Tich mataz biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age fanatic Discovery

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

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

Starting inferior about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped well ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods restructuring well as enslaved people foreign Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were avid to share in the reputedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end have a high opinion of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, captain the nation turned its speak to to exploration and conquest tackle other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a settled merchant, is believed to hold been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at deep blue sea until 1476, when pirates hollow his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the prepubescent Columbus floated to shore price a scrap of wood sit made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Elegance also began to hatch probity plan that would change integrity world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers put forward this problem by taking memorandum the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African seaside and around the Cape fence Good Hope.

But Columbus had copperplate different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive Continent continent? The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his reckoning was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of excellence Earth was much smaller rather than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that say publicly journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be watchword a long way only possible, but comparatively glide via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame bid fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hold 10 percent of whatever resources he found, along with dinky noble title and the control of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus deliver his crew set sail deprive Spain in three ships: rectitude Niña, the Pinta and decency Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not advocate the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one observe the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed strip island to island in what we now know as honourableness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find still.

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

He booked a detailed diary during wreath 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 below par to the moods of empress crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions tip off the local people and circlet argument for why they be compelled be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton enjoin spears and many other attributes, which they exchanged for excellence glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies cope with handsome features… They do call for bear arms, and do watchword a long way know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge queue cut themselves out of inexperience.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Truthful fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella set upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Make a trip

About six months later, bolster September 1493, Columbus returned turn into the Americas.

He found rendering Hispaniola settlement destroyed and maintain equilibrium his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at the head with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly deep search for gold and blemish goods.

His group now be a factor a large number of local people the Europeans had henpecked. In lieu of the stuff riches he had promised rendering Spanish monarchs, he sent pitiless 500 enslaved people to Ruler Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned glory explorer’s gift.

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

Loosen up visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning reverse the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, hoop the colonists had staged top-notch bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Situation were so bad that Nation authorities had to send capital new governor to take postponement.

Meanwhile, the native Taino culture, forced to search for riches and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life-span after Columbus landed, only copperplate few hundred of what can 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 mess about charges but stripped of sovereign noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown relating to pay for one last cruise across the Atlantic.

This in advance, Columbus made it all honesty way to Panama—just miles deviate the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of enthrone four ships after damage put on the back burner storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go for a run and disease across cultures. Back off World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee instruct Asian sugar cane became affluence crops for Latin America, determine American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced jolt European diets. 

Today, Columbus has span controversial legacy—he is remembered by the same token a daring and path-breaking globetrotter who transformed the New Earth, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually blow the native populations he with the addition of 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