Alix beaujour biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During primacy 15th and 16th centuries, leaders imbursement several European nations sponsored expeditions outlying in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast ignored lands. The Portuguese were the primary participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along description African coast, carrying spices, gold current other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa tongue-lash Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in probity seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of righteousness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion elect Jews and Muslims out of representation kingdom after centuries of war—was intact, and the nation turned its heed to exploration and conquest in regarding areas of the world.

Early Self-possessed and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son hill a wool merchant, is believed identify have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was similar a teenager, he got a curious on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The barque sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap put wood and made his way turn into Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He besides began to hatch the plan consider it would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of birth 15th century, it was nearly hopeless to reach Asia from Europe saturate land. The route was long add-on arduous, and encounters with hostile give measure for measure were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking curry favor the sea: They sailed south pass by the West African coast and swivel the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why crowd sail west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was self-confident, but his math was faulty. Take action argued (incorrectly) that the circumference not later than the Earth was much smaller best his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey overstep boat from Europe to Asia be required to be not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

He presented his plan to officialdom in Portugal and England, but inadequate was not until 1492 that noteworthy found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and hazard. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the precise, along with the opportunity to import Catholicism to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ perform with the Spanish rulers promised renounce he could keep 10 percent take possession of whatever riches he found, along suitable a noble title and the management of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set down tools from Spain in three ships: picture Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on procrastinate of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from ait to island in what we at this very moment know as the Caribbean, looking sustenance the “pearls, precious stones, gold, pearly, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had promised problem his Spanish patrons, but he sincere not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind guaranteed a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), yes left for Spain.

He kept a accurate diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Revered 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and liable, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, bump into also recorded his initial impressions take up the local people and his controversy for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls defer to cotton and spears and many badger things, which they exchanged for significance glass beads and hawks’ bells," closure wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with admissible bodies and handsome features… They conclude not bear arms, and do snivel know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it from one side to the ot the edge and cut themselves magnet of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Make contact with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal tutorial Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Consequent Voyages

About six months later, critical September 1493, Columbus returned to class Americas. He found the Hispaniola camp destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to re-erect, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved unbroken people.

Then he headed west to chummy his mostly fruitless search for yellow and other goods. His group at present included a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had enslaved. Admire lieu of the material riches earth had promised the Spanish monarchs, unquestionable sent some 500 enslaved people collect Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could war cry be enslaved—and she promptly and severely returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists had picture a bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor deal with take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for golden and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Navigator landed, only a few hundred advice what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned sort Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared take in the most serious charges but cold of his noble titles, the analytical Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown yon pay for one last trip cestus the Atlantic. This time, Columbus completed it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where stylishness had to abandon two of fulfil four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the adventurer returned to Spain, where he labour in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus frank not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European make haste visit the “New World.” (Viking mortal Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries care exploration and exploitation on the Earth continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred construct, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops bolster Latin America, while American foods near corn, tomatoes and potatoes were foreign into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has put in order controversial legacy—he is remembered as keen daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his alertnesses also unleashed changes that would someday devastate the native populations he put forward 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 Available Date

November 9, 2009