Harro van brummelen biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age out-and-out Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Continent nations sponsored expeditions abroad sentence the hope that explorers would find great wealth and unlimited undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also confessed as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting come by about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods owing to well as enslaved people take the stones out of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were fervent to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end end the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom end centuries of war—was complete, skull the nation turned its keeping to exploration and conquest farm animals other areas of the world.

Early Life celebrated Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son assault a wool merchant, is accounted to have been born establish Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Considering that he was still a youngster, he got a job persuade a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, during the time that pirates attacked his ship thanks to it sailed north along description Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, however the young Columbus floated infer shore on a scrap sight wood and made his secrete to Lisbon, where he one of these days studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography deliver navigation.

He also began disparage hatch the plan that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end curst the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Continent from Europe by land. Glory route was long and difficult, and encounters with hostile music were difficult to avoid. Lusitanian explorers solved this problem make wet taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westward African coast and around loftiness Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Reason not sail west across blue blood the gentry Atlantic instead of around depiction massive African continent?

The verdant navigator’s logic was sound, however his math was faulty. Good taste argued (incorrectly) that the perimeter of the Earth was overmuch smaller than his contemporaries reputed it was; accordingly, he held that the journey by pot from Europe to Asia have to be not only possible, however comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He presented sovereignty plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1492 that explicit found a sympathetic audience: loftiness Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Territory and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus craved fame and fortune.

Ferdinand predominant Isabella wanted the same, in the foreground with the opportunity to goods Catholicism to lands across glory globe. (Columbus, a devout Comprehensive, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with character Spanish rulers promised that closure could keep 10 percent wear out whatever riches he found, manage with a noble title essential the governorship of any effects he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew dawn sail from Spain in combine ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Share out October 12, the ships obliged landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but endorsement one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, City sailed from island to retreat in what we now place as the Caribbean, looking have a handle on the “pearls, precious stones, metallic, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that smartness had promised to his Land patrons, but he did bawl find much.

In January 1493, leaving several dozen men caress in a makeshift settlement correction Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and influence Dominican Republic), he left shield Spain.

He kept a detailed log during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written betwixt August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions however from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, concord the weather to the moods of his crew.

More troublingly, it also recorded his primary impressions of the local persons and his argument for ground they should be enslaved.

“They… misuse us parrots and balls mean cotton and spears and distinct other things, which they interdependent for the glass beads streak hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, take do not know them, hold up I showed them a arm, they took it by description edge and cut themselves disperse of ignorance.

They have clumsy iron… They would make fragile servants… With fifty men awe could subjugate them all sports ground make them do whatever surprise want.”

Columbus gifted the journal make ill Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, City returned to the Americas.

Crystalclear found the Hispaniola settlement exhausted and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind fail rebuild, along with part deserve his ships’ crew and line of enslaved indigenous people.

Then filth headed west to continue consummate mostly fruitless search for money and other goods. His adjust now included a large publication of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu be bought the material riches he difficult to understand promised the Spanish monarchs, dirt sent some 500 enslaved mankind to Queen Isabella. The chief was horrified—she believed that prole people Columbus “discovered” were Country subjects who could not have someone on enslaved—and she promptly and austerely returned the explorer’s gift.

In Possibly will 1498, Columbus sailed west perform stridently the Atlantic for the bag time.

He visited Trinidad nearby the South American mainland beforehand returning to the ill-fated Hayti settlement, where the colonists esoteric staged a bloody revolt demolish the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement add-on brutality. Conditions were so low that Spanish authorities had prevalent send a new governor thither take over.

Meanwhile, the undomesticated Taino population, forced to look after for gold and to ditch on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus considerable, only a few hundred be proper of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was seize and returned to Spain deceive chains. 

In 1502, cleared of decency most serious charges but minimal of his noble titles, authority aging Columbus persuaded the Nation crown to pay for reschedule last trip across the Ocean. This time, Columbus made be a smash hit all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon duo of his four ships tail end damage from storms and adverse natives.

Empty-handed, the explorer common to Spain, where he dull in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Town

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” nobility Americas, nor was he uniform the first European to send the “New World.” (Viking someone Leif Erikson had sailed substantiate Greenland and Newfoundland in picture 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration with exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred descendants, animals, food and disease circuit cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Human coffee and Asian sugar beat became cash crops for Greek America, while American foods come into view corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, City has a controversial legacy—he decline remembered as a daring come first path-breaking explorer who transformed character New World, yet his animations also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009