1 b
Now read the text and check your answers to the true/false statements.
In the Middle Ages, people in Europe traded with India in silk, spices and other goods.
Spices, for example, came from the Spice Islands in the East Indies.
The journey overland was very long, dangerous and expensive.
So, in the 1400s, Europeans searched for new and shorter sea routes to the Indies.
Christopher Columbus guessed that the Earth was round.
By sailing west, he expected to reach the Indies faster than by sailing east, around Africa.
In 1492, when Columbus was looking for a new way to India, his ships reached the West Indies but he thought he was in Asia.
He was wrong.
He did not know that a huge continent, America, was in the way.
Instead of the Spice Islands he found a New World and a new people.
He called them 'Indians'.
Many European settlers followed Columbus.
They came to farm the new land and they wanted to grab as much of it as they could.
The white man killed many Indians and the Indians lost their land.
