Study Guide for Social Studies Test

Searching Sea Routes – Columbus’ Voyages

PEOPLE

  • Bartolomeu Dias - from Portugal; sailed around the tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope) and searched for water routes to Asia…did not reach Asia
  • Vasco Da Gama - from Portugal. Found an all-water route to Asia around the Cape of Good Hope
  • King Ferdinand - The Spanish monarch who financed Columbus’ journey
  • Queen Isabella - The Spanish Queen married to King Ferdinand
  • Christopher Columbus - An explorer from Genoa, Italy who sailed westward off the coast of Aftica across the Atlantic Ocean to find a route to Asia (the Indies)
  • Ptolemy - a famous Greek Astronomer-geographer-mathematician who drew the original map that gave Columbus his ideas about how the world looked and the size of the Earth
  • Taino - The peaceful Native American tribe that Columbus met when he landed in the West Indies
  • Prince Henry – A Renaissance thinker known as Henry the Navigator, he was eager to find an all-water route to Asia and to learn about the ocean and what was out there. He sent Portuguese ships down the coast of Africa and sponsored Portuguese expeditions
  • Howard Zinn – an author who wrote a very negative view of Columbus
  • Samuel Eliot Morison – an author who wrote a very positive view of Columbus

PLACES

  • Portugal - European country bordering Spain on the Iberian Peninsula. Led the way to overseas exploration in this era
  • Lisbon - the capitol of Portugal on the Portugal Atlantic coast
  • San Salvador – The island where Columbus landed and met simple and honest people
  • Hispaniola – The Caribbean Island in the Bahamas where Columbus found gold

TERMS

  • Monopoly - one person or company has full control of a product with no competition
  • Caravel (Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria) a double rigged ship that made it possible for ships to sail into the wind and have the wind at their back
  • Astrolabe – a tool to assist in finding your location while at sea
  • Columbian Exchange - Old World to New World – horses, cattle, pigs. New World to Old World – potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco
  • Subjugate – forced obedience
  • Antiquity – ancient times –before the Middle Ages
  • Mariner – sailor
  • Navigator – a person who planned and controlled the course of ships
  • Latitude – lines that run horizontally (from east to west) across the glove
  • Longitude 0 lines that fun vertically (up and down or north to south) on a globe

CONCEPTS

  • Reasons European monarchs and merchants funded exploration – for riches (gold) and spices and to be part of the trade competition. In some cases to spread Christianity
  • Impact of DaGama’s discovery – finding an all water route to Asia stopped the Italian monopoly on trade, and travelling by sea was far safer that dangerous travel by land
  • Columbus’ voyages – PURPOSE – to find gold and riches for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. RELIGION – King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted to spread Christianity IMPACT ON NATIVE AMERICANS – negative impact as they often subjugated and/or killed them. They took their gifts and introduced many European diseases that the natives had no immunity to causing them to die