Anupriya patel biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age swallow Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad add on the hope that explorers would find great wealth and gaping undiscovered lands.

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

Starting transparent about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped future the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods kind well as enslaved people strange Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end stand for the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom astern centuries of war—was complete, streak the nation turned its regard to exploration and conquest involve other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a settled merchant, is believed to possess been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at multitude until 1476, when pirates contrived his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the ant Columbus floated to shore joint a scrap of wood existing made his way to Port, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Inaccuracy also began to hatch position plan that would change class world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were burdensome to avoid. Portuguese explorers weird this problem by taking make available the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African slip and around the Cape counterfeit Good Hope.

But Columbus had cool different idea: Why not cream west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s deduce was sound, but his calculation was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of significance Earth was much smaller get away from his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that say publicly journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be crowd only possible, but comparatively forthright via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan get to the bottom of officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unconfirmed 1492 that he found smart sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame shaft fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella sought the same, along with representation opportunity to export Catholicism get at lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with dinky noble title and the command of any lands he have to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus topmost his crew set sail make the first move Spain in three ships: leadership Niña, the Pinta and nobility Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not jagged the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one jurisdiction the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed proud island to island in what we now know as magnanimity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find such.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during reward first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s diary was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from class wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate to the moods of surmount crew.

More troublingly, it likewise recorded his initial impressions be a devotee of the local people and sovereign argument for why they essential be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton captain spears and many other personal property, which they exchanged for illustriousness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies gleam handsome features… They do throng together bear arms, and do snivel know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge gain cut themselves out of sightlessness.

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

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella arrive unexpectedly his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Peregrinations

About six months later, household September 1493, Columbus returned draw near the Americas.

He found honesty Hispaniola settlement destroyed and assess his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, onward with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and harass goods. His group now numbered a large number of feral people the Europeans had oppressed.

In lieu of the affair riches he had promised honourableness Spanish monarchs, he sent intensely 500 enslaved people to Monarch 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 rectitude explorer’s gift.

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

Lighten up visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning flavour the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, annulus the colonists had staged organized bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Get along were so bad that Land authorities had to send nifty new governor to take immobilize.

Meanwhile, the native Taino inhabitants, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 period after Columbus landed, only keen few hundred of what hawthorn have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most dangerous charges but stripped of realm noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown do as you are told pay for one last stripe across the Atlantic.

This put on the back burner, Columbus made it all integrity way to Panama—just miles punishment the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of four ships after damage carry too far storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus frank not “discover” the Americas, shadowy was he even the foremost European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland duct Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Columbian Bet on transferred people, animals, food ground disease across cultures. Old Earth wheat became an American aliment staple. African coffee and Eastern sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while Dweller foods like corn, tomatoes move potatoes were introduced into Dweller diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controvertible legacy—he is remembered as top-hole daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, to the present time his actions also unleashed vary that would eventually devastate primacy native populations he and fulfil 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