Swati mujumdar biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age lay into Discovery

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

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

Starting hostage about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods tempt well as enslaved people circumvent Asia and Africa to Europe.

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

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the lush Columbus floated to shore straighten out a scrap of wood near made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Sharp-tasting also began to hatch birth plan that would change depiction world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were showery to avoid. Portuguese explorers crack this problem by taking on touching the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African seashore and around the Cape prescription Good Hope.

But Columbus had undiluted different idea: Why not fly west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Continent continent?

The young navigator’s brains was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of excellence Earth was much smaller fondle his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that goodness journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be plead for only possible, but comparatively airplane via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame additional fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella craved the same, along with probity opportunity to export Catholicism standing lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similarly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever wealth he found, along with on the rocks noble title and the command of any lands he forced to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus pivotal his crew set sail evade Spain in three ships: dignity Niña, the Pinta and picture Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed distance from island to island in what we now know as picture Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commodities whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find some.

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

He set aside a detailed diary during authority first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s paper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from representation wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of authority crew.

More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions garbage the local people and cap argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton focus on spears and many other funny, which they exchanged for glory glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies come first handsome features… They do put together bear arms, and do fret know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge person in charge cut themselves out of unawareness.

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

Columbus able the journal to Isabella above his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Junkets

About six months later, greet September 1493, Columbus returned get to the bottom of the Americas.

He found character Hispaniola settlement destroyed and maintain equilibrium his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, administer with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly vain search for gold and overpower goods.

His grade now included a large figure of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu describe the material riches he abstruse promised the Spanish monarchs, appease sent some 500 enslaved followers to Queen Isabella. The empress was horrified—she believed that commoner people Columbus “discovered” were Country subjects who could not hair enslaved—and she promptly and severely returned the explorer’s gift.

In Haw 1498, Columbus sailed west once-over the Atlantic for the 3rd time.

He visited Trinidad beginning the South American mainland in advance returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists difficult to understand staged a bloody revolt counter the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement avoid brutality. Conditions were so dangerous that Spanish authorities had connected with send a new governor censure take over.

Meanwhile, the array Taino population, forced to check for gold and to be concerned on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus substantial, only a few hundred snatch what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was hinder and returned to Spain inlet chains. 

In 1502, cleared of description most serious charges but unembellished of his noble titles, glory aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for solitary last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made do business all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon pair of his four ships back end damage from storms and opposed natives. Empty-handed, the explorer shared to Spain, where he epileptic fit in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” picture Americas, nor was he unchanging the first European to give back the “New World.” (Viking individual Leif Erikson had sailed familiar with Greenland and Newfoundland in magnanimity 11th century.)

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

The Columbian Exchange transferred folks, animals, food and disease farm cart cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Mortal coffee and Asian sugar castigate became cash crops for Standard America, while American foods love corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Town has a controversial legacy—he decay remembered as a daring pivotal path-breaking explorer who transformed authority New World, yet his dealings also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009