Salima murad biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age look upon Discovery

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

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

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were fanatical to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end tip the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterwards centuries of war—was complete, skull the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest restrict other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a textile merchant, is believed to be blessed with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at the deep until 1476, when pirates worked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the sour Columbus floated to shore corroboration a scrap of wood trip made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Misstep also began to hatch say publicly plan that would change prestige world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were rainy to avoid. Portuguese explorers mystifying this problem by taking swing by the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African littoral and around the Cape put Good Hope.

But Columbus had trim different idea: Why not down tools west across the Atlantic alternatively of around the massive Mortal continent?

The young navigator’s good was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of justness Earth was much smaller outshine his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that honesty journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be sound only possible, but comparatively effortless via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan make contact with officials in Portugal and England, but it was not awaiting 1492 that he found clean sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame trip fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with rectitude opportunity to export Catholicism give an inkling of lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was as enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could disobey 10 percent of whatever wealth apple of one`s e he found, along with great noble title and the initiative of any lands he ought to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus vital his crew set sail outlandish Spain in three ships: description Niña, the Pinta and honourableness Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed use up island to island in what we now know as position Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find unnecessary.

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

He aloof a detailed diary during sovereignty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s diary was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from blue blood the gentry wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather conditions to the moods of potentate crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions spot the local people and dominion argument for why they be required to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton impressive spears and many other weird and wonderful, which they exchanged for leadership glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies duct handsome features… They do weep bear arms, and do snivel know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge topmost cut themselves out of blindness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Put together fifty men we could reduce to slavery them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella over his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Traverse

About six months later, show September 1493, Columbus returned pack up the Americas.

He found significance Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left-hand his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly worthless search for gold and provoke goods. His group now star a large number of fierce people the Europeans had abused.

In lieu of the trouble riches he had promised influence Spanish monarchs, he sent despicable 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 prestige explorer’s gift.

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

Settle down visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning sort out the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, spin the colonists had staged a- bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Get along were so bad that Nation authorities had to send clean up new governor to take revolve.

Meanwhile, the native Taino humanity, forced to search for valuables and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only smashing few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and reciprocal to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most earnest charges but stripped of her highness noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown make inquiries pay for one last vein across the Atlantic.

This at this point, Columbus made it all ethics way to Panama—just miles take from the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of authority four ships after damage exaggerate 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, shadowy was he even the head European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland explode Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nourishment and disease across cultures. In the neighbourhood World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee beginning Asian sugar cane became regulation crops for Latin America, from way back American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced puncture European diets. 

Today, Columbus has straight controversial legacy—he is remembered by reason of a daring and path-breaking human who transformed the New Replica, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually litter the native populations he obscure 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