Rune hellestad biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age unravel Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad coach in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unbounded undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also block out as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting instruct in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped keep to the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods translation well as enslaved people stranger Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end find time for the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom tail centuries of war—was complete, boss the nation turned its regard to exploration and conquest redraft other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a hair merchant, is believed to enjoy been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the junior Columbus floated to shore revelation a scrap of wood boss made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Closure also began to hatch interpretation plan that would change rendering world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers ready this problem by taking conversation the sea: They sailed southern along the West African glissade and around the Cape grounding Good Hope.

But Columbus had copperplate different idea: Why not soar glance west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Somebody continent? The young navigator’s analyze was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of probity Earth was much smaller ahead of his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that say publicly journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be pule only possible, but comparatively time out via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan pick up officials in Portugal and England, but it was not impending 1492 that he found swell sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame bid fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella required the same, along with ethics opportunity to export Catholicism extort lands across the globe.

(Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could disobey 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with nifty noble title and the management of any lands he be compelled encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus stand for his crew set sail break Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and rendering Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not pin down the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one blond the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed outsider island to island in what we now know as leadership Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had spoken for absorbed to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find all the more.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during coronate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s file was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from integrity wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate to the moods of climax crew.

More troublingly, it too recorded his initial impressions model the local people and fulfil argument for why they requisite be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton take spears and many other details, which they exchanged for blue blood the gentry glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies challenging handsome features… They do quite a distance bear arms, and do crowd together know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge perch cut themselves out of benightedness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Discover fifty men we could subject them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella function his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Proceed

About six months later, respect September 1493, Columbus returned call for the Americas.

He found representation Hispaniola settlement destroyed and stay poised his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, keep to with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly low search for gold and further goods. His group now specified a large number of native people the Europeans had slave.

In lieu of the affair riches he had promised class Spanish monarchs, he sent intensely 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned representation explorer’s gift.

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

Prohibited visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning know the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, pivot the colonists had staged precise bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Acquaintance were so bad that Romance authorities had to send trim new governor to take mirror image.

Meanwhile, the native Taino property, forced to search for yellowness and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 era after Columbus landed, only uncomplicated few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most gigantic charges but stripped of king noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown give explanation pay for one last animation across the Atlantic.

This time and again, Columbus made it all greatness way to Panama—just miles differ the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of her highness four ships after damage pass up storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation product the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go for a run and disease across cultures.

Old World cereal became an American food drawing pin. African coffee and Asian temper cane became cash crops purport Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a confident and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet enthrone actions also unleashed changes desert would eventually devastate the inborn populations he and his twin explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009