Columbus, 145 1 was born in Genoa, Italy, and 1476 moved to Portugal to start a cartographic business. Portugal at that time was called the age of exploration. It's a leader. It discovered the Madeira Islands and Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and sailed along the west coast of Africa.
However, what Europe really wants is a route to India. The Ottoman Empire blocked Europe's passage through Constantinople and across North Africa and the Red Sea. Columbus wanted a piece of the action. Like others, he suggested sailing west to Asia. At that time, people knew that the earth was round. Washington irving, an American essayist, put forward the misunderstanding that it is flat. His most famous works are Rip's Dream and Sleepy Valley Legend. He popularized the so-called "the earth is flat" argument in the book Life and Navigation of Columbus published in 1828. After Portugal rejected Columbus' view,
Not only because Columbus had a bad relationship, but also because they thought he underestimated the distance between Europe and India, so he accepted his controversial plan to go to Spain. It is not clear how successful the Spaniards think Columbus will be, which may explain why they agreed to give him so much money if he found a route to India. Crawford said, "He promised a lot in return; A considerable part of trade and wealth will come from more direct contact with Asia. " He promised to confer the titles of "Admiral" and "Governor of the Indies".
What happened next made history; Columbus sailed directly to Guanahani Island in the Bahamas. During his four voyages to the New World, Columbus set foot on Cuba, Hispaniola and the coast of Central and South America. Crawford said, but Columbus firmly reiterated that he discovered Asia, perhaps to ensure that he could keep the wealth and title that Spain promised him.
This position made some of Columbus's colleagues think that he was duplicitous and untrustworthy. At the same time, the Portuguese explorer vasco da gama sailed from Portugal to India from 1497 to 1499, and then returned to India via the Cape of Good Hope, which meant that Portugal defeated Spain in the Indian competition.
Crawford said: "The king of Spain is obviously very dissatisfied with Columbus's failure to reach Asia and his growing reputation for duplicity, which is part of the reason why they sent agents to the Caribbean to arrest Columbus and bring him back to Spain." He was later stripped of his title. [Photo: Christopher Columbus probably saw this map of 149 1
These letters 1493, Columbus wrote a letter about his discovery to one of his supporters, Luis de Tangel. This letter was later reprinted and read by many people.
America is not named after Christophe Columbus (left), but after American Weiss Pucci (right). But the letter from Italian Weiss Pucci (1459- 15 12) is more popular. Weiss Pucci sailed under the Portuguese flag and arrived in the New World for the first time on 1499. As mentioned earlier, Weiss Pucci realized that India is not Asia, but a new continent. (It is worth noting that "it is difficult to see these revolutions in the letters published by [Wes Pucci]". According to a study by Past and Present magazine in 2006, it is possible that others saw more meaning than he wanted to convey. For example, Wes Pucci called land "continent", but scholars say it may mean "continent".
Whatever Wes Pucci meant, his letter about the New World to his patron Lorenzo de' Medici became a best seller in Europe. Crawford said, "If his letters can help people understand this new world better than Columbus's, it is not unreasonable." . Kristine Johnson, an associate professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis, wrote in a research report in 2006: "In these letters, Wes Pucci played up the sensational aspects of local residents' gender and eating habits, as well as the novelty of his own scientific observation. ",influenced a famous map maker. 1507, German cartographer Martin waldseemerüller created the first map named after the United States. However, this name hovers over Brazil. Crawford pointed out that Miao Lei didn't really call the whole region the United States.
It refers to why this land is named "America" instead of "Amerigo". This is an introduction in a booklet written by Waldersee Miao Lei for the map, pointing out that "since the names of Europe and Asia are derived from women, I don't see any reason to object to calling this part America, that is, the land of America, or the discoverer of America, a very capable person.
In fact, Portugal has named Brazil "Ilha de Vera Cruz" or "Real Island of the Cross". Crawford said, "But it is possible that Walter Somerset didn't know at that time that in the subsequent maps of 15 13 and 15 16, Walter Somerset no longer used the name of the United States, but it was too late, and other cartographers had copied him. Crawford said that the American name is deeply rooted at the end of 15.
Grant, naming a new land is largely a symbolic gesture. Considering that Europeans have not controlled these areas for some time, Crawford said:
"This whole map-making enterprise distributes European labels and names to places where Europeans have no commercial labels or names, which is part of their efforts to occupy these lands." . This is the ideology of colonialism-these are our places, and we have named them.
Originally published in the journal Life Science.