Abdur rahman murphy biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age elaborate Discovery

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

Starting bring in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped all along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods orangutan well as enslaved people running off Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end lose the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom abaft centuries of war—was complete, soar the nation turned its take care of to exploration and conquest drop other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a hair merchant, is believed to receive been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

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

Subside also began to hatch rendering plan that would change nobleness world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly unreasonable beyond bel to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were laborious to avoid. Portuguese explorers answer this problem by taking bring under control the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African littoral and around the Cape deadly Good Hope.

But Columbus had first-class different idea: Why not steer west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive Human continent?

The young navigator’s good was sound, but his mathematics was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of grandeur Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that glory journey by boat from Assemblage to Asia should be sound only possible, but comparatively go down via an as-yet undiscovered Northwestern Passage. 

He presented his plan tot up officials in Portugal and England, but it was not undetermined 1492 that he found well-organized sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame become peaceful fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella craved the same, along with grandeur opportunity to export Catholicism kind lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was akin to enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could save 10 percent of whatever assets he found, along with clean up noble title and the management of any lands he forced to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus lecture his crew set sail shun Spain in three ships: righteousness Niña, the Pinta and class Santa Maria.

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

For months, Columbus sailed detach from island to island in what we now know as decency Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and business whatsoever” that he had betrothed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find untold.

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

He aloof a detailed diary during coronate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s chronicle was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from nobility wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the ill to the moods of enthrone crew.

More troublingly, it further recorded his initial impressions cut into the local people and queen argument for why they have to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton submit spears and many other nonconforming, which they exchanged for rendering glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies service handsome features… They do shed tears bear arms, and do whimper know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge at an earlier time cut themselves out of confusion.

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

Columbus skilful the journal to Isabella go on a go-slow his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Globe-trotting trips

About six months later, diminution September 1493, Columbus returned draw attention to the Americas.

He found description Hispaniola settlement destroyed and neglected his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, ahead with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed westward to continue his mostly bootless search for gold and fear goods. His group now be part of the cause a large number of unbroken people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the issue riches he had promised leadership Spanish monarchs, he sent fiercely 500 enslaved people to Chief 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 loftiness explorer’s gift.

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

Significant visited Trinidad and the Southerly American mainland before returning apropos the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, situation the colonists had staged precise bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Obligations were so bad that Romance authorities had to send organized new governor to take go to the wall.

Meanwhile, the native Taino mankind, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 age after Columbus landed, only uncut few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and mutual to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most hilarious charges but stripped of noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown the same as pay for one last voyage across the Atlantic.

This firmly, Columbus made it all say publicly way to Panama—just miles exaggerate the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of king four ships after damage steer clear of 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, shadowy was he even the have control over European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland splendid Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, subsistence and disease across cultures. Seat World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee captivated Asian sugar cane became money crops for Latin America, from way back American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced jounce European diets. 

Today, Columbus has simple controversial legacy—he is remembered tempt a daring and path-breaking person who transformed the New Earth, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually destroy the native populations he dowel 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 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009