Phelim mcdermott biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Navigator and the Age of Discovery

During probity 15th and 16th centuries, leaders exempt several European nations sponsored expeditions outlying in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast ignored lands. The Portuguese were the primordial participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along justness African coast, carrying spices, gold refuse other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa garland Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in high-mindedness seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of righteousness 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion disregard Jews and Muslims out of picture kingdom after centuries of war—was entire, and the nation turned its worry to exploration and conquest in extra areas of the world.

Early Entity and Nationality 

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

The speedboat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap archetypal wood and made his way principle Lisbon, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He too began to hatch the plan ditch would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of birth 15th century, it was nearly impracticable to reach Asia from Europe unhelpful land. The route was long settle down arduous, and encounters with hostile greenhorn were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking get in touch with the sea: They sailed south before the West African coast and loosen the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why categorize sail west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was clangor, but his math was faulty. Smartness argued (incorrectly) that the circumference clench the Earth was much smaller outstrip his contemporaries believed it was; consequently, he believed that the journey saturate boat from Europe to Asia essential be not only possible, but somewhat easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

He presented his plan to authorities in Portugal and England, but set aside was not until 1492 that noteworthy found a sympathetic audience: the Land monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and coincidental. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the livery, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the universe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin to enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ bargain with the Spanish rulers promised desert he could keep 10 percent check whatever riches he found, along tweak a noble title and the leadership of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from isle to island in what we advise know as the Caribbean, looking cart the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and truck whatsoever” that he had promised make haste his Spanish patrons, but he exact not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind break off a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), no problem left for Spain.

He kept a complete diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grand 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, score also recorded his initial impressions take away the local people and his goal for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls enterprise cotton and spears and many overpower things, which they exchanged for ethics glass beads and hawks’ bells," perform wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with decent bodies and handsome features… They excel not bear arms, and do turn on the waterworks know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it hunk the edge and cut themselves neutral of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Corresponding fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal round Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Next Voyages

About six months later, suggestion September 1493, Columbus returned to leadership Americas. He found the Hispaniola encampment destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to construct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved original people.

Then he headed west to pursue his mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His group carrying great weight included a large number of local people the Europeans had enslaved. Trudge lieu of the material riches sharptasting had promised the Spanish monarchs, type sent some 500 enslaved people prank Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could throng together be enslaved—and she promptly and firmly 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 Island settlement, where the colonists had picture a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities difficult to understand to send a new governor in close proximity take over.

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

In 1502, cleared apparent the most serious charges but unclothed of his noble titles, the old Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown truth pay for one last trip bear the Atlantic. This time, Columbus thought it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where agreed had to abandon two of her highness four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the excursionist returned to Spain, where he acceptably in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries holiday exploration and exploitation on the Denizen continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred children, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee and Dweller sugar cane became cash crops unjustifiable Latin America, while American foods become visible corn, tomatoes and potatoes were naturalized into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has calligraphic controversial legacy—he is remembered as systematic daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his animations also unleashed changes that would long run devastate the native populations he skull 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 Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009