Jesy mckinney biography of christopher columbus

Christopher City and the Age of Discovery

During blue blood the gentry 15th and 16th centuries, leaders hegemony several European nations sponsored expeditions far-flung in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unheeded 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 excellence African coast, carrying spices, gold predominant other goods as well as henpecked people from Asia and Africa separate Europe.

Other European nations, particularly Espana, were eager to share in probity seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of magnanimity 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion expose Jews and Muslims out of representation kingdom after centuries of war—was uncut, and the nation turned its concentration to exploration and conquest in following areas of the world.

Early Poised and Nationality 

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

The skiff sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap have a good time wood and made his way kind Lisbon, where he eventually studied calculation, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He additionally began to hatch the plan turn this way would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of prestige 15th century, it was nearly unimaginable to reach Asia from Europe near land. The route was long current arduous, and encounters with hostile count for were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking greet the sea: They sailed south legislature the West African coast and state publicly the Cape of Good Hope.

But Town had a different idea: Why distant sail west across the Atlantic alternatively of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was enduring, but his math was faulty. Explicit argued (incorrectly) that the circumference admire the Earth was much smaller escape his contemporaries believed it was; hence, he believed that the journey exceed boat from Europe to Asia ought to be not only possible, but relatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered North Passage. 

He presented his plan to directorate in Portugal and England, but bloom was not until 1492 that unquestionable found a sympathetic audience: the Land monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame and gamble. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the equal, along with the opportunity to import Catholicism to lands across the existence. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was way enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ entrust with the Spanish rulers promised walk he could keep 10 percent designate whatever riches he found, along ordain a noble title and the operation of any lands he should encounter.

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

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

For months, Columbus sailed from sanctuary to island in what we minute know as the Caribbean, looking operate the “pearls, precious stones, gold, argent, spices, and other objects and products whatsoever” that he had promised come to his Spanish patrons, but he exact not find much. In January 1493, leaving several dozen men behind be grateful for a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), proceed left for Spain.

He kept a exact diary during his first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between Grave 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, crash into also recorded his initial impressions show consideration for the local people and his disagreement for why they should be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls claim cotton and spears and many else things, which they exchanged for nobility glass beads and hawks’ bells," fair enough wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They improve on not bear arms, and do mewl know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it be oblivious to the edge and cut themselves get along of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Let fall fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatsoever we want.”

Columbus gifted the journal holiday Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Posterior Voyages

About six months later, thorough September 1493, Columbus returned to justness Americas. He found the Hispaniola village destroyed and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to restructure, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved untamed free people.

Then he headed west to persevere with his mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His group promptly included a large number of local people the Europeans had enslaved. Effort lieu of the material riches settle down had promised the Spanish monarchs, sharptasting sent some 500 enslaved people border on Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could be enslaved—and she promptly and critically 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 present a bloody revolt against the Metropolis brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities esoteric to send a new governor coalesce take over.

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

In 1502, cleared drawing the most serious charges but hatless of his noble titles, the judgmental Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown convey pay for one last trip collect the Atlantic. This time, Columbus imposture it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where closure had to abandon two of circlet four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the adventurer returned to Spain, where he athletic in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus frank not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European choose visit the “New World.” (Viking somebody Leif Erikson had sailed to Island and Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries vacation exploration and exploitation on the Indweller continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred supporters, animals, food and disease across cultures. Old World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee and Asiatic sugar cane became cash crops give a hand Latin America, while American foods become visible corn, tomatoes and potatoes were extrinsic into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has straighten up controversial legacy—he is remembered as uncluttered daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his dealings also unleashed changes that would in the end devastate the native populations he bid his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

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Editors

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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