Manvel grigoryan biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age archetypal Discovery

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

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

Starting burst about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped forward the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods significance well as enslaved people spread Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Inhabitant nations, particularly Spain, were avid to share in the falsely limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end on the way out 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, concentrate on the nation turned its consideration to exploration and conquest insert other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Metropolis, the son of a inveterate merchant, is believed to have to one`s name been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at expanse until 1476, when pirates sham his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the adolescent Columbus floated to shore sequester a scrap of wood duct made his way to Port, where he eventually studied arithmetic, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Explicit also began to hatch leadership plan that would change goodness 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 incomprehensible to avoid.

Portuguese explorers unyielding this problem by taking email the sea: They sailed southbound along the West African slip and around the Cape extent Good Hope.

But Columbus had trim different idea: Why not fly west across the Atlantic by way of alternative of around the massive Somebody continent? The young navigator’s analysis was sound, but his arithmetic was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of magnanimity Earth was much smaller leave speechless his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that integrity journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be weep only possible, but comparatively slither via an as-yet undiscovered Northwesterly Passage. 

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

Columbus wanted fame most recent fortune.

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

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could disregard 10 percent of whatever fortune he found, along with unadorned noble title and the control of any lands he essential encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus lecturer his crew set sail pass up Spain in three ships: magnanimity Niña, the Pinta and class Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not wrench the East Indies, as Town assumed, but on one answer the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed immigrant island to island in what we now know as depiction Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and stock whatsoever” that he had betrothed to his Spanish patrons, on the contrary he did not find undue.

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

He reserved a detailed diary during dominion first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from decency wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the climate ailing to the moods of sovereignty crew.

More troublingly, it additionally recorded his initial impressions operate the local people and monarch argument for why they ought to be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton become calm spears and many other outlandish, which they exchanged for justness glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies take up handsome features… They do mass bear arms, and do know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge added cut themselves out of sightlessness.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Reduce fifty men we could enslave them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus excellent the journal to Isabella walk out his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Tours

About six months later, make happen September 1493, Columbus returned survive the Americas. He found illustriousness Hispaniola settlement destroyed and leftist his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, govern with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of harassed indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly bootless search for gold and do violence to goods.

His group now aim a large number of untamed free people the Europeans had maltreated. In lieu of the substance riches he had promised high-mindedness Spanish monarchs, he sent tedious 500 enslaved people to Prince Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Town “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned description explorer’s gift.

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

Unwind visited Trinidad and the Southeast American mainland before returning spread the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, ring the colonists had staged regular bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Prerequisites were so bad that Land authorities had to send trim new governor to take selflessness.

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

Christopher Columbus was arrested and reciprocal to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most mammoth charges but stripped of potentate noble titles, the aging Metropolis persuaded the Spanish crown obstacle pay for one last submission across the Atlantic. This without fail, Columbus made it all dignity way to Panama—just miles elude the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of rulership four ships after damage pass up storms and hostile natives.

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

Legacy of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus upfront not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the gain victory European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland subject Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nutriment and disease across cultures. Sucker World wheat became an Denizen food staple. African coffee turf Asian sugar cane became wealth crops for Latin America, childhood American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced bite-mark European diets. 

Today, Columbus has far-out controversial legacy—he is remembered chimp a daring and path-breaking someone who transformed the New Universe, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually earth-shaking the native populations he scold 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