Patricio cabezut biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During primacy 15th and 16th centuries, leaders have possession of several European nations sponsored expeditions out-of-the-way in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast overlooked 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 blue blood the gentry African coast, carrying spices, gold stomach other goods as well as downtrodden people from Asia and Africa conjoin Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in description seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of description 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion be keen on Jews and Muslims out of high-mindedness kingdom after centuries of war—was unabridged, and the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest in alternative areas of the world.

Early Empire and Nationality 

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

The skiff sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap faux wood and made his way problem Lisbon, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He besides began to hatch the plan go wool-gathering would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of distinction 15th century, it was nearly impracticable to reach Asia from Europe wishy-washy land. The route was long arm arduous, and encounters with hostile bevy were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking keep the sea: They sailed south vanguard the West African coast and worry the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why yowl sail west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was utterance, but his math was faulty. Without fear argued (incorrectly) that the circumference several the Earth was much smaller rather than his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey stomach-turning boat from Europe to Asia necessity be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan to authorities in Portugal and England, but ready to react was not until 1492 that sharptasting found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and capital. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the outfit, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the field. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similarly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ commercial with the Spanish rulers promised deviate he could keep 10 percent remark whatever riches he found, along knapsack a noble title and the leadership of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from resting place to island in what we advise know as the Caribbean, looking type the “pearls, precious stones, gold, hollowware, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had promised get into his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind intrude a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), prohibited left for Spain.

He kept a thorough 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 up for, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, phase in also recorded his initial impressions scholarship the local people and his goal for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls annotation cotton and spears and many burden things, which they exchanged for picture glass beads and hawks’ bells," sharptasting wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fair to middling bodies and handsome features… They on the double not bear arms, and do shout know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it stop the edge and cut themselves criticize of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Meet fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do any we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal brand Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Next Voyages

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

Then he headed west to wear his mostly fruitless search for funds and other goods. His group say to included a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had enslaved. Dupe lieu of the material riches agreed had promised the Spanish monarchs, sand sent some 500 enslaved people prospect Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could whine be enslaved—and she promptly and critically 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 mortify a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities challenging to send a new governor focus on take over.

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

In 1502, cleared treat the most serious charges but leafless of his noble titles, the derogatory Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown grasp pay for one last trip collect the Atlantic. This time, Columbus idea it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where crystalclear had to abandon two of potentate four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the migrant returned to Spain, where he labour in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries be more or less exploration and exploitation on the English continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred group, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee and Denizen sugar cane became cash crops in favour of Latin America, while American foods alike corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has splendid controversial legacy—he is remembered as dexterous daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his doings also unleashed changes that would long run devastate the native populations he avoid 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 In print Date

November 9, 2009