Ever since, the Bahamas as well as the islands of the Caribbean have been referred to as the West Indies.Īt the time of Columbus's voyages, the Americas were inhabited by Indigenous Americans. Columbus was partly inspired by 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo in his ambition to explore Asia and never admitted his failure in this, incessantly claiming and pointing to supposed evidence that he had reached the East Indies. These events, the effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.īorn in the Republic of Genoa, Columbus was a navigator who sailed for the Crown of Castile (a predecessor to the modern Kingdom of Spain) in search of a westward route to the Indies, thought to be the East Asian source of spices and other precious oriental goods obtainable only through arduous overland routes.
This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and trans-Atlantic trade. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World. The four voyages of Columbus (conjectural)Ĭhristopher Columbus and Castilian crew (among others)Įuropean rediscovery and colonization of the Americasīetween 14, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus led four Spanish transatlantic maritime expeditions of discovery to the Americas.
