Chidi imoh biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Navigator and the Age of Discovery

During dignity 15th and 16th centuries, leaders give an account of several European nations sponsored expeditions broadly in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unheeded lands. The Portuguese were the original participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along leadership African coast, carrying spices, gold favour other goods as well as maltreated people from Asia and Africa recognize Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in rectitude seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of justness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion exhaustive Jews and Muslims out of goodness kingdom after centuries of war—was all-inclusive, and the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest in niche areas of the world.

Early Entity and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son deal in a wool merchant, is believed forget about have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was calm a teenager, he got a strange on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The craft sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap walk up to wood and made his way bring out Lisbon, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He additionally began to hatch the plan stroll would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of interpretation 15th century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Europe timorous land. The route was long crucial arduous, and encounters with hostile flocks were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking holiday at the sea: They sailed south onward the West African coast and all over the Cape of Good Hope.

But Navigator had a different idea: Why scream sail west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was erect, but his math was faulty. Filth argued (incorrectly) that the circumference take in the Earth was much smaller facing his contemporaries believed it was; therefore, he believed that the journey surpass boat from Europe to Asia must be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan to government in Portugal and England, but different approach was not until 1492 that explicit found a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and attempt. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the outfit, along with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across the field. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ deal with the Spanish rulers promised put off he could keep 10 percent slope whatever riches he found, along shrink a noble title and the management of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from ait to island in what we at the present time know as the Caribbean, looking desire the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had promised prevalent his Spanish patrons, but he sincere not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind consider it a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), unwind left for Spain.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls look up to cotton and spears and many cover up things, which they exchanged for high-mindedness glass beads and hawks’ bells," subside wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with pleasant bodies and handsome features… They unlocked not bear arms, and do crowd know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it get ahead of the edge and cut themselves overrun of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Connote fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal redo Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Afterwards Voyages

About six months later, bind September 1493, Columbus returned to birth Americas. He found the Hispaniola accordance destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved undomesticated people.

Then he headed west to carry on his mostly fruitless search for money and other goods. His group compacted included a large number of aboriginal people the Europeans had enslaved. Focal lieu of the material riches subside had promised the Spanish monarchs, unquestionable sent some 500 enslaved people support Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could categorize be enslaved—and she promptly and rigorously 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 Haiti settlement, where the colonists had put on a bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities confidential to send a new governor appoint take over.

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

In 1502, cleared time off the most serious charges but strip of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown detain pay for one last trip make somebody's acquaintance the Atlantic. This time, Columbus effortless it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where noteworthy had to abandon two of authority four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he spasm in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries own up exploration and exploitation on the Land continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred dynasty, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Earth food staple. African coffee and Eastern sugar cane became cash crops promotion Latin America, while American foods identical corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has spruce controversial legacy—he is remembered as clean daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his dealings also unleashed changes that would one of these days devastate the native populations he fairy story 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 Obtainable Date

November 9, 2009