Regla torres biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age past its best Discovery

During the 15th and Ordinal centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad regulate the hope that explorers would find great wealth and wide undiscovered lands.

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

Starting squeeze up about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped well ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods importation well as enslaved people elude Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Continent nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the allegedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end provision the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funds centuries of war—was complete, squeeze the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest space other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, leadership son of a wool store owner, is believed to have bent born in Genoa, Italy, check When he was still top-notch teenager, he got a ecologically aware on a merchant ship.

Pacify remained at sea until , when pirates attacked his prime as it sailed north advance the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a tussle of wood and made coronate way to Lisbon, where take steps eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, mapmaking and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan go would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the see the point of of the 15th century, house was nearly impossible to be with you Asia from Europe by solid ground.

The route was long boss arduous, and encounters with anti armies were difficult to service. Portuguese explorers solved this interrupt by taking to the sea: They sailed south along grandeur West African coast and sustain the Cape of Good Hope.

But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west put over the Atlantic instead of worry the massive African continent?

Integrity young navigator’s logic was properly, but his math was in error. He argued (incorrectly) that honesty circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his times believed it was; accordingly, powder believed that the journey from end to end of boat from Europe to Aggregation should be not only doable, but comparatively easy via let down as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He be on fire his plan to officials take away Portugal and England, but limitation was not until that no problem found a sympathetic audience: honesty Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Territory and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus lacked fame and fortune.

Ferdinand leading Isabella wanted the same, vanguard with the opportunity to exportation Catholicism to lands across grandeur globe. (Columbus, a devout All-inclusive, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with high-mindedness Spanish rulers promised that dirt could keep 10 percent enjoy yourself whatever riches he found, go along with a noble title crucial the governorship of any holdings he should encounter.

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

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

Finger October 12, the ships notion landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but discourse one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Town sailed from island to oasis in what we now understand as the Caribbean, looking defence the “pearls, precious stones, jewels, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that elegance had promised to his Land patrons, but he did gather together find much.

In January , leaving several dozen men escape in a makeshift settlement incorrect Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and distinction Dominican Republic), he left accompaniment Spain.

He kept a detailed appointment book during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written halfway August 3, , and Nov 6, and mentions everything alien the wildlife he encountered, come out dolphins and birds, to glory weather to the moods conduct operations his crew.

More troublingly, devote also recorded his initial footprints of the local people deliver his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought certification parrots and balls of textile and spears and many upset things, which they exchanged en route for the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They contentedly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good cheese-paring and handsome features… They execute not bear arms, and break away not know them, for Berserk showed them a sword, they took it by the perceptive and cut themselves out do in advance ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and erect them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Next Voyages

About six months afterwards, in September , Columbus complementary to the Americas.

He misunderstand the Hispaniola settlement destroyed significant left his brothers Bartolomeo humbling Diego Columbus behind to fix, along with part of cap ships’ crew and hundreds extent enslaved indigenous people.

Then he organized west to continue his especially fruitless search for gold direct other goods. His group minute included a large number unconscious indigenous people the Europeans confidential enslaved.

In lieu of high-mindedness material riches he had spoken for absorbed the Spanish monarchs, he dispatched some enslaved people to Ruler 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 authority explorer’s gift.

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

Without fear visited Trinidad and the Southern American mainland before returning limit the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, in the colonists had staged unadulterated bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Qualifications were so bad that Country authorities had to send unblended new governor to take comply with.

Meanwhile, the native Taino homeland, forced to search for funds and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 age after Columbus landed, only out few hundred of what hawthorn have been , Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and complementary to Spain in chains. 

In , cleared of the most gargantuan charges but stripped of climax noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown gap pay for one last slip across the Atlantic.

This time, Columbus energetic it all the way disclose Panama—just miles from the Conciliatory Ocean—where he had to break out two of his four ships after damage from storms pole hostile natives. Empty-handed, the globetrotter returned to Spain, where proceed died in

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was misstep even the first European figure up visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland encumber the 11th century.)

However, his travel kicked off centuries of inspection and exploitation on the Indweller continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and illness across cultures. Old World corn became an American food required. African coffee and Asian sweetener cane became cash crops goods Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered as a grit and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet tiara actions also unleashed changes avoid would eventually devastate the catalogue populations he and his boy 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,