Columbus was trying to reach Asia by sailing west. He hoped to find a shorter ocean route to the wealthy markets and legendary lands of East Asia, including China, Japan, India, and the Spice Islands.
His plan depended on the belief that the Earth was smaller than it actually is and that Asia extended farther eastward. Columbus also relied on maps and geographical ideas inherited from ancient writers and medieval travelers such as Marco Polo. In 1492, he sailed west from Spain with three ships: Niña, Pinta, and Santa María.
Columbus reached Caribbean islands instead of Asia, but he initially believed he had arrived near the Indies. That mistaken interpretation explains why Caribbean islands are still called the West Indies and why Indigenous peoples were historically labeled “Indians.” Columbus’s voyages eventually revealed to Europeans that a previously unknown-to-them landmass lay between Europe and Asia, although Indigenous civilizations had lived throughout the Americas for thousands of years.