I'm writing a series of articles about European explorers during the "Age of Exploration and Discovery" from the 1400s to the 1700s. These explorations led to the "discovery" of the Americas and new shipping routes around the tip of South America and South Africa. In previous posts, I wrote background information about international trade in Europe during this time, I wrote about the travels of Marco Polo on the Great Silk Road and Mongolian China, and about Christopher Columbus.
The Age of Exploration largely happened because the Mongolian Empire broke apart and could no longer ensure safety along the Great Silk Road, and the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople and southern Europe, and travel became unsafe for Europeans. As a result, centers of shipping in Portugal, Spain, and Italy became isolated, and they looked for new routes to India and China.
Columbus took four voyages to the Caribbean islands, and he sailed south to Venezuela during one of the voyages. This was probably the first time a European had landed on South America, but Columbus did not realize that he discovered a new continent. A few years later, Portuguese and Spanish explorers followed this route, and they discovered Brazil and much of the eastern side of South America. Eventually, they came to realize that they had actually discovered "a New World."
In this post, I am going to describe a few European explorers who discovered parts of South America. In a later post, I will describe how Spanish conquistadors and settlers explored the interior of South America, and the violence and destruction they brought upon the Inca and Aztec empires.
Pinzon Brothers
Three Pinzon brothers from Spain sailed with Columbus to the Caribbean islands, and they eventually made their own discoveries in the New World. The oldest brother, Martin Pinzon, sailed with Columbus on his first voyage. Pinzon actually helped financially sponsor the expedition; he also used his own ships for the journey - the Pinta and the Nina - and he found a crew of sailors for Columbus.
I was surprised to learn that the Pinta and the Nina belonged to Pinzon and not to Columbus. Martin Pinzon was captain of the Pinta, the middle brother Francisco Pinzon was a first mate on the Pinta, and the youngest brother Vincent Pinzon was captain of the Nina. Information I read online also said that Columbus had agreed to award Pinzon "equal honors and half the profits" for any discoveries. First sighting of land in the Americas was made from the Pinta. Because of all this support, some historians say that the Pinzon brothers were "co-discoverers of America," but all honors go to the leader, so Admiral Columbus, who captained the flagship Santa Maria, gets all the credit today.
But Columbus and Martin Pinzon fell out of favor with each other when they reached the Caribbean islands. There is some confusing history about what happened. Columbus suggests that Pinzon became greedy and went off on his own to discover more territory and his own gold. However, there are also stories that they had some mixed communication and that they got separated by bad weather; at this time, the Santa Maria also got shipwrecked and Francisco had to save Columbus.
On the return trip, Columbus and Pinzon sailed on separate ships, and it seems like they were both racing back to Europe to get credit for the discovery. Columbus sailed back to Portugal, but Pinzon got blown off course by bad weather to Spain. When Pinzon arrived, he was also very sick, and he died a couple weeks later.
Francisco and Vincent Pinzon travelled with Columbus in subsequent voyages. Vincent also led his own expedition to the New World in 1499, and he discovered the northern coast of Brazil and the Amazon river. Vincent is remembered today as one of the first Europeans to discover the Amazon river and parts of Brazil.
In 1508-09, Vincent partnered with Juan Diaz de Solis on an exploration of the Bay of Honduras and the territories of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize. They were actually trying to find a passage through this territory to reach India, China, and the "East Indies." Nevertheless, they were some of the first Europeans to explore these territories.
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer from Florence (Italy), and he made expeditions to Venezuela and southern Brazil on behalf of Spain and Portugal in 1497-1504. Historians are not totally certain about all of Vespucci's voyages, and he didn't actually lead the expeditions; instead, he was a representative of the investors and a navigator.
During this time, Vespucci published detailed maps and descriptions of the voyages; these became very popular and they earned him a lot credibility. Unlike Columbus, Vespucci believed that Brazil was part of a new continent that Europeans had not known about before. Vespucci referred to this continent simply as the "New World," but a few years later a map-maker named the continent "America" after Vespucci's Latin name "Americus."
Legacy
During these early voyages to the Caribbean and to South America, European explorers were not sure what they had found. They didn’t know if they had discovered the “East Indies,” large islands in the Atlantic, or a totally new continent. It took about 15-20 years of exploration after Columbus’s first discovery to figure out what they had found.
Columbus called people in the New World "Indians" because he believed he had reached the "East Indies," and the Caribbean was called the “West Indies” during the Age of Exploration and the Era of Colonialism that followed. But Vespucci named us all "Americans." Vespucci didn't discover any new land, and he failed to find a passage to India and China, but he gave Europeans a new way to think about the lands they were discovering, and, like Marco Polo, he became famous through his writings.
Next Time
In the next weeks, I will describe what happened when European explorers, settlers, and conquistadors explored the interior territory of South America, and how they sailed around the tip of South America to discover the Pacific ocean.
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My name is Lirim Neziri, and I am an educator and a writer. I love to read and learn, and this newsletter (which I call Lirim’s Learning Club) lets me share interesting things I am learning. I write about History, Literature, Writing, Education, Technology, Leadership, and Personal Productivity. Please join my learning adventure.