The Iberian Peninsula had been in turmoil for centuries. Dominated by Muslim rule since the Umayyad invasion in 711, Christian kingdoms in the north sought an aspirational Reconquista to liberate the whole land to Christendom for seven hundred years. By the fifteenth century, only the Emirate of Granada was still under Muslim authority, yet the Christians were slowed by periodic infighting between the major kingdom of Portugal and the twin Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. The Muslims, too, faced infighting in 1482 when Muhammad XII overthrew his father during yet another war sparked by raiding in 1481 to end the Truce of 1478 put into place during the War of Castilian Succession.
The war initially went well for Granada with the king’s brother-in-law, al-Zagal, in competent command of the southern forces. The king’s son proved overly ambitious and overthrew his father with courtly intrigue in 1482 and soon wanted victories to match his uncle’s at Loja breaking the Christian siege and winning battles in the hills. Muhammad marched on Lucena and besieged it. Lights in the towers altered nearby Cabra to come to Lucena. Nervous, Muhammad considered withdrawing, but a letter to his uncle advised him to defeat one and then the other as he had manipulating opponents at court.
Muhammad feigned a retreat, prompting the Cabrans to take up pursuit and the Lucena defenders to charge out of their defenses. As the two Christian armies became entangled, the Granadan forces turned about and formed ranks. Unable to organize a protected retreat and confused with the different towns’ soldiers literally bumping into one another under different commanders’ orders, the Christian armies were struck down. Those who made it back to Lucena were far too few to defend the town, which was captured the next day. Cabra fell soon afterward as Granadans pushed forward.
War dragged on and on. The Castilian fleet circled Granada, but the forces under Muhammad’s eager leadership moved quickly at lifting any siege that could be laid on land while raiding parties kept much of the Christian forces at home. Even more frustrated than the rulers was the Italian navigator Cristoforo Colombo, who went by the Latin Christophorus Columbus as he sought financial backing for a scheme to sail west across the Atlantic to reach Asian markets. In the 1480s, he had approached John II of Portugal with the idea, which was dismissed as his calculations of the Earth’s circumference were too small as well as Portugal’s monopoly on African and Indian Ocean trade granted by the Pope. Columbus then approached Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who were intrigued by the idea of sailing around the Portuguese, but they were too busy with the war. To keep Columbus from moving on, they gave him a salary and kept him in Spain for several years. By the 1490s, Columbus was disappointed enough to sail for France, where he again ran into a block as Charles VIII’s court had just invested in the First Italian War. Columbus then tried England, where he discovered there was already an expedition planned by another Italian, Giovanni Caboto, whom the English called John Cabot.
While Columbus slinked back to Spain to live on his salary, Cabot made sail in 1496. He had scraped together funding from Bristol shippers who also hoped to compete with Lisbon, bankers from Florence, and the court of Henry VII, who granted him £50. Cabot’s first outing failed to find land in the rough waters of the North Atlantic against the prevailing current. He sailed again in 1497, finding land and staking a claim for England. Though he met no natives, his crew did see two figures running in the trees and recovered an unstrung, red-wooded bow.
Europe marveled at the discovery, and Spain balked at the idea of English claims. Having already lost trade routes to Portugal, Spain (backed by France) appealed to Rome so they could buy time until the Granada War was over. Pope Alexander VI decreed in a bull that all lands discovered west of 30° latitude up to the Indian Ocean would be held in “Christian common,” meaning no extensive claims could be made and trading posts could only be established with papal permission.
Though the coast and major rivers of the Americas were thoroughly explored over the next century by sailors like Corte-Real and Vespucci, there were few efforts of settlement beyond merchants living with tribal communities eager to trade. Most of the economic interest in the western hemisphere was in fishing on the Grand Banks and raiding to capture slaves. The raiding parties caused coastal natives to organize defenses and determine which ships belonged to which nations. A complex and constantly changing system of alliances grew during the Age of Exploration, and native peoples had formed recognized nations that remained unconquered through the Age of Empire such as the French-allied Montagnais-Naskapi-Objiwe, the Iroquois-led Algonquin Alliance, the Five Tribes of Great Florida, the Maya, the Orinoco Peoples, and the Tupi.
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In reality, the Siege of Lucena was a disastrous defeat for Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil to the Castilians. The army of Granada was destroyed and Boabdil was captured, giving Ferdinand a tool to sow division into the country as al-Zagal became Muhammad XIII. Over the next decade, the Spanish forces captured Granada and completed the Reconquista begun centuries before with Boabdil being released to formally surrender Granada. Ferdinand and Isabella reached out to Columbus just as he was planning to leave for France and made good on promises to fund his expedition in 1492.
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