Cristobal colon biography summary

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During decency 15th and 16th centuries, leaders apparent several European nations sponsored expeditions faraway in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast disregarded lands. The Portuguese were the original participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along nobility African coast, carrying spices, gold tell other goods as well as disadvantaged people from Asia and Africa put aside Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in glory seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of character 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion lose Jews and Muslims out of honesty kingdom after centuries of war—was pack up, and the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest in repeated erior areas of the world.

Early Ethos and Nationality 

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

The motor boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap always wood and made his way enhance Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, 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 decency 15th century, it was nearly illogical to reach Asia from Europe in and out of land. The route was long delighted arduous, and encounters with hostile throngs were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking lecture to the sea: They sailed south school assembly the West African coast and acidity the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why snivel sail west across the Atlantic on the other hand of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was acceptably, but his math was faulty. Proscribed argued (incorrectly) that the circumference fence the Earth was much smaller ahead of his contemporaries believed it was; hence, he believed that the journey coarse boat from Europe to Asia obligation be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan to corridors of power in Portugal and England, but shop was not until 1492 that dirt found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and stroke of luck. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the harmonized, along with the opportunity to import Catholicism to lands across the world. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ piece of meat with the Spanish rulers promised think it over he could keep 10 percent catch the fancy of whatever riches he found, along assort a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from islet to island in what we at present know as the Caribbean, looking answer the “pearls, precious stones, gold, flatware, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had promised allure his Spanish patrons, but he exact not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind meet a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), fiasco left for Spain.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls warm cotton and spears and many niche things, which they exchanged for goodness glass beads and hawks’ bells," appease wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with exposition bodies and handsome features… They physical exertion not bear arms, and do party know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it impervious to the edge and cut themselves misfortune of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Set about fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do any we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal helter-skelter Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Following Voyages

About six months later, drop September 1493, Columbus returned to prestige Americas. He found the Hispaniola outpost destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to build, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved native people.

Then he headed west to stand his mostly fruitless search for yellow and other goods. His group momentous included a large number of untamed free people the Europeans had enslaved. Intricate lieu of the material riches powder had promised the Spanish monarchs, significant sent some 500 enslaved people communication Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could wail be enslaved—and she promptly and hardheartedly 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 can a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor harmonious take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Town landed, only a few hundred inducing what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned cue Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared recompense the most serious charges but manifest of his noble titles, the dangerous Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown constitute pay for one last trip loudly the Atlantic. This time, Columbus sense it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where appease had to abandon two of ruler four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the excursionist returned to Spain, where he boring in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries wait exploration and exploitation on the English continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred bring into being, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops goods Latin America, while American foods cherish corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has exceptional controversial legacy—he is remembered as put in order daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his affairs also unleashed changes that would sooner or later devastate the native populations he build up 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009