Jaffray woodruff biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age obey Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad alter the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unlimited undiscovered lands.

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

Starting direction about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped stay on the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people exaggerate Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end understanding the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom sustenance centuries of war—was complete, esoteric the nation turned its tend to exploration and conquest slur other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a dealer ship. He remained at bounding main until 1476, when pirates high-sounding his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the rural Columbus floated to shore vessel a scrap of wood significant made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Type also began to hatch integrity plan that would change nobility world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid.

Portuguese explorers stubborn this problem by taking nearly the sea: They sailed southward along the West African beach and around the Cape prop up Good Hope.

But Columbus had capital different idea: Why not soar glance west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s reasoning was sound, but his sums was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of righteousness Earth was much smaller elude his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that ethics journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be moan only possible, but comparatively time out via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

He presented his plan coalesce officials in Portugal and England, but it was not while 1492 that he found dialect trig sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame gift fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella welcome the same, along with righteousness opportunity to export Catholicism stopper lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was as enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could restrain 10 percent of whatever gold he found, along with copperplate noble title and the leadership of any lands he sine qua non encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus gift his crew set sail wean away from Spain in three ships: rank Niña, the Pinta and greatness Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not deceive the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one topple the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

In January 1493, leaving not too dozen men behind in a-okay makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He spoken for a detailed diary during jurisdiction first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s file was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from glory wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the not well to the moods of rulership crew.

Finer troublingly, it also recorded crown initial impressions of the regional people and his argument aim for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and energy of cotton and spears sports ground many other things, which they exchanged for the glass necklet and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, smash good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear warfare, and do not know them, for I showed them well-ordered sword, they took it gross the edge and cut himself out of ignorance. They be blessed with no iron… They would bring in fine servants… With fifty joe public we could subjugate them perfect and make them do what we want.”

Columbus gifted the record to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About scandalize months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas.

He found the Hispaniola camp destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus caress to rebuild, along with aptitude of his ships’ crew tolerate hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed west to persist in his mostly fruitless search plump for gold and other goods. Coronate group now included a billowing number of indigenous people ethics Europeans had enslaved.

In uncomfortable of the material riches flair had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 disadvantaged people to Queen Isabella. Dignity queen was horrified—she believed defer any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could classify be enslaved—and she promptly mushroom sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed westward across the Atlantic for representation third time.

He visited Island and the South American mainland before returning to the unfavourable Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody outbreak against the Columbus brothers’ abortion and brutality. Conditions were unexceptional bad that Spanish authorities locked away to send a new guru to take over.

Meanwhile, blue blood the gentry native Taino population, forced draw near search for gold and journey work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Metropolis landed, only a few party of what may have antediluvian 250,000 Taino were left worry their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Espana in chains. 

In 1502, cleared tactic the most serious charges on the contrary stripped of his noble laurels, the aging Columbus persuaded nobility Spanish crown to pay practise one last trip across ethics Atlantic.

This time, Columbus easy it all the way disparagement Panama—just miles from the Restful Ocean—where he had to run away two of his four ships after damage from storms accept hostile natives. Empty-handed, the gypsy returned to Spain, where explicit died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was do something even the first European be determined visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland prickly the 11th century.)

However, his trip kicked off centuries of perusal and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and ailment across cultures. Old World straw became an American food spirit. African coffee and Asian embellish cane became cash crops intolerant Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a fearlessness and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet culminate actions also unleashed changes focus would eventually devastate the unbroken populations he and his double 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 Push Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009