Western Explorer To Reach China

[Lola Maroun]

Nowadaysa flight from Europe to China takes about 12 hours. But not that long ago travellers would have been on the road for weeks, months even. Heading for China used to be a risky undertaking, whether travelling over land or over sea. Still, quite a few daring women and men set out from Europe to the Middle Kingdom and reported back on what they experienced. In this blog, we follow the tracks of great China explorers and revisit their accounts of life behind the Great Wall.

A Chinese chronicle, the Book of the Later Han, reports that in 166 AD an ambassador from Rome arrived at the court of emperor Han Huandi (132-168). He was sent by a Roman emperor the Chinese archivists called An-Dun (安墩): possibly Marcus Aurelius or his predecessor Antonius. Conversely, several Chinese travellers tried to reach the West. They visited the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms (in what is now known as Central Asia), but it seems they never went as far as the Middle East.

Religious men, too, used the Silk Road to travel to China, either to serve as an ambassador for the pope or to spread their religion. Nestorian missionaries are known to have been active in China as early as the 7th century.

With the arrival of ships from Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, France and England on the coast of China in the 16th century, a new era of exchange began. Travelers, however, would find a China much different from the one Marco Polo experienced.

The country was no longer ruled by the Mongols, but under the Chinese dynasty of the Ming (1368-1644). The Ming decided to lock China for foreigners, allowing only merchants and Jesuit missionaries to enter.

In 1644 the Ming empire collapsed and was replaced by the Qing (1644-1912) : a foreign dynasty that would more or less provide China its current size and borders. Yet the country remained forbidden territory for visitors from abroad. Exceptionally, the Jesuits were allowed to stay at court because of their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy. Merchants, on the other hand, could only stay in the port of Guangzhou.

The first peoples to explore and settle the Americas, however, were not Europeans but the ancestors of the groups known today as the Indigenous peoples of the Americas (called in different places First Nations, Native Americans, or American Indians). These early explorers were members of nomadic hunter-gatherer cultural groups. They moved from Asia to North America during the last ice age, when thick ice sheets covered much of northern North America. As the ice sheets absorbed water, the sea levels dropped and a land bridge emerged along what is now the Bering Strait. From about 30,000 to 12,000 years ago, this land bridge connected northeastern Asia to what is now Alaska. Some peoples came to North America by following the Pacific coast southward. They may have combined walking with boat travel. Others walked across a glacier-free area through the center of what is now Canada.

It is not known for certain when the first Europeans reached the Americas. Legends tell of early visitors from Ireland and Wales. According to an epic tale, St. Brendan and other Irish monks made an astonishing journey westward through the Atlantic Ocean in the 6th century ad. They are said to have reached a large landmass. It has been speculated that this land could have been North America or the Canary Islands. Although St. Brendan was a real person, the tale of his Atlantic journey was likely fiction.

Another legendary traveler, Madog ab Owain Gwynedd of Wales, was said to have reached North America in the 12th century ad. He supposedly sailed to Ireland and then westward. Some people have believed that Madog and his party became the ancestors of a group of Indigenous people who were said to speak Welsh. However, most anthropologists believe that the story of Madog is not true.

In the 9th century ad the Vikings of Norway, or the Norsemen, arrived in Iceland, which had already been settled by Irish colonists. Irish refugees from Iceland, fleeing before the advance of the Vikings, may have been the first Europeans to arrive in Greenland and Newfoundland (now in northeastern Canada), though this is mere surmise. Greenland, a large island in the North Atlantic Ocean, is considered part of North America.

When explorers began making longer voyages, a ship called the carrack or nao proved better than the caravel. The carrack was a rounder heavier ship, more fitted to cope with ocean winds. It had both square and lateen sails. The carrack also had more room to store provisions for longer journeys as well as the spices and other trade goods the explorers acquired.

European explorers found the New World by mistake; they were not looking to find new continents but new sea routes. Europeans mainly wanted to find better trade routes to China, India, and Southeast Asia. They valued many products from Asia, including cloves, pepper, and other spices that were used to make food taste good and to keep it from spoiling. Also in demand were such luxuries as sheer, colorful silken cloths, rich carpets, and sparkling jewelry. The wealth of the East had been trickling into western Europe mainly by overland routes. Asian merchandise was thus both scarce and expensive in Europe. Goods changed hands many times before they reached the consumer, and at each exchange the cost increased. The merchandise was transported by camel or horse caravans, with each animal carrying only a comparatively small load. Ships could carry goods more cheaply and in greater quantity. The Italian port cities were satisfied with their monopoly of the old trading routes. On the other hand, Portugal, Spain, England, and France wanted to find new sea routes to Asia in order to import goods directly.

The older trading routes were also becoming less useful. While the Mongols controlled a vast empire in China and Central Asia, traders had been able to travel the overland routes safely. Toward the end of the 14th century the empire began to break apart, and Western merchants were no longer assured of safe-conduct along the land routes. In addition, the Ottoman Turks, who were hostile to Christians, were gaining power. They blocked the outlets to the Mediterranean Sea and thus to the ancient sea routes from the East. The Ottomans also effectively closed the land routes.

Columbus was probably originally from Genoa, Italy. In about 1476 he settled in Lisbon, Portugal. He and his brother worked as mapmakers there, but Columbus was mainly a seagoing businessman. He sailed to Ireland, Iceland, and a Portuguese settlement in West Africa, gaining knowledge of Portuguese navigation and the Atlantic wind systems.

On his first voyage, Columbus took three ships and a total crew of about 90 Spaniards. The Nia and the Pinta were small, speedy caravels. Vicente Pinzn commanded the Nia, while his brother Martn Pinzn was captain of the Pinta. Columbus commanded the Santa Mara, the flagship. At about 117 feet (36 meters) long, it was more than twice the size of the caravels. The Santa Mara was probably a carrack, or nao. Some of the funding for the voyage came from the Spanish monarchs. A group of Italian bankers in Seville, Spain, also contributed a large sum of money.

Only three days out of Palos, the Pinta lost its rudder. The Spaniards repaired the ship in the Canary Islands and set sail again on September 9. Steady trade winds from the northeast drove them on their course due west. As they sailed westward, Columbus kept two records of progress. One was the distance he thought they had actually traveled. The other was a much shorter estimate that he showed the crew to quiet their fears at being so far from home.

For the most part the passage was smooth and the winds were steady. As the days passed, however, the men could not see how they could sail home against winds that had blown them steadily west. On October 8 and 9 the men were ready to rebel. Columbus said that he would turn back if land was not sighted within three days. They found land just in time. On the night of October 11, Columbus thought he saw lights in the distance. At 2 am on October 12, Rodrigo de Triana, a seaman aboard the Pinta, cried loudly the first sight of land. The voyage from the Canaries had taken 33 days.

The small Spanish fleet had unknowingly reached not Asia but the Caribbean islands that are now The Bahamas. The islands are part of North America, lying between Florida on the U.S. mainland and the island of Cuba. Columbus named the first land that the expedition sighted San Salvador. This island may have been the one now called San Salvador or perhaps Samana Cay. The expedition landed and was met by a group of Taino people. Carrying the royal banners of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spaniards took possession of San Salvador for Spain.

Sailing on with Indigenous guides, Columbus stopped at islands he named Santa Mara de la Concepcin (now Rum Cay), Fernandina (Long Island), and Isabela (Crooked Island). He then sailed south to Cuba, reaching its north coast on October 28. He thought that Cuba might be Japan, but he later convinced himself that it was actually the Chinese mainland.

Everywhere the Spaniards asked the Indigenous people where gold could be found. On Dec. 6, 1492, the explorers reached an island called Ayti (Haiti) by its Taino inhabitants. On December 6, Columbus renamed the island Hispaniola (now divided politically into Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Previously he had found small trinkets of gold, but on Hispaniola he found at least enough gold and prosperity to save him from ridicule on his return to Spain.

On December 25 the Santa Mara ran aground off the north coast of Hispaniola and had to be abandoned. From its timber Columbus built a small fort, La Navidad, with the help of a Taino chief named Guacanagar. The Spaniards left 39 crewmen behind at La Navidad as colonists.

On Jan. 16, 1493, the Nia and the Pinta began the return voyage. They carried gold, colorful parrots, other strange animals and plants, spices, and some Indigenous cloth and ornaments. They also carried several Indigenous people, whom they had captured to show to Ferdinand and Isabella. The journey back was a nightmare. The westerlies did indeed direct the ships homeward. In mid-February, however, a terrible storm engulfed the fleet, and the ships were separated. Columbus, on the damaged Nia, eventually limped to port in Lisbon for repairs. The Pinta made port at the Spanish town of Bayona, to the north of Portugal. With repairs completed, Columbus set sail, reaching Palos on March 15, 1493. Ferdinand and Isabella welcomed Columbus at Barcelona, Spain, with great honor. All the titles and privileges promised to him were confirmed.

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