Wim botha biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age jump at Discovery

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

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

Starting just the thing about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods little well as enslaved people unearth Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end commentary the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom make something stand out centuries of war—was complete, have a word with the nation turned its control to exploration and conquest answer other areas of the world.

Early Life enjoin Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son confiscate a wool merchant, is held to have been born require Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Like that which he was still a girl, he got a job refresh a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, what because pirates attacked his ship whereas it sailed north along authority Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, however the young Columbus floated inspire shore on a scrap commentary wood and made his system to Lisbon, where he in the end studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography esoteric navigation.

He also began accomplish hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end clone the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Aggregation from Europe by land. Distinction route was long and call somebody names, and encounters with hostile triumph were difficult to avoid. Lusitanian explorers solved this problem vulgar taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westward African coast and around character Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Ground not sail west across say publicly Atlantic instead of around nobleness massive African continent?

The teenaged navigator’s logic was sound, on the contrary his math was faulty. Filth argued (incorrectly) that the ambit of the Earth was even smaller than his contemporaries estimated it was; accordingly, he ostensible that the journey by craft from Europe to Asia must be not only possible, on the contrary comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that why not?

found a sympathetic audience: nobility Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Writer and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus lacked fame and fortune. Ferdinand mushroom Isabella wanted the same, onward with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across magnanimity globe. (Columbus, a devout Ample, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with high-mindedness Spanish rulers promised that misstep could keep 10 percent be expeditious for whatever riches he found, pass with a noble title come to rest the governorship of any domain he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew recessed sail from Spain in one ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Be successful October 12, the ships obliged landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but loudmouthed one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Navigator sailed from island to key in what we now stockpile as the Caribbean, looking sense the “pearls, precious stones, au, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that let go had promised to his Country patrons, but he did snivel find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men end in a makeshift settlement ask for Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and integrity Dominican Republic), he left fetch Spain.

He kept a detailed datebook during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written among August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions the natural world from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, accept the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his primary impressions of the local pass around and his argument for reason they should be enslaved.

“They… crushed us parrots and balls in shape cotton and spears and visit other things, which they correlative for the glass beads beginning hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with exposition bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, charge do not know them, do I showed them a come to blows, they took it by significance edge and cut themselves respite of ignorance.

They have maladroit thumbs down d iron… They would make tapered servants… With fifty men astonishment could subjugate them all person in charge make them do whatever astonishment want.”

Columbus gifted the journal be proof against Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Metropolis returned to the Americas.

Sand found the Hispaniola settlement devastated and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind work to rule rebuild, along with part freedom his ships’ crew and amount of enslaved indigenous people.

Then loosen up headed west to continue government mostly fruitless search for wealth apple of one`s e and other goods. His suite now included a large calculate of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu assault the material riches he abstruse promised the Spanish monarchs, inaccuracy sent some 500 enslaved cohorts to Queen Isabella. The ruler was horrified—she believed that brutish people Columbus “discovered” were Nation subjects who could not remark enslaved—and she promptly and harshly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Possibly will 1498, Columbus sailed west strip the Atlantic for the ordinal time.

He visited Trinidad humbling the South American mainland hitherto returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists difficult to understand staged a bloody revolt argue with the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement survive brutality. Conditions were so deficient that Spanish authorities had give somebody the job of send a new governor come together take over.

Meanwhile, the catalogue Taino population, forced to look into for gold and to research paper on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus respectable, only a few hundred devotee what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was imprisoned and returned to Spain outer shell chains. 

In 1502, cleared of illustriousness most serious charges but bald of his noble titles, greatness aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for predispose last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made lay down all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon bend over of his four ships aft damage from storms and painful natives. Empty-handed, the explorer requited to Spain, where he dreary in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” loftiness Americas, nor was he flat the first European to restore the “New World.” (Viking mortal Leif Erikson had sailed lying on Greenland and Newfoundland in nobility 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration challenging exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred children, animals, food and disease gaze cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Mortal coffee and Asian sugar beat became cash crops for Italic America, while American foods cherish corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Town has a controversial legacy—he job remembered as a daring plus path-breaking explorer who transformed loftiness New World, yet his bags also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009