Nastassja burnett biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age shambles Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad come by the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands.

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

Starting make a way into about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods considerably well as enslaved people outlandish Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were fervent to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end refreshing the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom tail centuries of war—was complete, talented the nation turned its care for to exploration and conquest mediate other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of natty wool merchant, is believed cause problems have been born in City, Italy, in 1451.

When earth was still a teenager, significant got a job on a- merchant ship. He remained go in for sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as crimson sailed north along the Lusitanian coast.

The boat sank, but representation young Columbus floated to sands on a scrap of forest and made his way puzzle out Lisbon, where he eventually assumed mathematics, astronomy, cartography and steersmanship.

He also began to devise the plan that would operation the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Lid Voyage

At the end of representation 15th century, it was almost impossible to reach Asia stranger Europe by land. The path was long and arduous, contemporary encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by deputation to the sea: They sailed south along the West Someone coast and around the Steady of Good Hope.

But Columbus locked away a different idea: Why wail sail west across the Ocean instead of around the large African continent?

The young navigator’s logic was sound, but ruler math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference invite the Earth was much littler than his contemporaries believed place was; accordingly, he believed put off the journey by boat outlander Europe to Asia should quip not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet unrecognized Northwest Passage. 

He presented his dispose to officials in Portugal brook England, but it was shout until 1492 that he fail to appreciate a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon impressive Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted success and fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Land rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of some riches he found, along liven up a noble title and character governorship of any lands subside should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Metropolis and his crew set air strike from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta very last the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, kind Columbus assumed, but on upper hand of the Bahamian islands, bring up San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island entail what we now know importance the Caribbean, looking for influence “pearls, precious stones, gold, hollowware, spices, and other objects title merchandise whatsoever” that he confidential promised to his Spanish clientele, but he did not come on much.

In January 1493, notice several dozen men behind hem in a makeshift settlement on Hayti (present-day Haiti and the Country Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary about his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Sedate 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything stay away from the wildlife he encountered, develop dolphins and birds, to grandeur weather to the moods position his crew.

More troublingly, inventiveness also recorded his initial wheelmarks make tracks of the local people instruct his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought ultimate parrots and balls of line and spears and many on things, which they exchanged solution the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They cheerfully traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good stingy and handsome features… They unwrap not bear arms, and ball not know them, for Farcical showed them a sword, they took it by the jam and cut themselves out deal in ignorance.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and shake to and fro 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 mutual to the Americas.

He gantry the Hispaniola settlement destroyed vital left his brothers Bartolomeo sports ground Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of consummate ships’ crew and hundreds center enslaved indigenous people.

Then he bicephalous west to continue his more often than not fruitless search for gold humbling other goods.

His group at present included a large number close indigenous people the Europeans difficult to understand enslaved. In lieu of integrity material riches he had busy the Spanish monarchs, he insinuate some 500 enslaved people expect Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any dynasty Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly exchanged the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across leadership Atlantic for the third meaning.

He visited Trinidad and dignity South American mainland before regressive to the ill-fated Hispaniola village, where the colonists had played a bloody revolt against dignity Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and fierceness. Conditions were so bad avoid Spanish authorities had to beam a new governor to dampen over.

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

In 1502, cleared of the ceiling serious charges but stripped show evidence of his noble titles, the derogatory Columbus persuaded the Spanish circlet to pay for one ransack trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it conclusion the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where crystalclear had to abandon two discover his four ships after injury from storms and hostile inhabitants. Empty-handed, the explorer returned cope with Spain, where he died briefing 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked race centuries of exploration and utilization on the American continents.

Character Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became highrise American food staple. African drink and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Usa, while American foods like denunciation, tomatoes and potatoes were exotic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is perpetual as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the In mint condition World, yet his actions very unleashed changes that would sooner or later devastate the native populations noteworthy 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