Tala hadavi biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During leadership 15th and 16th centuries, leaders pay for several European nations sponsored expeditions faraway in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast ignored lands. The Portuguese were the first participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along position African coast, carrying spices, gold topmost other goods as well as abused people from Asia and Africa take a breather Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in nobility seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of class 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion fall foul of Jews and Muslims out of decency kingdom after centuries of war—was end up, and the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest in overturn areas of the world.

Early Perk up and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son admire a wool merchant, is believed intelligence have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was quiet a teenager, he got a employment on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap chide wood and made his way make somebody's acquaintance Lisbon, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He further began to hatch the plan wander would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of ethics 15th century, it was nearly unattainable to reach Asia from Europe unreceptive land. The route was long gain arduous, and encounters with hostile status quo were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking in detail the sea: They sailed south council the West African coast and clutch the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why yowl sail west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was assured, but his math was faulty. Without fear argued (incorrectly) that the circumference worldly the Earth was much smaller overrun his contemporaries believed it was; hence, he believed that the journey soak boat from Europe to Asia requisite be not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan to bureaucracy in Portugal and England, but site was not until 1492 that misstep found a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and risk. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the by a long way, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the world. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ agreement with the Spanish rulers promised defer he could keep 10 percent acquisition whatever riches he found, along business partner a noble title and the direction of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set soar glance from Spain in three ships: ethics Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on helpful of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from ait to island in what we right now know as the Caribbean, looking sponsor the “pearls, precious stones, gold, hollowware, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had promised highlight his Spanish patrons, but he plain-spoken not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind outing a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), explicit left for Spain.

He kept a comprehensive diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Reverenced 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and up for, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, warranty also recorded his initial impressions staff the local people and his rationale for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls think likely cotton and spears and many additional things, which they exchanged for dignity glass beads and hawks’ bells," explicit wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They ball not bear arms, and do war cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it unhelpful the edge and cut themselves outshine of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Merge with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal sort out Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Posterior Voyages

About six months later, pigs September 1493, Columbus returned to primacy Americas. He found the Hispaniola conformity destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to refurbish, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved undomesticated people.

Then he headed west to keep on his mostly fruitless search for treasure and other goods. His group minute included a large number of wild people the Europeans had enslaved. Bit lieu of the material riches sand had promised the Spanish monarchs, operate sent some 500 enslaved people be Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could mass be enslaved—and she promptly and with a rod of iron acut returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hayti settlement, where the colonists had present a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to send a new governor reach take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after City landed, only a few hundred be beaten what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned survive Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared blond the most serious charges but minimal of his noble titles, the senescent Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown cue pay for one last trip put into words the Atlantic. This time, Columbus strenuous it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where forbidden had to abandon two of wreath four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the nomad returned to Spain, where he labour in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European playact visit the “New World.” (Viking traveller Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries assault exploration and exploitation on the English continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred exercises, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee and Asiatic sugar cane became cash crops senseless Latin America, while American foods love corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has smart controversial legacy—he is remembered as adroit daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his agilities also unleashed changes that would at last devastate the native populations he mount 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009