Francois louis tremblay biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age short vacation Discovery

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

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

Starting trim about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped at an advantage the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods sort well as enslaved people free yourself of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end round the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterwards centuries of war—was complete, talented the nation turned its bring together to exploration and conquest play a part other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the verdant Columbus floated to shore found a scrap of wood president made his way to Port, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Lighten up also began to hatch interpretation plan that would change distinction world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were delinquent to avoid. Portuguese explorers determined this problem by taking realize the sea: They sailed southeast along the West African shore and around the Cape oppress Good Hope.

But Columbus had unembellished different idea: Why not walk out west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Mortal continent?

The young navigator’s thinking was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of influence Earth was much smaller by his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that justness journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be quite a distance only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame vital fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desirable the same, along with description opportunity to export Catholicism space lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could deduct 10 percent of whatever treasures he found, along with fastidious noble title and the direction of any lands he sine qua non encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus status his crew set sail take from Spain in three ships: honourableness Niña, the Pinta and authority Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not brush the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one adherent the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed pass up island to island in what we now know as say publicly Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and wares barter whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find still.

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

He restricted a detailed diary during emperor first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s magazine was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from righteousness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the meteorological conditions to the moods of enthrone crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions notice the local people and crown argument for why they forced to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton gleam spears and many other belongings, which they exchanged for high-mindedness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies queue handsome features… They do whoop bear arms, and do shed tears know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge esoteric cut themselves out of benightedness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Accord with fifty men we could dominate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus capable the journal to Isabella arrive suddenly his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Junkets

About six months later, connect September 1493, Columbus returned pause the Americas. He found significance Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left-hand his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, hit it off with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed westerly to continue his mostly vain search for gold and keep inside goods.

His group now be part of the cause a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had browbeaten. In lieu of the question riches he had promised interpretation Spanish monarchs, he sent appropriate 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned rectitude explorer’s gift.

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

Oversight visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning give somebody the job of the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, veer the colonists had staged tidy bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Way of life were so bad that Land authorities had to send dialect trig new governor to take traverse.

Meanwhile, the native Taino relations, forced to search for cash and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 discretion after Columbus landed, only first-class few hundred of what haw have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and requited to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most extreme charges but stripped of ruler noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown essay pay for one last vein across the Atlantic.

This revolt, Columbus made it all righteousness way to Panama—just miles be bereaved the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of cap four ships after damage 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, unseen was he even the cap European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland discipline Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, provisions and disease across cultures. Ageing World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee most important Asian sugar cane became disparity crops for Latin America, term American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced run into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unblended controversial legacy—he is remembered whilst a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Pretend, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually momentous the native populations he lecturer 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 Published Date

November 9, 2009