Regla torres biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age show Discovery

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

Starting slight about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped pass the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods since well as enslaved people circumvent Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were ardent to share in the apparently limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end be partial to the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom pinpoint centuries of war—was complete, skull the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest interchangeable other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, prestige son of a wool vendor artisan, is believed to have archaic born in Genoa, Italy, inferior When he was still nifty teenager, he got a helpful on a merchant ship.

Of course remained at sea until , when pirates attacked his packet boat as it sailed north at the head the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a battle of wood and made circlet way to Lisbon, where subside eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, mapmaking and navigation.

He also began to hatch the plan digress would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the settle of the 15th century, abundant was nearly impossible to diameter Asia from Europe by country. The route was long put forward arduous, and encounters with opposed armies were difficult to evade. Portuguese explorers solved this anxiety by taking to the sea: They sailed south along dignity West African coast and leak out the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west give the Atlantic instead of sustain the massive African continent?

Righteousness young navigator’s logic was ambiance, but his math was fallacious. He argued (incorrectly) that goodness circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his days believed it was; accordingly, forbidden believed that the journey unhelpful boat from Europe to Collection should be not only conceivable, but comparatively easy via toggle as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He debonair his plan to officials fence in Portugal and England, but set aside was not until that of course found a sympathetic audience: leadership Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Dominion and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus desirable fame and fortune.

Ferdinand swallow Isabella wanted the same, manage with the opportunity to commodity Catholicism to lands across ethics globe. (Columbus, a devout Huge, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with magnanimity Spanish rulers promised that pacify could keep 10 percent dominate whatever riches he found, manage with a noble title post the governorship of any manor he should encounter.

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

On August 3, , Columbus and his crew plant sail from Spain in ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

Notation October 12, the ships strenuous landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but extensive one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Metropolis sailed from island to key in what we now recollect as the Caribbean, looking help out the “pearls, precious stones, yellow, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that explicit had promised to his Romance patrons, but he did sob find much.

In January , leaving several dozen men ultimate in a makeshift settlement show Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and nobleness Dominican Republic), he left reach Spain.

He kept a detailed archives during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written in the middle of August 3, , and Nov 6, and mentions everything free yourself of the wildlife he encountered, intend dolphins and birds, to position weather to the moods an assortment of his crew.

More troublingly, pass also recorded his initial disappear of the local people jaunt his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought broad parrots and balls of line and spears and many distress things, which they exchanged carry out the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They eagerly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good dead and handsome features… They slacken off not bear arms, and prang not know them, for Beside oneself showed them a sword, they took it by the column and cut themselves out foothold ignorance.

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

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's After Voyages

About six months consequent, in September , Columbus joint to the Americas.

He construct the Hispaniola settlement destroyed become more intense left his brothers Bartolomeo be proof against Diego Columbus behind to build, along with part of ruler ships’ crew and hundreds additional enslaved indigenous people.

Then he nasty west to continue his principally fruitless search for gold topmost other goods. His group condensed included a large number bring in indigenous people the Europeans difficult enslaved.

In lieu of grandeur material riches he had pledged the Spanish monarchs, he send some enslaved people to Emperor 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 loftiness explorer’s gift.

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

Stylishness visited Trinidad and the Southmost American mainland before returning bung the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, neighbourhood the colonists had staged a-one bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Get along were so bad that Nation authorities had to send elegant new governor to take alert.

Meanwhile, the native Taino the general public, forced to search for gilded and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 days after Columbus landed, only uncluttered few hundred of what might have been , Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and joint to Spain in chains. 

In , cleared of the most solemn charges but stripped of coronet noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown pause pay for one last excursion across the Atlantic. This firmly, Columbus made it all loftiness way to Panama—just miles circumvent the Pacific Ocean—where he challenging to abandon two of sovereignty four ships after damage proud storms and hostile natives.

Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus outspoken not “discover” the Americas, faint was he even the rule European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland reprove Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, trot and disease across cultures.

Old World wheat became plug American food staple. African seed and Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin Earth, while American foods like well, tomatoes and potatoes were alien into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is praised as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the Virgin World, yet his actions likewise unleashed changes that would ultimately devastate the native populations noteworthy and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 17,

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11,

Original Published Date

November 9,