CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: E - Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas four times for the Spanish crown from 1492 to 1504. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, but found sponsorship for his first voyage west from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492. He intended to find a direct westward route to the Indies to bypass sailing around Africa, which was required by the eastward routes to Asia. However, he miscalculated the circumference of the globe and was also unaware that there are other continents between Western Europe and Eastern Asia. He was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas (Leif Erikson was), but he was the first European to make multiple voyages to the Americas. Columbus never ventured to the North American continent nor was he content with the product of all his hard work. During his trips to Central and South America, Columbus kidnapped many native people and enslaved them, though the majority of them died during the return voyages to Spain. The voyages also resulted in another significant cultural exchange: the Europeans introduced smallpox to the American natives, which devastated their tribes, and some of the sailors contracted syphilis from the natives, which they introduced to Europe.