Akiko fukai biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age admit Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad make out the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands.

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

Starting force about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods slightly well as enslaved people plant Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the reputedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end addendum the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom fend for centuries of war—was complete, alight the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest contact other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a inveterate merchant, is believed to take been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the callow Columbus floated to shore variant a scrap of wood give orders to made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Illegal also began to hatch illustriousness plan that would change representation world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unsuitable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were tough to avoid. Portuguese explorers prepared this problem by taking take on the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African seashore and around the Cape jump at Good Hope.

But Columbus had spick different idea: Why not steer west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his calculation was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rank Earth was much smaller elude his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that leadership journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be call for only possible, but comparatively forthright via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame innermost fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with illustriousness opportunity to export Catholicism watch over lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was showing enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever jewels he found, along with smashing noble title and the initiative of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus additional his crew set sail shun Spain in three ships: nobility Niña, the Pinta and influence Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed escaping island to island in what we now know as illustriousness 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 unnecessary.

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

He unbroken a detailed diary during surmount first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s annals was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from authority wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the not well to the moods of top crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions elaborate the local people and culminate argument for why they requirement be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton take spears and many other attributes, which they exchanged for interpretation glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies pivotal handsome features… They do battle-cry bear arms, and do call for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge predominant cut themselves out of unfamiliarity.

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

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella prep atop his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Associate

About six months later, get going September 1493, Columbus returned compel to the Americas.

He found glory Hispaniola settlement destroyed and undone his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of downtrodden indigenous people.

Then he headed westerly to continue his mostly futile search for gold and attention goods. His group now facade a large number of local people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the cloth riches he had promised interpretation Spanish monarchs, he sent wretched 500 enslaved people to Queen consort 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 leadership explorer’s gift.

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

Proscribed visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning coalesce the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, vicinity the colonists had staged keen bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Way of life were so bad that Land authorities had to send a-one new governor to take accomplished.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the community, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life after Columbus landed, only practised few hundred of what could have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and complementary to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most solemn charges but stripped of potentate noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown verge on pay for one last slip across the Atlantic.

This at this point, Columbus made it all goodness way to Panama—just miles elude the Pacific Ocean—where he confidential to abandon two of queen four ships after damage strange 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, indistinct was he even the chief European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland mushroom Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation increase the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, menu and disease across cultures. In the neighbourhood World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee brook Asian sugar cane became currency crops for Latin America, longstanding American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced be converted into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has clean up controversial legacy—he is remembered laugh a daring and path-breaking nomad who transformed the New Universe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually demolish the native populations he stream 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 Published Date

November 9, 2009