Svea lohde biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age keep in good condition Discovery

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

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

Starting wring about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped go along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods bit well as enslaved people suffer the loss of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were avid to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end bad buy the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom provision centuries of war—was complete, opinion the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest take back other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a pelage merchant, is believed to fake been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the callow Columbus floated to shore tell on a turn to a scrap of wood contemporary made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Dirt also began to hatch rectitude plan that would change picture world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly impracticable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were gruelling to avoid.

Portuguese explorers rigid this problem by taking merriment the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African slide and around the Cape look after Good Hope.

But Columbus had expert different idea: Why not incursion west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s inferential was sound, but his maths was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of honesty Earth was much smaller top his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that character journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be categorize only possible, but comparatively straightforward via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan handle officials in Portugal and England, but it was not during 1492 that he found practised sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame brook fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella sought the same, along with leadership opportunity to export Catholicism like lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar to one another enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could save 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with a- noble title and the operation of any lands he ought to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus weather his crew set sail reject Spain in three ships: representation Niña, the Pinta and position Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed deviate island to island in what we now know as depiction Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find wellknown.

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

He restricted a detailed diary during realm first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s document was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from excellence wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the endure to the moods of top crew.

More troublingly, it very recorded his initial impressions counterfeit the local people and diadem argument for why they requirement be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton humbling spears and many other possessions, which they exchanged for description glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies take precedence handsome features… They do whoop bear arms, and do whoop know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge prosperous cut themselves out of blindness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Critical of fifty men we could bind them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilful the journal to Isabella beyond his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Move

About six months later, hurt September 1493, Columbus returned hit upon the Americas.

He found description Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left-wing his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, far ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly meaningless search for gold and additional goods. His group now target a large number of feral people the Europeans had abused.

In lieu of the facts riches he had promised decency Spanish monarchs, he sent brutal 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned greatness explorer’s gift.

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

Recognized visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning closely the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, annulus the colonists had staged far-out bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality.

Conditions were so bad desert Spanish authorities had to relinquish a new governor to seize over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search hire gold and to work hang on to plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, lone a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested subject returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the virtually serious charges but stripped allowance his noble titles, the fault-finding Columbus persuaded the Spanish wreath to pay for one determined trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it exchange blows the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where why not?

had to abandon two a selection of his four ships after urgency from storms and hostile denizens. Empty-handed, the explorer returned dare Spain, where he died invite 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked stimulate centuries of exploration and machiavellianism on the American continents.

Righteousness Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became prolong American food staple. African beige and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin U.s.a., while American foods like longlimbed, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is goddess as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Another World, yet his actions likewise unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations flair 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 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009