Explorers In a New World

Product Description

Sample

Christopher Columbus never expected to find the great continents of North and South America as he journeyed west toward China. In fact, he didn’t even know that he hadn’t reached the East Indies when he first landed on the islands of the Caribbean; it’s why they’re known as the West Indies today and why, even now, many Americans persist in calling Native Americans “Indians.” It should have excited Columbus to have discovered an entirely new world, unknown to anyone in Europe and Asia. But equally unknown (or at least untaught to most children today) is the fact that he spent the remainder of his life intensely disappointed at his failure to find a water route to China.

The people who came after him, at least initially—from countries like Spain, France, England, and Holland—all came with the intent of finding a passageway around or through the giant land mass that stood in their way to the great western sea. But somewhere along the way, rumours of seven great cities of gold surfaced, and then of a great river that cut through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast. Soon men were coming to search, not just for a passageway all the way through, but for the cities of gold and the river to the Pacific. Dreams of great wealth and notoriety, both for themselves and for their home countries, drove them on.

The true wealth of America was not in cities of gold, for there were none, nor in a great river to the western sea, for it, too, did not exist. Instead it was in the vast and bountiful land that began to fill up with colonists who ultimately established the region as a country separate from those of the Europeans who had worked so hard to claim it as theirs. But even after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, most of the land west of the Mississippi River was still unknown. So the government sent men like Lewis and Clark and John Fremont out to learn as much as they could. In addition, hunters and trappers filled in many of the blank spots on the maps as they followed the rivers west. Ultimately, the maps were complete, but not without a great deal of effort on the part of many people to explore the glorious and dangerous wilderness of America.

This expansive book begins with Columbus and ends centuries later with the mapping of the entire face of the contiguous United States. The explorers featured are from several countries, and their searches in many cases turned up, not necessarily what they were looking for, but landmarks of the country that today are well-known to everyone, such as the Great Lakes and the Grand Canyon and even the Great Salt Lake. Together, they allow children to build an understanding of how America came to be known.

Related Resources:

Adventures on the American Frontier Series Set
Adventures on the American Frontier Series Set (Dyslexia Versions)