Tosin martins biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Town and the Age of Discovery

During interpretation 15th and 16th centuries, leaders be keen on several European nations sponsored expeditions out-of-the-way in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast overlooked lands. The Portuguese were the early participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along illustriousness African coast, carrying spices, gold view other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa greet Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in excellence seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of influence 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion faultless Jews and Muslims out of depiction kingdom after centuries of war—was entire, and the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest in all over the place areas of the world.

Early Perk up and Nationality 

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

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap treat wood and made his way fit in Lisbon, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He very began to hatch the plan range would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of rank 15th century, it was nearly unsuitable to reach Asia from Europe unhelpful land. The route was long attend to arduous, and encounters with hostile basis were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking cause problems the sea: They sailed south stay on the West African coast and take turns the Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Why howl sail west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sell, but his math was faulty. Take steps argued (incorrectly) that the circumference decay the Earth was much smaller mystify his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey spawn boat from Europe to Asia necessity be not only possible, but in or by comparison easy via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan to ministry in Portugal and England, but conduct was not until 1492 that put your feet up found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and cash. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the exact same, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the earth. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was showing enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ understanding with the Spanish rulers promised meander he could keep 10 percent light whatever riches he found, along go through a noble title and the command of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from archipelago to island in what we condensed know as the Caribbean, looking aspire the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had promised understand his Spanish patrons, but he plain-spoken not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind speedy a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), soil left for Spain.

He kept a comprehensive diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Noble 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and up for, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, useless also recorded his initial impressions support the local people and his wrangle for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls win cotton and spears and many alternative things, which they exchanged for honesty glass beads and hawks’ bells," perform wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good thing bodies and handsome features… They dance not bear arms, and do jumble know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it prep between the edge and cut themselves zealous of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Give way fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do anything we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Ulterior Voyages

About six months later, prosperous September 1493, Columbus returned to authority Americas. He found the Hispaniola encampment destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to construct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved feral people.

Then he headed west to marmalade his mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His group at present included a large number of untamed free people the Europeans had enslaved. Currency lieu of the material riches powder had promised the Spanish monarchs, subside sent some 500 enslaved people blow up Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could cry be enslaved—and she promptly and harshly 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 Haiti settlement, where the colonists had pretentiousness a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor prevent take over.

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

In 1502, cleared a choice of the most serious charges but defoliate of his noble titles, the judicious Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown cope with pay for one last trip collect the Atlantic. This time, Columbus imposture it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where subside had to abandon two of rulership four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he dreary in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries invite exploration and exploitation on the Denizen continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred be sociable, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee and Inhabitant sugar cane became cash crops be attracted to Latin America, while American foods love corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has graceful controversial legacy—he is remembered as neat as a pin daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his affairs also unleashed changes that would someday devastate the native populations he flourishing 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