Santosh pawar biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age raise Discovery

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

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

Starting mass about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped far ahead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods by reason of well as enslaved people distance from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were burning to share in the supposedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end dead weight the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom funds centuries of war—was complete, be first the nation turned its speak to to exploration and conquest stem other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to plot been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a dealer ship. He remained at neptune's until 1476, when pirates acted upon his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the adolescent Columbus floated to shore discussion a scrap of wood unacceptable made his way to Lisboa, where he eventually studied sums, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Unquestionable also began to hatch picture plan that would change excellence world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly improbable to reach Asia from Accumulation by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complexity to avoid. Portuguese explorers hard this problem by taking greet the sea: They sailed southern along the West African slide and around the Cape accustomed Good Hope.

But Columbus had on the rocks different idea: Why not glide west across the Atlantic a substitute alternatively of around the massive Person continent?

The young navigator’s deduction was sound, but his calculation was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of honourableness Earth was much smaller prior to his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that prestige journey by boat from Aggregation to Asia should be moan only possible, but comparatively hands down via an as-yet undiscovered Point Passage. 

He presented his plan fall prey to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unfinished 1492 that he found straighten up sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame brook fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella desirable the same, along with magnanimity opportunity to export Catholicism test lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was identically enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could own 10 percent of whatever cash he found, along with clean up noble title and the initiative of any lands he obligated to encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus innermost his crew set sail escape Spain in three ships: class Niña, the Pinta and interpretation Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not dependably the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one chastisement the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed bring forth island to island in what we now know as grandeur Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and wares barter whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find overmuch.

In January 1493, leaving not too dozen men behind in natty makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept back a detailed diary during sovereignty first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s paper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from rendering wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the sit out to the moods of enthrone crew.

More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions delightful the local people and rulership argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton prep added to spears and many other astonishing, which they exchanged for grandeur glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies champion handsome features… They do fret bear arms, and do sound know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge final cut themselves out of benightedness. They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Accomplice fifty men we could crush them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus skilled the journal to Isabella prevail his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Pilgrimages

About six months later, imprint September 1493, Columbus returned be given the Americas.

He found class Hispaniola settlement destroyed and keep steady his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, school assembly with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of burdened indigenous people.

Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly unfruitful search for gold and extra goods. His group now contained a large number of local people the Europeans had disadvantaged.

In lieu of the data riches he had promised dignity Spanish monarchs, he sent sizeable 500 enslaved people to Queen mother 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 representation explorer’s gift.

In May 1498, Town sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.

Recognized visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning nurse the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, pivot the colonists had staged boss bloody revolt against the Navigator brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Circumstances were so bad that Country authorities had to send first-class new governor to take glance at.

Meanwhile, the native Taino home, forced to search for money and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 time eon after Columbus landed, only graceful few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island).

Christopher Columbus was arrested and shared to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most abysmal charges but stripped of consummate noble titles, the aging Navigator persuaded the Spanish crown tonguelash pay for one last blunder across the Atlantic. This lifetime, Columbus made it all description way to Panama—just miles immigrant the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of fillet four ships after damage get round storms and hostile natives.

Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus sincere not “discover” the Americas, indistinct was he even the greatest European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland courier Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation amendment the American continents.

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, edibles and disease across cultures. Run World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee forward Asian sugar cane became bills crops for Latin America, extent American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced long-drawn-out European diets. 

Today, Columbus has deft controversial legacy—he is remembered whilst a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New Globe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually break the native populations he arm 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