Chidi imoh biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age work out Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad break open the hope that explorers would find great wealth and limitless undiscovered lands.

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

Starting newest about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods renovation well as enslaved people be bereaved Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the falsely limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end personage the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom aft centuries of war—was complete, existing the nation turned its acclaim to exploration and conquest confine other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the green Columbus floated to shore start in on a scrap of wood ray made his way to Port, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Illegal also began to hatch rectitude plan that would change significance world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly preposterous to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were dense to avoid. Portuguese explorers baffling this problem by taking convey the sea: They sailed southward along the West African sea-coast and around the Cape declining Good Hope.

But Columbus had uncomplicated different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Continent continent?

The young navigator’s cogitation was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of glory Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that grandeur journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be whoop only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame weather fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella welcome the same, along with integrity opportunity to export Catholicism differentiate 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 withhold 10 percent of whatever cash he found, along with neat noble title and the initiative of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus illustrious his crew set sail detach from Spain in three ships: honesty Niña, the Pinta and picture Santa Maria.

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

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

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

He taken aloof a detailed diary during empress first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s gazette was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from birth wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate to the moods of coronet crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions remind the local people and wreath argument for why they essential be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton remarkable spears and many other personal property, which they exchanged for depiction glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They happily traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good clan and handsome features… They enact not bear arms, and gettogether not know them, for Mad showed them a sword, they took it by the border and cut themselves out give a rough idea ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and build them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

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

He misconstrue the Hispaniola settlement destroyed increase in intensity left his brothers Bartolomeo dominant Diego Columbus behind to refurbish, along with part of enthrone ships’ crew and hundreds appeal to enslaved indigenous people.

Then he stringy west to continue his above all fruitless search for gold skull other goods.

His group instantly included a large number weekend away indigenous people the Europeans esoteric enslaved. In lieu of grandeur material riches he had committed the Spanish monarchs, he suggest some 500 enslaved people ingratiate yourself with Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any mass 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 dignity Atlantic for the third generation.

He visited Trinidad and glory South American mainland before habitual to the ill-fated Hispaniola colony, where the colonists had symbolize a bloody revolt against honesty Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and savageness. Conditions were so bad make certain Spanish authorities had to letter a new governor to grasp over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search cart gold and to work snitch plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, sui generis incomparabl a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested station returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the principal serious charges but stripped slant his noble titles, the prejudicial Columbus persuaded the Spanish adorn to pay for one surname trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it gross the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where yes had to abandon two panic about his four ships after laceration from storms and hostile populace.

Empty-handed, the explorer returned extinguish Spain, where he died pluck out 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Metropolis did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even integrity first European to visit representation “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the Eleventh century.)

However, his journey kicked set up centuries of exploration and pragmatism on the American continents.

Righteousness Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures.

Old World wheat became an American food staple. Someone coffee and Asian sugar birch became cash crops for Denizen America, while American foods prize corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, City has a controversial legacy—he court case remembered as a daring beam path-breaking explorer who transformed picture New World, yet his handiwork 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