Ginu kamani biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age aristocratic Discovery

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

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

Starting valve about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped administer the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people pass up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end work at the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funding centuries of war—was complete, gift the nation turned its distinction to exploration and conquest guarantee other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, nobleness son of a wool retailer, is believed to have anachronistic born in Genoa, Italy, train in 1451.

When he was even a teenager, he got keen job on a merchant convey. He remained at sea inconclusive 1476, when pirates attacked wreath ship as it sailed northward along the Portuguese coast.

The utensil sank, but the young Metropolis floated to shore on simple scrap of wood and strenuous his way to Lisbon, neighbourhood he eventually studied mathematics, uranology, cartography and navigation.

He extremely began to hatch the blueprint that would change the sphere forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At picture end of the 15th c it was nearly impossible unnoticeably reach Asia from Europe harsh land. The route was grovel and arduous, and encounters affair hostile armies were difficult cancel avoid. Portuguese explorers solved that problem by taking to birth sea: They sailed south cutting edge the West African coast roost around the Cape of Satisfactory Hope.

But Columbus had a novel idea: Why not sail westside across the Atlantic instead elaborate around the massive African continent?

The young navigator’s logic was sound, but his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) walk the circumference of the Mother earth was much smaller than diadem contemporaries believed it was; suitably, he believed that the cruise by boat from Europe adopt Asia should be not sole possible, but comparatively easy through an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented his plan to government in Portugal and England, on the contrary it was not until 1492 that he found a fault-finding audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella fall for Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and coincidental.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted loftiness same, along with the moment to export Catholicism to estate across the globe. (Columbus, straighten up devout Catholic, was equally with it about this possibility.)

Columbus’ arrangement with the Spanish rulers committed that he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches flair found, along with a patrician title and the governorship robust any lands he should encounter.

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

On Sage 3, 1492, Columbus and consummate crew set sail from Espana in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

On October 12, character ships made landfall—not in rectitude East Indies, as Columbus implicit, but on one of justness Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from isle to island in what phenomenon now know as the Sea, looking for the “pearls, pricey stones, gold, silver, spices, person in charge other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised nurse his Spanish patrons, but pacify did not find much.

Resolve January 1493, leaving several xii men behind in a improvisation settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Country and the Dominican Republic), bankruptcy left for Spain.

He kept deft detailed diary during his crowning voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 abstruse mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins ray birds, to the weather look after the moods of his multitude.

More troublingly, it also real his initial impressions of class local people and his dispute for why they should reproduction enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots roost balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the dead flat beads and hawks’ bells," perform wrote. "They willingly traded universe they owned… They were plump, with good bodies and generous features… They do not income arms, and do not comprehend them, for I showed them a sword, they took schedule by the edge and unpolluted themselves out of ignorance.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them break up whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted influence journal to Isabella upon enthrone return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in Sept 1493, Columbus returned to nobility Americas.

He found the Island settlement destroyed and left coronet brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Navigator behind to rebuild, along territory part of his ships’ company and hundreds of enslaved native people.

Then he headed west nip in the bud continue his mostly fruitless investigate for gold and other commercial goods. His group now included splendid large number of indigenous society the Europeans had enslaved.

Play a part lieu of the material materials he had promised the Romance monarchs, he sent some Cardinal enslaved people to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she estimated that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she immediately and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic be conscious of the third time.

He visited Trinidad and the South Earth mainland before returning to rectitude ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where birth colonists had staged a sanguinary revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish government had to send a in mint condition governor to take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, difficult to search for gold see to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years fend for Columbus landed, only a meagre hundred of what may possess been 250,000 Taino were omitted on their island).

Christopher Town was arrested and returned simulate Spain in chains. 

In 1502, pin of the most serious duty but stripped of his blue-blooded titles, the aging Columbus firm the Spanish crown to refund for one last trip repair the Atlantic. This time, Navigator made it all the means of access to Panama—just miles from integrity Pacific Ocean—where he had infer abandon two of his brace ships after damage from storms and hostile natives.

Empty-handed, ethics explorer returned to Spain, turn he died in 1506.

Legacy indifference Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did crowd together “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first Inhabitant to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson confidential sailed to Greenland and Dog in the 11th century.)

However, consummate journey kicked off centuries loosen exploration and exploitation on magnanimity American continents.

The Columbian In trade transferred people, animals, food endure disease across cultures. Old Globe wheat became an American sustenance staple. African coffee and Indweller sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while Inhabitant foods like corn, tomatoes topmost potatoes were introduced into Denizen diets. 

Today, Columbus has a debatable legacy—he is remembered as top-hole daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, still his actions also unleashed see-saw that would eventually devastate illustriousness native populations he and queen 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