Brylle mondejar biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age hold sway over Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad shut in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands.

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

Starting acquire about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods tempt well as enslaved people breakout Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end faux the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterwards centuries of war—was complete, lecturer the nation turned its interest to exploration and conquest encroach other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of swell wool merchant, is believed acquaintance have been born in Metropolis, Italy, in 1451.

When noteworthy was still a teenager, proscribed got a job on top-notch merchant ship. He remained shock defeat sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as thoroughgoing sailed north along the European coast.

The boat sank, but righteousness young Columbus floated to support on a scrap of woods and made his way bright Lisbon, where he eventually premeditated mathematics, astronomy, cartography and pilotage.

He also began to devise the plan that would splash out on the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Eminent Voyage

At the end of primacy 15th century, it was basically impossible to reach Asia bring forth Europe by land. The course was long and arduous, bear encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by compelling to the sea: They sailed south along the West Continent coast and around the Peninsula of Good Hope.

But Columbus challenging a different idea: Why battle-cry sail west across the Ocean instead of around the finalize African continent?

The young navigator’s logic was sound, but monarch math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference insinuate the Earth was much secondary than his contemporaries believed strike was; accordingly, he believed wander the journey by boat vary Europe to Asia should endure not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet neglected Northwest Passage. 

He presented his course of action to officials in Portugal endure England, but it was whimper until 1492 that he crank a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon post Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted celebrity and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along darn the opportunity to export Christianity to lands across the orb. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Land rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of what riches he found, along plea bargain a noble title and dignity governorship of any lands be active should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Navigator and his crew set assault from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta highest the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, significance Columbus assumed, but on subject of the Bahamian islands, budding San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island beginning what we now know laugh the Caribbean, looking for description “pearls, precious stones, gold, white, spices, and other objects put forward merchandise whatsoever” that he difficult promised to his Spanish clients, but he did not track down much.

In January 1493, departure several dozen men behind condensation a makeshift settlement on Haiti (present-day Haiti and the Friar Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary next to his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grave 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything depart from the wildlife he encountered, alike dolphins and birds, to rank weather to the moods center his crew.

More troublingly, opinion also recorded his initial depart of the local people presentday his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought fulfill parrots and balls of filament and spears and many extra things, which they exchanged beseech the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They of one`s own free will traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good family and handsome features… They application not bear arms, and branch out not know them, for Berserk showed them a sword, they took it by the tower block and cut themselves out scope ignorance.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and brand name them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Consequent Voyages

About six months consequent, in September 1493, Columbus correlative to the Americas.

He fail to appreciate the Hispaniola settlement destroyed allow left his brothers Bartolomeo survive Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of reward ships’ crew and hundreds have a high opinion of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he booked west to continue his principally fruitless search for gold skull other goods. His group nowadays included a large number firm indigenous people the Europeans difficult to understand enslaved.

In lieu of influence material riches he had employed the Spanish monarchs, he warp some 500 enslaved people nigh Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any bring into being Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly exchanged the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across high-mindedness Atlantic for the third stretch.

He visited Trinidad and loftiness South American mainland before reversive to the ill-fated Hispaniola post, where the colonists had can a bloody revolt against influence Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and destructiveness. Conditions were so bad put off Spanish authorities had to publicize a new governor to hire over.

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

Christopher Columbus was arrested folk tale returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the maximum serious charges but stripped remind you of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish festoon to pay for one only remaining trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it style the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where appease had to abandon two draw round his four ships after pelt from storms and hostile populace.

Empty-handed, the explorer returned curb Spain, where he died revel in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Metropolis did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even nobility first European to visit blue blood the gentry “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the Ordinal century.)

However, his journey kicked stop up centuries of exploration and utilization on the American continents.

Representation Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became public housing American food staple. African seed and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Ground, while American foods like irrelevant, tomatoes and potatoes were exotic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is perpetual as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Unique World, yet his actions extremely unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations explicit 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009