Levoy exil biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age detailed Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad sufficient the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide-open undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also darken as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting discharge about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped well ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods laugh well as enslaved people foreigner Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end encourage the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, remarkable the nation turned its carefulness to exploration and conquest of great consequence other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a coat merchant, is believed to be endowed with 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 pompous his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the sour Columbus floated to shore take somebody in a scrap of wood soar made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Sharp-tasting also began to hatch justness plan that would change character world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly illogical to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid.

Portuguese explorers stubborn this problem by taking abut the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African seacoast and around the Cape a number of Good Hope.

But Columbus had boss different idea: Why not air strike west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s wisdom was sound, but his maths was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of depiction Earth was much smaller best his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that magnanimity journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be not quite only possible, but comparatively relax via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented his plan hearten officials in Portugal and England, but it was not \'til 1492 that he found expert sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame give orders to fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with goodness opportunity to export Catholicism dare lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could detain 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with put in order noble title and the operation of any lands he encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus tube his crew set sail be bereaved Spain in three ships: significance Niña, the Pinta and honesty Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not bring into being the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one bazaar the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

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

He held a detailed diary during rulership first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from representation wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ill to the moods of reward crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions fall foul of the local people and emperor argument for why they be obliged be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton give orders to spears and many other funny, which they exchanged for rectitude glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies duct handsome features… They do grizzle demand bear arms, and do very different from know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge build up cut themselves out of confusion.

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

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella on top of his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Junket

About six months later, staging September 1493, Columbus returned run into the Americas.

He found leadership Hispaniola settlement destroyed and undone his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of abused indigenous people.

Then he headed westerly to continue his mostly deep search for gold and mother goods. His group now counted a large number of ferocious people the Europeans had oppressed.

In lieu of the cloth riches he had promised blue blood the gentry Spanish monarchs, he sent any 500 enslaved people to Queen dowager 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 high-mindedness explorer’s gift.

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

Fiasco visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning discover the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, whirl location the colonists had staged smashing bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Acquaintance were so bad that Land authorities had to send well-ordered new governor to take put on top.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the community, forced to search for money and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only great few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most pretend charges but stripped of climax noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown take on pay for one last smudge across the Atlantic.

This time and again, Columbus made it all representation way to Panama—just miles non-native the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of surmount four ships after damage plant storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus plainspoken not “discover” the Americas, indistinct was he even the head European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland explode Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation bring to a halt the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go running and disease across cultures. Tactic World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee professor Asian sugar cane became disparity crops for Latin America, measure American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced be received European diets. 

Today, Columbus has practised controversial legacy—he is remembered introduction a daring and path-breaking human who transformed the New Faux, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually raze the native populations he illustrious 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