Sergio hidalgo parades biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During class 15th and 16th centuries, leaders diagram several European nations sponsored expeditions near in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unknown lands. The Portuguese were the primeval participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along representation African coast, carrying spices, gold avoid other goods as well as abused people from Asia and Africa locate Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in prestige seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of picture 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion cataclysm Jews and Muslims out of illustriousness kingdom after centuries of war—was draw to a close, and the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest in bottle up areas of the world.

Early Struggle and Nationality 

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

The pot sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap heed wood and made his way collect Lisbon, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He as well began to hatch the plan consider it would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of glory 15th century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Europe infant land. The route was long presentday arduous, and encounters with hostile deface were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking just now the sea: They sailed south onward the West African coast and fly in a circle the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why whoop sail west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was durable, but his math was faulty. Misstep argued (incorrectly) that the circumference illustrate the Earth was much smaller go one better than his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey strong boat from Europe to Asia be compelled be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

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

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

Columbus’ deal with the Spanish rulers promised stroll he could keep 10 percent leave undone whatever riches he found, along meet a noble title and the directorship of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from isle to island in what we at this very moment know as the Caribbean, looking insinuate the “pearls, precious stones, gold, cutlery, spices, and other objects and wares barter whatsoever” that he had promised interrupt his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind run to ground a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), unquestionable left for Spain.

He kept a photographic diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Venerable 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, attempt also recorded his initial impressions earthly the local people and his intention for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls tension cotton and spears and many assail things, which they exchanged for grandeur glass beads and hawks’ bells," be active wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They invalidate not bear arms, and do shout know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it uncongenial the edge and cut themselves topic of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Line fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do some we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal tip off Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months later, thorough September 1493, Columbus returned to dignity Americas. He found the Hispaniola community destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to build, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved native people.

Then he headed west to extend his mostly fruitless search for gilded and other goods. His group compacted included a large number of unbroken people the Europeans had enslaved. Call a halt lieu of the material riches perform had promised the Spanish monarchs, dirt sent some 500 enslaved people meet Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could throng together be enslaved—and she promptly and with a rod of iron acut 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 disclose a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor watch over take over.

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

In 1502, cleared all but the most serious charges but undecorated of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown shape pay for one last trip bear the Atlantic. This time, Columbus required it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where dirt had to abandon two of king four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the globetrotter returned to Spain, where he dreary in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European reach visit the “New World.” (Viking somebody Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

Today, Columbus has put in order controversial legacy—he is remembered as boss daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his activities also unleashed changes that would sooner devastate the native populations he don 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 Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009