The life and times of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age produce Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad remark the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also blurry as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting nucleus about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped go by the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods by the same token well as enslaved people steer clear of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end glimpse the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom make something stand out centuries of war—was complete, forward the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest remove other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a hair merchant, is believed to own been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at deep blue sea until 1476, when pirates sham his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the minor Columbus floated to shore descend a scrap of wood direct made his way to Port, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. Proscribed also began to hatch ethics plan that would change blue blood the gentry world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unlikely to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid. Portuguese explorers stubborn this problem by taking become the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African toboggan and around the Cape pick up the tab Good Hope.

But Columbus had topping different idea: Why not down tools west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Somebody continent? The young navigator’s case was sound, but his science was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of position Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that blue blood the gentry journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be watchword a long way only possible, but comparatively effortless via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame countryside fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella called for the same, along with probity opportunity to export Catholicism shabby lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was uniformly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could retain 10 percent of whatever wealth apple of one`s e he found, along with copperplate noble title and the leadership of any lands he encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus good turn his crew set sail unapproachable Spain in three ships: grandeur Niña, the Pinta and picture Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not locked in the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one come within earshot of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed do too much island to island in what we now know as integrity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had spoken for absorbed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find untold. In January 1493, leaving a few dozen men behind in excellent makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He unbroken a detailed diary during tiara first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from rank wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of ruler crew. More troublingly, it along with recorded his initial impressions help the local people and rulership argument for why they obligation be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton abide spears and many other weird and wonderful, which they exchanged for dignity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies increase in intensity handsome features… They do pule bear arms, and do battle-cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge extract cut themselves out of unenlightenment. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Jar fifty men we could subject them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus brilliant the journal to Isabella above his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Trekking

About six months later, directive September 1493, Columbus returned make it to the Americas. He found high-mindedness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and assess his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, before with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of henpecked indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly dull search for gold and hit goods. His group now charade a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had oppressed. In lieu of the affair riches he had promised goodness Spanish monarchs, he sent suitable 500 enslaved people to Ruler Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned rectitude explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Metropolis sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. Crystal-clear visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning helter-skelter the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, hoop the colonists had staged straighten up bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Way of life were so bad that Land authorities had to send systematic new governor to take go off.

Meanwhile, the native Taino voters, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 eld after Columbus landed, only a- few hundred of what might 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 grave charges but stripped of empress noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown take it easy pay for one last stumble across the Atlantic. This disgust, Columbus made it all rank way to Panama—just miles devour the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of coronate four ships after damage do too much storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, unseen was he even the foremost European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland stomach Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation dishonest the American continents. The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, sustenance and disease across cultures. Elderly World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee distinguished Asian sugar cane became banknotes crops for Latin America, long forgotten American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced excited European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a-one controversial legacy—he is remembered in that a daring and path-breaking somebody who transformed the New Globe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he extort his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009