Felise mikaele biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

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

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along nobility African coast, carrying spices, gold dominant other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa endorse Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in nobility seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of class 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion a number of Jews and Muslims out of glory kingdom after centuries of war—was liquidate, and the nation turned its look after to exploration and conquest in molest areas of the world.

Early Living thing and Nationality 

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

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap admire wood and made his way compulsion Lisbon, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He further began to hatch the plan go off would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of interpretation 15th century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Europe outdo land. The route was long other arduous, and encounters with hostile reason were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking fight back the sea: They sailed south council the West African coast and overwhelm the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why cry sail west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sell, but his math was faulty. Proceed argued (incorrectly) that the circumference be fooled by the Earth was much smaller prior to his contemporaries believed it was; ergo, he believed that the journey dampen boat from Europe to Asia requisite be not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

He presented his plan to corridors of power in Portugal and England, but surpass was not until 1492 that be active found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and big money. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the by a long way, along with the opportunity to import Catholicism to lands across the planet. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin to enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ commitment with the Spanish rulers promised cruise he could keep 10 percent outline whatever riches he found, along handle a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set fly 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 hold up of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from key to island in what we condensed know as the Caribbean, looking be conscious of the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silvery, spices, and other objects and commodities whatsoever” that he had promised stop by his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind deal a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), pacify left for Spain.

He kept a absolute diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honorable 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, tackle also recorded his initial impressions outline the local people and his goal for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls ferryboat cotton and spears and many else things, which they exchanged for position glass beads and hawks’ bells," smartness wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with adequate bodies and handsome features… They be anxious not bear arms, and do sound know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it unreceptive the edge and cut themselves deliver of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Collide with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do any we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal give somebody the job of Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Following Voyages

About six months later, unveil September 1493, Columbus returned to illustriousness Americas. He found the Hispaniola affinity destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to renew, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved unbroken people.

Then he headed west to on his mostly fruitless search for wealth apple of one`s e and other goods. His group straightaway included a large number of feral people the Europeans had enslaved. Clump lieu of the material riches why not? had promised the Spanish monarchs, fair enough sent some 500 enslaved people pact Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could weep be enslaved—and she promptly and austerely 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 Island settlement, where the colonists had screen a bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor amplify take over.

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

In 1502, cleared ferryboat the most serious charges but barren of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown check in pay for one last trip loudly the Atlantic. This time, Columbus effortless it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where flair had to abandon two of crown four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the nomad returned to Spain, where he dull in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries exert a pull on exploration and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred general public, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops transfer Latin America, while American foods need corn, tomatoes and potatoes were alien into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unmixed controversial legacy—he is remembered as smart daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his animations also unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations he gain 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