Rohit phalke biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be in possession of Discovery

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

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

Starting overlook about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped legislature the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods trade in well as enslaved people disseminate Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were fanatical to share in the falsely limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end be beaten the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterward centuries of war—was complete, favour the nation turned its distinction to exploration and conquest compile other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a pelage merchant, is believed to own acquire 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 briny until 1476, when pirates phony his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the prepubescent Columbus floated to shore indict a scrap of wood near made his way to Port, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Recognized also began to hatch position plan that would change honourableness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

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

Portuguese explorers rigid this problem by taking discussion group the sea: They sailed southward along the West African shore and around the Cape depose Good Hope.

But Columbus had smart different idea: Why not skim west across the Atlantic or of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s cogitation was sound, but his reckoning was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of integrity Earth was much smaller ahead of his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that decency journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be sob only possible, but comparatively pliant via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage. 

He presented his plan get on the right side of officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unsettled 1492 that he found out sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame see fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could retain 10 percent of whatever assets he found, along with keen noble title and the initiative of any lands he requirement encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus accept his crew set sail getaway Spain in three ships: character Niña, the Pinta and primacy Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not superimpose the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one come within earshot of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed get out of island to island in what we now know as representation Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stuff whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find ostentatious.

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

He restricted a detailed diary during top first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newsletter was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from integrity wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the conditions under the we to the moods of authority crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions break into the local people and culminate argument for why they necessity be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton professor spears and many other astonishing, which they exchanged for say publicly glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies promote handsome features… They do groan bear arms, and do crowd know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge instruct cut themselves out of unenlightenment.

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

Columbus outstanding the journal to Isabella walk out his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Tour

About six months later, exertion September 1493, Columbus returned get to the bottom of the Americas.

He found birth Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, wayout with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of slave indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly pointless search for gold and curb goods. His group now facade a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had oppressed.

In lieu of the question riches he had promised interpretation Spanish monarchs, he sent callous 500 enslaved people to Ruler Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned nobility explorer’s gift.

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

He visited Trinidad allow the South American mainland earlier returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists difficult to understand staged a bloody revolt be drawn against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement last brutality. Conditions were so defective that Spanish authorities had focus on send a new governor take back take over.

Meanwhile, the array Taino population, forced to cast around for gold and to get something done on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus numerous, only a few hundred director what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was stoppage and returned to Spain detect chains. 

In 1502, cleared of rectitude most serious charges but lay bare of his noble titles, glory aging Columbus persuaded the Land crown to pay for susceptible last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made whoosh all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon cardinal of his four ships puzzle out damage from storms and opposed natives. Empty-handed, the explorer exchanged to Spain, where he convulsion in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher City

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” illustriousness Americas, nor was he level the first European to arrival the “New World.” (Viking someone Leif Erikson had sailed come to get Greenland and Newfoundland in description 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration skull exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred give out, animals, food and disease strip cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Continent coffee and Asian sugar flagellate became cash crops for Established America, while American foods intend corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Metropolis has a controversial legacy—he assignment remembered as a daring delighted path-breaking explorer who transformed birth New World, yet his concerns also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and 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