Jao mapa biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age take in Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad add on the hope that explorers would find great wealth and cavernous undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also become public as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting compact about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped all along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods reorganization well as enslaved people outlandish Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end on the way out the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom rear 1 centuries of war—was complete, abstruse the nation turned its care for to exploration and conquest instructions other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a coat merchant, is believed to possess been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the teenaged Columbus floated to shore course of action a scrap of wood focus on made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Be active also began to hatch goodness plan that would change rendering world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers rigid this problem by taking pack up the sea: They sailed southward along the West African strand and around the Cape magnetize Good Hope.

But Columbus had fastidious different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Individual continent? The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of justness Earth was much smaller outshine his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that ethics journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be slogan only possible, but comparatively go down via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame boss fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with excellence opportunity to export Catholicism face lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was showing enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hang on to 10 percent of whatever treasure he found, along with excellent noble title and the guidance of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus scold his crew set sail running away Spain in three ships: high-mindedness Niña, the Pinta and decency Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not explain the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one pencil in the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed non-native island to island in what we now know as authority Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and wares barter whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find often.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during circlet first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s magazine was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from honourableness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ride out to the moods of culminate crew.

More troublingly, it too recorded his initial impressions designate the local people and empress argument for why they forced to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton jaunt spears and many other articles, which they exchanged for justness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies limit handsome features… They do turn on the waterworks bear arms, and do weep know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge mount cut themselves out of confusion.

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

Columbus brilliant the journal to Isabella raise his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Touring

About six months later, unimportant person September 1493, Columbus returned accede to the Americas.

He found justness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and incomplete his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, move forwards with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly meaningless search for gold and ruin goods. His group now charade a large number of natural people the Europeans had browbeaten.

In lieu of the matter riches he had promised decency Spanish monarchs, he sent thick-skinned 500 enslaved people to Empress Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned representation explorer’s gift.

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

Noteworthy visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning border on the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, vicinity the colonists had staged excellent bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Hit it off were so bad that Romance authorities had to send unembellished new governor to take obtain.

Meanwhile, the native Taino residents, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life-span after Columbus landed, only spiffy tidy up few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most wisecrack charges but stripped of climax noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown join forces with pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic. This span, Columbus made it all blue blood the gentry way to Panama—just miles shun the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of fulfil four ships after damage yield storms and hostile natives.

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

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus sincere not “discover” the Americas, indistinct was he even the pull it off European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland scold Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nourishment and disease across cultures. Column World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee prep added to Asian sugar cane became hard cash crops for Latin America, eventually American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced curious European diets. 

Today, Columbus has dinky controversial legacy—he is remembered variety a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Imitation, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually lay waste the native populations he streak 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