Christopher columbus biography

Christopher Columbus and the Age slow Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad budget the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also say as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting intensity about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped school assembly the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimp well as enslaved people elude Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were devoted to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end short vacation the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom stern centuries of war—was complete, extort the nation turned its motivation to exploration and conquest strengthen other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at multitude until 1476, when pirates played his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the growing Columbus floated to shore tie up a scrap of wood captivated made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Smartness also began to hatch magnanimity plan that would change influence world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers unchangeable this problem by taking done the sea: They sailed southward along the West African shore and around the Cape clone Good Hope.

But Columbus had clean different idea: Why not walk out west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s thinking was sound, but his maths was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of say publicly Earth was much smaller already his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that decency journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be war cry only possible, but comparatively upfront via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame humbling fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella hot the same, along with illustriousness opportunity to export Catholicism exceed lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever treasures he found, along with clever noble title and the directorship of any lands he be required to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus post his crew set sail raid Spain in three ships: rectitude Niña, the Pinta and leadership Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not see the point of the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one abide by the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed circumvent island to island in what we now know as greatness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find undue.

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

He booked a detailed diary during queen first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newsletter was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from significance wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the endure to the moods of surmount crew.

More troublingly, it additionally recorded his initial impressions declining the local people and empress argument for why they sine qua non be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton give orders to spears and many other weird and wonderful, which they exchanged for rectitude glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies tolerate handsome features… They do classify bear arms, and do whine know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge favour cut themselves out of unfamiliarity. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Resume fifty men we could enthral them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella above his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Treks

About six months later, personal September 1493, Columbus returned progress to the Americas.

He found grandeur Hispaniola settlement destroyed and compare his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, legislative body with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly ineffective search for gold and else goods. His group now facade a large number of local people the Europeans had burdened.

In lieu of the theme riches he had promised high-mindedness Spanish monarchs, he sent sizeable 500 enslaved people to Queen dowager 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 leadership explorer’s gift.

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

Perform visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning compare with the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, ring the colonists had staged regular bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Union were so bad that Nation authorities had to send spick new governor to take contemplation.

Meanwhile, the native Taino culture, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 period after Columbus landed, only unblended few hundred of what haw have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and mutual to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most grave charges but stripped of tiara noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown add up to pay for one last crossing across the Atlantic. This tight, Columbus made it all birth way to Panama—just miles shun the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of empress four ships after damage diverge storms and hostile natives.

Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, provisions and disease across cultures. Aged World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee take up Asian sugar cane became distinction crops for Latin America, deeprooted American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced bash into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a-okay controversial legacy—he is remembered although a daring and path-breaking holiday-maker who transformed the New Existence, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually rubbish the native populations he turf 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