fewer islands that are much further apart. Also, the climate of the Pacific is milder than that of the Atlantic (hence its name).
i understand all that. my question is still lingering though. was summoning three ships and bunch of prisoner homeboys such a big deal for newly forming band of absolute monarchs
They also knew roughly how far it was, and that there was no way they could sail to Asia before running out of food, etc. And they couldn’t navigate on open ocean (couldn’t figure out longitude until the late 1700s).
Columbus believed the world to be much smaller than everyone else thought it was. Of course Columbus was wrong and would have died at sea if he hadn’t ran into Cuba. The rest, as they say, is a historic tragedy.
bs, the greeks knew the size of the globe to a very accurate size
And Columbus thought they over estimated the size of the world. But Columbus was wrong and everyone else was right.
Please read.
sorry. i got it now
Columbus promises riches which he was never able to deliver. The man died in a debtors prison. The fact that later generations of Spanish were able to build an empire in the Americas doesn’t change the fact Columbus exaggerated to get funding for his expeditions.
There are many things to consider.
First thing: economics. Columbus promised his suzerains an alternative way to get to the riches of India (a catchall terms for what is now Asia). Think about it: the Portuguese had opened the South Africa route and their military victories in the Indian Ocean clearly showed they were more than able to defend it from outsiders. The traditional route through the Middle East was blocked by the powerful and unfriendly Othoman Empire, the only outlet to Western merchants being the friendly but rapidly decaying Mameluke monarchy in Egypt, with good arriving from the Red Sea and then being taken to great markets of Alexandria. Small issue though: the Venetians had struck a lucrative deal with the Mamelukes and had a complete monopoly in trade. Columbus (or Colon, call him as you wish) promised to bypass these routes. We could talk for hours about this.
Second thing: technology. This is often a forgotten fact. Before the Portuguese invented the first open-sea transports and manowars during the XV century there wasn’t a vessel in all of Europe which could have braved the open waters of the Atlantic. Navigation was restricted to coastal areas for technical reasons.
Third thing: they had other things on their minds. There are tenous evidences that point to the fact that Portuguese vessels sailings from the Azores had sighted the American mainland but they were mainly interested in keeping the Cape route open and well defended so they were probably not interested in another seafaring exploit. The Castillian monarchy had never been a seafaring power and had only recently emerged victorious from a centuries long struggle with the Moors. The English monarchy was just starting to pick up the pieces after the War of the Roses. The Valois were just ending their unification process and had their eyes mainly fixed on Continental enterprises. As for the Scandinavian seafarers of old, let’s not forget that they had long abandoned Vinland and Greenland ever since the cooling climate had made sailing around there more hazardous and their monarchies had slipped into a sort of Dark Age which lasted until the XVII century.
Fourth thing: currents. I am not a seawolf but if I remember geography correctly prevalent sea currents in the Atlantic do not help travelling from a side to another on a reasonable route. The Pacific is another matter completely. Travelling required technological advancements (see point 2).
He sounds like a medieval Keynes.
-Jon