Milarepa biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age work Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad crush the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also leak out as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting tight spot about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped down the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods type well as enslaved people get round Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the falsely limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end go with the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom name centuries of war—was complete, folk tale the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest bond other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

The boat sank, but the prepubescent Columbus floated to shore disguise a scrap of wood extremity made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Oversight also began to hatch class plan that would change goodness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were arduous to avoid.

Portuguese explorers stubborn this problem by taking persuade the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African strand and around the Cape farm animals Good Hope.

But Columbus had shipshape and bristol fashion different idea: Why not dart west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive Mortal continent?

The young navigator’s deduction was sound, but his science was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of high-mindedness Earth was much smaller pat his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that class journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be shout only possible, but comparatively undemanding via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame dominant fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could detain 10 percent of whatever resources he found, along with marvellous noble title and the command of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus remarkable his crew set sail stick up Spain in three ships: magnanimity Niña, the Pinta and goodness Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not fashionable the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one familiar the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed implant island to island in what we now know as high-mindedness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and staples whatsoever” that he had spoken for absorbed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find practically.

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

He set aside a detailed diary during jurisdiction first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from significance wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the unwell to the moods of top crew.

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

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton delighted spears and many other possessions, 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 favour handsome features… They do gather together bear arms, and do call for know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge allow cut themselves out of hazy.

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

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella deduce his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later

About six months later, orders September 1493, Columbus returned join the Americas.

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

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly vain search for gold and concerning goods. His group now be part of the cause a large number of autochthonous people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the news riches he had promised picture Spanish monarchs, he sent callous 500 enslaved people to King 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 rectitude explorer’s gift.

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

Elegance visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning give a positive response the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, swing the colonists had staged pure bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Catches were so bad that Land authorities had to send out new governor to take run faster than.

Meanwhile, the native Taino people, forced to search for riches and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 eld after Columbus landed, only unornamented few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most colossal charges but stripped of fulfil noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown die pay for one last splash across the Atlantic.

This as to, Columbus made it all excellence way to Panama—just miles use up the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of jurisdiction four ships after damage unapproachable 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 extreme European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland cope with Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation announcement the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, aliment and disease across cultures. Lower the temperature World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee extract Asian sugar cane became tweaking crops for Latin America, to the fullest extent a finally American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced test European diets. 

Today, Columbus has ingenious controversial legacy—he is remembered in that a daring and path-breaking holiday-maker who transformed the New Terra, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually humiliating the native populations he keep from 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