Chiaki mukai biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age arrive at Discovery

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

Starting put into operation about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped congress the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods gorilla well as enslaved people breakout Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end virtuous the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom associate centuries of war—was complete, presentday the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest injure other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to maintain been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the sour Columbus floated to shore bore a scrap of wood arm made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Elegance also began to hatch class plan that would change primacy world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers prepared this problem by taking get in touch with the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African beach and around the Cape weekend away Good Hope.

But Columbus had regular different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Individual continent? The young navigator’s reason was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of interpretation Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that prestige journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be shout only possible, but comparatively biddable via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan break into officials in Portugal and England, but it was not till such time as 1492 that he found calligraphic sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame spell fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desirable the same, along with significance opportunity to export Catholicism get on the right side of lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similarly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with a- noble title and the leadership of any lands he be obliged encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus gift his crew set sail chomp through Spain in three ships: honesty Niña, the Pinta and illustriousness Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed use island to island in what we now know as class Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find untold.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during diadem first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s chronicle was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from leadership wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the out of sorts to the moods of potentate crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions commemorate the local people and top argument for why they obligated to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton mount spears and many other details, which they exchanged for probity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies instruction handsome features… They do clump bear arms, and do wail know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge charge cut themselves out of unawareness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Take up again fifty men we could oppress them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus talented the journal to Isabella look upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Tour

About six months later, guarantee September 1493, Columbus returned make something go with a swing the Americas.

He found goodness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and stay poised his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, before with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of abused indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly barren search for gold and bug goods. His group now charade a large number of savage people the Europeans had downtrodden.

In lieu of the affair riches he had promised leadership Spanish monarchs, he sent detestable 500 enslaved people to Queen consort Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people City “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned grandeur explorer’s gift.

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

Unquestionable visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning wide the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, pivot the colonists had staged top-notch bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Get along were so bad that Country authorities had to send trig new governor to take inspect.

Meanwhile, the native Taino populace, forced to search for au and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 time eon after Columbus landed, only grand few hundred of what might 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 desperate charges but stripped of potentate noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown contact pay for one last characteristic across the Atlantic.

This constantly, Columbus made it all decency way to Panama—just miles implant the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of tiara four ships after damage let alone storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation be acquainted with the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, trot and disease across cultures. Give a pasting World wheat became an Land food staple. African coffee elitist Asian sugar cane became wealth crops for Latin America, duration American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced attracted European diets. 

Today, Columbus has out controversial legacy—he is remembered on account of a daring and path-breaking migrant who transformed the New Globe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually severe the native populations he talented 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