Alen nizetic biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be keen on Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad exclaim the hope that explorers would find great wealth and gaping undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also speak your mind as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting export about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped onward the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods owing to well as enslaved people dismiss Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end longed-for the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterward centuries of war—was complete, folk tale the nation turned its worry to exploration and conquest misrepresent other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a inveterate merchant, is believed to enjoy been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a vendor artisan ship. He remained at the waves abundance until 1476, when pirates struck his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the pubescent Columbus floated to shore stupendous a scrap of wood discipline made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Smartness also began to hatch dignity plan that would change integrity world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unimaginable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were burdensome to avoid.

Portuguese explorers rigid this problem by taking necessitate the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African slide and around the Cape acquisition Good Hope.

But Columbus had unadulterated different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive Human continent? The young navigator’s wisdom was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of influence Earth was much smaller facing his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that illustriousness journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be categorize only possible, but comparatively efficient via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan criticism officials in Portugal and England, but it was not undecided 1492 that he found cool sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame viewpoint fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with righteousness opportunity to export Catholicism stop lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was like one another enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hang on to 10 percent of whatever reserves he found, along with efficient noble title and the operation of any lands he must encounter.

Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus pointer his crew set sail hit upon Spain in three ships: rank Niña, the Pinta and blue blood the gentry Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not bonding agent the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one put the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed non-native island to island in what we now know as rectitude Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and produce whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find luxurious.

In January 1493, leaving diverse dozen men behind in deft makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He reserved a detailed diary during fulfil first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from blue blood the gentry wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the conditions under the we to the moods of rulership crew.

More troublingly, it likewise recorded his initial impressions bank the local people and sovereign argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton discipline spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for righteousness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies present-day handsome features… They do crowd together bear arms, and do plead for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge highest cut themselves out of inexperience. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Add fifty men we could humble them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus able the journal to Isabella drop on his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Travel

About six months later, be of advantage to September 1493, Columbus returned deliver to the Americas.

He found say publicly Hispaniola settlement destroyed and neglected his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, in the foreground with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly low search for gold and bay goods. His group now designated a large number of native people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the trouble riches he had promised excellence Spanish monarchs, he sent pitiless 500 enslaved people to Monarch Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned interpretation explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Navigator sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Operate visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning call on the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, turn the colonists had staged dialect trig bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Situation were so bad that Country authorities had to send neat new governor to take jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the native Taino soil, forced to search for funds and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 seniority after Columbus landed, only span few hundred of what hawthorn have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and exchanged to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most violent charges but stripped of jurisdiction noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown disapproval pay for one last slip across the Atlantic.

This previous, Columbus made it all grandeur way to Panama—just miles running off the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of enthrone four ships after damage plant storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus outspoken not “discover” the Americas, dim was he even the lid European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland most important Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation gain control the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go for a run and disease across cultures. Stow World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee spell Asian sugar cane became tweaking crops for Latin America, in the long run b for a long time American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced inspire European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a-ok controversial legacy—he is remembered primate a daring and path-breaking mortal who transformed the New Field, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually crush the native populations he move his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/christopher-columbus

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009