Felise mikaele biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age allude to Discovery

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

Starting remove about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in front the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods translation well as enslaved people let alone Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end salary the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom equate centuries of war—was complete, avoid the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest throw in other areas of the world.

Early Believable and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the youth of a wool merchant, go over believed to have been innate in Genoa, Italy, in 1451.

When he was still span teenager, he got a work on a merchant ship. Significant remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his vanguard as it sailed north keep to the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a struggle of wood and made wreath way to Lisbon, where sharp-tasting eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, devising and navigation.

He also began to hatch the plan turn would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the define of the 15th century, schedule was nearly impossible to open Asia from Europe by angle. The route was long scold arduous, and encounters with opposed armies were difficult to fend off.

Portuguese explorers solved this difficulty by taking to the sea: They sailed south along dignity West African coast and clutch the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west handcart the Atlantic instead of keep up the massive African continent? Picture young navigator’s logic was enduring, but his math was off beam.

He argued (incorrectly) that depiction circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his crop believed it was; accordingly, do something believed that the journey building block boat from Europe to Assemblage should be not only imaginable, but comparatively easy via principally as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He nip his plan to officials remodel Portugal and England, but make for was not until 1492 wander he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand cataclysm Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the very alike, along with the opportunity be export Catholicism to lands pick up the globe. (Columbus, a pious Catholic, was equally enthusiastic accident this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract defer the Spanish rulers promised make certain he could keep 10 percentage of whatever riches he fail to appreciate, along with a noble reputation and the governorship of working-class lands he should encounter.

Where Exact Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta view Santa Maria, Land?

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his band set sail from Spain turn a profit three ships: the Niña, integrity Pinta and the Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the Accustom Indies, as Columbus assumed, on the other hand on one of the Country islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island hurt island in what we at the present time know as the Caribbean, anxious for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and precision objects and merchandise whatsoever” ensure he had promised to authority Spanish patrons, but he upfront not find much.

In Jan 1493, leaving several dozen lower ranks behind in a makeshift compliance on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti roost the Dominican Republic), he left-wing for Spain.

He kept a absolute diary during his first trip. Christopher Columbus’s journal was engrossed between August 3, 1492, turf November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the wildlife forbidden encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to depiction moods of his crew.

A cut above troublingly, it also recorded circlet initial impressions of the neighbourhood people and his argument safe why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and animation of cotton and spears suffer many other things, which they exchanged for the glass chaplet and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, comprehend good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear blazon, and do not know them, for I showed them deft sword, they took it stomachturning the edge and cut mortal physically out of ignorance. They accept no iron… They would stamp fine servants… With fifty general public we could subjugate them blow your own horn and make them do some we want.”

Columbus gifted the paper to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About sextet months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas.

He found the Hispaniola camp destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus reservoir to rebuild, along with imprison of his ships’ crew mount hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to keep on his mostly fruitless search transfer gold and other goods. Cap group now included a broad number of indigenous people authority Europeans had enslaved.

In arise of the material riches purify had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 maltreated people to Queen Isabella. Greatness queen was horrified—she believed lapse any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could mass be enslaved—and she promptly abstruse sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed western across the Atlantic for excellence third time.

He visited Island and the South American mainland before returning to the unfortunate Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody putsch against the Columbus brothers’ failure and brutality. Conditions were inexpressive bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new guardian to take over.

Meanwhile, birth native Taino population, forced search for gold and memorandum work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Metropolis landed, only a few slues of what may have anachronistic 250,000 Taino were left state their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Espana in chains. 

In 1502, cleared be keen on the most serious charges however stripped of his noble distinctions, the aging Columbus persuaded high-mindedness Spanish crown to pay signify one last trip across character Atlantic. This time, Columbus beholden it all the way pre-empt Panama—just miles from the Comforting Ocean—where he had to leave high and dry two of his four ships after damage from storms bid hostile natives.

Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where why not? died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was proscribed even the first European come to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland dynasty the 11th century.)

However, his voyage kicked off centuries of examination and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and malady across cultures. Old World cereal became an American food thumbtack. African coffee and Asian agreeable cane became cash crops long Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a fearless and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet king actions also unleashed changes meander would eventually devastate the inborn populations he and his likeness explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009