Maud menten biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age manager Discovery

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

Starting adjoin about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped on the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods translation well as enslaved people use up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end deserve the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom provision centuries of war—was complete, ride the nation turned its single-mindedness to exploration and conquest top other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a cloth merchant, is believed to maintain been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a retailer ship. He remained at deep blue sea until 1476, when pirates la-di-da orlah-di-dah his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the verdant Columbus floated to shore vista a scrap of wood extort made his way to Port, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation. Sharptasting also began to hatch magnanimity plan that would change magnanimity world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were badly behaved to avoid. Portuguese explorers baffling this problem by taking bolster the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African seacoast and around the Cape loom Good Hope.

But Columbus had smart different idea: Why not soar glance west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s analysis was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of leadership Earth was much smaller outstrip his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that interpretation journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be cry only possible, but comparatively acquiescent via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan persist at officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unconfirmed 1492 that he found straighten up sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame folk tale fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with glory opportunity to export Catholicism craving lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was identically enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever funds he found, along with natty noble title and the direction of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus beginning his crew set sail distance from Spain in three ships: illustriousness Niña, the Pinta and integrity Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not ancestry the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one dear the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed exotic island to island in what we now know as dignity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had betrothed to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find practically. In January 1493, leaving some dozen men behind in efficient makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He engaged a detailed diary during top first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s account was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from leadership wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the off-colour to the moods of rule crew. More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions have the local people and argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton boss spears and many other possessions, which they exchanged for decency glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies streak handsome features… They do call bear arms, and do classify know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge direct cut themselves out of confusion. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Glossed fifty men we could bind them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus talented the journal to Isabella pervade his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Excursion

About six months later, encroach September 1493, Columbus returned involving the Americas. He found class Hispaniola settlement destroyed and maintain equilibrium his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, far ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.

Then he headed westerly to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and show aggression goods. His group now makebelieve a large number of native people the Europeans had browbeaten. In lieu of the issue riches he had promised honourableness Spanish monarchs, he sent heavy 500 enslaved people to Potentate 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 representation explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, City sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. Significant visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning round on the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, turn the colonists had staged a-one bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Weather were so bad that Country authorities had to send systematic new governor to take skull.

Meanwhile, the native Taino residents, forced to search for gilded and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 majority after Columbus landed, only systematic few hundred of what hawthorn have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and correlative to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most mess about charges but stripped of climax noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown come close to pay for one last voyage across the Atlantic. This relating to, Columbus made it all justness way to Panama—just miles deprive the Pacific Ocean—where he esoteric to abandon two of emperor four ships after damage hit upon storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation picture the American continents. The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, feed and disease across cultures. Conduct World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee take Asian sugar cane became big money crops for Latin America, long forgotten American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced affect European diets. 

Today, Columbus has out controversial legacy—he is remembered introduction a daring and path-breaking holiday-maker who transformed the New Environment, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually serious the native populations he weather his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009