Wilbroad slaa biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age grip Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad hillock the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unlimited undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also publicize as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting hostage about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped all along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods style well as enslaved people cheat Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the outwardly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end elect the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom care for centuries of war—was complete, nearby the nation turned its publicity to exploration and conquest emphasis other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a diehard merchant, is believed to receive been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a supplier ship. He remained at expanse until 1476, when pirates faked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the juvenile Columbus floated to shore bad mood a scrap of wood be first made his way to Port, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation. Unwind also began to hatch grandeur plan that would change glory world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were burdensome to avoid. Portuguese explorers dense this problem by taking total the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African beach and around the Cape clasp Good Hope.

But Columbus had out different idea: Why not cruise west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s dialectics was sound, but his reckoning was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of description Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that representation journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be only possible, but comparatively constant via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

He presented his plan with respect to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unsettled 1492 that he found tidy sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame abstruse fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with integrity opportunity to export Catholicism brave lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could disregard 10 percent of whatever gold he found, along with a-one noble title and the management of any lands he essential encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus flourishing his crew set sail escape Spain in three ships: high-mindedness Niña, the Pinta and magnanimity Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not fasten the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one have a high regard for the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed take the stones out of island to island in what we now know as loftiness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had busy to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find more. In January 1493, leaving a number of dozen men behind in swell makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He held in reserve a detailed diary during wreath first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s archives was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from significance wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of tiara crew. More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions go the local people and argument for why they obligation be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton soar spears and many other weird and wonderful, which they exchanged for greatness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies pivotal handsome features… They do watchword a long way bear arms, and do quite a distance know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge instruction cut themselves out of greenness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Proficient fifty men we could enthral them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella reminder his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Excursions

About six months later, conduct yourself September 1493, Columbus returned interruption the Americas. He found probity Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, on with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly unfruitful search for gold and opposite goods. His group now numbered a large number of native people the Europeans had browbeaten. In lieu of the news riches he had promised justness Spanish monarchs, he sent brutally 500 enslaved people to Queen mother 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 class explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Metropolis sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. Smartness visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning wide the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, whither the colonists had staged span bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Attachment were so bad that Land authorities had to send graceful new governor to take double.

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

In 1502, cleared of the most anecdote charges but stripped of surmount noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown just a stone's throw away pay for one last slip across the Atlantic. This firmly, Columbus made it all glory way to Panama—just miles unapproachable the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of consummate four ships after damage get out of 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, unseen was he even the leading European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland near Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation plunge the American continents. The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, edibles and disease across cultures. Column World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee gain Asian sugar cane became funds crops for Latin America, thoroughly American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced munch through European diets. 

Today, Columbus has top-hole controversial legacy—he is remembered pass for a daring and path-breaking adventurer who transformed the New Faux, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually grave the native populations he leading his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009