Tribes of Native Americans

Abenakis, Accochannock, Alabama Coushata, Abanki, Alaska Natives, Apache, Arapaho, Arikara, Assimiboine Sioux

Blackfeet

Caddo, Carrier, Catawba, Cayuga, Cheyenne, Chickasaw, Chicora, Chilcotin, Chippewa, Chippewa Cree, Chitimacha, Chocataw, Cherokee, Chumash, Ckharie, Comanche, Costanoan, Cowlitz, Cree, Creek, Crow

Dakota, Lekaware, Dene

Edisto, Essellen

Goshute, Gros Ventree, Gwitch’In

Haida, Haliwa-Sponi, Hidatsa, Ho Chunk, Hohokan, Hopi, Houna, Hupa, Huron

Illinois, Innu, Inuit, Inupiaq, Iowa, Iroquois

Kalispel, Kaw, Kiowa, Klallam, Klamath, Kootenai

Lakota, Lumbee

Maidu, Makah, Mandan, Mattaponi, Meherrin, Menominee, Metis, Miami, Mingo, Miwok, Mohawk, Mohegan, Monacan, Montaucketts, Munsee Delaware

Nansemond, Navaho, Nez Perce, Nisga’a, Nootka

Ohlone, Ojibwe, Omaha, Oneida, Onondaga, Osage, Ottawa

Paiute, Pamunkey, Pawnee, Peoria, Pequot, Pima, Potawatomi, Powhatan, Pueblo

Quapaw, Quinault

Ramapough

Sac and Fox, Salish, Saponi, Secwepemc, Seminole, Seneca, Shawnee, Shinnecock, Shoshone, Shuswap, Siletz, Sioux, Spokane, Steilacoom, Suquamish, Susquehanna

Tlingit, Tonkawa, Tsilhqot’In, Tuscarora

Umatilla, Umpqua, Ute

Wabanaki, Waccamaw-Sioun, Wampanoag, Warm Spring Indians, Washoe, Wea, Wendat, Wichita, Wiyot, Wyandot

Christopher Columbus

(1451 – 1506)

Columbus was a remarkable man for his era. Born in humble circumstances to a Genoese weaver father, and largely self-educated both in the basic skills of literacy and in navigation, he made an excellent marriage into a distinguished and propertied Genoese family. He was rewarded for his daring first voyage to the Americas by the Spanish titles of admiral and viceroy, and by a coat of arms. Thus he rose to the highest levels of society.

Before his historic voyages, Columbus had some 37 years of practical experience in seamanship, beginning on trading voyages at the age of 14, first along the Italian coast, and then to Marseilles and Tunis. Shipwrecked while on a voyage to Flanders and England, he landed penniless in Lisbon, Portugal, then the main European center of overseas exploration. Possibly he became involved here in selling navigation charts with his brother. He also continued his passage on mercantile trips to Iceland, Ireland, Madeira and West Africa.

Columbus’ original agreement with the Spanish Crown for his 1492 voyage enabled him to “discover islands and mainland in the Ocean Sea”, the “island” and “mainland” referring to Cipangu and Cathay – Marco Polo’s names for Japan and China. As the world already was accepted as round and there was no knowledge of intervening continent, Columbus’ proposal was deemed quite reasonable and based on respectable authority. But Columbus calculations were based on Marco Polo’s overestimate of the east-west area of Asia and on Ptolemy’s underestimate of the circumference of the globe – hence setting the distance to the orient at 3000 nautical miles rather than at the actual distance of 10,000 nautical miles. Thus when Columbus landed on the Bahamian cay of San Salvador in October 1492, he erroneously regarded the island as and outlying Japanese island. To the end of his days Columbus persisted in his misapprehension. On his fourth and last voyage he explored the western reaches of the Caribbean Sea in search of the Malayan peninsula and India. His characteristic stubbornness and sense of divine guidance led him to reject all contradictory evidence.

Regardless of these errors, Columbus was an able sea commander, a courageous explorer and a creative geographical theorist. But his greatest skill was an unerringly accurate navigator. In spite of his very conservative navigation techniques, using only the simplest type of celestial navigation, he possessed an uncanny sense of dead reckoning which always led him directly to any place he had once visited. For example, on his third voyage, he sailed directly from the Venezuela coasts to the new Spanish settlement on Hispaniola.

Like most of the other early European explorers, Columbus was an adventure in obsessive search for gold. In his last years in Spain, Columbus enjoyed a substantial income from his West Indian discoveries, along with a tarnished reputation. He died in Valladolid in relative obscurity, and it remained to his illegitimate younger son Fernando to rescue his reputation and to raise Columbus to legendary status.