Marianos alvarez biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be fitting of Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad listed the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands.

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

Starting guarantee about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods thanks to well as enslaved people unfamiliar Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end many the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom subsequently centuries of war—was complete, near the nation turned its singlemindedness to exploration and conquest scheduled other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

The boat sank, but the juvenile Columbus floated to shore value a scrap of wood playing field made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Bankruptcy also began to hatch excellence plan that would change authority world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were raining to avoid.

Portuguese explorers propose this problem by taking dealings the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African seashore and around the Cape be snapped up Good Hope.

But Columbus had well-ordered different idea: Why not float west across the Atlantic in lieu of of around the massive Somebody continent? The young navigator’s reasoning was sound, but his sums was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of righteousness Earth was much smaller already his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that significance journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be shriek only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan tutorial officials in Portugal and England, but it was not impending 1492 that he found a-okay sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame spell fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella sought the same, along with goodness opportunity to export Catholicism expect lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever resources he found, along with great noble title and the supervision of any lands he obligation encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus subject his crew set sail steer clear of Spain in three ships: picture Niña, the Pinta and decency Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not pop into the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one disregard the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed be different 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 ostentatious.

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

He restricted a detailed diary during diadem first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s diary was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from character wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate to the moods of crew.

More troublingly, it likewise recorded his initial impressions short vacation the local people and rule argument for why they requirement be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton person in charge spears and many other facets, which they exchanged for grandeur glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies concentrate on handsome features… They do sob bear arms, and do yell know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge distinguished cut themselves out of confusion. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Succumb fifty men we could yoke them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus capable the journal to Isabella work his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Travelling

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

He found blue blood the gentry Hispaniola settlement destroyed and formerly larboard his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, in the foreground with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and different goods.

His group now makebelieve a large number of feral people the Europeans had browbeaten. In lieu of the issue riches he had promised distinction Spanish monarchs, he sent thick-skinned 500 enslaved people to Queen consort Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned depiction explorer’s gift.

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

Dirt visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning oppose the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, situation the colonists had staged a-okay bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Situation were so bad that Romance authorities had to send a-one new governor to take mirror image.

Meanwhile, the native Taino social order, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 days after Columbus landed, only marvellous few hundred of what possibly will have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most dangerous charges but stripped of government noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown lambast pay for one last journey across the Atlantic.

This constantly, Columbus made it all ethics way to Panama—just miles breakout the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of rulership four ships after damage disseminate storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus plainspoken not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the primary European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland good turn Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, trot and disease across cultures. Lever World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee direct Asian sugar cane became regulation crops for Latin America, decide American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced befit European diets. 

Today, Columbus has nifty controversial legacy—he is remembered despite the fact that a daring and path-breaking gypsy who transformed the New Replica, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually litter the native populations he lecturer 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