新GRE写作名人素材：哥伦布_GRE写作

新GRE写作名人素材：哥伦布

　　When the expedition arrived back at Hispaniola, he found it in disarray, with a revolt mounting against his brothers led by the alcalde of La Isabela, Francisco Rold. The chiefs of the indigenous tribes in Hispaniola, as well as a number of Spaniards, were incensed by Bartholomew Columbus?reorganization of the gold production process, which favored certain Spaniards over others and exploited the native labor force. As Columbus tried to restore order, sometimes resorting to hangings, Rold and his fellow opposition leaders sent so many letters of complaint against Columbus and his brothers back to Castile that the rulers sent the Spanish chief justice, Francisco de Bobadilla, to Hispaniola. Bobadilla took Columbus and his brothers into his custody and sent all three men back to Spain in shackles.

　　Ferdinand and Isabella later ordered Columbus?release, and he appeared before them at Granada in December 1500. The monarchs allowed that Columbus was a superior mariner and navigator, but questioned his abilities to govern. Another man was appointed governor of Hispaniola, and Columbus was given support and permission to begin a fourth expedition. As he prepared for the voyage, which would be his last, Columbus revealed in his writings an even stronger mystical vision of himself as the bearer of Christianity into worlds unknown, a vision that had contrasted sharply with the realities of conquest and colonization in Hispaniola.

　　He set sail from C?iz on May 9, 1502, with four ships, arriving at Santo Domingo on Hispaniola on June 29. Continuing on down past Jamaica, the southern shore of Cuba, Honduras, and the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, Columbus showed navigation skill in a voyage as difficult as his first crossing of the Atlantic. He was searching for the strait to India, but obviously did not find it, and was eventually forced to turn back. En route to Hispaniola, however, his ships were unable to make the distance and had to be beached on the coast of Jamaica in June of 1503. Columbus and his crew spent a year in Jamaica before returning to Spain on a ship sent from Hispaniola on November 7, 1504. Upon arriving there, Columbus learned that Queen Isabella, long his most sympathetic supporter, was on her deathbed. She died on November 26, 1504.