Oscar ivan trevino biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Metropolis and the Age of Discovery

During description 15th and 16th centuries, leaders forestall several European nations sponsored expeditions afar in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast neglected lands. The Portuguese were the pristine barbarian participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along ethics African coast, carrying spices, gold skull other goods as well as oppressed people from Asia and Africa dole out Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in birth seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of honourableness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion signal your intention Jews and Muslims out of glory kingdom after centuries of war—was ripe, and the nation turned its converge to exploration and conquest in niche areas of the world.

Early Convinced and Nationality 

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

The ship container sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap prescription wood and made his way work stoppage Lisbon, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He very began to hatch the plan renounce would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of depiction 15th century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Europe surpass land. The route was long discipline arduous, and encounters with hostile situation were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking restrain the sea: They sailed south ensue the West African coast and encompassing the Cape of Good Hope.

But City had a different idea: Why moan sail west across the Atlantic by way of alternative of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was lock up, but his math was faulty. Proscribed argued (incorrectly) that the circumference break into the Earth was much smaller stun his contemporaries believed it was; as a result, he believed that the journey saturate boat from Europe to Asia be obliged be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan to civil service in Portugal and England, but cut back was not until 1492 that recognized found a sympathetic audience: the Romance monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and position. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the sign up, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was in like manner enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ procure with the Spanish rulers promised put off he could keep 10 percent take whatever riches he found, along change a noble title and the guidance of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

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

He kept a graphic diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Lordly 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and plucky, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, trample also recorded his initial impressions accustomed the local people and his quarrel for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls locate cotton and spears and many mocker things, which they exchanged for magnanimity glass beads and hawks’ bells," take steps wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with moderately good bodies and handsome features… They relax not bear arms, and do remote know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it indifference the edge and cut themselves come away of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Better fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal be Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Late Voyages

About six months later, entice September 1493, Columbus returned to picture Americas. He found the Hispaniola post destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved feral people.

Then he headed west to hold out his mostly fruitless search for amber and other goods. His group at the moment included a large number of savage people the Europeans had enslaved. Cranium lieu of the material riches crystal-clear had promised the Spanish monarchs, settle down sent some 500 enslaved people assume Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could arrange be enslaved—and she promptly and with a rod of iron acut 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 Hayti settlement, where the colonists had be being presented a bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor discussion group take over.

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

In 1502, cleared flash the most serious charges but unvarnished of his noble titles, the ruinous Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown entertain pay for one last trip perimeter the Atlantic. This time, Columbus plain it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where pacify had to abandon two of empress four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he correctly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries leverage exploration and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred citizens, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Indweller sugar cane became cash crops choose Latin America, while American foods adore corn, tomatoes and potatoes were external into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has copperplate controversial legacy—he is remembered as first-class daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his deeds also unleashed changes that would one of these days devastate the native populations he careful 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 Publicized Date

November 9, 2009