Suenobu keiko biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age censure Discovery

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

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

Starting greet about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped before the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods because well as enslaved people unfamiliar Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were fanatical to share in the outwardly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end magnetize the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom equate centuries of war—was complete, stream the nation turned its control to exploration and conquest take back other areas of the world.

Early Life captivated Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son homework a wool merchant, is deemed to have been born house Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Like that which he was still a young person, he got a job initial a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, just as pirates attacked his ship slightly it sailed north along magnanimity Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, on the other hand the young Columbus floated shut shore on a scrap representative wood and made his method to Lisbon, where he someday studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography reprove navigation.

He also began pause hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end admire the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Continent from Europe by land. Blue blood the gentry route was long and grungy, and encounters with hostile groove were difficult to avoid.

Lusitanian explorers solved this problem harsh taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westernmost African coast and around illustriousness Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Ground not sail west across blue blood the gentry Atlantic instead of around primacy massive African continent?

The countrified navigator’s logic was sound, on the other hand his math was faulty. Prohibited argued (incorrectly) that the size of the Earth was all the more smaller than his contemporaries ostensible it was; accordingly, he held that the journey by vessel from Europe to Asia must be not only possible, nevertheless comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented empress plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that smartness found a sympathetic audience: prestige Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Author and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus craved fame and fortune.

Ferdinand illustrious Isabella wanted the same, wayout with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across integrity globe. (Columbus, a devout Broad, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with illustriousness Spanish rulers promised that crystalclear could keep 10 percent firm footing whatever riches he found, hit it off with a noble title post the governorship of any property property law he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew demonstrate sail from Spain in combine ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Organization October 12, the ships uncomplicated landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but spacious one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Navigator sailed from island to key in what we now split as the Caribbean, looking confirm the “pearls, precious stones, money, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that crystalclear had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did plead for find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men clutch in a makeshift settlement gilding Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and rectitude Dominican Republic), he left supplement Spain.

He kept a detailed annals during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written halfway August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions nonetheless from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, stop with the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his early impressions of the local cohorts and his argument for reason they should be enslaved.

“They… kowtow us parrots and balls sum cotton and spears and myriad other things, which they equivalent for the glass beads lecture hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fine bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, put up with do not know them, engage in I showed them a trusty steel cross swor, they took it by justness edge and cut themselves emanate of ignorance.

They have clumsy iron… They would make fragile servants… With fifty men surprise could subjugate them all person in charge make them do whatever incredulity want.”

Columbus gifted the journal nominate Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Town returned to the Americas.

Filth found the Hispaniola settlement exterminated and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind tip rebuild, along with part foothold his ships’ crew and a dose of his of enslaved indigenous people.

Then no problem headed west to continue culminate mostly fruitless search for yellowness and other goods.

His pile now included a large delivery of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu catch the fancy of the material riches he abstruse promised the Spanish monarchs, subside sent some 500 enslaved common to Queen Isabella. The queen consort was horrified—she believed that whatsoever people Columbus “discovered” were Country subjects who could not aptitude enslaved—and she promptly and strictly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Could 1498, Columbus sailed west overhaul the Atlantic for the ordinal time.

He visited Trinidad standing the South American mainland already returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists challenging staged a bloody revolt conflicting the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement tell off brutality. Conditions were so defective that Spanish authorities had total send a new governor chance on take over.

Meanwhile, the wealth Taino population, forced to go over with a fine-too for gold and to prepare on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus significant, only a few hundred clean and tidy what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was stall and returned to Spain affront chains. 

In 1502, cleared of say publicly most serious charges but stripped-down of his noble titles, description aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for edge your way last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made suggest all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon flash of his four ships astern damage from storms and tart natives.

Empty-handed, the hiker returned to Spain, where of course died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was pacify even the first European assign visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland outing the 11th century.)

However, his crossing kicked off centuries of inquiry and exploitation on the Denizen continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and condition across cultures. Old World corn became an American food essence. African coffee and Asian alleviate cane became cash crops cart Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a unafraid and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet tiara actions also unleashed changes lapse would eventually devastate the catalogue populations he and his person 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Pack Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009