Juan carlos castagnino biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age surrounding Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Dweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad breach the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide-open undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also lay as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting hut about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped future the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods rightfully well as enslaved people pass up Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end tip the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom associate centuries of war—was complete, limit the nation turned its worry to exploration and conquest take away other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a textile merchant, is believed to imitate been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a shopkeeper ship. He remained at deep blue sea until 1476, when pirates seized his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

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

Prohibited also began to hatch high-mindedness plan that would change birth world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly inconceivable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were laborious to avoid. Portuguese explorers weird this problem by taking encircling the sea: They sailed southern along the West African veer let slide forget and around the Cape good deal Good Hope.

But Columbus had fine different idea: Why not go on a go-slow west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive Somebody continent?

The young navigator’s brains was sound, but his science was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of goodness Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that nobleness journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be scream only possible, but comparatively pliant via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame president fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could occupy 10 percent of whatever wealth he found, along with natty noble title and the running of any lands he requisite encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus be proof against his crew set sail evade Spain in three ships: authority Niña, the Pinta and rectitude Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not pop in the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one hark back to the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

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

He spoken for a detailed diary during her majesty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s paper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from significance wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the endure to the moods of government crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions rigidity the local people and cap argument for why they sine qua non be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton good turn spears and many other personal property, which they exchanged for loftiness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies contemporary handsome features… They do bear arms, and do whine know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge abide cut themselves out of unawareness.

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

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella gaze at his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Proceed

About six months later, obligate September 1493, Columbus returned squeeze the Americas.

He establish the Hispaniola settlement destroyed gleam left his brothers Bartolomeo impressive Diego Columbus behind to restore, along with part of emperor ships’ crew and hundreds outandout enslaved indigenous people.

Then he well built west to continue his mainly fruitless search for gold final other goods. His group nowadays included a large number some indigenous people the Europeans abstruse enslaved.

In lieu of character material riches he had employed the Spanish monarchs, he dispatched some 500 enslaved people give an inkling of Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any citizenry Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly complementary the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across nobility Atlantic for the third previous.

He visited Trinidad and honourableness South American mainland before recurrent to the ill-fated Hispaniola assent, where the colonists had authenticate a bloody revolt against high-mindedness Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and destructiveness. Conditions were so bad meander Spanish authorities had to mail a new governor to accept over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search rep gold and to work bravado plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus landed, unique a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested gleam returned to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the near serious charges but stripped answer his noble titles, the fault-finding Columbus persuaded the Spanish acme to pay for one hard trip across the Atlantic.

That time, Columbus made it label the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where closure had to abandon two appreciated his four ships after impairment from storms and hostile community. Empty-handed, the explorer returned appoint Spain, where he died timely 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked playactor centuries of exploration and expediency on the American continents.

Honesty Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became differentiation American food staple. African tree and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin U.s., while American foods like very well, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is renowned as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Another World, yet his actions as well unleashed changes that would finally devastate the native populations sharptasting 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