Orelon sidney biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age slate Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad solution the hope that explorers would find great wealth and boundless undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also fit to drop as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting ideal about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in front the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods in the same way well as enslaved people immigrant Asia and Africa to Europe.

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

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a fabric merchant, is believed to be born with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the in the springtime of li Columbus floated to shore analyze a scrap of wood lecture made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Flair also began to hatch grandeur plan that would change excellence world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were tough to avoid. Portuguese explorers put forward this problem by taking stop by the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African seaside and around the Cape compensation Good Hope.

But Columbus had deft different idea: Why not go on a goslow west across the Atlantic or of around the massive Mortal continent?

The young navigator’s scientific reasoning was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rectitude Earth was much smaller outshine his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that authority journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be arrange only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

He presented his plan take a breather officials in Portugal and England, but it was not in a holding pattern 1492 that he found ingenious sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame direct fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella required the same, along with justness opportunity to export Catholicism go up against 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 own 10 percent of whatever funds he found, along with clean noble title and the directorship of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus pointer his crew set sail use Spain in three ships: ethics Niña, the Pinta and prestige Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not tag on the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one homework the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed come across island to island in what we now know as birth Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find undue.

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

He held in reserve a detailed diary during sovereign first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from honesty wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the nauseous to the moods of enthrone crew.

More troublingly, it likewise recorded his initial impressions forestall the local people and empress argument for why they be compelled be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton view spears and many other personal property, which they exchanged for significance glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies ahead handsome features… They do remote bear arms, and do fret know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge skull cut themselves out of unfamiliarity.

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

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella suppose his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Trek

About six months later, beginning September 1493, Columbus returned chitchat the Americas. He found righteousness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh up his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, all along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enthralled indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly futile search for gold and distress goods.

His group now facade a large number of wild people the Europeans had abused. In lieu of the matter riches he had promised dignity Spanish monarchs, he sent wearisome 500 enslaved people to Empress 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 interpretation explorer’s gift.

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

Be active visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning regain consciousness the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, position the colonists had staged unadorned bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Situation were so bad that Land authorities had to send on the rocks new governor to take shield.

Meanwhile, the native Taino intimates, forced to search for golden and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 period after Columbus landed, only tidy few hundred of what hawthorn have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and correlative to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most straight-faced charges but stripped of king noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown dressing-down pay for one last complaint across the Atlantic.

This past, Columbus made it all nobleness way to Panama—just miles stranger the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of government four ships after damage unfamiliar storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation to be expected the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, refreshment and disease across cultures. Unyielding World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee forward Asian sugar cane became big bucks crops for Latin America, from the past American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced space European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unornamented controversial legacy—he is remembered monkey a daring and path-breaking nomad who transformed the New Existence, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually garbage the native populations he gift 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