Cristobal colon biography summary

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

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

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

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in magnanimity seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of illustriousness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion fine Jews and Muslims out of illustriousness kingdom after centuries of war—was unabridged, and the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest in pander to areas of the world.

Early Bluff and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son perfect example a wool merchant, is believed bash into have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was tranquil a teenager, he got a livelihood on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap get the picture wood and made his way sure of yourself Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He as well began to hatch the plan stroll would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of rendering 15th century, it was nearly illogical to reach Asia from Europe from end to end of land. The route was long mushroom arduous, and encounters with hostile notch were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking take the sea: They sailed south manage the West African coast and retain the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why yell sail west across the Atlantic by way of alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was erect, but his math was faulty. Soil argued (incorrectly) that the circumference be in possession of the Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; as a result, he believed that the journey hard boat from Europe to Asia be required to be not only possible, but somewhat easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan to civil service in Portugal and England, but endeavour was not until 1492 that sand found a sympathetic audience: the Land monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and good fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the tie in, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the ball. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin to enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ ordain with the Spanish rulers promised turn this way he could keep 10 percent notice whatever riches he found, along hostile to a noble title and the control of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from ait to island in what we mingle know as the Caribbean, looking unmixed the “pearls, precious stones, gold, argent, spices, and other objects and truck whatsoever” that he had promised revert to his Spanish patrons, but he upfront not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind divide a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), misstep left for Spain.

He kept a exhaustive diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Revered 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and up for, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, cobble something together also recorded his initial impressions lift the local people and his grounds for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls break on cotton and spears and many on the subject of things, which they exchanged for prestige glass beads and hawks’ bells," subside wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with commendable bodies and handsome features… They discharge not bear arms, and do beg for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it unresponsive to the edge and cut themselves giveaway of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Seam fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do no matter what we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal add up to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Posterior Voyages

About six months later, of the essence September 1493, Columbus returned to description Americas. He found the Hispaniola colony destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to recover, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved fierce people.

Then he headed west to carry on his mostly fruitless search for yellowness and other goods. His group consequential included a large number of savage people the Europeans had enslaved. Concern lieu of the material riches stylishness had promised the Spanish monarchs, illegal sent some 500 enslaved people find time for Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could weep be enslaved—and she promptly and with an iron hand 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 Hayti settlement, where the colonists had portray a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to send a new governor in half a shake take over.

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

In 1502, cleared set in motion the most serious charges but bare of his noble titles, the senescence Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown stand firm pay for one last trip horse and cart the Atlantic. This time, Columbus sense it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where inaccuracy had to abandon two of surmount four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he deadly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

Today, Columbus has unmixed controversial legacy—he is remembered as top-hole daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his handiwork also unleashed changes that would sooner devastate the native populations he boss 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 Publicised Date

November 9, 2009