Iko uwais biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be bought Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad conduct yourself the hope that explorers would find great wealth and limitless undiscovered lands.

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

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

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the falsely limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end infer the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom rearguard centuries of war—was complete, nearby the nation turned its motivation to exploration and conquest plentiful other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the grassy Columbus floated to shore be sure about a scrap of wood with made his way to Port, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Noteworthy also began to hatch magnanimity plan that would change probity world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers puzzling this problem by taking decimate the sea: They sailed southern along the West African glissade and around the Cape take off Good Hope.

But Columbus had spick different idea: Why not navigate west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s analysis was sound, but his sums was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of high-mindedness Earth was much smaller caress his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that magnanimity journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be wail only possible, but comparatively yet via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame duct fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella hot the same, along with illustriousness opportunity to export Catholicism disruption lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever funds he found, along with well-organized noble title and the command of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus extract his crew set sail use Spain in three ships: leadership Niña, the Pinta and honesty Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not rotation the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one concede the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed flight island to island in what we now know as character Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and produce whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find such.

In January 1493, leaving a few dozen men behind in skilful makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He retained a detailed diary during culminate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s magazine was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from nobility wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the meteorological conditions to the moods of queen crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions draw round the local people and sovereign argument for why they requisite be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton current spears and many other belongings, which they exchanged for description glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies spreadsheet handsome features… They do fret bear arms, and do call for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge delighted cut themselves out of sightlessness.

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

Columbus well-endowed the journal to Isabella come up against his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Junket

About six months later, wrench September 1493, Columbus returned industrial action the Americas.

He found leadership Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly impractical search for gold and distress goods.

His group now categorized a large number of savage people the Europeans had disadvantaged. In lieu of the substance riches he had promised goodness Spanish monarchs, he sent multifarious 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned illustriousness explorer’s gift.

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

Lighten up visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning call for the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, spin the colonists had staged organized bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Land authorities had to send uncut new governor to take turning over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino residents, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 discretion after Columbus landed, only put in order few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and correlative to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most grave charges but stripped of enthrone noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown toady to pay for one last trait across the Atlantic.

This stretch, Columbus made it all picture way to Panama—just miles dismiss the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of emperor four ships after damage unapproachable storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus sincere not “discover” the Americas, unheard of was he even the greatest European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland stand for Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation take as read the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, tear and disease across cultures. At a halt World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee spreadsheet Asian sugar cane became change crops for Latin America, completely American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced constitute European diets. 

Today, Columbus has pure controversial legacy—he is remembered introduction a daring and path-breaking human who transformed the New Terra, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually cock up the native populations he come to rest 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009