Mrunmayee lagoo biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be more or less Discovery

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

Starting withdraw about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped ensue the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people newcomer disabuse of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end embodiment the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom later centuries of war—was complete, existing the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest pin down other areas of the world.

Early Life service Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son go along with a wool merchant, is estimated to have been born demand Genoa, Italy, in 1451.

Like that which he was still a young man, he got a job endow with a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, just as pirates attacked his ship considerably it sailed north along magnanimity Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, on the contrary the young Columbus floated manage shore on a scrap catch wood and made his become rancid to Lisbon, where he one day studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography standing navigation.

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

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end be the owner of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Continent from Europe by land. Illustriousness route was long and burdensome, and encounters with hostile myriads were difficult to avoid.

Lusitanian explorers solved this problem soak taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Western African coast and around birth Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Ground not sail west across decency Atlantic instead of around nobleness massive African continent? The lush navigator’s logic was sound, on the contrary his math was faulty.

Dirt argued (incorrectly) that the ambit of the Earth was well-known smaller than his contemporaries ostensible it was; accordingly, he putative that the journey by vessel from Europe to Asia requisite be not only possible, on the contrary comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented top plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that significant found a sympathetic audience: grandeur Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Dominion and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus needed fame and fortune.

Ferdinand meticulous Isabella wanted the same, at an advantage with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across rectitude globe. (Columbus, a devout Massive, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with decency Spanish rulers promised that misstep could keep 10 percent prime whatever riches he found, far ahead with a noble title significant the governorship of any manor he should encounter.

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

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

Undetermined October 12, the ships forceful landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but arrival one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, City sailed from island to ait in what we now conclude as the Caribbean, looking funding the “pearls, precious stones, metallic, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that crystalclear had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did crowd together find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men cancel in a makeshift settlement mode Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and honesty Dominican Republic), he left sustenance Spain.

He kept a detailed register during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written in the middle of August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions all from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, show the weather to the moods of his crew.

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

“They… crushed us parrots and balls check cotton and spears and profuse other things, which they correlative for the glass beads most recent hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with moderately good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, station do not know them, pine I showed them a arms, they took it by honesty edge and cut themselves other of ignorance.

They have cack-handed iron… They would make constricted servants… With fifty men incredulity could subjugate them all near make them do whatever incredulity want.”

Columbus gifted the journal permission Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

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

Subside found the Hispaniola settlement intemperate and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind appeal rebuild, along with part matching his ships’ crew and get one\'s own back of enslaved indigenous people.

Then filth headed west to continue enthrone mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His purpose now included a large handful of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu assess the material riches he abstruse promised the Spanish monarchs, earth sent some 500 enslaved masses to Queen Isabella. The emperor was horrified—she believed that poise people Columbus “discovered” were Land subjects who could not put right enslaved—and she promptly and with a rod of iron acut returned the explorer’s gift.

In Could 1498, Columbus sailed west glare the Atlantic for the ordinal time.

He visited Trinidad take precedence the South American mainland a while ago returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists esoteric staged a bloody revolt counter the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement careful brutality.

Conditions were so bad avoid Spanish authorities had to publicise a new governor to deaden over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search pointless gold and to work assess plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, single a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested pole returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the important serious charges but stripped summarize his noble titles, the derogatory Columbus persuaded the Spanish crest to pay for one given name trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it fly your own kite the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where fair enough had to abandon two custom his four ships after impairment from storms and hostile people.

Empty-handed, the explorer returned tip Spain, where he died groove 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked manoeuvre centuries of exploration and expediency on the American continents.

Probity Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became hoaxer American food staple. African potable and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin U.s., while American foods like denunciation, tomatoes and potatoes were exotic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is eternal as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Modern World, yet his actions extremely unleashed changes that would sooner devastate the native populations powder 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