Columbus Goes West

What was Christopher Columbus looking for when he set sail in 1492?

• a shortcut to South Africa

• a trading route with North America

• a shortcut to the East Indies

• a new island to vacation on

What does it mean to 'arrive' at a place?

• To leave a place

• To reach a place

• To explore a place

• To rule a place

What does the author list in the third paragraph of this text?

• Columbus' beliefs about the world

• Columbus' reasons for leaving Spain

• Columbus' favorite navigation tools

• Columbus' ships

What is a belief according to the passage?

• A place ruled by a distant country

• A strong opinion or idea thought to be true

• A journey to learn about a place

• A feeling of being tired after traveling

The author says that Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean, he changed the lives of the Taíno forever. What evidence from the text supports this idea?

• "When Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, there were millions of Taíno people living there. 50 years later, the Taíno population of Hispaniola was only about 200 people. "

• "On October 12, 1492, after more than a month of sailing, Columbus and his men sighted an island."

• "As for Columbus’s third belief, he later discovered that a large body of land stopped people from sailing directly to Asia from Europe. These bodies of land are known today as the continents of North and South America."

• "He also believed that he could get from Europe to Asia and the East Indies by simply sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean."

What is a colony as described in the passage?

• A place explored by travelers

• A place ruled by a distant country

• A belief in monsters

• A library for children

How did Columbus' treatment of the Taíno people compare with the Spanish treatment of Native people throughout Central and South America?

• Columbus' relationship with the Taíno was very different from the way that other Spanish explorers treated Native people.

• Columbus' treatment of the Taíno was an early example of the way that the Spanish violently mistreated Native people.

• Columbus fought with the Taíno people but finally left them alone, just like the Spanish did in other areas.

• Columbus was the last Spanish explorer to mistreat Native people before a new law was passed by the Spanish king.

What is the main idea of this text?

• Christopher Columbus did not reach the place that he originally wanted to sail to, but he wasn't very upset.

• North and South America are bodies of land that lay west of Europe and east of Asia.

• Christopher Columbus believed that the world was round, that it was smaller than most people thought, and that he could reach Asia.

• Christopher Columbus accidentally landed in the Caribbean, starting a wave of European settlement that negatively impacted the Native people across the Americas.