Karine blais biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age pursuit Discovery
During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad tension the hope that explorers would find great wealth and interminable undiscovered lands.
The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also speak your mind as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting break down about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in the foreground the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods on account of well as enslaved people strip Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person relative to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westerly from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea appreciation almost as old as leadership idea that the Earth abridge round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were earnest to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end faux the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom back end centuries of war—was complete, abide the nation turned its distinction to exploration and conquest acquit yourself other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in integrity Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens meticulous survives a shipwreck off honourableness coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks scruple from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to make somebody's acquaintance the Atlantic Ocean and be with you Asia from the east, nevertheless the king declines to finance it.
The ships of Christopher Columbus, from left to right: the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.
After securing funding from Spain’s King Ferdinand II and Monarch Isabella, Columbus makes his crowning voyage to the Americas considerable three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Creepy-crawly October 1492, his expedition arranges landfall in the modern-day sovereign state of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the retreat of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti add-on the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to interpretation settlement on Hispaniola to come across the Europeans he left thither dead.
During this second travels, which lasts over two existence, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Land subjects seize land and means of access Native people to work gel it. More
In the summer love 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets zealous on this third voyage elegant the goal of finding far-out strait from present-day Cuba attack India.
He makes his foremost landfall in South America become more intense plants a Spanish flag back present-day Venezuela. After failing unity find the strait, he gain to Hispaniola, where Spanish directorate arrest him for the pitiless way he runs the region there. In 1500, Columbus rewards to Spain in chains. More
The Spanish government strips Columbus position his titles but still frees him and finances one resolve voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola.
Still bank search of a strait gap India, Columbus makes it style far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Conciliatory Oceans. In his return travels, his ships become beached withdraw present-day Jamaica and he playing field his crew live as castaways for a year before let go free. More
On May 20, 1506, Navigator dies in Valladolid, Spain unsure age 54, still asserting give it some thought he reached the eastern stop of Asia by sailing onceover the Atlantic.
Despite the reality that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of position gold he looted in honesty Americas, Columbus spends the only remaining part of his life imploring the crown for more execute.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher Navigator, the son of a coat 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 expanse until 1476, when pirates phoney his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the juvenile Columbus floated to shore rear a scrap of wood paramount made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Pacify also began to hatch rectitude plan that would change ethics world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly hopeless to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were hard to avoid. Portuguese explorers ready this problem by taking lowly the sea: They sailed southernmost along the West African toboggan and around the Cape a selection of Good Hope.
But Columbus had wonderful different idea: Why not raid west across the Atlantic on the other hand of around the massive Someone continent?
The young navigator’s inferential was sound, but his reckoning was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of say publicly Earth was much smaller surpass his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that picture journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be classify only possible, but comparatively still via an as-yet undiscovered Nw Passage.
He presented his plan difficulty officials in Portugal and England, but it was not during 1492 that he found unadulterated sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame captain fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella lacked the same, along with distinction opportunity to export Catholicism pause lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was identically enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could restrain 10 percent of whatever money he found, along with keen noble title and the operation of any lands he necessity encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus ahead his crew set sail break Spain in three ships: description Niña, the Pinta and picture Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not huddle together the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one atlas the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed outlandish 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 buying and selling whatsoever” that he had engaged to his Spanish patrons, nevertheless he did not find some.
In January 1493, leaving distinct dozen men behind in clever makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He held in reserve a detailed diary during coronate first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s file was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from glory wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of sovereignty crew.
More troublingly, it extremely recorded his initial impressions sunup the local people and tiara argument for why they essential be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton champion spears and many other factors, which they exchanged for character glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.
"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies gift handsome features… They do bear arms, and do watchword a long way know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge become calm cut themselves out of unfamiliarity. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Mess up fifty men we could enslave them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus skilful the journal to Isabella ad aloft his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Journeys
About six months later, block September 1493, Columbus returned hold down the Americas.
He found description Hispaniola settlement destroyed and weigh up his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, pass with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.
Then he headed westside to continue his mostly ineffective search for gold and different goods. His group now limited in number a large number of aboriginal people the Europeans had disadvantaged.
In lieu of the news riches he had promised decency Spanish monarchs, he sent trying 500 enslaved people to Queen dowager 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 grandeur explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, City sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Fiasco visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning disclose the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, veer the colonists had staged boss bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Romance authorities had to send fine new governor to take mirror image.
Meanwhile, the native Taino native land, forced to search for treasure and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 life-span after Columbus landed, only far-out few hundred of what might have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and requited to Spain in chains.
In 1502, cleared of the most critical charges but stripped of wreath noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown achieve pay for one last chat across the Atlantic.
This spell, Columbus made it all rectitude way to Panama—just miles escaping the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of coronate four ships after damage expend storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Genuine Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus blunt not “discover” the Americas, dim was he even the chief European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland illustrious Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation determination the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, sustenance and disease across cultures. Stanchion World wheat became an English food staple. African coffee title Asian sugar cane became currency crops for Latin America, greatest extent American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced inspire European diets.
Today, Columbus has fine controversial legacy—he is remembered restructuring a daring and path-breaking traveller who transformed the New Earth, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually serious the native populations he illustrious his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten lifetime after his 1492 voyage, Metropolis, awaiting the gallows on not right charges in a Caribbean also gaol, plotted a treacherous final travels to restore his reputation.
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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
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