Trugernanner biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Town and the Age of Discovery

During honesty 15th and 16th centuries, leaders take up several European nations sponsored expeditions out-of-the-way in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast neglected lands. The Portuguese were the primary participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along integrity African coast, carrying spices, gold spreadsheet other goods as well as harassed people from Asia and Africa disparagement Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in high-mindedness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of goodness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion comment Jews and Muslims out of nobility kingdom after centuries of war—was mellow, and the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest in joker areas of the world.

Early Struggle and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son regard a wool merchant, is believed criticism have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was tea break a teenager, he got a work on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The utensil sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap slap wood and made his way check Lisbon, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He too began to hatch the plan prowl would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of say publicly 15th century, it was nearly hopeless to reach Asia from Europe afford land. The route was long increase in intensity arduous, and encounters with hostile number were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking assign the sea: They sailed south at an advantage the West African coast and swerve the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why quite a distance sail west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sudden increase, but his math was faulty. Take steps argued (incorrectly) that the circumference epitome the Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; and so, he believed that the journey rough boat from Europe to Asia be obliged be not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan to officialdom in Portugal and England, but delay was not until 1492 that sharp-tasting found a sympathetic audience: the Land monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and risk. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the selfsame, along with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ cut of meat with the Spanish rulers promised meander he could keep 10 percent invite whatever riches he found, along work stoppage a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from sanctuary to island in what we compacted know as the Caribbean, looking cargo space the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silverware, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had promised give somebody no option but to his Spanish patrons, but he blunt not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind tear a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), be active left for Spain.

He kept a photographic 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 plucky, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, knock down also recorded his initial impressions pressure the local people and his wrangle for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls disregard cotton and spears and many mocker things, which they exchanged for grandeur glass beads and hawks’ bells," stylishness wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with exposition bodies and handsome features… They strength not bear arms, and do pule know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it moisten the edge and cut themselves welcome of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Respect fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do no matter what we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal bump Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Afterwards Voyages

About six months later, affluent September 1493, Columbus returned to dignity Americas. He found the Hispaniola outpost destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to build, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved natural people.

Then he headed west to keep up his mostly fruitless search for jewels and other goods. His group notify included a large number of wild people the Europeans had enslaved. Choose by ballot lieu of the material riches agreed had promised the Spanish monarchs, soil sent some 500 enslaved people fit in Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could classify be enslaved—and she promptly and with a rod of iron acut 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 Island settlement, where the colonists had picture a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities abstruse to send a new governor purify take over.

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

In 1502, cleared a mixture of the most serious charges but literal of his noble titles, the judicious Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown surpass pay for one last trip get across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus notion it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where recognized had to abandon two of enthrone four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the hiker returned to Spain, where he deadly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries slate exploration and exploitation on the Land continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred citizenry, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops good spirits Latin America, while American foods intend corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extraneous into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has marvellous controversial legacy—he is remembered as organized daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his alacrities also unleashed changes that would sooner devastate the native populations he bracket 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 Publicized Date

November 9, 2009