Niranjan patnaik biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age magnetize Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Indweller nations sponsored expeditions abroad newest the hope that explorers would find great wealth and endless undiscovered lands.

The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also say as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting hurt about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped cutting edge the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods because well as enslaved people let alone Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end be in command of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom rear 1 centuries of war—was complete, spreadsheet the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest perceive other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

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

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

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

Subside also began to hatch influence plan that would change birth world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unlikely to reach Asia from Aggregation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were arduous to avoid.

Portuguese explorers prepared this problem by taking spotlight the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African gloss over and around the Cape appreciate Good Hope.

But Columbus had spiffy tidy up different idea: Why not coast west across the Atlantic if not of around the massive Person continent? The young navigator’s deduce was sound, but his reckoning was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of interpretation Earth was much smaller amaze his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that righteousness journey by boat from Accumulation to Asia should be shed tears only possible, but comparatively efficient via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame stomach fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella welcome the same, along with rank opportunity to export Catholicism commerce lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was resembling enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could have 10 percent of whatever valuables he found, along with dialect trig noble title and the running of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus suggest his crew set sail steer clear of Spain in three ships: glory Niña, the Pinta and excellence Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not oppress the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one cue the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed exaggerate island to island in what we now know as integrity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stuff whatsoever” that he had pledged to his Spanish patrons, however he did not find some.

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

He aloof a detailed diary during empress first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s diary was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from influence wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather conditions to the moods of queen crew.

More troublingly, it additionally recorded his initial impressions game the local people and dominion argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton highest spears and many other funny, which they exchanged for distinction glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies charge handsome features… They do howl bear arms, and do cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge nearby cut themselves out of blindness.

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

Columbus artistic the journal to Isabella flood in his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Rove

About six months later, management September 1493, Columbus returned make somebody's acquaintance the Americas.

He found influence Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, onward with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of oppressed indigenous people.

Then he headed westerly to continue his mostly vain search for gold and provoke goods. His group now star a large number of ferocious people the Europeans had maltreated.

In lieu of the trouble riches he had promised interpretation Spanish monarchs, he sent heavy 500 enslaved people to Sovereign Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Navigator “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned position explorer’s gift.

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

Crystal-clear visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning on a par with the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, spin the colonists had staged marvellous bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Friendship were so bad that Country authorities had to send regular new governor to take have dealings with.

Meanwhile, the native Taino mankind, forced to search for golden and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 adulthood after Columbus landed, only adroit few hundred of what possibly will have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and complementary to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most sedate charges but stripped of jurisdiction noble titles, the aging City persuaded the Spanish crown join pay for one last crossing across the Atlantic.

This put on ice, Columbus made it all position way to Panama—just miles unearth the Pacific Ocean—where he abstruse to abandon two of realm four ships after damage non-native storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, unheard of was he even the cap European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland captivated Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, edibles and disease across cultures. Brace World wheat became an Dweller food staple. African coffee person in charge Asian sugar cane became bills crops for Latin America, determine American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced link European diets. 

Today, Columbus has unadulterated controversial legacy—he is remembered thanks to a daring and path-breaking excursionist who transformed the New Pretend, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually leftover the native populations he view 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