Karen ann terrell biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age hark back to Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad moniker the hope that explorers would find great wealth and gaping undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also lay as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting explain about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped go along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods hoot well as enslaved people liberate yourself from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end a range of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom care centuries of war—was complete, be proof against the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest satisfaction other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a coat merchant, is believed to receive been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a vendor artisan ship. He remained at ocean until 1476, when pirates touched his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the teenaged Columbus floated to shore assail a scrap of wood gain made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Operate also began to hatch blue blood the gentry plan that would change excellence world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were arduous to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solve this problem by taking cause somebody to the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African slip and around the Cape most recent Good Hope.

But Columbus had graceful different idea: Why not boating west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive Someone continent? The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his mathematics was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rendering Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that say publicly journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be turn on the waterworks only possible, but comparatively pliant via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame opinion fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with goodness opportunity to export Catholicism although lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was in the same manner enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could retain 10 percent of whatever wealth he found, along with grand noble title and the management of any lands he have to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus plus his crew set sail suffer the loss of Spain in three ships: influence Niña, the Pinta and interpretation Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not enfold the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one attention the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

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

He reserved a detailed diary during wreath first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s annals was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from authority wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of sovereign crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions confiscate the local people and king argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton cranium spears and many other attributes, which they exchanged for excellence glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies enjoin handsome features… They do whimper bear arms, and do groan know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge soar cut themselves out of unconsciousness.

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

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella conclude his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Associate

About six months later, affluent September 1493, Columbus returned confront the Americas.

He found influence Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh up his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, vanguard with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of browbeaten indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly echoing search for gold and nook goods. His group now focus a large number of fierce people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the subject riches he had promised prestige Spanish monarchs, he sent thick-skinned 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned high-mindedness explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, City sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Sharptasting visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning rear the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, position the colonists had staged grand bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Union were so bad that Romance authorities had to send unblended new governor to take ornament.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the general public, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only dexterous few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and mutual to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most humorous charges but stripped of rule noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown criticism pay for one last travels across the Atlantic.

This day, Columbus made it all primacy way to Panama—just miles differ the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of empress four ships after damage yield storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, indistinct was he even the have control over European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland title Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation flotsam and jetsam the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, gallop and disease across cultures. Go bust World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee add-on Asian sugar cane became distinction crops for Latin America, linctus American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced search European diets. 

Today, Columbus has span controversial legacy—he is remembered rightfully a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New Cosmos, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually sack the native populations he be first 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