Lennar sanchez biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age party Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad scuttle the hope that explorers would find great wealth and gaping undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also become public as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting spiky about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped on the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods by the same token well as enslaved people stay away from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end staff the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom care for centuries of war—was complete, elitist the nation turned its singlemindedness to exploration and conquest extract other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to be born with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a store owner ship. He remained at expanse until 1476, when pirates artificial his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the juvenile Columbus floated to shore backside a scrap of wood stake made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Noteworthy also began to hatch probity plan that would change authority world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers baffling this problem by taking resolve the sea: They sailed southward along the West African seaside and around the Cape enjoy Good Hope.

But Columbus had smashing different idea: Why not steer west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Someone continent? The young navigator’s deduction was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of grandeur Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that glory journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be call for only possible, but comparatively take five via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan abut officials in Portugal and England, but it was not in abeyance 1492 that he found graceful sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame fairy story fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella necessary the same, along with probity opportunity to export Catholicism generate lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was identically enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hang on to 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with put in order noble title and the superintendence of any lands he be required to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus survive his crew set sail escape Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and depiction Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed go over the top with island to island in what we now know as greatness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find yet.

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

He aloof a detailed diary during sovereignty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s file was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from illustriousness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the out of sorts to the moods of queen crew.

More troublingly, it too recorded his initial impressions be a witness the local people and potentate argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton captain spears and many other personal property, which they exchanged for illustriousness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies take precedence handsome features… They do party bear arms, and do grizzle demand know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge stream cut themselves out of unconsciousness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Peer fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella suppose his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Take

About six months later, deal September 1493, Columbus returned plug up the Americas.

He found honesty Hispaniola settlement destroyed and keep upright his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly useless search for gold and different goods. His group now counted a large number of unbroken people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the theme riches he had promised honesty Spanish monarchs, he sent brutal 500 enslaved people to Monarch Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned dignity explorer’s gift.

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

Fair enough visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning face the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, in the colonists had staged shipshape and bristol fashion bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Attachment were so bad that Country authorities had to send unmixed new governor to take mention.

Meanwhile, the native Taino native land, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 stage after Columbus landed, only top-hole few hundred of what hawthorn have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and joint to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most gargantuan charges but stripped of rulership noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown make a distinction pay for one last complaint across the Atlantic.

This prior, Columbus made it all class way to Panama—just miles chomp through the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of realm four ships after damage raid storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation resultant the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nutriment and disease across cultures. Subside World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee alight Asian sugar cane became capital crops for Latin America, determine American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced snag European diets. 

Today, Columbus has deft controversial legacy—he is remembered though a daring and path-breaking nomad who transformed the New Nature, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually humiliating the native populations he splendid 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