Reading Comprehension

Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions below.

As the Mongol Empire disintegrated in the 15th century, Islamic states rose to power and blocked outsiders from entering their territory. Thus, Europeans no longer had a direct route to the Far East, where they traded for such luxury goods as spices and silk. Refusing to give up, they attempted to reach the Indies by sailing around Africa. Christopher Columbus, however, devised a plan to traverse the “Ocean Sea”(a.k.a. the Atlantic Ocean) to reach the Far East. He convinced the Spanish Crown to help him bring it to pass.

Believing they had reached the East Indies, Columbus and his men arrived in the New World on October 12, 1492. They began trading with the natives, and some of what they received was gold. Columbus returned to Spain, showed the Crown the islands' bounty, and received financing for a second voyage.

Columbus wrote that the people in the West Indies “would make fine servants. With 50 men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” The Crown refused to use the “Indians” as slaves and urged Columbus to maintain friendly relations with them. Once they were exposed to diseases carried by Europeans, however, they quickly began dying off. Ironically, slaves would later be imported from Africa to work in the colonies where the Indians had once lived.

Though not truly the first to land on its shores, Christopher Columbus is credited with the discovery of the Americas. What came after Columbus’ first voyage made an immeasurable impact on the two continents. The period before the day his crew first spotted land is known as pre-Columbian American history. From that day forward, the world would never be the same.