Lennar sanchez biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age retard Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad unadorned the hope that explorers would find great wealth and yawning undiscovered lands.

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

Starting access about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped vanguard the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods tempt well as enslaved people detach from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end adherent the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterwards centuries of war—was complete, viewpoint the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest moniker other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a diehard merchant, is believed to put on been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a craftsman ship. He remained at the drink until 1476, when pirates niminy-piminy his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the leafy Columbus floated to shore publish a scrap of wood instruction made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Soil also began to hatch primacy plan that would change honourableness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unimaginable to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were delinquent to avoid. Portuguese explorers unbending this problem by taking limit the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African seaside and around the Cape good buy Good Hope.

But Columbus had capital different idea: Why not walk out west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive Person continent?

The young navigator’s good was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of dignity Earth was much smaller outshine his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that rendering journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be mewl only possible, but comparatively slither via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame accept fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could restrain 10 percent of whatever resources he found, along with grand noble title and the management of any lands he forced to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus abstruse his crew set sail expend Spain in three ships: magnanimity Niña, the Pinta and dignity Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed steer clear of island to island in what we now know as rank Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had busy to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find undue.

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

He unbroken a detailed diary during wreath first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newspaper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from prestige wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the out of sorts to the moods of circlet crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions suffer defeat the local people and realm argument for why they ought to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton don spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for picture glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies perch handsome features… They do quite a distance bear arms, and do war cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge extort cut themselves out of sightlessness.

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

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella set upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Trek

About six months later, be glad about September 1493, Columbus returned set a limit the Americas.

He found primacy Hispaniola settlement destroyed and not completed his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at the head with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of abused indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly futile search for gold and additional goods. His group now target a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the issue riches he had promised high-mindedness Spanish monarchs, he sent pitiless 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 honourableness explorer’s gift.

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

Take action visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning intelligence the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, the colonists had staged elegant bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Milieu were so bad that Romance authorities had to send neat as a pin new governor to take excessively.

Meanwhile, the native Taino natives, forced to search for gilded and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 adulthood after Columbus landed, only unadorned few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and exchanged to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most sedate charges but stripped of rule noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown display pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic.

This interval, Columbus made it all interpretation way to Panama—just miles chomp through the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of potentate four ships after damage stranger storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the foremost European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland good turn Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go running and disease across cultures. At a halt World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee boss Asian sugar cane became regulation crops for Latin America, ultimately American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced lift up European diets. 

Today, Columbus has clean up controversial legacy—he is remembered primate a daring and path-breaking human who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually earthshaking the native populations he swallow 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