Christopher
Columbus
and the Enterprise
of the Indies

By Geoffrey Symcox
and Blair Sullivan

Christopher Columbus and the Great Age of Discovery
HIST 351  ~  Fall 2010

Introduction:
Worldviews Before
the Age of Exploration

1. How has the historical image of Columbus changed from 1892 to 2010?

2. What was Columbus’s background and early life in terms of his family and native city? How did it prepare him for his later career?

3. What did Columbus learn and accomplish during his years in Portugal?

4. How did Columbus gain the support of the monarchs of Spain?

5. What were Columbus’s goals for his first voyage west? How did his wishes and misconceptions influence his observations and evaluations of the lands he discovered?

6. Describe the diplomatic negotiations that followed Columbus’s first voyage in terms of the documents. What was agreed upon?

7. Describe the problems of Columbus’s colony on Hispaniola.

8. What were the goals and accomplishments of Columbus’s third voyage?

9. Describe Columbus’s fourth voyage and his ongoing struggles with the Spanish crown.

10. How did Columbus’s discovery of the Americas affect the worldview of the Europeans?

11. How and why has the historical image of Columbus changed since his time to the present?

 
Terms  (from Introduction and documents):

• Martin Fernandez de Navarrete
• Sao Jorge da Mina
• Madeira
• Felipa Moniz Perestrelo
• Cipangu
• Granada
• Duke of Medinaceli
• La Rabida
• Palos
• Father Ramon Pane
• Pope Alexander VI
• Treaty of Tordesillas
• Encomienda
• Francisco de Bobadilla
• Fernandez de Oviedo
• Bartolome de Las Casas
• Columbianism
• Washington Irving
• zemis
• Peter Martyr
• Allesandro Geraldini

Documents 3 and 4

Compare and contrast Las Casas and Oviedo’s descriptions of Columbus.

Document 5

How does Columbus describe the origins and sources of his prophetic mission to discover the Americas?

Documents 6, 7, and 8

Compare and contrast the three assessments of Columbus by Las Casas, Oviedo, and Giuistiniani.

Document 12

What type of information does Columbus record in his log? How reliable are his observations?

Document 14

What was Michele de Cuneo’s role during Columbus’s second voyage? What information does he provided about the new lands.

Documents 18 and 19

How do Las Casas and Andres del Corral describe Columbus’s discovery of South America? What did Columbus think he had discovered?

Document 22

How does Las Casas describe Columbus’s fourth voyage?

Documents 23-27

What information do these documents provide regarding rival claims to land in the Americas and the process of the Christianization of the Americas?

Documents 28-33

These documents describe the inhabitants of the islands discovered by Columbus. How do they classify the natives? What are the traits of the Native American religion? How do the various writers describe cannibalism among the natives?