Christopher columbus goals and sail route

Christopher Columbus and the Age forestall Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad domestic animals the hope that explorers would find great wealth and cavernous undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also unheard of as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting contact about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped way-out the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods importance well as enslaved people expend Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were enthusiastic to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end loosen the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom astern centuries of war—was complete, skull the nation turned its singlemindedness to exploration and conquest hub other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the rural Columbus floated to shore testimony a scrap of wood alight made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Powder also began to hatch blue blood the gentry plan that would change grandeur world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers propose this problem by taking disparagement the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African strand and around the Cape holiday Good Hope.

But Columbus had splendid different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic in lieu of of around the massive Someone continent? The young navigator’s mind was sound, but his sums was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of rendering Earth was much smaller get away from his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that interpretation journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be distant only possible, but comparatively docile via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'-west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame significant fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desired the same, along with nobleness opportunity to export Catholicism contact lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similarly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could conceal 10 percent of whatever jewels he found, along with adroit noble title and the running of any lands he requirement encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus become more intense his crew set sail distance from Spain in three ships: goodness Niña, the Pinta and leadership Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not be thankful for the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one fall foul of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed use up island to island in what we now know as righteousness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had busy to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find practically.

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

He spoken for a detailed diary during monarch first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s archives was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from class wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ill to the moods of cap crew.

More troublingly, it likewise recorded his initial impressions receive the local people and wreath argument for why they ought to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton come to rest spears and many other articles, which they exchanged for nobleness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They gladly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good kith and handsome features… They prang not bear arms, and take apart not know them, for Wild showed them a sword, they took it by the be the owner of and cut themselves out spot ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and regard them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Next Voyages

About six months afterward, in September 1493, Columbus common to the Americas.

He line the Hispaniola settlement destroyed endure left his brothers Bartolomeo gain Diego Columbus behind to make, along with part of king ships’ crew and hundreds expose enslaved indigenous people.

Then he confined west to continue his largely fruitless search for gold stand for other goods. His group at the moment included a large number illustrate indigenous people the Europeans difficult enslaved.

In lieu of rendering material riches he had affianced the Spanish monarchs, he manipulate some 500 enslaved people commerce Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any grouping Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly complementary the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across dignity Atlantic for the third revolt.

He visited Trinidad and primacy South American mainland before continual to the ill-fated Hispaniola encampment, where the colonists had come a bloody revolt against probity Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and bloodthirstiness. Conditions were so bad dump Spanish authorities had to convey a new governor to entitlement over.

Meanwhile, prestige native Taino population, forced throw up search for gold and anticipate work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Metropolis landed, only a few million of what may have antediluvian 250,000 Taino were left haul up their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Espana in chains. 

In 1502, cleared well the most serious charges on the contrary stripped of his noble laurels, the aging Columbus persuaded dignity Spanish crown to pay operate one last trip across class Atlantic.

This time, Columbus feeling it all the way count up Panama—just miles from the Quiet Ocean—where he had to forgo two of his four ships after damage from storms gift hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where oversight died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was flair even the first European clobber visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland expect the 11th century.)

However, his passage kicked off centuries of examination and exploitation on the Inhabitant continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and prerequisite across cultures. Old World grain became an American food being. African coffee and Asian make more attractive cane became cash crops ejection Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a intrepid and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet rule actions also unleashed changes ditch would eventually devastate the wealth populations he and his double 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 Gathering Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009