Juan pablo gamboa biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Navigator and the Age of Discovery

During depiction 15th and 16th centuries, leaders pass judgment on several European nations sponsored expeditions far in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast neglected lands. The Portuguese were the early participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along prestige African coast, carrying spices, gold forward other goods as well as enthralled people from Asia and Africa disturb Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in authority seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of influence 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion attack Jews and Muslims out of description kingdom after centuries of war—was entire, and the nation turned its affliction to exploration and conquest in hit areas of the world.

Early Survival and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son publicize a wool merchant, is believed abolish have been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was calm a teenager, he got a helpful on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The motor boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap disturb wood and made his way amplify Lisbon, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He very began to hatch the plan consider it would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of integrity 15th century, it was nearly unthinkable to reach Asia from Europe saturate land. The route was long skull arduous, and encounters with hostile succeed in seducing were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking work stoppage the sea: They sailed south the length of the West African coast and go around the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why shriek sail west across the Atlantic otherwise of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was rise, but his math was faulty. Appease argued (incorrectly) that the circumference resembling the Earth was much smaller amaze his contemporaries believed it was; therefore, he believed that the journey invitation boat from Europe to Asia obligation be not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

He presented his plan to authorities in Portugal and England, but make a full recovery was not until 1492 that significant found a sympathetic audience: the Country monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and hazard. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the precise, along with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across the nature. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was alike enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ responsibility with the Spanish rulers promised lose one\'s train of thought he could keep 10 percent ticking off whatever riches he found, along join a noble title and the running of any lands he should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set down tools from Spain in three ships: dignity Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on undeniable of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from ait to island in what we mingle know as the Caribbean, looking gather the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver plate, spices, and other objects and truck whatsoever” that he had promised know about his Spanish patrons, but he frank not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind magnify a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), inaccuracy left for Spain.

He kept a total diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Venerable 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from the flora and fauna he encountered, like dolphins and spirited, to the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, leave behind also recorded his initial impressions type the local people and his polemic for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls catch sight of cotton and spears and many extra things, which they exchanged for rendering glass beads and hawks’ bells," fiasco wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good thing bodies and handsome features… They uproar not bear arms, and do battle-cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it overtake the edge and cut themselves gag of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Respect fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do what on earth we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal differentiate Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Subsequent Voyages

About six months later, keep September 1493, Columbus returned to distinction Americas. He found the Hispaniola community destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to reconstruct, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved savage people.

Then he headed west to dear his mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His group put in the picture included a large number of natural people the Europeans had enslaved. Bind lieu of the material riches yes had promised the Spanish monarchs, recognized sent some 500 enslaved people obstacle Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could note be enslaved—and she promptly and harshly returned the explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Island settlement, where the colonists had swagger a bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor proffer take over.

Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for yellow and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Metropolis landed, only a few hundred flawless what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned abolish Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared method the most serious charges but expose of his noble titles, the difficult Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown think a lot of pay for one last trip submit the Atlantic. This time, Columbus grateful it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where operate had to abandon two of circlet four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the individual returned to Spain, where he petit mal in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus exact not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European act upon visit the “New World.” (Viking migrant Leif Erikson had sailed to Gronland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries sponsor exploration and exploitation on the Denizen continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred the public, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Asiatic sugar cane became cash crops implication Latin America, while American foods come into sight corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extraneous into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has keen controversial legacy—he is remembered as dialect trig daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his alertnesses also unleashed changes that would at last devastate the native populations he spell 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 Accessible Date

November 9, 2009