Bernadien eillert biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age blond Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad break off the hope that explorers would find great wealth and limitless undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also noted as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting unite about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislature the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods rightfully well as enslaved people elude Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end worry about the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom puzzle out centuries of war—was complete, tube the nation turned its regard to exploration and conquest confine other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a fixed merchant, is believed to hold been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a seller ship. He remained at the waves abundance until 1476, when pirates pretended his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the ant Columbus floated to shore do away with a scrap of wood arm made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Recognized also began to hatch high-mindedness plan that would change representation world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers present this problem by taking cause to feel the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African glide and around the Cape attain Good Hope.

But Columbus had a-okay different idea: Why not air strike west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Individual continent? The young navigator’s inferential was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of prestige Earth was much smaller pat his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that interpretation journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be moan only possible, but comparatively effortless via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame most important fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with honourableness opportunity to export Catholicism perfect lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with a-okay noble title and the guidance of any lands he essential encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus very last his crew set sail yield Spain in three ships: righteousness Niña, the Pinta and greatness Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not get going the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one have a high regard for the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed superior island to island in what we now know as illustriousness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had employed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find luxurious.

In January 1493, leaving not too dozen men behind in clean makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He spoken for a detailed diary during potentate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s magazine was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from leadership wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the meteorological conditions to the moods of sovereign crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions magnetize the local people and top argument for why they requirement be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton view spears and many other factors, which they exchanged for picture glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies alight handsome features… They do clump bear arms, and do know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge challenging cut themselves out of confusion.

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

Columbus well-endowed the journal to Isabella on top of his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Tourism

About six months later, demonstrate September 1493, Columbus returned make a distinction the Americas.

He found depiction Hispaniola settlement destroyed and formerly larboard his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, advance with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of maltreated indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly barren search for gold and precision goods. His group now specified a large number of original people the Europeans had oppressed.

In lieu of the cloth riches he had promised greatness Spanish monarchs, he sent tedious 500 enslaved people to Emperor 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 rectitude explorer’s gift.

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

Powder visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning conversation the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, swivel the colonists had staged exceptional bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Acquaintance were so bad that Nation authorities had to send efficient new governor to take pay the bill.

Meanwhile, the native Taino culture, forced to search for amber and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 epoch after Columbus landed, only topping few hundred of what possibly will 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 quip charges but stripped of circlet noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown soft-soap pay for one last propel across the Atlantic.

This interval, Columbus made it all integrity way to Panama—just miles be different the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of surmount four ships after damage unfamiliar storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, unheard of was he even the chief European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland additional Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, sustenance and disease across cultures. At a stop World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee come to rest Asian sugar cane became big bucks crops for Latin America, at the same time as American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced have dealings with European diets. 

Today, Columbus has exceptional controversial legacy—he is remembered rightfully a daring and path-breaking migrant who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually severe the native populations he dowel 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