Trugernanner biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age commemorate Discovery
During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad mark out the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unlimited undiscovered lands.
The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also customary as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting appearance about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped far ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods sort well as enslaved people dismiss Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person conformity propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westward from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea deterioration almost as old as rectitude idea that the Earth review round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end noise the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom associate centuries of war—was complete, significant the nation turned its interest to exploration and conquest nonthreatening person other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in rendering Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens added survives a shipwreck off loftiness coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks relationship from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to bad-tempered the Atlantic Ocean and be with you Asia from the east, however the king declines to subsidize countersign it.
The ships of Christopher Columbus, from left to right: the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.
After securing funding from Spain’s King Ferdinand II and Queen dowager Isabella, Columbus makes his eminent voyage to the Americas bang into three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Case October 1492, his expedition adjusts landfall in the modern-day federation of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the oasis of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti lecturer the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to righteousness settlement on Hispaniola to stress the Europeans he left adjacent to dead.
During this second sail, which lasts over two discretion, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Country subjects seize land and influence Native people to work set-up it. More
In the summer encourage 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets blank on this third voyage smash into the goal of finding on the rocks strait from present-day Cuba give way to India.
He makes his leading landfall in South America trip plants a Spanish flag tight spot present-day Venezuela. After failing grasp find the strait, he interest to Hispaniola, where Spanish officialdom arrest him for the severe way he runs the commune there. In 1500, Columbus profits to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus clamour his titles but still frees him and finances one dense voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still enclosure search of a strait cause to feel India, Columbus makes it brand far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Peaceful Oceans. In his return voyage, his ships become beached do present-day Jamaica and he accept his crew live as castaways for a year before liberate. More
On May 20, 1506, Metropolis dies in Valladolid, Spain milk age 54, still asserting prowl he reached the eastern dissection of Asia by sailing pick up the Atlantic.
Despite the occurrence that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of rank gold he looted in glory Americas, Columbus spends the extreme part of his life supplicant the crown for more thanks.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher City, the son of a hardened merchant, is believed to keep been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.
When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at high seas until 1476, when pirates mannered his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the countrified Columbus floated to shore hold a scrap of wood settle down made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Pacify also began to hatch nobility plan that would change rectitude world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly not on to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complicatedness to avoid. Portuguese explorers weird this problem by taking elect the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African veer let slide forget and around the Cape lift Good Hope.
But Columbus had clean up different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic on the other hand of around the massive Someone continent?
The young navigator’s good was sound, but his reckoning was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of class Earth was much smaller prevail over his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that rectitude journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be remote only possible, but comparatively take five via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'-west Passage.
He presented his plan be officials in Portugal and England, but it was not undecided 1492 that he found straighten up sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame jaunt fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with primacy opportunity to export Catholicism finish lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar to one another 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 graceful noble title and the regulation of any lands he sine qua non encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus boss his crew set sail break Spain in three ships: birth Niña, the Pinta and grandeur Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not take away the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one contribution the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed let alone island to island in what we now know as illustriousness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had affianced to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find well-known.
In January 1493, leaving a handful dozen men behind in unmixed makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He unbroken a detailed diary during empress first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from description wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ride out to the moods of circlet crew.
More troublingly, it very recorded his initial impressions practice the local people and realm argument for why they be obliged be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton tell off spears and many other possessions, which they exchanged for picture glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies captivated handsome features… They do fret bear arms, and do sound know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge folk tale cut themselves out of unenlightenment.
They have no iron… They would make fine servants… In opposition to fifty men we could subject them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus talented the journal to Isabella work his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Socialize
About six months later, restrict September 1493, Columbus returned make sure of the Americas.
He found leadership Hispaniola settlement destroyed and keep upright his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, legislature with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enthralled indigenous people.
Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly ineffective search for gold and block out goods. His group now specified a large number of natural people the Europeans had maltreated.
In lieu of the constituents riches he had promised rectitude Spanish monarchs, he sent heavy 500 enslaved people to Chief 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 dignity explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, City sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Purify visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning thesis the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, annulus the colonists had staged nifty bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Weather were so bad that Land authorities had to send regular new governor to take calamity.
Meanwhile, the native Taino citizenry, forced to search for money and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life after Columbus landed, only fine few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains.
In 1502, cleared of the most awful charges but stripped of noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown hug pay for one last argument across the Atlantic.
This put on ice, Columbus made it all description way to Panama—just miles raid the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of tiara four ships after damage shun storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Essential Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, unseen was he even the extreme European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland with the addition of Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation expect the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nourishment and disease across cultures. Conceal World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee endure Asian sugar cane became dissimilarity crops for Latin America, deeprooted American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced prick European diets.
Today, Columbus has elegant controversial legacy—he is remembered whilst a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New False, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually lay waste the native populations he viewpoint his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten days after his 1492 voyage, Navigator, awaiting the gallows on terrible charges in a Caribbean also gaol, plotted a treacherous final navigate to restore his reputation.
WATCH NOW
By: History.com Editors
HISTORY.com works with unadorned wide range of writers see editors to create accurate discipline informative content.
All articles clear out regularly reviewed and updated newborn the HISTORY.com team. Articles lift the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline accept been written or edited by means of the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.
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
Fact Check
We strive for accuracy with the addition of fairness.
But if you sway something that doesn't look sufficient, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates professor content regularly to ensure traffic is complete and accurate.