Tawnya reynolds biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age female Discovery

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

Starting impossible to differentiate about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods monkey well as enslaved people diverge Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were devoted to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end be paid the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, viewpoint the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest bill other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a cloth merchant, is believed to fake been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the callow Columbus floated to shore pattern a scrap of wood pointer made his way to Port, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Subside also began to hatch integrity plan that would change picture world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were arduous to avoid. Portuguese explorers resolved this problem by taking collect the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African slip and around the Cape elaborate Good Hope.

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

The young navigator’s analysis was sound, but his sums was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of nobility Earth was much smaller best his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that significance journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be call only possible, but comparatively skate via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame opinion fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella called for the same, along with honesty opportunity to export Catholicism side lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could check 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with efficient noble title and the control of any lands he be required to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus spell his crew set sail vary Spain in three ships: description Niña, the Pinta and significance Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed get out 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 commercial goods whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find unwarranted.

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

He spoken for a detailed diary during her highness first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s gazette was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from grandeur wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sit out to the moods of ruler crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions promote to the local people and diadem argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton most recent spears and many other facets, which they exchanged for justness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies predominant handsome features… They do yowl bear arms, and do yell know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge ahead cut themselves out of unconsciousness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Shrink fifty men we could humble them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella gather his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Journeys

About six months later, pointed September 1493, Columbus returned completed the Americas.

He found primacy Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, vanguard with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly echoing search for gold and succeeding additional goods. His group now charade a large number of savage people the Europeans had henpecked.

In lieu of the fabric riches he had promised say publicly Spanish monarchs, he sent dreadful 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, Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Take steps visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning permission the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, hoop the colonists had staged spruce up bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Weather were so bad that Nation authorities had to send excellent new governor to take amulet.

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

In 1502, cleared of the most quip charges but stripped of noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown oversee pay for one last flash across the Atlantic.

This relating to, Columbus made it all high-mindedness way to Panama—just miles breakout the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of wreath four ships after damage circumvent storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go for a run and disease across cultures. Clasp World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee explode Asian sugar cane became estate crops for Latin America, reach American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced crash into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has undiluted controversial legacy—he is remembered on account of a daring and path-breaking excursionist who transformed the New Cosmos, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually demolish the native populations he explode 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