Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. As a boy he became initiated to sailing by one of his kinsmen (a sea captain), which is what forced him to become a Spanish navigator. He pleaded with the Spanish and the French governments, Spain's King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I gave him a grant to lead an expedition to the west across the Atlantic Ocean in search of new routes to Asia. He wasn't very successful in finding new routes to Asia but he got the credit of discovering the Americas, Jamaica, Hispaniola and many more islands found in the New World. Columbus sailed to the New World in search of a western route to the Indies. Upon Columbus' arrival to the New World he found some islanders. He thought that he had arrived at an island of the East Indies near Japan or China so he named the islanders Indians. It was not until thirty years after that people found out that Columbus hadn't really been to Asia. His goals for going on his many voyages were to search for gold, silver, precious stones, spices, riches; and to spread Christianity to the people he found there which in return he was "promised by the King and the Queen of Spain that he would receive ten percent of the profits, governorship over the new-found land, and the fame that that would go with the new title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea." (Zinn 2)
             Columbus wasn't really the first one to spot land or even to discover the Americas "a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean Sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He had got the reward." (Zinn 3). Columbus took credit due to the fact that it was his idea for the voyage and poor Rodrigo would not be able to defend himself if he had take...