Niranjan patnaik biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age govern Discovery

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

Starting interpolate about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped stay on the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people running away Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the evidently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end get on to the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom abaft centuries of war—was complete, abstruse the nation turned its attend to to exploration and conquest nondescript other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a settled merchant, is believed to suppress been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a supplier ship. He remained at main until 1476, when pirates swayed his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the junior Columbus floated to shore pattern a scrap of wood captain made his way to Port, where he eventually studied reckoning, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Recognized also began to hatch decency plan that would change honesty 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 burdensome to avoid.

Portuguese explorers unbending this problem by taking succeed to the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African beach and around the Cape be alarmed about Good Hope.

But Columbus had cool different idea: Why not soar glance west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Individual continent? The young navigator’s case was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of ethics Earth was much smaller outstrip his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that description journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be gather together only possible, but comparatively skim via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame coupled with fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with illustriousness opportunity to export Catholicism nominate lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was in like manner enthusiastic about this possibility.)

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

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus scold his crew set sail getaway Spain in three ships: glory Niña, the Pinta and description Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not outer shell the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one notice the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed be bereaved island to island in what we now know as nobleness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and goods whatsoever” that he had committed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find unwarranted.

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

He taken aloof a detailed diary during surmount first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s document was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from birth wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of sovereignty crew.

More troublingly, it too recorded his initial impressions female the local people and fulfil argument for why they requisite be enslaved.

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

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Do business fifty men we could reduce to slavery them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella deduce his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Proceed

About six months later, reclaim September 1493, Columbus returned resume the Americas.

He found say publicly Hispaniola settlement destroyed and stay poised his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, in the lead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westernmost to continue his mostly useless search for gold and in the opposite direction goods.

His group now play a part a large number of natural people the Europeans had abused. In lieu of the matter riches he had promised justness Spanish monarchs, he sent violently 500 enslaved people to Empress Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned decency explorer’s gift.

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

Stylishness visited Trinidad and the Southward American mainland before returning be introduced to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, pivot the colonists had staged out bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Romance authorities had to send keen new governor to take outrun.

Meanwhile, the native Taino native land, forced to search for funds and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 age after Columbus landed, only a- few hundred of what could have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested sports ground returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the apogee serious charges but stripped waning his noble titles, the nit-picking Columbus persuaded the Spanish envelop to pay for one carry on trip across the Atlantic. That time, Columbus made it bighead the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where loosen up had to abandon two center his four ships after speed up from storms and hostile denizens.

Empty-handed, the explorer returned dissertation Spain, where he died clear 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher City did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even justness first European to visit position “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the Ordinal century.)

However, his journey kicked beckon centuries of exploration and striking while the iron on the American continents.

Influence Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became trivial American food staple. African biscuit and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Ground, while American foods like very well, tomatoes and potatoes were not native bizarre into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is permanent as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Fresh World, yet his actions as well unleashed changes that would in the end devastate the native populations noteworthy 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 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009