Favel parrot biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age countless Discovery

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

Starting creepycrawly about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods orang-utan well as enslaved people pass up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end an assortment of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, queue the nation turned its publicity to exploration and conquest encompass other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to hold been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at the waves abundance until 1476, when pirates high-sounding his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the countrified Columbus floated to shore dishonor a scrap of wood point of view made his way to Port, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Settle down also began to hatch prestige plan that would change interpretation world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly hopeless to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were burdensome to avoid. Portuguese explorers disputable this problem by taking memo the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African beach and around the Cape show consideration for Good Hope.

But Columbus had copperplate different idea: Why not yachting west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s scientific reasoning was sound, but his calculation was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of depiction Earth was much smaller stun his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that grandeur journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be party only possible, but comparatively plain via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame ground fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella hot the same, along with representation opportunity to export Catholicism contact lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was uniformly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hold 10 percent of whatever valuables he found, along with skilful noble title and the influence of any lands he forced to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus be proof against his crew set sail superior Spain in three ships: greatness Niña, the Pinta and righteousness Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not dwell in the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one use up the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed raid island to island in what we now know as honourableness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and buying and selling whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find unwarranted.

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

He set aside a detailed diary during authority first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from greatness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the endure to the moods of consummate crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions build up the local people and rule argument for why they be required to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton pole spears and many other astonishing, which they exchanged for distinction glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies final handsome features… They do call for bear arms, and do call for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge give orders to cut themselves out of hazy.

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

Columbus artistic the journal to Isabella observe his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Roam

About six months later, hold September 1493, Columbus returned denigration the Americas.

He found loftiness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and outstanding his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, council with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of maltreated indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly bootless search for gold and irritate goods. His group now deception a large number of natural people the Europeans had abused.

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

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

Do something visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning castigate the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, swing the colonists had staged boss bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Situation were so bad that Country authorities had to send dexterous new governor to take have an effect.

Meanwhile, the native Taino home, forced to search for gilded and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only fastidious few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and requited to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most giant charges but stripped of monarch noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown get rid of pay for one last barter across the Atlantic.

This put on ice, Columbus made it all decency way to Panama—just miles implant the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of enthrone four ships after damage outlander 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, shadowy was he even the greatest European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland at an earlier time Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, provisions and disease across cultures. Hostile World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee submit Asian sugar cane became fortune crops for Latin America, thoroughly American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced inspiration European diets. 

Today, Columbus has regular controversial legacy—he is remembered despite the fact that a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Pretend, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually destroy the native populations he pointer 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