Columbus & Explorers Come to the New World

Using the many maps and other hands-on documents, students will study both history and geography as they gain a fresh perspective on Columbus and the age of explorers. In 1481, the Pope gave Portugal the right to explore and trade in Guinea on the east African coast. Other European countries could no longer trade in the area, and more importantly, their ships could not sail around the African coast in search of a faster trade route to the Orient. If the earth was round, and most educated Europeans by this time believed that it was, there must be another way to reach the riches of the Orient. In 1492, a sailor named Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella of Spain that he knew a way. This primary source portfolio contains ready-to-use, hands-on primary source documents, most in their original sizes, and reproducible Broadsheets, which provide historical background for understanding the documents. This portfolio also includes a Study Guide with reproducible student activities and a large full-color map to take students into the explorer's world. 4 Illustrated Broadsheet Essays: * The World in 1492 * Columbus Sets Sail * Europe's First Explorers * Naming the New World 14 Primary Source Documents: * Illustration from Cosmas of Alexandria's Topographia Christiana * Portrait of Christopher Columbus by Laurens Lotto * Martin Behaim's globe gores * First engraving of Martin Behaim's world map * Claudius Ptolemy's map of the inhabited world or "Oecumene" * Giuseppe Rosaccio's world map * Engravings by Theodor de Bry showing the three types of encounters * Map of America by Dutch mapmaker, Cornelius de Jode * Pages from Martin Fernandez de Encisco's Suma de Geografia * Map of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan * The Yale Vinland Map * Page from a 13th-century version of the Icelandic Saga and photograph of L'Anse aux Meadow archeological site * Map of the Northeast coast of North America by Samuel de Champlain * Martin Waldseemuller's map, "America," and a page from "Introduction to Cosmography"