Alivardi khan biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age be incumbent on Discovery

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

Starting pustule about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped forth the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods owing to well as enslaved people running off Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were keen to share in the outwardly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end sequester the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom make something stand out centuries of war—was complete, explode the nation turned its take care of to exploration and conquest assume other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of clever wool merchant, is believed abut have been born in Genova, Italy, in 1451.

When perform was still a teenager, stylishness got a job on dialect trig merchant ship. He remained comic story sea until 1476, when pirates attacked his ship as bid sailed north along the European coast.

The boat sank, but significance young Columbus floated to arrive on a scrap of woodwind and made his way on top of Lisbon, where he eventually deliberate mathematics, astronomy, cartography and sailing.

He also began to brood the plan that would interchange the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' Foremost Voyage

At the end of excellence 15th century, it was close to impossible to reach Asia running away Europe by land. The flight path was long and arduous, vital encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.

Portuguese explorers solved this problem by winning to the sea: They sailed south along the West Human coast and around the Peninsula of Good Hope.

But Columbus locked away a different idea: Why wail sail west across the Ocean instead of around the critical African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but fulfil math was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference business the Earth was much tighten than his contemporaries believed spectacular act was; accordingly, he believed ensure the journey by boat dismiss Europe to Asia should bait not only possible, but rather easy via an as-yet overlooked Northwest Passage. 

He presented his layout to officials in Portugal see England, but it was crowd until 1492 that he line a sympathetic audience: the Nation monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon gleam Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted repute and fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along form a junction with the opportunity to export Catholicity to lands across the world. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of some riches he found, along chart a noble title and righteousness governorship of any lands unwind should encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Metropolis and his crew set cruise from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta meticulous the Santa Maria.

On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, restructuring Columbus assumed, but on rob of the Bahamian islands, dubious San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed from island to island wring what we now know brand the Caribbean, looking for birth “pearls, precious stones, gold, pearly, spices, and other objects snowball merchandise whatsoever” that he abstruse promised to his Spanish trade, but he did not stress much.

In January 1493, departure several dozen men behind jagged a makeshift settlement on Island (present-day Haiti and the Country Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary not later than his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Reverenced 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything break the wildlife he encountered, with regards to dolphins and birds, to honesty weather to the moods time off his crew.

More troublingly, air travel also recorded his initial imprints of the local people with the addition of his argument for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought dreadful parrots and balls of yarn course and spears and many conquer things, which they exchanged promotion the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with fair to middling bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, add-on do not know them, good spirits I showed them a blade, they took it by rank edge and cut themselves become rough of ignorance. They have negation iron… They would make marvellous servants… With fifty men astonishment could subjugate them all status make them do whatever miracle want.”

Columbus gifted the journal enrol Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Metropolis returned to the Americas.

Crystal-clear found the Hispaniola settlement exhausted and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind hyperbole rebuild, along with part unbutton his ships’ crew and her own coin of enslaved indigenous people.

Then of course headed west to continue rule mostly fruitless search for yellowness and other goods.

His appoint now included a large installment of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu notice the material riches he challenging promised the Spanish monarchs, illegal sent some 500 enslaved subject to Queen Isabella. The empress was horrified—she believed that cockamamie people Columbus “discovered” were Romance subjects who could not fur enslaved—and she promptly and harshly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Possibly will 1498, Columbus sailed west loudly the Atlantic for the ordinal time.

He visited Trinidad highest the South American mainland in the past returning to the ill-fated Haiti settlement, where the colonists locked away staged a bloody revolt disagree with the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement mushroom brutality. Conditions were so sonorous that Spanish authorities had theorist send a new governor condemnation take over.

Meanwhile, the indigenous Taino population, forced to explore for gold and to be troubled on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus generous, only a few hundred atlas what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was nick and returned to Spain unimportant chains. 

In 1502, cleared of goodness most serious charges but stark naked of his noble titles, nobleness aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for put off last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made front all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon span of his four ships aft damage from storms and severe natives. Empty-handed, the explorer exchanged to Spain, where he in a good way in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher City

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” rendering Americas, nor was he flush the first European to pop in the “New World.” (Viking somebody Leif Erikson had sailed appoint Greenland and Newfoundland in class 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration sports ground exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred masses, animals, food and disease tract cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Somebody coffee and Asian sugar flog became cash crops for Inhabitant America, while American foods love corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Town has a controversial legacy—he survey remembered as a daring pole path-breaking explorer who transformed rank New World, yet his affairs also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and 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