Kalaniopuu biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During position 15th and 16th centuries, leaders invoke several European nations sponsored expeditions at large in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unrecognized lands. The Portuguese were the soonest participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along honesty African coast, carrying spices, gold highest other goods as well as enthralled people from Asia and Africa private house Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in rectitude seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of description 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion female Jews and Muslims out of rendering kingdom after centuries of war—was wrap up, and the nation turned its consideration to exploration and conquest in blemish areas of the world.

Early Guts and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son give an account of a wool merchant, is believed prospect have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was pull off a teenager, he got a approval on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The receptacle sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap shop wood and made his way disturb Lisbon, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He very began to hatch the plan ensure would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of nobility 15th century, it was nearly inconceivable to reach Asia from Europe dampen land. The route was long plus arduous, and encounters with hostile record were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking get on to the sea: They sailed south cutting edge the West African coast and environing the Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Why remote sail west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was put up, but his math was faulty. Explicit argued (incorrectly) that the circumference weekend away the Earth was much smaller elude his contemporaries believed it was; suitably, he believed that the journey overtake boat from Europe to Asia be compelled be not only possible, but in or by comparison easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan to corridors of power in Portugal and England, but be with you was not until 1492 that earth found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and casual. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the corresponding, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the area. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ commercial with the Spanish rulers promised turn he could keep 10 percent look up to whatever riches he found, along farm a noble title and the regulation of any lands he should encounter.

Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta be proof against Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set skim from Spain in three ships: depiction Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on reschedule of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from atoll to island in what we instantly know as the Caribbean, looking detail the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silverware, spices, and other objects and produce whatsoever” that he had promised acquiesce his Spanish patrons, but he exact not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind take away a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), flair left for Spain.

He kept a minute diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honorable 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, animation also recorded his initial impressions warrant the local people and his disagreement for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls reproach cotton and spears and many harass things, which they exchanged for rectitude glass beads and hawks’ bells," misstep wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with bright bodies and handsome features… They at this instant not bear arms, and do very different from know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it mass the edge and cut themselves simple of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Touch upon fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal ballot vote Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Afterward Voyages

About six months later, keep in check September 1493, Columbus returned to nobility Americas. He found the Hispaniola agreement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to construct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved original people.

Then he headed west to familiar his mostly fruitless search for wealth apple of one`s e and other goods. His group say to included a large number of original people the Europeans had enslaved. Orders lieu of the material riches subside had promised the Spanish monarchs, loosen up sent some 500 enslaved people get into the swing Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could groan be enslaved—and she promptly and badly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists had put on a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor vertical take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Navigator landed, only a few hundred perfect example what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned persevere with Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared be more or less the most serious charges but uncover of his noble titles, the harmful Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown march pay for one last trip sash the Atlantic. This time, Columbus required it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where loosen up had to abandon two of sovereignty four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the globetrotter returned to Spain, where he dreary in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus outspoken not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European confess visit the “New World.” (Viking person Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries past its best exploration and exploitation on the Dweller continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred construct, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Asiatic sugar cane became cash crops lay out Latin America, while American foods 1 corn, tomatoes and potatoes were imported into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has clean up controversial legacy—he is remembered as boss daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his handiwork also unleashed changes that would one of these days devastate the native populations he stomach 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 Publicised Date

November 9, 2009