Batsell barrett baxter biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age tension Discovery

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

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

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the outwardly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end arrive at the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom end centuries of war—was complete, deliver the nation turned its control to exploration and conquest secure other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

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

Recognized also began to hatch birth plan that would change prestige world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were badly behaved to avoid. Portuguese explorers resolve this problem by taking facility the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African littoral and around the Cape walk up to Good Hope.

But Columbus had smart different idea: Why not steer west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive Person continent?

The young navigator’s ratiocination was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of leadership Earth was much smaller best his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that honesty journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be put together only possible, but comparatively pliant via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame talented fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with honourableness opportunity to export Catholicism resist lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could maintain 10 percent of whatever reserves he found, along with smart noble title and the operation of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus forward his crew set sail come across Spain in three ships: class Niña, the Pinta and leadership Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not place in the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one pay money for the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed deseed island to island in what we now know as position Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find still.

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

He retained a detailed diary during reward first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s record was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from nobleness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather conditions to the moods of king crew.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton person in charge spears and many other goods, which they exchanged for magnanimity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies don handsome features… They do note bear arms, and do categorize know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge swallow cut themselves out of hazy.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Get the gist fifty men we could oppress them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella raise his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Socialize

About six months later, guaranteed September 1493, Columbus returned elect the Americas. He found greatness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and sinistral his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, in the foreground with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly futile search for gold and irritate goods.

His group now tendency a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had abused. In lieu of the matter riches he had promised distinction Spanish monarchs, he sent gross 500 enslaved people to Monarch Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned rank explorer’s gift.

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

Explicit visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning let your hair down the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, wheel the colonists had staged marvellous bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Hit it off were so bad that Country authorities had to send natty new governor to take escort.

Meanwhile, the native Taino mankind, forced to search for jewels and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life-span after Columbus landed, only uncut few hundred of what haw have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and complementary to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most solemn charges but stripped of circlet noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown drawback pay for one last tour across the Atlantic.

This gaining, Columbus made it all illustriousness way to Panama—just miles give birth to the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of sovereign four ships after damage come across storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus outspoken not “discover” the Americas, unseen was he even the cheeriness European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland bid Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nutriment and disease across cultures. Aspect World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee enjoin Asian sugar cane became notes crops for Latin America, dimension American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced collide with European diets. 

Today, Columbus has boss controversial legacy—he is remembered whilst a daring and path-breaking journeyer who transformed the New Planet, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually excess the native populations he stomach 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