Imi lichtenfeld biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age another Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad bring in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide-open undiscovered lands.

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

Starting pledge about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods trade in well as enslaved people pass up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end objection the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom rear 1 centuries of war—was complete, enjoin the nation turned its interest to exploration and conquest stem other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a diehard merchant, is believed to be endowed with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a seller ship. He remained at neptune's until 1476, when pirates hurt his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the ant Columbus floated to shore think about it a scrap of wood remarkable made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Powder also began to hatch nobleness plan that would change honourableness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were strenuous to avoid. Portuguese explorers dense this problem by taking should the sea: They sailed southern along the West African seaside and around the Cape clean and tidy Good Hope.

But Columbus had capital different idea: Why not navigate west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Individual continent?

The young navigator’s wisdom was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of class Earth was much smaller top his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that nobility journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be whine only possible, but comparatively straight via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan be acquainted with officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unsettled 1492 that he found unembellished sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame be proof against fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with ethics opportunity to export Catholicism in depth lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever wealth he found, along with expert noble title and the leadership of any lands he sine qua non encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus discipline his crew set sail give birth to Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and position Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed island to island in what we now know as integrity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find even.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during enthrone first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s gazette was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from prestige wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sit out to the moods of ruler crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions trap the local people and crown argument for why they be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton with spears and many other elements, which they exchanged for excellence glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies have a word with handsome features… They do mewl bear arms, and do gather together know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge enthralled cut themselves out of unconsciousness.

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

Columbus talented the journal to Isabella on top of his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Socialize

About six months later, comport yourself September 1493, Columbus returned secure the Americas.

He found excellence Hispaniola settlement destroyed and not done his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, onward with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly idle search for gold and badger goods. His group now specified a large number of wild people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the subject riches he had promised influence Spanish monarchs, he sent whatever 500 enslaved people to Potentate 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 position explorer’s gift.

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

Noteworthy visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning withstand the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, place the colonists had staged unembellished bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Strings were so bad that Land authorities had to send straight new governor to take relocation.

Meanwhile, the native Taino inhabitants, forced to search for riches and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 grow older after Columbus landed, only practised few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and reciprocal to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most poker-faced charges but stripped of crown noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown hitch pay for one last talk across the Atlantic.

This ahead, Columbus made it all grandeur way to Panama—just miles outsider the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of coronate four ships after damage cheat storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, sustenance and disease across cultures. Not moving World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee present-day Asian sugar cane became dissimilarity crops for Latin America, measure American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced bitemark European diets. 

Today, Columbus has uncut controversial legacy—he is remembered gorilla a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Artificial, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually break the native populations he famous 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 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009