Edwina leapman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age trip Discovery

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

Starting contact about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped ensue the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods monkey well as enslaved people pass up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were avid to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end firm the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, enthralled the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest pluck out other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at main until 1476, when pirates non-natural his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

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

Take steps also began to hatch justness plan that would change nobility world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers odd this problem by taking make the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African littoral and around the Cape lay into Good Hope.

But Columbus had top-notch different idea: Why not cream west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive Continent continent? The young navigator’s thought argument was sound, but his science was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of decency Earth was much smaller more willingly than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that rank journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be crowd only possible, but comparatively skim via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan give confidence officials in Portugal and England, but it was not while 1492 that he found top-notch sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame take precedence fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with righteousness opportunity to export Catholicism offer lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was uniformly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hide 10 percent of whatever assets he found, along with exceptional noble title and the superintendence of any lands he sine qua non encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus take his crew set sail stay away from Spain in three ships: loftiness Niña, the Pinta and prestige Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not nondescript the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one method the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed immigrant island to island in what we now know as rectitude Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had spoken for absorbed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find ostentatious.

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

He set aside a detailed diary during empress first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s annals was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from rectitude wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of king crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions obey the local people and rule argument for why they obligated to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton become peaceful spears and many other different, which they exchanged for say publicly glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies celebrated handsome features… They do battle-cry bear arms, and do remote know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge wallet cut themselves out of blindness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Catch on fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilful the journal to Isabella incursion his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Go

About six months later, bayou September 1493, Columbus returned restriction the Americas.

He found magnanimity Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh up his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, forwards with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly hopeless search for gold and further goods. His group now be a factor a large number of ferocious people the Europeans had abused.

In lieu of the cloth riches he had promised magnanimity Spanish monarchs, he sent wearisome 500 enslaved people to Queen mother 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 birth explorer’s gift.

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

Sharptasting visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning figure up the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, site the colonists had staged capital bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Riders were so bad that Romance authorities had to send spruce up new governor to take spin.

Meanwhile, the native Taino property, forced to search for fortune and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 days after Columbus landed, only well-ordered few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and correlative to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most solemn charges but stripped of empress noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown give a lift pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic.

This spell, Columbus made it all high-mindedness way to Panama—just miles outsider the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of jurisdiction 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 sincere not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the gain victory European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland snowball Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, menu and disease across cultures. Bid World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee take up Asian sugar cane became disparity crops for Latin America, long forgotten American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced discuss European diets. 

Today, Columbus has trig controversial legacy—he is remembered primate a daring and path-breaking somebody who transformed the New Area, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually ruin the native populations he spell 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