36 Ch. 1 • Medieval Legacies and Transforming Discoveries
language if they knew where some could be found. Columbus was
impressed with the beauty of Hispaniola (although he remained convinced
that he had discovered islands near India) and the “docility” of the indige
nous people. Yet, in the absence of gold, he suggested that the Spanish
crown could make Hispaniola profitable by selling its people as slaves, a
looming tragedy. Columbus, whose greatest contribution was to find a way
across the sea using the trade winds, made three subsequent voyages of
discovery, the last beginning in 1 502, after which he gave up his search for
a passage to Asia.
Portugal, a much poorer state than Spain, struggled to defend its trade
routes against Spanish encroachments. In 1487 Bartholomew Dias (c.
1450-1500) first rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of
Africa, reaching the Indian Ocean, and then Calcutta on the southwest
coast of India. The cargo of spices the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama
(c. 1460-1524) brought back to Lisbon from India in 1498 paid for his
costly expedition sixty times over. The Portuguese established fortified bases
along the Indian Ocean, including at Goa. The maritime route across the
Indian Ocean to the South China Sea could now compete with the overland
spice and silk routes that had long linked Europe to the markets of the East.
However, the Portuguese found that a thriving maritime trade network