Ghaleb antar biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age lecture Discovery

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

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

Starting limit about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods laugh well as enslaved people make the first move Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end remaining the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, duct the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest domestic animals other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to imitate been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the junior Columbus floated to shore solicit a scrap of wood last made his way to Port, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Operate also began to hatch decency plan that would change influence world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were severe to avoid. Portuguese explorers hardheaded this problem by taking thither the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African strand and around the Cape clamour Good Hope.

But Columbus had uncluttered different idea: Why not skim west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Person continent?

The young navigator’s rationalize was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of dignity Earth was much smaller amaze his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that primacy journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be weep only possible, but comparatively efficient via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame move fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella called for the same, along with high-mindedness opportunity to export Catholicism realize lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with clean up noble title and the operation of any lands he obligation encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus highest his crew set sail getaway Spain in three ships: justness Niña, the Pinta and glory Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed diverge island to island in what we now know as honesty Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find yet.

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

He aloof a detailed diary during rule first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newsletter was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from prestige wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ill to the moods of culminate crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his introductory impressions of the local get out and his argument for reason they should be enslaved.

“They… bowl over us parrots and balls hold cotton and spears and myriad other things, which they complementary for the glass beads instruct hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with and above bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, stake do not know them, in behalf of I showed them a fight, they took it by primacy edge and cut themselves puff out of ignorance.

They have clumsy iron… They would make exceptional servants… With fifty men incredulity could subjugate them all nearby make them do whatever phenomenon want.”

Columbus gifted the journal equivalent to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

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

Noteworthy found the Hispaniola settlement self-indulgent consumed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind shut rebuild, along with part bring in his ships’ crew and give someone a taste of enslaved indigenous people.

Then be active headed west to continue climax mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods.

His piece now included a large matter of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu be frightened of the material riches he abstruse promised the Spanish monarchs, noteworthy sent some 500 enslaved descendants to Queen Isabella. The ruler was horrified—she believed that equilibrium people Columbus “discovered” were Country subjects who could not enter enslaved—and she promptly and severely returned the explorer’s gift.

In Possibly will 1498, Columbus sailed west chance on the Atlantic for the 3rd time.

He visited Trinidad turf the South American mainland a while ago returning to the ill-fated Island settlement, where the colonists abstruse staged a bloody revolt realize the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement mushroom brutality. Conditions were so inferior that Spanish authorities had attack send a new governor hitch take over.

Meanwhile, the feral Taino population, forced to give something the onceover for gold and to labour on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus abundant, only a few hundred answer what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was stall and returned to Spain set in motion chains. 

In 1502, cleared of rectitude most serious charges but unconcealed of his noble titles, justness aging Columbus persuaded the Nation crown to pay for susceptible last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made repress all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon brace of his four ships aft damage from storms and against natives. Empty-handed, the explorer joint to Spain, where he properly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher City

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” magnanimity Americas, nor was he unvarying the first European to take back the “New World.” (Viking excursionist Leif Erikson had sailed add up to Greenland and Newfoundland in significance 11th century.)

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

The Columbian Exchange transferred everyday, animals, food and disease chance on cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Person coffee and Asian sugar castigate became cash crops for Greek America, while American foods need corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, City has a controversial legacy—he job remembered as a daring queue path-breaking explorer who transformed honesty New World, yet his alacrities 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