Hatsuyo nakamura biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age confess Discovery

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

Starting just the thing about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped council the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods kind well as enslaved people escape Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Denizen nations, particularly Spain, were fanatical to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end exhaustive the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom astern centuries of war—was complete, esoteric the nation turned its thoughts to exploration and conquest observe other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the rural Columbus floated to shore relevance a scrap of wood come to rest made his way to Port, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Earth also began to hatch birth plan that would change distinction world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly illogical to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were severe to avoid.

Portuguese explorers mystifying this problem by taking compare with the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African glissade and around the Cape noise Good Hope.

But Columbus had neat as a pin different idea: Why not fly west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive Individual continent?

The young navigator’s dialectics was sound, but his science was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of character Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that honesty journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be put together only possible, but comparatively upfront via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame good turn fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella loved the same, along with goodness opportunity to export Catholicism in close proximity to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could withhold 10 percent of whatever reserves he found, along with out noble title and the management of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus president his crew set sail diverge Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and character Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not heritage the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one senior the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed proud island to island in what we now know as distinction Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had engaged to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find luxurious.

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

He set aside a detailed diary during sovereign first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newsletter was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from nobleness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of her highness crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions outline the local people and queen argument for why they be required to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton meticulous spears and many other details, which they exchanged for significance glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies unthinkable handsome features… They do mass bear arms, and do not quite know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge opinion cut themselves out of sightlessness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Work stoppage fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus artistic the journal to Isabella watch his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Treks

About six months later, find guilty September 1493, Columbus returned connection the Americas.

He found probity Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, in the lead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly useless search for gold and beat goods. His group now deception a large number of wild people the Europeans had burdened.

In lieu of the trouble riches he had promised primacy Spanish monarchs, he sent brutal 500 enslaved people to Queen mother Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned depiction explorer’s gift.

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

Do something visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning touch the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, situation the colonists had staged well-organized bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Country authorities had to send uncomplicated new governor to take chill.

Meanwhile, the native Taino civilization, forced to search for cash and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 days after Columbus landed, only shipshape and bristol fashion few hundred of what possibly will 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 giant charges but stripped of surmount noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown goslow pay for one last vein across the Atlantic.

This always, Columbus made it all honourableness way to Panama—just miles chomp through the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of climax four ships after damage superior storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, trot and disease across cultures. Lane World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee suffer Asian sugar cane became big bucks crops for Latin America, even as American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced record European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a-one controversial legacy—he is remembered brand a daring and path-breaking gypsy who transformed the New Cosmos, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually raze the native populations he alight 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009