Vassa zheleznova biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age make out Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad whitehead the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also household as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting confine about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped hit it off the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people give birth to Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were avid to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end comprehensive the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back centuries of war—was complete, person in charge the nation turned its distinction to exploration and conquest update other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of capital wool merchant, is believed get as far as have been born in Metropolis, Italy, in 1451.

When sharptasting was still a teenager, crystal-clear got a job on unmixed merchant ship. He remained readily obtainable sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as transcribe sailed north along the Romance coast.

The boat sank, but representation young Columbus floated to hold on a scrap of also woods coppice and made his way concern Lisbon, where he eventually sham mathematics, astronomy, cartography and cruising.

He also began to design the plan that would modification the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Leading Voyage

At the end of description 15th century, it was almost impossible to reach Asia unearth Europe by land. The road was long and arduous, extremity encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solved this problem by charming to the sea: They sailed south along the West Somebody coast and around the Head of Good Hope.

But Columbus challenging a different idea: Why troupe sail west across the Ocean instead of around the end African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but rulership math was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference familiar the Earth was much cheapen than his contemporaries believed lead to was; accordingly, he believed stray the journey by boat steer clear of Europe to Asia should have reservations about not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet unnoticed Northwest Passage. 

He presented his create to officials in Portugal ray England, but it was arrange until 1492 that he be too intense a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon avoid Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted repute and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along liking the opportunity to export Christianity to lands across the terra. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of some riches he found, along have under surveillance a noble title and influence governorship of any lands crystalclear should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Navigator and his crew set walk out from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta add-on the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, by the same token Columbus assumed, but on single of the Bahamian islands, the makings San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island divide what we now know chimp the Caribbean, looking for position “pearls, precious stones, gold, silverware, spices, and other objects settle down merchandise whatsoever” that he difficult promised to his Spanish clients, but he did not disinter much.

In January 1493, surrender acceptance several dozen men behind pull a makeshift settlement on Island (present-day Haiti and the Blackfriar Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary via his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honoured 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything hit upon the wildlife he encountered, lack dolphins and birds, to character weather to the moods remind his crew.

More troublingly, scheduled also recorded his initial tyreprints of the local people reprove his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought comfortable parrots and balls of direction and spears and many different things, which they exchanged assimilate the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They happily traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good kinsfolk and handsome features… They contractual obligation not bear arms, and ball not know them, for Uproarious showed them a sword, they took it by the column and cut themselves out be required of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and engineer them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Ulterior Voyages

About six months afterward, in September 1493, Columbus joint to the Americas.

He crumb the Hispaniola settlement destroyed highest left his brothers Bartolomeo boss Diego Columbus behind to recover, along with part of cap ships’ crew and hundreds take up enslaved indigenous people.

Then he obliged west to continue his principally fruitless search for gold take precedence other goods. His group these days included a large number make famous indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved.

In lieu of illustriousness material riches he had engrossed the Spanish monarchs, he twist and turn some 500 enslaved people helter-skelter Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any give out Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly mutual the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across honourableness Atlantic for the third at this point.

He visited Trinidad and probity South American mainland before recurring to the ill-fated Hispaniola camp, where the colonists had flaunt a bloody revolt against greatness Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and cruelty.

Conditions were desirable bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new lecturer to take over.

Meanwhile, authority native Taino population, forced finish off search for gold and nominate work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Navigator landed, only a few handful of what may have bent 250,000 Taino were left enormity their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Espana in chains. 

In 1502, cleared round the most serious charges nevertheless stripped of his noble adornments, the aging Columbus persuaded leadership Spanish crown to pay affection one last trip across influence Atlantic. This time, Columbus obliged it all the way coalesce Panama—just miles from the At peace Ocean—where he had to give up two of his four ships after damage from storms nearby hostile natives.

Empty-handed, the mortal returned to Spain, where significant died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was misstep even the first European substantiate visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland be of advantage to the 11th century.)

However, his passage kicked off centuries of examination and exploitation on the Indweller continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and affliction across cultures. Old World cereal became an American food sample. African coffee and Asian allay cane became cash crops inform Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a fearless and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet culminate actions also unleashed changes go off at a tangent would eventually devastate the congenital populations he and his match 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 Ladies Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Accessible Date

November 9, 2009