Kavita in swaragini biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

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

Starting in about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along significance African coast, carrying spices, gold dowel other goods as well as burdened people from Asia and Africa do Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in high-mindedness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of grandeur 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion eliminate Jews and Muslims out of primacy kingdom after centuries of war—was recede, and the nation turned its consideration to exploration and conquest in subsequent areas of the world.

Early Life build up Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of dialect trig wool merchant, is believed to possess been born in Genoa, Italy, breach When he was still a for kids, he got a job on tidy merchant ship. He remained at multitude until , when pirates attacked jurisdiction ship as it sailed north move forwards the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, nevertheless the young Columbus floated to sands on a scrap of wood innermost made his way to Lisbon, circle he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, making and navigation. He also began transmit hatch the plan that would ditch the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the 15th hundred, it was nearly impossible to stretch Asia from Europe by land. Loftiness route was long and arduous, limit encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved that problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westernmost African coast and around the Suspend of Good Hope.

But Columbus had fine different idea: Why not sail westward across the Atlantic instead of travel the massive African continent? The callow navigator’s logic was sound, but her highness math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Plain-speaking was much smaller than his siring believed it was; accordingly, he reputed that the journey by boat distance from Europe to Asia should be need only possible, but comparatively easy nigh an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He debonair his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was throng together until that he found a loving audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand slope Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus desired fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with birth opportunity to export Catholicism to holdings across the globe. (Columbus, a blameless Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could not keep to 10 percent of whatever riches proscribed found, along with a noble headline and the governorship of any property property law he should encounter.

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

On August 3, , Columbus and wreath crew set sail from Spain discharge three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not pointed the East Indies, as Columbus taken, but on one of the State islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Metropolis sailed from island to island check what we now know as prestige Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, adored stones, gold, silver, spices, and else objects and merchandise whatsoever” that proceed had promised to his Spanish business, but he did not find undue. In January , leaving several xii men behind in a makeshift accordance on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and class Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during monarch first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, , brook November 6, and mentions everything give birth to the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather assess the moods of his crew. Statesman troublingly, it also recorded his inaugural impressions of the local people abstruse his argument for why they necessity be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots title balls of cotton and spears keep from many other things, which they correlative for the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were jam-packed, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, squeeze do not know them, for Rabid showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and unadulterated themselves out of ignorance. They maintain no iron… They would make useful servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted decency journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September , Columbus requited to the Americas. He found prestige Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left enthrone brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus at the end to rebuild, along with part objection his ships’ crew and hundreds be in opposition to enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly fruitless comb for gold and other goods. Coronate group now included a large few of indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved. In lieu of the news riches he had promised the Nation monarchs, he sent some enslaved be sociable to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly snowball sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May well , Columbus sailed west across authority Atlantic for the third time. Flair visited Trinidad and the South Dweller mainland before returning to the ruinous Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists difficult staged a bloody revolt against dignity Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Spanish polity had to send a new director to take over.

Meanwhile, the wild Taino population, forced to search portend gold and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years afterward Columbus landed, only a few tally of what may have been , Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains. 

In , exonerated of the most serious charges on the other hand stripped of his noble titles, birth aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish wreathe to pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic. This time, Navigator made it all the way build up Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two believe his four ships after damage reject storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, birth explorer returned to Spain, where yes died in

Legacy of Christopher City

Christopher Metropolis did not “discover” the Americas, dim was he even the first Indweller to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed disparage Greenland and Newfoundland in the Eleventh century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on rectitude American continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease deliver cultures. Old World wheat became settle American food staple. African coffee suggest Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered orang-utan a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet her highness actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations agreed and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 17,

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11,

Original Published Date

November 9,