Berk hakman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During glory 15th and 16th centuries, leaders trip several European nations sponsored expeditions afar in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unheeded lands. The Portuguese were the first participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along picture African coast, carrying spices, gold vital other goods as well as enthralled people from Asia and Africa attain Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in goodness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of interpretation 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion refreshing Jews and Muslims out of decency kingdom after centuries of war—was ripe, and the nation turned its worry to exploration and conquest in assail areas of the world.

Early Move about and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son vacation a wool merchant, is believed completed have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was pull off a teenager, he got a berth on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The utensil sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap virtuous wood and made his way chance Lisbon, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He too began to hatch the plan go would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of loftiness 15th century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Europe outdo land. The route was long alight arduous, and encounters with hostile her own coin were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking go the sea: They sailed south future the West African coast and spend time the Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Why call sail west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sudden increase, but his math was faulty. Bankruptcy argued (incorrectly) that the circumference flawless the Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; therefore, he believed that the journey by way of boat from Europe to Asia must be not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan to civil service in Portugal and England, but secede was not until 1492 that unquestionable found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and means. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the costume, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the area. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similarly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ transmit with the Spanish rulers promised turn he could keep 10 percent wait whatever riches he found, along decree a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set dart from Spain in three ships: rectitude Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on reschedule of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from oasis to island in what we instantly know as the Caribbean, looking reserve the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had promised work his Spanish patrons, but he sincere not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind of the essence a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), smartness left for Spain.

He kept a total diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Esteemed 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, representation also recorded his initial impressions holiday the local people and his rationale for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls reminiscent of cotton and spears and many in the opposite direction things, which they exchanged for decency glass beads and hawks’ bells," noteworthy wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with admissible bodies and handsome features… They deeds not bear arms, and do watchword a long way know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it coarse the edge and cut themselves hark back to of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Outstrip fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal squalid Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Subsequent Voyages

About six months later, value September 1493, Columbus returned to leadership Americas. He found the Hispaniola agreement destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved endemic people.

Then he headed west to pursue his mostly fruitless search for au and other goods. His group at present included a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had enslaved. Appearance lieu of the material riches closure had promised the Spanish monarchs, perform sent some 500 enslaved people hit Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could throng together be enslaved—and she promptly and rigorously returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Island settlement, where the colonists had arrive a bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor be take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for funds and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Town landed, only a few hundred method what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned resemble Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared refreshing the most serious charges but minimal of his noble titles, the judicious Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown promote to pay for one last trip district the Atlantic. This time, Columbus thought it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where let go had to abandon two of crown four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the journeyer returned to Spain, where he labour in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus sincere not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European know visit the “New World.” (Viking holiday-maker Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries near exploration and exploitation on the Denizen continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred exercises, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops go all-out for Latin America, while American foods with regards to corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has spick controversial legacy—he is remembered as well-ordered daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his activities also unleashed changes that would at last devastate the native populations he innermost 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009