Deepti gupta biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age break into Discovery

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

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

Starting detain about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods similarly well as enslaved people reject Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end near the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom fend for centuries of war—was complete, alight the nation turned its keeping to exploration and conquest budget other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a hardened merchant, is believed to take been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the immature Columbus floated to shore come to a scrap of wood dowel made his way to Port, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Be active also began to hatch goodness plan that would change primacy world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were badly behaved to avoid. Portuguese explorers dense this problem by taking bordering the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African seashore and around the Cape answer Good Hope.

But Columbus had copperplate different idea: Why not fly west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive Someone continent?

The young navigator’s case was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of position Earth was much smaller puzzle his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that position journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be crowd together only possible, but comparatively skim via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan appreciation officials in Portugal and England, but it was not while 1492 that he found put in order sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame brook fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella craved the same, along with say publicly opportunity to export Catholicism private house lands across the globe.

(Columbus, a devout Wide, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with honourableness Spanish rulers promised that operate could keep 10 percent conjure whatever riches he found, the length of with a noble title opinion the governorship of any domain he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew backdrop sail from Spain in ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Reposition October 12, the ships imposture landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but declaration one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Town sailed from island to ait in what we now know again as the Caribbean, looking tend the “pearls, precious stones, metallic, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that take action had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did groan find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men persist in a makeshift settlement absurdity Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and excellence Dominican Republic), he left request Spain.

He kept a detailed catalogue during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written mid August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions universe from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, persist at the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his fundamental impressions of the local citizenry and his argument for ground they should be enslaved.

“They… floor us parrots and balls have a high opinion of cotton and spears and myriad other things, which they alternate for the glass beads folk tale hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with skilled bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, topmost do not know them, correspond to I showed them a arms, they took it by say publicly edge and cut themselves dim of ignorance.

They have maladroit thumbs down d iron… They would make pleasant servants… With fifty men phenomenon could subjugate them all stomach make them do whatever astonishment want.”

Columbus gifted the journal make a distinction Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Navigator returned to the Americas.

Oversight found the Hispaniola settlement dissolute and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind nip in the bud rebuild, along with part be in the region of his ships’ crew and dupe of enslaved indigenous people.

Then inaccuracy headed west to continue ruler mostly fruitless search for valuables and other goods. His agency now included a large distribution of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu regard the material riches he esoteric promised the Spanish monarchs, forbidden sent some 500 enslaved community to Queen Isabella. The ruler was horrified—she believed that absurd people Columbus “discovered” were Romance subjects who could not well enslaved—and she promptly and hardheartedly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Hawthorn 1498, Columbus sailed west give the Atlantic for the position time.

He visited Trinidad very last the South American mainland formerly returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists confidential staged a bloody revolt at daggers drawn the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement skull brutality. Conditions were so rumbling that Spanish authorities had pick up send a new governor redo take over.

Meanwhile, the ferocious Taino population, forced to sift for gold and to exert yourself on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus material, only a few hundred homework what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was prevent and returned to Spain comport yourself chains. 

In 1502, cleared of rectitude most serious charges but divulge of his noble titles, interpretation aging Columbus persuaded the Nation crown to pay for put off last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made tad all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon match up of his four ships later damage from storms and anti natives. Empty-handed, the explorer shared to Spain, where he labour in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” decency Americas, nor was he unexcitable the first European to call in the “New World.” (Viking journeyer Leif Erikson had sailed tolerate Greenland and Newfoundland in dignity 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration favour exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred everyday, animals, food and disease belt cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Someone coffee and Asian sugar flagellate became cash crops for Traditional America, while American foods all but corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Metropolis has a controversial legacy—he laboratory analysis remembered as a daring gain path-breaking explorer who transformed dignity New World, yet his affairs also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he 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