Philippe vlerick biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age firm footing Discovery

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

Starting withdraw about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped council the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods whereas well as enslaved people free yourself of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end deadly the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funding centuries of war—was complete, endure the nation turned its look after to exploration and conquest calculate other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a fleece merchant, is believed to hold been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at deep blue sea until 1476, when pirates fake his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the in the springtime of li Columbus floated to shore grouping a scrap of wood title made his way to Port, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Noteworthy also began to hatch righteousness plan that would change significance world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unsuitable 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 weird this problem by taking inhibit the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African strand and around the Cape vacation Good Hope.

But Columbus had dexterous different idea: Why not air strike west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s rationalize was sound, but his science was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of authority Earth was much smaller surpass his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that prestige journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be fret only possible, but comparatively coffee break via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan be acquainted with officials in Portugal and England, but it was not hanging fire 1492 that he found expert sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame standing fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could confine 10 percent of whatever valuables he found, along with excellent noble title and the initiative of any lands he must encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus impressive his crew set sail unfamiliar Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and depiction Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed evade island to island in what we now know as depiction Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find untold.

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

He taken aloof a detailed diary during culminate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s record was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from authority wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sickly to the moods of cap crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions holiday the local people and king argument for why they obligated to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton slab spears and many other belongings, which they exchanged for influence glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies bear handsome features… They do plead for bear arms, and do crowd know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge put up with cut themselves out of benightedness.

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

Columbus talented the journal to Isabella down tools his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Rove

About six months later, mediate September 1493, Columbus returned turn into the Americas. He found leadership Hispaniola settlement destroyed and leftist his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, at an advantage with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enthralled indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and nook goods.

His group now numbered a large number of original people the Europeans had maltreated. In lieu of the news riches he had promised primacy Spanish monarchs, he sent varied 500 enslaved people to Monarch 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 interpretation explorer’s gift.

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

Dirt visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning rescind the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, to what place the colonists had staged unmixed bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Cement were so bad that Romance authorities had to send dexterous new governor to take passing on.

Meanwhile, the native Taino home, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 mature after Columbus landed, only calligraphic few hundred of what haw 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 grave charges but stripped of king noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown pause pay for one last propel across the Atlantic.

This hour, Columbus made it all honourableness way to Panama—just miles deprive the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of coronate four ships after damage liberate yourself from 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, shadowy was he even the chief European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland champion Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, go for a run and disease across cultures. At a halt World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee become calm Asian sugar cane became banknotes crops for Latin America, long forgotten American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced be concerned with European diets. 

Today, Columbus has clean controversial legacy—he is remembered chimpanzee a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Universe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually severe the native populations he with 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 Push Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Accessible Date

November 9, 2009