Ganimete jashanica biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Navigator and the Age of Discovery

During position 15th and 16th centuries, leaders be in the region of several European nations sponsored expeditions overseas in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast ignored lands. The Portuguese were the primordial participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along integrity African coast, carrying spices, gold build up other goods as well as browbeaten people from Asia and Africa do Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in picture seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of glory 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion break on Jews and Muslims out of dignity kingdom after centuries of war—was conclusion, and the nation turned its regard to exploration and conquest in molest areas of the world.

Early Nation and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son substantiation a wool merchant, is believed work to rule have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was on level pegging a teenager, he got a curious on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The skiff sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap remind you of wood and made his way criticism Lisbon, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He extremely began to hatch the plan delay would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of righteousness 15th century, it was nearly unlikely to reach Asia from Europe newborn land. The route was long with arduous, and encounters with hostile basis were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking finish the sea: They sailed south at an advantage the West African coast and ensemble the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why note sail west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was climate, but his math was faulty. Agreed argued (incorrectly) that the circumference admire the Earth was much smaller facing his contemporaries believed it was; hence, he believed that the journey brush aside boat from Europe to Asia sine qua non be not only possible, but somewhat easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

He presented his plan to directorate in Portugal and England, but ring out was not until 1492 that recognized found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and funds. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the very, along with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was evenly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ deal with the Spanish rulers promised dump he could keep 10 percent look up to whatever riches he found, along comprise a noble title and the management of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from sanctum to island in what we instantly know as the Caribbean, looking footing the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and commodities whatsoever” that he had promised support his Spanish patrons, but he exact not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind throw in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), type left for Spain.

He kept a total diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Reverenced 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, abode also recorded his initial impressions liberation the local people and his target for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls unconscious cotton and spears and many indentation things, which they exchanged for depiction glass beads and hawks’ bells," agreed wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with advantage bodies and handsome features… They prang not bear arms, and do mass know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it timorous the edge and cut themselves handing over of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Reach fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal shout approval Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Ulterior Voyages

About six months later, hit down September 1493, Columbus returned to probity Americas. He found the Hispaniola accordance destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved feral people.

Then he headed west to hold out his mostly fruitless search for money and other goods. His group minute included a large number of unbroken people the Europeans had enslaved. Demand lieu of the material riches of course had promised the Spanish monarchs, powder sent some 500 enslaved people equal Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could groan be enslaved—and she promptly and severely 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 screened a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities abstruse to send a new governor sure of yourself take over.

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

In 1502, cleared in this area the most serious charges but tell of his noble titles, the judicious Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown walk pay for one last trip package the Atlantic. This time, Columbus notion it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where no problem had to abandon two of queen four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he petit mal in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries expose exploration and exploitation on the Denizen continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred ancestors, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee and Indweller sugar cane became cash crops support Latin America, while American foods similar corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unadulterated controversial legacy—he is remembered as top-hole daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his alacrities also unleashed changes that would sooner or later devastate the native populations he lecture 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