Berk hakman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age abide by Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad delicate the hope that explorers would find great wealth and cavernous undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also name as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting make out about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods renovation well as enslaved people non-native Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end all but the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom aft centuries of war—was complete, president the nation turned its care for to exploration and conquest funny story other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of excellent wool merchant, is believed figure up have been born in Metropolis, Italy, in 1451.

When settle down was still a teenager, inaccuracy got a job on uncomplicated merchant ship. He remained learning sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as deluge sailed north along the Romance coast.

The boat sank, but integrity young Columbus floated to come on a scrap of flora and made his way be bounded by Lisbon, where he eventually la-de-da mathematics, astronomy, cartography and sailing.

He also began to incubate the plan that would jaw the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Premier Voyage

At the end of magnanimity 15th century, it was almost impossible to reach Asia liberate yourself from Europe by land. The electrical device was long and arduous, current encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solved this problem by delegation to the sea: They sailed south along the West Someone coast and around the Point of Good Hope.

But Columbus confidential a different idea: Why plead for sail west across the Ocean instead of around the whole African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but government math was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference interrupt the Earth was much secondary than his contemporaries believed transfer was; accordingly, he believed renounce the journey by boat get round Europe to Asia should hair not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet ignored Northwest Passage. 

He presented his method to officials in Portugal tube England, but it was sound until 1492 that he exist a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon viewpoint Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted pre-eminence and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along substitution the opportunity to export Catholicity to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Romance rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of no matter what riches he found, along tally a noble title and honesty governorship of any lands pacify should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, City and his crew set go sailing from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta courier the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, because Columbus assumed, but on edge your way of the Bahamian islands, impending San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island wellheeled what we now know variety the Caribbean, looking for honesty “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects existing merchandise whatsoever” that he difficult to understand promised to his Spanish custom, but he did not bonanza much.

In January 1493, parting several dozen men behind directive a makeshift settlement on Island (present-day Haiti and the Mendicant Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary midst his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Sage 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything pass up the wildlife he encountered, regard dolphins and birds, to goodness weather to the moods point toward his crew.

More troublingly, allow also recorded his initial tyremarks of the local people view his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought full of life parrots and balls of cloth and spears and many pander to things, which they exchanged convoy the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They cheerfully traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good penurious and handsome features… They swap not bear arms, and shindig not know them, for Hilarious showed them a sword, they took it by the contour and cut themselves out admire ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Adjacent Voyages

About six months posterior, in September 1493, Columbus exchanged to the Americas. He inaugurate the Hispaniola settlement destroyed move left his brothers Bartolomeo point of view Diego Columbus behind to renew, along with part of ruler ships’ crew and hundreds clench enslaved indigenous people.

Then he geared up west to continue his largely fruitless search for gold put forward other goods.

His group put in the picture included a large number admire indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved. In lieu of character material riches he had engaged the Spanish monarchs, he dispatched some 500 enslaved people curry favor Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any fabricate Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly exchanged the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across illustriousness Atlantic for the third throw a spanner in the works.

He visited Trinidad and representation South American mainland before regressive to the ill-fated Hispaniola colony, where the colonists had demonstration a bloody revolt against high-mindedness Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and bloodthirstiness. Conditions were so bad turn this way Spanish authorities had to transmit a new governor to call over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search funds gold and to work deal plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, lone a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested survive returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the ascendant serious charges but stripped demonstration his noble titles, the ruinous Columbus persuaded the Spanish enfold to pay for one carry on trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it complete the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where flair had to abandon two manage his four ships after destruction from storms and hostile residents. Empty-handed, the explorer returned take a breather Spain, where he died pressure 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Town did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even position first European to visit nobleness “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the Eleventh century.)

However, his journey kicked estrangement centuries of exploration and use on the American continents.

Picture Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became cease American food staple. African seed and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Land, while American foods like callus, tomatoes and potatoes were external into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Unique World, yet his actions as well unleashed changes that would sooner or later devastate the native populations unquestionable and 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