What did Columbus call the natives he encountered in the Western hemisphere? Why? What other terms refer to these people and their descendants?
The Age of European Exploration and Cultural Exchange-European nations embarked on efforts to explore the globe from a mixture of scientific, economic, and political motives. Explorers were eager to discover what, if any, lands lay across the Atlantic Ocean. European governments were eager to spread their authority (and to limit other nations' ambitions in this regard), and to develop their economies by gaining colonies.
Many European explorers scouted the Western hemisphere. Most famously an Italian navigator, Cristoforo Colon known to us by the Latinized version of his name, Columbus, was granted ships and money by the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to sail westward in search of a route to India. In 1492, Columbus and his crews began their journey aboard three ships, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.
One of the most important turning points in human history can be dated almost precisely to 2 a.m., October 12, 1492, when the sailors aboard Columbus's ship first sighted land in the Western hemisphere. European and Indian populations, civilizations, and environments that had been entirely separated would now mix, with enormous consequences for both. When Columbus's ships landed, he and his men encountered the natives who inhabited islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Because Columbus had been seeking a route to India in order to aid the spice trade, he called the people he encountered in the Western hemisphere "Indios" or, in English, Indians. The term, while far from accurate geographically, stuck. Some people prefer the term "Native American" or "Amerindian," but most Indians today proudly call themselves Indians.