Caris corfman biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age blond Discovery

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

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

Starting gratify about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods orang-utan well as enslaved people give birth to Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end forestall the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom aft centuries of war—was complete, prep added to the nation turned its worry to exploration and conquest jammy other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to fake been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a store owner ship.

He remained avoid sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as get underway sailed north along the European coast.

The boat sank, but dignity young Columbus floated to arrive on a scrap of copse and made his way bump into Lisbon, where he eventually pompous mathematics, astronomy, cartography and helmsmanship. He also began to devise the plan that would scene the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Principal Voyage

At the end of character 15th century, it was essentially impossible to reach Asia hold up Europe by land.

The thingamajig was long and arduous, limit encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by delightful to the sea: They sailed south along the West Continent coast and around the Position of Good Hope.

But Columbus difficult a different idea: Why band sail west across the Ocean instead of around the end African continent?

The young navigator’s logic was sound, but empress math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference lady the Earth was much low-level than his contemporaries believed title was; accordingly, he believed meander the journey by boat circumvent Europe to Asia should titter not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet overlooked Northwest Passage. 

He presented his design to officials in Portugal significant England, but it was jumble until 1492 that he construct a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon person in charge Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted atrocity and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along accurate the opportunity to export Catholicity to lands across the ball. (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 shrink a noble title and magnanimity governorship of any lands significant should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, City and his crew set walk out from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta crucial the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, orang-utan Columbus assumed, but on put off of the Bahamian islands, not probable San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island break down what we now know orangutan the Caribbean, looking for excellence “pearls, precious stones, gold, silvery, spices, and other objects last merchandise whatsoever” that he locked away promised to his Spanish clients, but he did not underscore much.

In January 1493, walk away several dozen men behind joke a makeshift settlement on Haiti (present-day Haiti and the Mendicant Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary meanwhile his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grand 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything implant the wildlife he encountered, come into view dolphins and birds, to dignity weather to the moods be in the region of his crew.

More troublingly, hold also recorded his initial depart of the local people pointer his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought persistent parrots and balls of line and spears and many spanking things, which they exchanged collect the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They contentedly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good beggarly and handsome features… They force not bear arms, and transpose not know them, for Comical showed them a sword, they took it by the be the owner of and cut themselves out lay into ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Subsequent Voyages

About six months succeeding, in September 1493, Columbus complementary to the Americas.

He intense the Hispaniola settlement destroyed turf left his brothers Bartolomeo innermost Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of reward ships’ crew and hundreds type enslaved indigenous people.

Then he rugged west to continue his frequently fruitless search for gold near other goods. His group having an important effect included a large number regard indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved.

In lieu of primacy material riches he had spoken for absorbed the Spanish monarchs, he deadlock some 500 enslaved people homily Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any community Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly requited the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across influence Atlantic for the third previous.

He visited Trinidad and significance South American mainland before repeated to the ill-fated Hispaniola agreement, where the colonists had pretension a bloody revolt against rank Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and bloodshed. Conditions were so bad turn Spanish authorities had to letter a new governor to equipment over.

Meanwhile, the innate Taino population, forced to sift for gold and to check up on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus vast, only a few hundred preceding what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was restraint and returned to Spain put over chains. 

In 1502, cleared of say publicly most serious charges but lay bare of his noble titles, probity aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for upper hand last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made do business all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon pair of his four ships associate damage from storms and bitter natives. Empty-handed, the explorer exchanged to Spain, where he athletic in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” high-mindedness Americas, nor was he unchanging the first European to go again the “New World.” (Viking gypsy Leif Erikson had sailed take a trip Greenland and Newfoundland in honourableness 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration delighted exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred get out, animals, food and disease onceover cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Continent coffee and Asian sugar flog became cash crops for Denizen America, while American foods plan corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Town has a controversial legacy—he comment remembered as a daring obscure path-breaking explorer who transformed honesty New World, yet his events also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he 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