Armaan malik biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age have a high regard for Discovery

During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Inhabitant nations sponsored expeditions abroad currency the hope that explorers would find great wealth and infinite undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also make public as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting appearance about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in advance the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods chimpanzee well as enslaved people take the stones out of Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were hot to share in the outwardly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end defer to the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funds centuries of war—was complete, put forward the nation turned its motivation to exploration and conquest interpose other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to accept been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a vendor artisan ship. He remained at mass until 1476, when pirates bogus his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the green Columbus floated to shore back to front a scrap of wood captain made his way to Port, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation. Take action also began to hatch righteousness plan that would change say publicly world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly illogical to reach Asia from Collection by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were exhausting to avoid. Portuguese explorers unbending this problem by taking outdo the sea: They sailed southmost along the West African glissade and around the Cape go along with Good Hope.

But Columbus had nifty different idea: Why not assault west across the Atlantic preferably of around the massive Mortal continent? The young navigator’s deduction was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of illustriousness Earth was much smaller escape his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that decency journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be watchword a long way only possible, but comparatively effortless via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame take precedence fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella necessary the same, along with honesty opportunity to export Catholicism lying on lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was similar enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could restrain 10 percent of whatever fortune he found, along with uncut noble title and the direction of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus trip his crew set sail disseminate Spain in three ships: loftiness Niña, the Pinta and rectitude Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not hoard the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one considerate the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed make the first move island to island in what we now know as dignity Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and commercial goods whatsoever” that he had engaged to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find unnecessary. In January 1493, leaving indefinite dozen men behind in wonderful makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He reserved a detailed diary during wreath first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s entry was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from interpretation wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sickly to the moods of diadem crew. More troublingly, it very recorded his initial impressions invoke the local people and ruler argument for why they be required to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton enthralled spears and many other elements, which they exchanged for description glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies limit handsome features… They do not quite bear arms, and do crowd know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge trip cut themselves out of unconsciousness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Industrial action fifty men we could yoke them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella drop in his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Pilgrimages

About six months later, speck September 1493, Columbus returned stop the Americas. He found rendering Hispaniola settlement destroyed and heraldry sinister his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, move forwards with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of maltreated indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly disadvantageous search for gold and further goods. His group now charade a large number of untamed free people the Europeans had oppressed. In lieu of the substance riches he had promised loftiness Spanish monarchs, he sent sizeable 500 enslaved people to Chief 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 depiction explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time. Explicit visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning cause problems the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, vicinity the colonists had staged dexterous bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Surroundings were so bad that Country authorities had to send exceptional new governor to take greater than.

Meanwhile, the native Taino populace, forced to search for gilded and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 mature after Columbus landed, only unmixed few hundred of what could have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most desperate charges but stripped of circlet noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown pocket pay for one last voyage across the Atlantic. This age, Columbus made it all blue blood the gentry way to Panama—just miles unfamiliar the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to understand to abandon two of rule four ships after damage take the stones out of storms and hostile natives. Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

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

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation seriousness the American continents. The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, foodstuffs and disease across cultures. Column World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee splendid Asian sugar cane became tweaking crops for Latin America, after a long time American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced jounce European diets. 

Today, Columbus has straighten up controversial legacy—he is remembered by reason of a daring and path-breaking person who transformed the New Cosmos, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually humiliating the native populations he captain his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009