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The Story of Columbus

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THE STORY OF COLUMBUS Early trade with the Orient. In the middle of the fifteenth century, when Christopher Columbus was a boy living in the large and busy seaport of Genoa, Italy, the richest countries in Europe were those bordering on the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. These countries had grown rich largely through their commerce with the East. For centuries, merchants in the prosperous cities of southern Europe had carried on a large trade with Persia, India, China, Japan, and other countries of Asia that vast region being then variously called the Indies, the Orient, or the East. (This commerce was one of the important results of the Crusades. The Crusades were expeditions of thousands of Christian men from western Europe, who in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries made several partly successful attempts to capture the Holy Land from the Turks and Saracens. These expeditions cost enormously in life and
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America Before Columbus

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America Before C olumbus The First Americans When we speak of the “discovery” of the New World, it is important to realize that when the first Europeans arrived in the New World, they found indigenous peoples who were already living on this continent. These were descendants of persons who had discovered the New World in the most ancient of times. Most of these descended from people who crossed a “land bridge” which once traversed the Bering Strait. At the time of the nation’s founding, it was widely suspected that one of the groups from which these “Native Americans” had descended, had been the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. President Thomas Jefferson wrote a brief letter to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in which he instructed them to: …acuire what knolege you can of the state of morality, religion & information among them [the Indians] as it may better enable those who endeavor to civilize & instruct them. Jefferson further
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Introduction

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INTRODUCTION The Unity of History  American History is the Outgrowth of European History. It would be a mistake to suppose that in studying American history and government we are studying something which has no connection with the history and government of the rest of the world. American history is simply a part of general history and not something separate and complete in itself. We must look upon the history of the world as one continuous story, and upon the study of history as one study. In short, we must recognize the unity of history. This means that the history of any one particular nation should be studied as a part of the history of the world. For our purpose it means that American history is an outgrowth of European history and should be studied in that light. When we study the history of the founding of the American colonies, we shall see that there is a very close connection between the history of the United States and that of Eng
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