Adventures in American Literature (Athena Edition)

Synopsis

A journal written five hundred years ago reports: "The admiral, at ten o'clock in the night, being on the stern-castle, saw a light. ... it was like a small wax candle, which was raised and lowered."

The night was that of Thursday, October 11--12, 1492. The "stern-castle" was the raised back deck of the ship Santa Maria, which had left Spain on August 2. The admiral was Christopher Columbus, and the light--which he probably only imagined seeing--turned out to be an island. The native inhabitants, he learned when he landed the next day, called the island Guanahaní, but he renamed it San Salvador. These native inhabitants, the Arawak people, received the Spaniards favorably at first. Eventually, a dispute seems to have broken out; hardly surprising considering the two peoples shared no common language, customs, and religion. Apparently the Arawaks convinced the Spaniards to go to other islands with promises of untold treasures to be found. Six years later, Columbus began to realize that he had reached a place whose existence he had never suspected. "I believe that this is a very great continent," he wrote on his third voyage to America, "which until today has been unknown."

Copyright:

1996

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

ISBN-13:

9780030986369

Publisher:

Holt McDougal

Date of Addition:

04/19/18

Copyrighted By:

Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Textbooks

Submitted By:

170

Proofread By:

170

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.