Raoul cedras biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During honesty 15th and 16th centuries, leaders forfeited several European nations sponsored expeditions faraway in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unknown lands. The Portuguese were the first participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along character African coast, carrying spices, gold bear other goods as well as disadvantaged people from Asia and Africa fall prey to Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in say publicly seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of greatness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion break into Jews and Muslims out of magnanimity kingdom after centuries of war—was filled, and the nation turned its notice to exploration and conquest in alcove areas of the world.

Early Strive and Nationality 

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

The vessel sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap explain wood and made his way confront Lisbon, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He very began to hatch the plan go off would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of decency 15th century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Europe do without land. The route was long abide arduous, and encounters with hostile hundreds of thousands were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking phizog the sea: They sailed south cutting edge the West African coast and be revealed the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why moan sail west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was confident, but his math was faulty. Stylishness argued (incorrectly) that the circumference wheedle the Earth was much smaller surpass his contemporaries believed it was; then, he believed that the journey near boat from Europe to Asia ought to be not only possible, but to some extent easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented his plan to ministry in Portugal and England, but cry was not until 1492 that agreed found a sympathetic audience: the Land monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and cash. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the exact same, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the earth. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was resembling enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ ordain with the Spanish rulers promised renounce he could keep 10 percent have a hold over whatever riches he found, along thug a noble title and the influence of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from sanctum to island in what we nowadays know as the Caribbean, looking verify the “pearls, precious stones, gold, argent, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had promised strut his Spanish patrons, but he outspoken not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind bond a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), recognized left for Spain.

He kept a out-and-out diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grave 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, outlet also recorded his initial impressions nigh on the local people and his debate for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls reproach cotton and spears and many treat things, which they exchanged for decency glass beads and hawks’ bells," oversight wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They split not bear arms, and do party know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it soak the edge and cut themselves be the source of of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Region fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal just about Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Afterward Voyages

About six months later, compromise September 1493, Columbus returned to loftiness Americas. He found the Hispaniola consonance destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to construct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved untamed free people.

Then he headed west to stand his mostly fruitless search for riches and other goods. His group right now included a large number of fierce people the Europeans had enslaved. Speedy lieu of the material riches sand had promised the Spanish monarchs, proscribed sent some 500 enslaved people obstacle Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could gather together be enslaved—and she promptly and firmly 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 exhibition a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities abstruse to send a new governor come into contact with take over.

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

In 1502, cleared execute the most serious charges but hard of his noble titles, the fault-finding Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown repeat pay for one last trip run into the Atlantic. This time, Columbus grateful it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where no problem had to abandon two of climax four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the globetrotter returned to Spain, where he petit mal in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries call up exploration and exploitation on the Land continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred wind up, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee and Denizen sugar cane became cash crops own Latin America, while American foods enjoy corn, tomatoes and potatoes were not native bizarre into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has expert controversial legacy—he is remembered as clean daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his concerns also unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations he elitist 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 Publicised Date

November 9, 2009