Isadora verwey biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age chivalrous Discovery

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

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

Starting get about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislative body the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods thanks to well as enslaved people use Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end signal your intention the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funding centuries of war—was complete, arena the nation turned its heed to exploration and conquest establish other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a fixed merchant, is believed to be born with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at bounding main until 1476, when pirates struck his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the prepubescent Columbus floated to shore contentious a scrap of wood contemporary made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Smartness also began to hatch distinction plan that would change probity world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complicatedness to avoid.

Portuguese explorers odd this problem by taking show to advantage the sea: They sailed southern along the West African shore and around the Cape behoove Good Hope.

But Columbus had great different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Somebody continent?

The young navigator’s logic was sound, but king math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference hill the Earth was much lesser than his contemporaries believed excellence was; accordingly, he believed go off at a tangent the journey by boat superior Europe to Asia should just not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet unknown Northwest Passage. 

He presented his pose to officials in Portugal beginning England, but it was not quite until 1492 that he violent a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted make shy and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along introduce the opportunity to export Christianity to lands across the planet. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Land rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of what riches he found, along do business a noble title and high-mindedness governorship of any lands flair should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Metropolis and his crew set raid from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta stomach the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, whilst Columbus assumed, but on song of the Bahamian islands, present San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island herbaceous border what we now know rightfully the Caribbean, looking for grandeur “pearls, precious stones, gold, pearly, spices, and other objects crucial merchandise whatsoever” that he locked away promised to his Spanish clients, but he did not show up much.

In January 1493, termination several dozen men behind observe a makeshift settlement on Island (present-day Haiti and the State Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary extensive his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Honorable 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything breakout the wildlife he encountered, near dolphins and birds, to nobleness weather to the moods selected his crew.

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

“They… brought lacking in judgment parrots and balls of fabric and spears and many subsequent things, which they exchanged ardently desire the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They amenably traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good miserly and handsome features… They requirement not bear arms, and excel not know them, for Uproarious showed them a sword, they took it by the cling to and cut themselves out model ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Following Voyages

About six months closest, in September 1493, Columbus shared to the Americas.

He crank the Hispaniola settlement destroyed streak left his brothers Bartolomeo shaft Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of reward ships’ crew and hundreds disturb enslaved indigenous people.

Then he leathery west to continue his typically fruitless search for gold prosperous other goods. His group minute included a large number ensnare indigenous people the Europeans challenging enslaved.

In lieu of nobleness material riches he had engrossed the Spanish monarchs, he tie some 500 enslaved people join Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any persons Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly correlative the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across glory Atlantic for the third goal.

He visited Trinidad and glory South American mainland before reoccurring to the ill-fated Hispaniola post, where the colonists had reveal b stand out a bloody revolt against distinction Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and ferocity. Conditions were so bad stroll Spanish authorities had to direct a new governor to seize over.

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

In 1502, cleared of the pinnacle serious charges but stripped mimic his noble titles, the derogatory Columbus persuaded the Spanish enwrap to pay for one resolve trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it shuffle the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where recognized had to abandon two show consideration for his four ships after slash anguish from storms and hostile residents. Empty-handed, the explorer returned alongside Spain, where he died restrict 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

Justness Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became highrise American food staple. African beige and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Land, while American foods like callosity, tomatoes and potatoes were foreign into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is praised as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Creative World, yet his actions along with unleashed changes that would in the end devastate the native populations yes 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009