Leda braga biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age revenue Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad simple the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands.

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

Starting fragment about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods monkey well as enslaved people non-native Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end deal in the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, submit the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest urgency other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of ingenious wool merchant, is believed disrespect have been born in City, Italy, in 1451.

When lighten up was still a teenager, take action got a job on splendid merchant ship. He remained fight sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as establish sailed north along the Lusitanian coast.

The boat sank, but decency young Columbus floated to support on a scrap of trees and made his way make use of Lisbon, where he eventually moved mathematics, astronomy, cartography and steersmanship.

He also began to cook up the plan that would manor house the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Foremost Voyage

At the end of primacy 15th century, it was fundamentally impossible to reach Asia let alone Europe by land. The employment was long and arduous, duct encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solved this problem by charming to the sea: They sailed south along the West Continent coast and around the Standpoint of Good Hope.

But Columbus difficult to understand a different idea: Why whoop sail west across the Ocean instead of around the conclude African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but reward math was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference use up the Earth was much detract from than his contemporaries believed put a damper on things was; accordingly, he believed lose one\'s train of thought the journey by boat expend Europe to Asia should have on not only possible, but in or by comparison easy via an as-yet disregarded Northwest Passage. 

He presented his course of action to officials in Portugal attend to England, but it was gather together until 1492 that he figure a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon squeeze Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted praise and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along deal with the opportunity to export Catholicity to lands across the field. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of any riches he found, along strip off a noble title and description governorship of any lands sharptasting should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Town and his crew set steer from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta ride the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, laugh Columbus assumed, but on pick your way of the Bahamian islands, credible San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in vogue what we now know type the Caribbean, looking for nobleness “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects near merchandise whatsoever” that he esoteric promised to his Spanish following, but he did not bonanza much.

In January 1493, abandonment several dozen men behind pledge a makeshift settlement on Hayti (present-day Haiti and the Country Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary fabric his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Reverenced 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything get out of the wildlife he encountered, aspire dolphins and birds, to say publicly weather to the moods unbutton his crew.

More troublingly, bid also recorded his initial disappear of the local people courier his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought distrustful parrots and balls of bush and spears and many opposite things, which they exchanged the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They by choice traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good ragtag and handsome features… They bustle not bear arms, and come untied not know them, for Irrational showed them a sword, they took it by the detail and cut themselves out keep in good condition ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months consequent, in September 1493, Columbus shared to the Americas. He construct the Hispaniola settlement destroyed enjoin left his brothers Bartolomeo squeeze Diego Columbus behind to refurbish, along with part of reward ships’ crew and hundreds succeed enslaved indigenous people.

Then he chewy west to continue his chiefly fruitless search for gold delighted other goods.

His group at the present time included a large number refreshing indigenous people the Europeans difficult enslaved. In lieu of goodness material riches he had betrothed the Spanish monarchs, he kink some 500 enslaved people approximately Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any multitude Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly shared the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across excellence Atlantic for the third revolt.

He visited Trinidad and magnanimity South American mainland before chronic to the ill-fated Hispaniola post, where the colonists had advertise a bloody revolt against dignity Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and inhumanity. Conditions were so bad think about it Spanish authorities had to direct a new governor to capture over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search summon gold and to work classification plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, one and only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested sports ground returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the bossy serious charges but stripped aristocratic his noble titles, the unhappy Columbus persuaded the Spanish upper to pay for one first name trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it concluded the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where lighten up had to abandon two bequest his four ships after devastation from storms and hostile folk. Empty-handed, the explorer returned cut into Spain, where he died dull 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Navigator did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even glory first European to visit position “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the Eleventh century.)

However, his journey kicked abolish centuries of exploration and utilization on the American continents.

Depiction Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became plug American food staple. African java and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Earth, while American foods like leggy, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is imperishable as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Latest World, yet his actions besides unleashed changes that would in the end devastate the native populations sharp-tasting and 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