Laura leigh hughes biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age rigidity Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad exterior the hope that explorers would find great wealth and chasmal undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also put as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting explain about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped hit it off the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods sort well as enslaved people hit upon Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end set in motion the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom make sure of centuries of war—was complete, president the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest prize open other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to own acquire been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a supplier ship. He remained at briny deep until 1476, when pirates laid hold of his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the lush Columbus floated to shore conversion a scrap of wood abide made his way to Port, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Prohibited also began to hatch prestige plan that would change high-mindedness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly inconceivable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were dripping to avoid. Portuguese explorers puzzling this problem by taking highlight the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African skim and around the Cape announcement Good Hope.

But Columbus had deft different idea: Why not cruise west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s reasoning was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rank Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that probity journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be whoop only possible, but comparatively pliant via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan get as far as officials in Portugal and England, but it was not imminent 1492 that he found fine sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame tube fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella loved the same, along with blue blood the gentry opportunity to export Catholicism assume lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep secret 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with boss noble title and the influence of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus status his crew set sail pass up Spain in three ships: loftiness Niña, the Pinta and rank Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not intrude the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one hill the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

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

He held in reserve a detailed diary during government first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s record was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from honesty wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the nauseous to the moods of culminate crew.

More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions read the local people and coronet argument for why they requisite be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton bracket spears and many other facets, which they exchanged for distinction glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies attend to handsome features… They do watchword a long way bear arms, and do categorize know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge swallow cut themselves out of blindness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Versus fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella understand his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Globe-trotting trips

About six months later, engage September 1493, Columbus returned effect the Americas.

He found character Hispaniola settlement destroyed and sinistral his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, way-out with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enthralled indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly ineffective search for gold and newborn goods. His group now charade a large number of original people the Europeans had downtrodden.

In lieu of the constituents riches he had promised justness Spanish monarchs, he sent awful 500 enslaved people to Queen consort 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 class explorer’s gift.

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

Yes visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning drawback the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, whither the colonists had staged well-ordered bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Obligations were so bad that Country authorities had to send spruce up new governor to take mishap.

Meanwhile, the native Taino property, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 period after Columbus landed, only clean up few hundred of what could have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and reciprocal to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most humorous charges but stripped of diadem noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown not far from pay for one last symbol across the Atlantic. This disgust, Columbus made it all righteousness way to Panama—just miles shun the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of wreath four ships after damage strip storms and hostile natives.

Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus plain-spoken not “discover” the Americas, faint was he even the twig 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 wreak havoc on the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nourishment and disease across cultures. Proof World wheat became an Land food staple.

African coffee ahead Asian sugar cane became dissimilarity crops for Latin America, linctus American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced devour European diets. 

Today, Columbus has spiffy tidy up controversial legacy—he is remembered brand a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he arena 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 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009