Atlantic View Elementary's Grade 5 Grassroots Project

Christopher  Columbus  was a sailor, a brave one at that.  He  was  born in  1451  in  Genoa, Italy.  As  a  child  he  worked  with  his  father  as a  weaver.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  he  went  to  sea.  When  he  got  to  Spain,  King  Ferdinand  and  Queen  Isabella  gave  Christopher  3  ships  the  Nina,  the  Pinta,  and  the  Santa  Maria,  also  he  got  88  men.  Sometime  between  1477  and  1485  he  got  married  to  Dona  Felipa  Perestrello  Emoniz,  daughter  of  a  wealthy  Portuguese  nobleman.  They  had  one  child  named  Diego.  He  taught  people  to  never  give  up.  In  his  time  European  countries  such  as  France  and  Spain  bought  spices  and  other  goods  from  the  Indies.  The  Idies  were  India,  China  and  Japan.

Instead  of  finding  out  how  to  get  to  the  spice  Islands  he  found  a  new  world.  He  set  sail  because  he  wanted  to  find  how  to  get  to  the  Spice  Islands.  Columbus  thought  he  could  find  the  Spice  Islands  and  Japan  by  sailing  2500  miles  (4000)  kilometers. 

These  problem  were  pretty  bad.  On  February  13-14  the  Nina,  the  Pinta  and  the  Santa  Maria  all  got  separated  in  a  storm.  On  September  30 no  land  was  in  sight  for  nearly  3  weeks!  Also  on  January  16  the  people  on  the  Nina  and  the  Pinta  got  fed  up  and  went  back  to  Spain. 

Christopher  went  to  Cuba,  then  to  a  land  of  many  harbours  on  the  coast  of  the  seas.  Later  when  he  returned  he  found  out  that  the  men  he  had  left  had  been  murdered!  Soon  after  that  Christopher  got  weak  but  he  made  2  more  voyages.  On one  he  discovered  the  main  land  of  South  America.

Later  that  year  he  was  sent  back  to  Spain  in  chains,  he  wouldn’t  even  let  them  take  off  the  chains.  On  December  25  (Christmas)  the  Santa  Maria  hit  a  reef  and  sunk.  On  May  20,  1505  Columbus  died. 

I  hope  you  liked  my  project  on  Christopher  Columbus.
By  Rebecka

 Christopher Columbus lived about five hundred years ago 1451-1506. Some people say that he founded America but he didn’t .The Arawak People were already living there.  After two months Columbus reached a land called San Salvador He found islands nearby Europeans at the time, including Columbus knew of these places.
That’s why they called them a New World. The Arawack people had been 
Living on San Salvador for a long time. Christopher had three ships called the Ninta the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Christopher had the only cabin in all of the three ships. The crew had to sleep on the deck even when it rained.

THIRD AND FOURTH VOYAGES!
Christopher Columbus set off for his third voyage on May 30, 1498. His first landing made on July 31 1498 was the three ?peaked island of Trinidad named in honor of The Holy Trinity. Then he sighted what is now called Venezuela. After cruising along the coast he sailed in to the gulf of Praia at the mouth Orinoco River he led a party ashore.  In his logbook he wrote encountering several additional islands including Margunta , and then laid a course for Espanola Christopher Columbus also wrote in his logbook that he had found the "New World" unknown to the Europeans. C hristopher Columbus expanded the colony’s gold- panning 
Operations. As Columbus worked on finding the "New World" his enemy’s back in Spain had convinced the Monarchs that Espanola should have a new governor. In May 1499 the crown removed Columbus and appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, who arrived on August 23 1500.He promptly had Columbus and Bartholomew arrested, shackled in irons  and returned to Spain. Columbus insisted on wearing his chains until the queen removed them. The monarchs pardoned the brothers and rewarded them but they refused to restore Columbus to his post. Bobadilla ,how ever was replaced as governor by Nicolas de Ovando
        I hope you enjoyed my Christopher Columbus project. 
                                  By Sarah

In the year 1451 Christopher was born. He was born in Italy in Genoa right on Italy’s west coast. Nobody knows if Christopher went to school. Some people think he educated himself!
Christopher Columbus had a brother Bartholomew. Bartholomew and Christopher worked with their father who wove cloth, but when they were off work they went down to the docks and watched the busy harbour. As a child Christopher took short sea voyages, but dreamed to have bigger. Christopher died May 20, 1506.
The exploration had taken place because he wanted to go to China to find lots of rare spices. The exploration was taken in the year 1476. He started out in Spain were he lived. Now Christopher did not know about navigation so most of the time he got lost. He also wanted people to know that the world was not round and was shaped like a pear. His three ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. He also had to collect the spices for the King and Queen, he had to bring back gold too.
The problems that Christopher had were that he did not know how to navigate so that was bad news. So he had to do something about it, so he started to learn more about it. And another problem he had was his sailors did not want to travel far from Spain, so Christopher had to lie to them that they traveled only a bit. When he came back from his second voyage he found out that half of his garrison, that stayed, had been murdered by the natives. Columbus had to stay in chains for a while, because he failed his mission for not bringing back rare spices and gold. Another problem he had was his voyage was really long, because he had to go around all the big and little Islands and made the voyage longer.
The first voyage he went on was for the Queen and King. They wanted him to go to China to get rare spices and gold. Unfortunately he only went to some islands off of China and he only found some pepper and not even a piece of gold.
On the second voyage, he wanted to go to islands just off Japan, he thought he could find gold and silver there, but he didn’t find anything. Christopher went back to Navidad to check on his crew, but when he got there they were all killed! So he had to find a whole new crew.
On the third voyage they thought they were going to Hispaniola, but they instead discovered an American Island, but when he got back he was put in chains for a while, because he again failed his mission.
The fourth voyage was his last voyage. He went to Central America, he found some gold, and he was happy about that. When they were going back to Hispaniola Columbus got very sick, because the boat was rotten and leaky, but he got better.
The good things that happened were that he discovered a small island, and he found pepper and some gold.
Christopher was proud of all these nice things that he found, so I guess he did pretty good.
TIME LINE
 1451 - Christopher was born
 1492 - his first voyage
 1493 - his second voyage
 1498 - his third voyage
 1502 - his fourth voyage
 1504 - his death
 

August 3 1492.
They set sail eight o'clock in the morning.  The wind was strong and variable.  He went forty five miles by sunset.  After dark he changed his course to the Canary Islands.

Monday August 6 1492.
The Pintas rudder slipped  itís socket and the heavy sea prevented him in helping the crew.  He was able to pull alongside the Pinta and help the crew.  But despite all the trouble they had they were able to go eighty seven milesthat night and that day. 

Wednesday August 8 1492
He decided to go to Grand Canary Island and leave the Pinta as she was badly disabled and leaking. 

Thursday August 9 1492
The Pinta was able to get to Grand Canary that morning.  He ordered Martin Pinzon the captain, to stay with the Pinta until it could be properly repaired.  He took the Santa Maria and the Nina, and started out for the island Gomera.

Saturday August 18 1492 
He went up on shore at Gomera to see if there was another ship that might be available,  nothing was available for a long voyage in the open sea.

Thursday August 23 1492
It was essential that they sail west soon. 

Friday August 24 1492
At daybreak he weighed anchors.  Many of his crew got frightened, for they never seen such an event.  But then Christopher calmed them by telling them about other
volcanoes he had seen, and explained the cause of the great fire. 

Saturday August 24 1492
He reached Grand Canary that morning.

Monday September 3 1492
Geiterrez had already acquired all of the wood and water necessary for the voyage, which Christopher estimated would last twenty- one days.

Sunday September 9 1492
That day they completely lost sight of land.  And many of his crew started to weep because they thought they would never see land for a long time.

Saturday September 15 1492 
All day and night he sailed west for eighty- one miles.  Early the next morning he saw a marvelous meteorite fall into the sea twelve or fifteen miles away.  People were afraid when they saw the meteorite fall.  They feared it to be bad luck.

Monday September 17 1492 
They saw a large crab.  So they knew that they were nearland.

Friday October 12 1492
They found land and went ashore.  They could not understand the language that the people were speaking but the people were very friendly to the crew.

Sunday October 14 1492
He set sail and saw so many islands that he could not decide where to go first.  So he decided to look for the largest one and went there.

Wednesday October 17 1492
He named the island Fernandina. He continued to explore the other islands. 

Sunday October 28 1492 
They went into the coast of Cuba (the Indian name for Japan) the place was beautiful.  Throughout the rest of the year to March 1493 Christopher Columbus continued toexplore many more islands.   Christopher Columbus was admired by many people, he became a great part of our history.

          John Cabot or Giovanni Caboto (Italian name) was born in Genoa Italy in 1450 or 1451. John was born to Egidius Cabot.  At the age of 10 john moved to Venice Italy. He loved to run errands for his mother and watch sailors unload cargo and listen to stories of great sea adventures. John wanted so badly to be a sea captain. In 1480 John got married to a women named Mattea. John had three sons Lewis, Sabastien and Sanctus. He later settled in Bristol England around 1494 where he was a merchant like his father and traded spices with ports of the eastern Mediterranean. He was also a great mariner and a cartographer.

As I said above John wanted so badly to be the captain of his own ship and explore the world. It was probably hearing Columbus’s discovery that made John wanted to find his own route to the west. So John went to the Queen of England and the King of Portugal for money and they both turned him down. That wasn’t the end of John’s search. John went to King Henry VII he agreed to give him some money a ship (the Matthew) and a crew of 18 men plus him as the captain. John thought if he took a more northerly route, he would get to the spices and riches of the exotic Far East quicker than Columbus. 

The problems encountered by John and his crew was that a more northerly route would be harder on the ship and the crew because of the strong winds and rough currents, sea and air temperature and dense fog around Grand Banks and with icebergs coming from Iceland’s glaciers. That voyage ranks one of the greatest discoveries of all time.

1496 John Cabot sets sail in one ship but is forced to return because of lack of food and fights between the crew. A year after, On May 2,1497, John and his crew set sail from Bristol harbour on a voyage in search of Asia. On his way he, like Columbus, ran into an island off the coast of North America. Historians have a number of theories concerning his landfall. Some say that Cabot landed in Labrador others say it was Nova Scotia or Cape Breton island still other’s support a landing in Newfoundland.  And a minority argue for the gulf of St. Lawrence, or as far south as Maine. Each of these theories is based on some evidence and it is impossible to prove any of them completely. John found land June 24, 1497, some 35 days after leaving Bristol England. On August 6, 1497, John returned and did not have any spices or riches from the Far East but he had stories to tell of a new ? founde - land.  His voyages to North America in 1497 and 1498 helped lay the groundwork for Britan’s later claim to Canada.

When John got his ship and crew he also got a scroll stating King Henry’s claim to any land found on the way to the Far East. When John came back from the first journey, he was very disappointed he did not bring back any gold or spices, but he was very satisfied that there was so much cod.  You could easily throw a basket over the side and pull it up filled with fish. Later on after John’s voyage much wealth would go to England because of the fishing industry.

King Henry VII was so impressed he financed a second voyage a year after his great discovery. John sailed out of Bristol harbour May 1497, with five ships. This time only one ship returned home suffering damage from a storm. What happened to John and the remaining ships is unknown. 

 1450-1451 John Cabot, born in Genoa, Italy.
1461 John moves to Venice.
1476 John becomes a citizen of Venice.
1480 John marries Mattea.
1490 The Cabot family moves to Spain.
1494   Cabot leaves Spain and settles in Bristol
1496   Cabot sails from Bristol but is forced to return.
May 2, 1497 Cabot sails from Bristol in the Matthew.
June 24, 1497 John and his crew discover land along the coast of North America.
August 6, 1497 John and his crew return to Bristol Harbour.
1498 Cabot mounts a third expedition of 5 ships and 200-300 men.  One ship returns, the others are not seen again.

1491 ? Cartier was born in St-Malo.
1497 ? John Cabot set out from England, Cartier was still a small boy
1534 ? April 20 ? Cartier left the harbor of St-Malo to find the Northwest Passage.
1534 ? July 4 ? Cartier reached a headland (northern point of Miscuo Island).
1535 ? September 5 ? Cartier came back and docked in St-Malo.
1535 ? May 19 ? Cartier left St-Malo again.
1535 ? August ? Cartier reached rock black shores of Anticosti.
1535 ? October 11 ? Cartier sails farther up the St. Lawrence River to an Indian town called Hochelaga.
1536 ? January ? By this point, 25 of Cartier’s crew were dead.
1536 ? July 15 ? Good wind and favorable seas permitted him to reach St-Malo.
1541 ? May 23 ? Cartier set sail on his third voyage to the Canadian wilderness.
1541 ? Sept 7 ? Cartier set out for the Kingdom of Sagunay.
1543 ? France ? Cartier failed to find the riches of Sagunay because the “gold” and “diamonds” he brought back were fake.
1557 ? Cartier died at the age of 66.

JACQUES CARTIER

 Jacques Cartier was a famous explorer.  He was born 1491 in seaport of St-Malo in island off of the north coast of France.  He grew up around the wild North Atlantic Sea.  The tides got as high as 50 feet and hurled up against the town walls.
 His father was a fisherman.  Jacques Cartier learned how to sail and fish as a young man.  He went on fishing trips with his father.  Cartier was still a small boy when John Cabot went to find a quick route to Asia.  Cabot never found it but he did find the icy mountains.  Jacques Cartier went on many fishing trips with his father across the Atlantic to the Grand Banks.  Jacques Cartier was curious but none of the other fishermen seemed to be.
 When Jacques Cartier was 30, he was a captain of his own fishing boat.  But all the fishermen were afraid to sail any farther than Grand Banks because of “sea monsters”.  Tired of the harsh weather and the hard work of fishing, he took a job as the captain of a Portuguese trading vessel bound for the shore of Brazil (on the northeast coast of South America).  He heard that the natives there would trade gold for simple things like fishing hooks and mirrors.  But Cartier was unlucky by the time he got there the natives had already traded almost all the gold to the European seamen.
 Cartier was happy when he returned to St-Malo, he realized how much he loved the wild North Atlantic.  Somehow he would find a way to sail beyond the Grand Banks.  He now had a reputation as one of the best captains in France.  Philippe de Chabot, admiral of the French navy, heard of Jacques Cartier’s expert navigational skills.  He was also very interested in finding the Northwest Passage and asked him to attempt to find it.  Cartier said yes, but he told the admiral that he was also interested in exploring the land that blocked the way between Europe and China (that is now North America).
 The admiral told Cartier to first find the waterway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean; then bring back a full report on everything he saw.  It was a dream of a lifetime come true.  He took two small vessels that weighed 60 tons.  They would be fast and easy to maneuver.  He took on enough provisions to last from April to early fall.  On the morning of April 20, 1534, Jacques Cartier at the age of 42 pulled out of the harbor of St-Malo.  It took 20 days of wind blowing the ship to get two thousand miles.  Cartier was now on the border between the known and the unknown.
 The French fishermen had never sailed beyond the Grand Banks and were getting scared.  They still believed there were “monsters”.  They did not see any but they did see some weird animals.  They finally came upon an island that Cartier called the ”Isle of Birds” because there were birds all over the place.  They got to the island and caught large black and white bird that couldn’t fly so they were easy to catch.  They eventually became extinct because people found them so easy to kill for food.  There were other birds that “bit like dogs,” they said.  They saw a big animal that was white and could swim as fast as they could row.  It was a polar bear.  They killed it and ate it.  They went westward which he thought was the mouth of China, it wasn’t.
 Later they met some natives and gave them some biscuits and meat.  The natives wore nothing above the waist and the cold did not bother them.  They had only a little hair.  In June, Cartier went south along the west coast of Newfoundland, which has a length of about 300 miles.  He had no clue that he was on the gulf of one of the world’s greatest rivers of St. Lawrence.  On the 24th of June, the two ships reached the headland of Newfoundland now Cape Anguille.  Cartier was lost and had no idea where he was but he decided to turn southeast to search for the mouth of China.  By summer, the Frenchmen had found many islands.  They were happy they left the bleak coast of Newfoundland.

 On Brion Island the men saw many animals.  They found one that was kind of like a large clumsy elephant with two tusks like an elephant.  Two sailors tried to catch when it was asleep on the shore but as soon as they came close the massive beast awoke and swam away.  It was a walrus.  The two ships continued to go southwest and dropped anchor on what is today the North Point of Prince Edward Island.
 On July 4, 1534, Cartier got to headland (north point of Miscou Island).  He named that Cape Hope because for miles in the north direction all he could see was water.  He steered his ships in that direction because he thought it was the mouth of China.  He was wrong yet again. It was a deep water bay.  Cartier named it Chaleur Bay.  It meant Bay of Heart because he said the air was warm there.  Now the water there washes up on two Canadian provinces, Quebec and New Brunswick.  By now Cartier was curious about the land between him and China.  It was not on the map yet.  He anchored his ships in the cove and went on land to explore the shores of what is Gaspe Peninsula.  It was good land for farming and there were lots of forests that were full of cedars and spruce that would make good masts for ships.
 While Cartier was exploring, a boat full of Indians surrounded him.  Surprised, he fired two shots just missing their heads.  The Indians retreated while yelling at the Frenchmen to come ashore.  The next day, nine canoes filled with natives came toward the ships while yelling and waving animal skins.  They said they wanted to trade with the sailors.  Cartier thought that it would be safe enough and they seemed friendly enough to risk going ashore.  When the Frenchmen got to shore, the natives touched there white skins and pulled their beards.  Hundreds of Indians gathered to see the strange people.
 The Frenchmen were just as curious about the natives who were part of the Micmac tribe on a fishing expedition.  They had long hair and were wearing nothing other than animal skins around their waists and over their shoulders.
 Cartier didn’t care much about the animal skins, he cared more about the new words he learned and wrote down cochy, it meant hatchet and becean, it meant knife.
 On September 7, 1541, Cartier set out with two longboats to survey the route to the kingdom of Saguenay.  Cartier and his men went on foot on the river’s bank.  They finally found some Indians and asked how far it was to the kingdom of Saguenay and if they could get there by boat.  Cartier returned to his colony at Charles-Royal to find out that his 200 criminal colonists were beginning to grow afraid of this lonely and strange country.  Ice was forming and before long they would be locked in the wilderness for the winter.  And to make things even better, the Indians did not trust Cartier anymore.
 Sometimes the Indians would even fire arrows at the wall of the fort to show that they were not welcome in their land.  Cartier ordered his men to make the fort thicker.  When Spring came, the Frenchmen were glad to leave the land.  Cartier’s men were close to mutiny and Cartier knew that.  He would have to go back to France without reaching the kingdom of Saguenay or finding the Northwest Passage.  But he hoped his nuggets of gold and the diamonds he found would make up for it.  He continued eastward across the Atlantic to St-Malo.  Back in France, the “gold” and “diamonds” were tested.  They turned out to be worthless.  The gold was iron pyrite, which today is called “fools gold”.  The diamonds were just simply mica, a transparent mineral.  As a result, a saying came into usage:  “False as a diamond of Canada”.  Cartier’s career came to a quick end.  The last years of his life were in St-Malo where he could hear and see the Atlantic.  He died in 1557 at the age of 66.

Marco  Polo was born in Venice,Italy in the year 1254.  Polo had ben educated in many ways like accounting, foreign languages, and knowledge of the Cristian Church.  He was the most famous and the first  Europian to cross the whole entire continent of Asia which took him 24 years.  Marco Polo was just 6 years old when his dad and uncle had left Venice and set eastward for their first trip to Cathay(China).  He was about 15 years old when his dad and uncle got back to Venice and his mother had already passed away.  He stayed in Venice with his dad for about two more years and then three of them embarked on the most couragous trip to Cathey(China) the second time. 
 At the end of the year 1271, receiving letters and pricless gifts for the great khan from the new Pope Tedaldo (Gregory x), the Polos once again set out east.  They took 17 year-old  Marco Polo with them and two frairs, but the frairs turned back.  They passed on through Armenia, Persia,  and Afghanistan, over the pamirs, and along the silk road to China.  Marco a master of four languages, became a favorite of the khan and was picked to important posts.  He helped at the Khan’s court and was transferd to many special missions in China, Burma and India.  Many places that Marco saw were’nt ever seen again by Europeans until the last century.  He took a long time to describe Kublia’s capital, ceremonies, hunting and public assistance, and they were all found on a much smallar scale in Europe.
 One of the problems they encountered was a war so they had to go way to the north and through places they hadn’t been before.  They had to stay in one place for a year because Marco was sick and they had to wait untill he got better.  They also had to go across the Gobi desert which had no water or food and could take a year to go from one end to the other.
 When they reached the Khan’s palace Maro had never seen such riches.  The walls where made of gold and silver and the hall was so big there was room for 6000 people.  There were many things that Marco saw that he felt were good things.  Some things he had never seen before.  He learned about asbestos.  They had paper money instead of gold and silver coins.  They also had coal they used for heat and they had people that would run with messages back and forth something like an early postal service.  After all his voyages and journeys he died in 1324.

Timeline
1254 - Birthdate of Marco Polo
1260 - Father and Uncle set out for China, when Marco was six.
1269 - Marco is 15 years old when father returns, his mother has died.
1271 - Marco, now 17, his father and uncle set out for China again.
1275 - Polo’s arrive at Kublai Khan’s capital.
1277 - The Khan makes Marco Polo an offical of his council.
1295 - Marco arrives home in Venice.
1324 - Marco Polo dies at the age of 70.