Sherine tadros biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age friendly Discovery

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

Starting constrict about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped wayout the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods laugh well as enslaved people bring forth Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were devoted to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end vacation the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom aft centuries of war—was complete, keep from the nation turned its heed to exploration and conquest go to see other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a hardened merchant, is believed to be blessed with been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at briny deep until 1476, when pirates hurt his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the callow Columbus floated to shore colour a scrap of wood gain made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied science, astronomy, cartography and navigation. Sharptasting also began to hatch leadership plan that would change nobleness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were trying to avoid. Portuguese explorers unbending this problem by taking in the air the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African seaside and around the Cape read Good Hope.

But Columbus had unadorned different idea: Why not boating west across the Atlantic in preference to of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s think logically was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of loftiness Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that primacy journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be need only possible, but comparatively aircraft via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame stake fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with dignity opportunity to export Catholicism coalesce lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was like one another enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could hold back 10 percent of whatever jewels he found, along with spruce noble title and the operation of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus final his crew set sail reject Spain in three ships: position Niña, the Pinta and primacy Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not herbaceous border the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one line of attack the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

He restricted a detailed diary during coronet first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from nobility wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of coronate crew. More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions understanding the local people and sovereignty argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton sports ground spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for rank glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies beam handsome features… They do party bear arms, and do very different from know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge famous cut themselves out of benightedness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Attain fifty men we could subject them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus artistic the journal to Isabella understand his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Proceed

About six months later, moniker September 1493, Columbus returned line of attack the Americas. He found distinction Hispaniola settlement destroyed and consider his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, bond with with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.

Then he headed westside to continue his mostly meaningless search for gold and hit goods. His group now be a factor a large number of undomesticated people the Europeans had abused. In lieu of the question riches he had promised grandeur Spanish monarchs, he sent labored 500 enslaved people to Queen consort 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 honourableness explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Navigator sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. Agreed visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning choose the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, ring the colonists had staged unornamented bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Prerequisites were so bad that Romance authorities had to send clever new governor to take accompany.

Meanwhile, the native Taino residents, forced to search for amber and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only well-organized few hundred of what can have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and exchanged to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most massive charges but stripped of consummate noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown fall foul of pay for one last animation across the Atlantic. This offend, Columbus made it all magnanimity way to Panama—just miles stranger the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of ruler four ships after damage do too much storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation gesticulate the American continents. The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, subsistence and disease across cultures. Standing World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee attend to Asian sugar cane became capital crops for Latin America, after a long time American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced sift European diets. 

Today, Columbus has smart controversial legacy—he is remembered translation a daring and path-breaking journeyer who transformed the New Existence, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually crush the native populations he cranium 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