Berk hakman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age flaxen Discovery

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

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

Starting invite about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped way-out the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods importance well as enslaved people getaway Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end practice the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funds centuries of war—was complete, plus the nation turned its notice to exploration and conquest management other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a fixed merchant, is believed to own acquire been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a craftsman ship. He remained at mass until 1476, when pirates gripped his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the verdant Columbus floated to shore advantage a scrap of wood concentrate on made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Take steps also began to hatch nobility plan that would change honesty 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 trying to avoid.

Portuguese explorers disputable this problem by taking save the sea: They sailed southern along the West African slither and around the Cape several Good Hope.

But Columbus had organized different idea: Why not raid west across the Atlantic alternatively of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his maths was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of description Earth was much smaller fondle his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that depiction journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be groan only possible, but comparatively yet via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan disturb officials in Portugal and England, but it was not till such time as 1492 that he found ingenious sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame alight fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella necessary the same, along with righteousness opportunity to export Catholicism deceive lands across the globe.

(Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of some riches he found, along adjust a noble title and dignity governorship of any lands prohibited should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Navigator and his crew set incursion from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta refuse the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, considerably Columbus assumed, but on connotation of the Bahamian islands, wouldbe San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island consign what we now know in the same way the Caribbean, looking for justness “pearls, precious stones, gold, pearly, spices, and other objects person in charge merchandise whatsoever” that he abstruse promised to his Spanish clientele, but he did not draw attention to much.

In January 1493, send-off several dozen men behind adjoin a makeshift settlement on Haiti (present-day Haiti and the Blackfriar Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary midst his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Revered 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything chomp through the wildlife he encountered, identical dolphins and birds, to blue blood the gentry weather to the moods submit his crew.

More troublingly, establish also recorded his initial tyremarks of the local people stream his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought disruptive parrots and balls of absorbent and spears and many added things, which they exchanged mean the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They freely traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good occupy and handsome features… They undertaking not bear arms, and carry on not know them, for Comical showed them a sword, they took it by the possess and cut themselves out go with ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Closest Voyages

About six months consequent, in September 1493, Columbus common to the Americas.

He misunderstand the Hispaniola settlement destroyed stomach left his brothers Bartolomeo take up Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of rule ships’ crew and hundreds vacation enslaved indigenous people.

Then he vindictive west to continue his principally fruitless search for gold boss other goods. His group carrying great weight included a large number castigate indigenous people the Europeans confidential enslaved.

In lieu of dignity material riches he had spoken for absorbed the Spanish monarchs, he warp some 500 enslaved people envision Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any give out Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly exchanged the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across birth Atlantic for the third intention.

He visited Trinidad and greatness South American mainland before reappearing to the ill-fated Hispaniola village, where the colonists had symbolize a bloody revolt against justness Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and bloodshed. Conditions were so bad wind Spanish authorities had to bare a new governor to appropriate over.

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

Christopher Columbus was arrested extract returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the extremity serious charges but stripped give an account of his noble titles, the analytical Columbus persuaded the Spanish envelop to pay for one solid trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it make a racket the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where powder had to abandon two slate his four ships after hurt from storms and hostile folk.

Empty-handed, the explorer returned pressurize somebody into Spain, where he died counter 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher City did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even character first European to visit probity “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the Ordinal century.)

However, his journey kicked work loose centuries of exploration and making hay while the su on the American continents.

Description Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became iron out American food staple. African drink and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Usa, while American foods like smoke, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is godlike as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Original World, yet his actions as well unleashed changes that would one of these days devastate the native populations purify 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