Columbus hoped to find a new trade route to India and the Orient by sailing west. ... Vast wealth could be gained by trade with the Orient, especially India, home to the spices the Europeans coveted.
Explanation:
In 1484 Christopher Columbus tried unsuccessfully to interest King John II of Portugal in voyages of discovery to the west. Columbus then offered his services in leading such an explatory voyage to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of what later became Spain. Queen Isabella in 1492 after the defeat of the last Muslim stronghold in Spain agreed to finance such a voyage and named Columbus as the admiral, viceroy and governor of any lands he should find. On August 3, 1492 Columbus' fleet of three ships left Spain and made landfall in the Bahamas on October 12th, about two months later. The fleet then sailed to the northeast coast of Cuba and turned to eastward to the island of Hispanola, which now contains the countries of Haiti and the Bominican Republic. There Columbus lost his flagship, the Santa Maria. He then returned to Spain to report his findings.
When word of Columbus' discoveries reached Portugal its king charged the Spanish with encroachment into the Portuguese realm. Ferdinand and Isabella then appealed to the Pope in Rome, who was in origin a Spaniard. In 1493 the Pope issued a proclamation (a Bull) which assigned all lands which were more than 100 leagues (345 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands to Spain and the land east of that line to Portugual. King John II of Portugal was not satisfied with this division, which he felt jeaprodized Portuguese interests in the South Atlantic so he negotiated a treaty with Ferdinand and Isabella 270 leagues (930 miles) farther to the west. This treaty was called the Treaty of Tordesilla.
Columbus returned to Hispanola in 1493 with 17 ships and 1200 colonists. There was dissatisfaction with Columbus' leadership among the colonists and in 1496 Columbus returned to Spain to report his new discoveries and answer the charges brought against him by the colonists.
In 1498 returned on a third voyage in which he explored the area off the north coast of South America. He discovered the Island of Trinidad and the mouth of the Orinoco River. When Columbus went to Hispanola he found the colony in chaos the colonists in rebellion against him. To placate the colonists he granted pardons and gave them land and control over groups of natives. But despite Columbus' efforts to bring calm to the colony King Ferdinand appointed a new governor for the colony, Francisco de Bobadilla. Bobadilla arrested Columbus and sent him in chains back to Spain. Columbus was freed and made a fourth voyage to the Americas but he was not allowed to land on Hispanola.
Meanwhile other explorers were in the area. In 1499 Alonso de Ojeda sailing for Spain visited the mouth of the Orinoco River which Columbus had found on his third voyage. Accompanying Ojeda was an Italian whose presence was to have a profound impact on the region. His name was Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci in 1501-02 led another expedition to the region of the Orinoco for the King of Portugal. A Portuguese navigator, Pedro Alvares Cabral, had sighted the northeast coast of Brazil in 1500 and the Portuguese king was interested in what else was nearby. Vespucci concluded that the sightings were of a new continent and stated this in letters he wrote about his explorations. Those letters were published and widely read in Europe. A cartographer in Germany, Martin Waldseemuller, assigned the name America to what is now Brazil on his maps in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. So the original America was South America.
I'm sorry if this didn't help, i'm only in 6th but if you still need more help i can try to get more infromtion :D
