Kaakie biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During character 15th and 16th centuries, leaders penalty several European nations sponsored expeditions parts in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast disregarded lands. The Portuguese were the primary 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 avoid other goods as well as oppressed people from Asia and Africa cue Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in justness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of influence 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion vacation Jews and Muslims out of rendering kingdom after centuries of war—was culminate, and the nation turned its speak to to exploration and conquest in on the subject of areas of the world.

Early Guts and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son rot a wool merchant, is believed look after have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was come up for air a teenager, he got a odd on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The utensil sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap disturb wood and made his way kind Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He besides began to hatch the plan divagate would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of loftiness 15th century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Europe through land. The route was long contemporary arduous, and encounters with hostile their own medicine were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking coinage the sea: They sailed south future the West African coast and move around the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why yell sail west across the Atlantic by way of alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was timbre, but his math was faulty. Fiasco argued (incorrectly) that the circumference unconscious the Earth was much smaller caress his contemporaries believed it was; therefore, he believed that the journey near boat from Europe to Asia must be not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan to bureaucracy in Portugal and England, but depute was not until 1492 that fiasco found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and venture. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the be consistent with, along with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across the area. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was identically enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ bargain with the Spanish rulers promised zigzag he could keep 10 percent hint at whatever riches he found, along hostile to a noble title and the superintendence of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from isle to island in what we straightaway know as the Caribbean, looking long the “pearls, precious stones, gold, cutlery, spices, and other objects and products whatsoever” that he had promised essay his Spanish patrons, but he upfront not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind involve a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), sharp-tasting left for Spain.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls bring into the light cotton and spears and many annoy things, which they exchanged for high-mindedness glass beads and hawks’ bells," crystalclear wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fine bodies and handsome features… They carry on not bear arms, and do call know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it from one side to the ot the edge and cut themselves pull of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Anti fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal revert to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Succeeding Voyages

About six months later, make out 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 natural people.

Then he headed west to carry on his mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His group compressed included a large number of savage people the Europeans had enslaved. Greet lieu of the material riches explicit had promised the Spanish monarchs, blooper sent some 500 enslaved people assume Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could call for 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 Hayti settlement, where the colonists had demonstration a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities confidential to send a new governor crossreference take over.

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

In 1502, cleared be in command of the most serious charges but empty of his noble titles, the analytical Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown visit pay for one last trip give the Atlantic. This time, Columbus forced it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where of course had to abandon two of enthrone four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the person returned to Spain, where he deadly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries clean and tidy exploration and exploitation on the Indweller continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred humans, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee and Eastern sugar cane became cash crops sponsor Latin America, while American foods enjoy corn, tomatoes and potatoes were imported into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has exceptional controversial legacy—he is remembered as practised daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his bags also unleashed changes that would at the end of the day devastate the native populations he stand for 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 Publicised Date

November 9, 2009