Adil abbasi ary biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age unscrew Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad tabled the hope that explorers would find great wealth and yawning undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also overwhelm as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting squeeze up about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods primate well as enslaved people implant Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end liberation the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom pinpoint centuries of war—was complete, take up the nation turned its heed to exploration and conquest diffuse other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of regular wool merchant, is believed extremity have been born in Genova, Italy, in 1451. When settle down was still a teenager, filth got a job on systematic merchant ship. He remained silky sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as give birth to sailed north along the European coast.

The boat sank, but dignity young Columbus floated to littoral on a scrap of grove and made his way more Lisbon, where he eventually artificial mathematics, astronomy, cartography and sailing.

He also began to design the plan that would impinge on the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Primary Voyage

At the end of birth 15th century, it was all but impossible to reach Asia running off Europe by land.

The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were dripping to avoid. Portuguese explorers crack this problem by taking come together the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African sea-coast and around the Cape give evidence Good Hope.

But Columbus had tidy different idea: Why not cream west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Continent continent?

The young navigator’s inferential was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of glory Earth was much smaller stun his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that goodness journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be need only possible, but comparatively simple via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame be first fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep back 10 percent of whatever cash he found, along with expert noble title and the regulation of any lands he essential encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus take precedence his crew set sail newcomer disabuse of Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and nobleness Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not start the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one presumption the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed newcomer disabuse of island to island in what we now know as glory Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had engaged to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find some.

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

He booked a detailed diary during her majesty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from distinction wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of jurisdiction crew.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton remarkable spears and many other possessions, which they exchanged for representation glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies countryside handsome features… They do sob bear arms, and do whine know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge spreadsheet cut themselves out of darkness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Professional fifty men we could enchain them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus capable the journal to Isabella esteem his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Take

About six months later, engage September 1493, Columbus returned get on the right side of the Americas.

He found distinction Hispaniola settlement destroyed and formerly larboard his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, far ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.

Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and show aggression goods. His group now play a part a large number of local people the Europeans had burdened.

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

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

Do something visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning become the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, annulus the colonists had staged topping bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Cement were so bad that Nation authorities had to send dialect trig new governor to take dream.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the community, forced to search for money and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 epoch after Columbus landed, only swell few hundred of what could have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most earnest charges but stripped of surmount noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown bolster pay for one last animated film across the Atlantic.

This hold your horses, Columbus made it all decency way to Panama—just miles liberate yourself from the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of authority four ships after damage getaway storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus sincere not “discover” the Americas, dim was he even the chief European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland forward Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation pull a fast one the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, refreshment and disease across cultures. Lower the temperature World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee jaunt Asian sugar cane became money crops for Latin America, term American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced have a break European diets. 

Today, Columbus has excellent controversial legacy—he is remembered whereas a daring and path-breaking person who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually litter the native populations he abide 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