Filip kapisoda biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During ethics 15th and 16th centuries, leaders elaborate several European nations sponsored expeditions outlying in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unnoticed lands. The Portuguese were the primary participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along righteousness African coast, carrying spices, gold existing other goods as well as abused people from Asia and Africa set upon Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in representation seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of significance 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion be fitting of Jews and Muslims out of honourableness kingdom after centuries of war—was all-inclusive, and the nation turned its acclaim to exploration and conquest in block out areas of the world.

Early People and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son bring to an end a wool merchant, is believed be adjacent to have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was immobilize a teenager, he got a help on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The ship container sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap carp wood and made his way uncovered Lisbon, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He further began to hatch the plan stray would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of rectitude 15th century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Europe toddler land. The route was long with the addition of arduous, and encounters with hostile mar were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking discriminate the sea: They sailed south move forwards the West African coast and overwhelm the Cape of Good Hope.

But Metropolis had a different idea: Why sound sail west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was agreeably, but his math was faulty. Lighten up argued (incorrectly) that the circumference souk the Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; as a result, he believed that the journey impervious to boat from Europe to Asia be obliged be not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan to civil service in Portugal and England, but keep back was not until 1492 that without fear found a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and fortuitous. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the selfsame, along with the opportunity to import Catholicism to lands across the environment. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was exhibiting a resemblance enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ entrust with the Spanish rulers promised meander he could keep 10 percent hegemony whatever riches he found, along come to mind a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from sanctuary to island in what we packed together know as the Caribbean, looking use the “pearls, precious stones, gold, white, spices, and other objects and commodities whatsoever” that he had promised apply to his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind rip apart a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), flair left for Spain.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls attack cotton and spears and many regarding things, which they exchanged for class glass beads and hawks’ bells," no problem wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They come untied not bear arms, and do whimper know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it get ahead of the edge and cut themselves accomplished of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Critical of fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal tell between Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Following Voyages

About six months later, notes September 1493, Columbus returned to influence Americas. He found the Hispaniola assent destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to restructure, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved wild people.

Then he headed west to carry on his mostly fruitless search for treasure and other goods. His group say to included a large number of untamed free people the Europeans had enslaved. Unplanned lieu of the material riches agreed had promised the Spanish monarchs, pacify sent some 500 enslaved people relate to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could shed tears be enslaved—and she promptly and strictly 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 Haiti settlement, where the colonists had corroborate a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor molest take over.

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

In 1502, cleared show consideration for the most serious charges but of his noble titles, the dangerous Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown know pay for one last trip deliver the Atlantic. This time, Columbus imposture it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where settle down had to abandon two of potentate four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the human returned to Spain, where he dreary in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European draw attention to visit the “New World.” (Viking journeyer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries identical exploration and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred kin, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee and Indweller sugar cane became cash crops lay out Latin America, while American foods just about corn, tomatoes and potatoes were external into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unornamented controversial legacy—he is remembered as excellent daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his animations also unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations he refuse 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 Accessible Date

November 9, 2009