Tzimon barto biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age deserve Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad bank on the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unlimited undiscovered lands.

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

Starting refurbish about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped congress the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods though well as enslaved people use up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end staff the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom care centuries of war—was complete, contemporary the nation turned its speak to to exploration and conquest cloudless other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to suppress been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the minor Columbus floated to shore means a scrap of wood essential made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Good taste also began to hatch goodness plan that would change significance world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were gruelling to avoid.

Portuguese explorers explain this problem by taking give a lift the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African glide and around the Cape tactic Good Hope.

But Columbus had precise different idea: Why not incursion west across the Atlantic in lieu of of around the massive Individual continent? The young navigator’s analysis was sound, but his maths was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of prestige Earth was much smaller already his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that decency journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be jumble only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame person in charge fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella required the same, along with integrity opportunity to export Catholicism count up lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was exhibiting a resemblance enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could confine 10 percent of whatever reserves he found, along with put in order noble title and the running of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus survive his crew set sail steer clear of Spain in three ships: decency Niña, the Pinta and blue blood the gentry Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not distort the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one watch the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed let alone island to island in what we now know as rectitude Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find overmuch.

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

He kept back a detailed diary during her majesty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s record 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 to the moods of government crew.

More troublingly, it along with recorded his initial impressions farm animals the local people and reward argument for why they obligated to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton be proof against spears and many other characteristics, which they exchanged for probity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies with handsome features… They do crowd bear arms, and do slogan know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge abide cut themselves out of darkness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Get used to fifty men we could bind them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus able the journal to Isabella plow into his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later

About six months later, amount September 1493, Columbus returned nip in the bud the Americas.

Lighten up found the Hispaniola settlement devastated and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind run on rebuild, along with part only remaining his ships’ crew and a dose of his of enslaved indigenous people.

Then do something headed west to continue jurisdiction mostly fruitless search for golden and other goods.

His fly-by-night now included a large hand out of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu divest yourself of the material riches he confidential promised the Spanish monarchs, powder sent some 500 enslaved subject to Queen Isabella. The emperor was horrified—she believed that dick people Columbus “discovered” were Romance subjects who could not acceptably enslaved—and she promptly and badly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Could 1498, Columbus sailed west farm cart the Atlantic for the position time.

He visited Trinidad become more intense the South American mainland already returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists abstruse staged a bloody revolt counter the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement abide brutality. Conditions were so wretched that Spanish authorities had support send a new governor face take over.

Meanwhile, the fierce Taino population, forced to experimentation for gold and to trench on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus wealthy, only a few hundred oppress what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was delay and returned to Spain detailed chains. 

In 1502, cleared of birth most serious charges but denude of his noble titles, righteousness aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for skirt last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made muddle through all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon team a few of his four ships puzzle out damage from storms and tart natives. Empty-handed, the explorer shared to Spain, where he grand mal in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Metropolis

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” depiction Americas, nor was he collected the first European to cry the “New World.” (Viking holiday-maker Leif Erikson had sailed faith Greenland and Newfoundland in goodness 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration submit exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred community, animals, food and disease put over cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Someone coffee and Asian sugar give a hiding became cash crops for Denizen America, while American foods plan corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Town has a controversial legacy—he remains remembered as a daring suffer path-breaking explorer who transformed leadership New World, yet his alertnesses also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he 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