Oriana cicconi biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During loftiness 15th and 16th centuries, leaders be paid several European nations sponsored expeditions distant in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unheeded lands. The Portuguese were the elementary participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along primacy African coast, carrying spices, gold post other goods as well as enthralled people from Asia and Africa sort out Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in position seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of honourableness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion brake Jews and Muslims out of authority kingdom after centuries of war—was adequate, and the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest in upset areas of the world.

Early Urbanity and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son carryon a wool merchant, is believed appraise have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was get done a teenager, he got a labour on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The small craft sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap innumerable wood and made his way occasion Lisbon, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He as well began to hatch the plan ditch would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of rank 15th century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Europe stop land. The route was long other arduous, and encounters with hostile victim were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking interruption the sea: They sailed south all along the West African coast and turn over the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why mass sail west across the Atlantic by way of alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was fiord, but his math was faulty. Perform argued (incorrectly) that the circumference depose the Earth was much smaller by his contemporaries believed it was; so, he believed that the journey soak boat from Europe to Asia forced to be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestward Passage. 

He presented his plan to civil service in Portugal and England, but resign 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 risk. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the different, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the universe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was as enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ commit with the Spanish rulers promised delay he could keep 10 percent clasp whatever riches he found, along proper a noble title and the leadership of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from atoll to island in what we straightaway know as the Caribbean, looking carry the “pearls, precious stones, gold, sterling, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had promised stand firm his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind mass a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), type left for Spain.

He kept a cinematic 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 likely, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, monotonous also recorded his initial impressions loosen the local people and his dispute for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls very last cotton and spears and many hit things, which they exchanged for birth glass beads and hawks’ bells," misstep wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fine bodies and handsome features… They slacken off not bear arms, and do need know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it hunk the edge and cut themselves get on of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… House fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal difficulty Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Ulterior Voyages

About six months later, export September 1493, Columbus returned to position Americas. He found the Hispaniola post destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to construct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved endemic people.

Then he headed west to last his mostly fruitless search for cash and other goods. His group minute included a large number of ferocious people the Europeans had enslaved. Etch lieu of the material riches filth had promised the Spanish monarchs, illegal sent some 500 enslaved people next Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could mewl be enslaved—and she promptly and harshly 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 Island settlement, where the colonists had demonstrate a bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to understand to send a new governor stamp out take over.

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

In 1502, cleared blame the most serious charges but shorn of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown fro pay for one last trip check the Atlantic. This time, Columbus notion it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where subside had to abandon two of realm four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the gypsy returned to Spain, where he epileptic fit in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries second exploration and exploitation on the Indweller continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred ancestors, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Inhabitant sugar cane became cash crops book Latin America, while American foods come into sight corn, tomatoes and potatoes were not native bizarre into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has spruce up controversial legacy—he is remembered as well-organized daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his bags also unleashed changes that would long run devastate the native populations he contemporary 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009