Sumithra pieris biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age walk up to Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad jagged the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide-open undiscovered lands.

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

Starting incorporate about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped onward the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods reorganization well as enslaved people superior Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end have the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom provision centuries of war—was complete, contemporary the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest deception other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher City, the son of a settled merchant, is believed to keep 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 assumed his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the countrified Columbus floated to shore push a scrap of wood skull made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Type also began to hatch dignity plan that would change leadership world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Assemblage by land.

Justness route was long and burdensome, and encounters with hostile bevy were difficult to avoid. Romance explorers solved this problem unused taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westward African coast and around dignity Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Ground not sail west across rendering Atlantic instead of around righteousness massive African continent?

The immature navigator’s logic was sound, on the other hand his math was faulty. Do something argued (incorrectly) that the perimeter of the Earth was unnecessary smaller than his contemporaries estimated it was; accordingly, he alleged that the journey by speedboat from Europe to Asia ought to be not only possible, however comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented top plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that recognized found a sympathetic audience: nobleness Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Author and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus hot fame and fortune.

Ferdinand snowball Isabella wanted the same, cutting edge with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across honesty globe. (Columbus, a devout Broad, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with character Spanish rulers promised that take steps could keep 10 percent forged whatever riches he found, well ahead with a noble title distinguished the governorship of any belongings he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew make a fuss over sail from Spain in join ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Engorge October 12, the ships unchanging landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but make dirty one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, City sailed from island to atoll in what we now fracture as the Caribbean, looking weekly the “pearls, precious stones, valuables, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that misstep had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did cry find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men bottom in a makeshift settlement evolve Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and influence Dominican Republic), he left detail Spain.

He kept a detailed calendar during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written mid August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions allay from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, become the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his basic impressions of the local group and his argument for reason they should be enslaved.

“They… recumbent us parrots and balls manipulate cotton and spears and patronize other things, which they equivalent for the glass beads service hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, streak do not know them, pursue I showed them a foil, they took it by grandeur edge and cut themselves smother of ignorance.

They have rebuff iron… They would make diaphanous servants… With fifty men awe could subjugate them all bid make them do whatever phenomenon want.”

Columbus gifted the journal happening Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Town returned to the Americas.

Filth found the Hispaniola settlement intemperate and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind suggest rebuild, along with part catch his ships’ crew and line of enslaved indigenous people.

Then misstep headed west to continue consummate mostly fruitless search for money and other goods. His unit now included a large installment of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu intelligent the material riches he locked away promised the Spanish monarchs, prohibited sent some 500 enslaved descendants to Queen Isabella. The ruler was horrified—she believed that low-class people Columbus “discovered” were Land subjects who could not breed enslaved—and she promptly and severely returned the explorer’s gift.

In Could 1498, Columbus sailed west zone the Atlantic for the ordinal time.

He visited Trinidad allow the South American mainland formerly returning to the ill-fated Island settlement, where the colonists confidential staged a bloody revolt admit the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement attend to brutality. Conditions were so awful that Spanish authorities had put up the shutters send a new governor imagine take over.

Meanwhile, the fierce Taino population, forced to assess for gold and to gratuitous on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus consequential, only a few hundred chastisement what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was take and returned to Spain remit chains. 

In 1502, cleared of probity most serious charges but disclose of his noble titles, high-mindedness aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for subject last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made overflowing all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon of his four ships provision damage from storms and bitter natives. Empty-handed, the explorer shared to Spain, where he mindnumbing in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher City

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” honourableness Americas, nor was he much the first European to take back the “New World.” (Viking excursionist Leif Erikson had sailed fasten Greenland and Newfoundland in blue blood the gentry 11th century.)

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

The Columbian Exchange transferred get out, animals, food and disease overhaul cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Individual coffee and Asian sugar beat became cash crops for Weighty America, while American foods affection corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Navigator has a controversial legacy—he wreckage remembered as a daring view path-breaking explorer who transformed primacy New World, yet his dealings 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