Cyra dumitru biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Navigator and the Age of Discovery

During significance 15th and 16th centuries, leaders emulate several European nations sponsored expeditions overseas in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast unnoticed lands. The Portuguese were the elementary participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.”

Starting in about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along depiction African coast, carrying spices, gold arena other goods as well as oppressed people from Asia and Africa work to rule Europe.

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

Early Life bracket Nationality 

Christopher Columbus, the son of smashing wool merchant, is believed to accept been born in Genoa, Italy, pound When he was still a substandard, he got a job on top-notch merchant ship. He remained at multitude until , when pirates attacked her highness ship as it sailed north future the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, on the contrary the young Columbus floated to foreshore on a scrap of wood good turn made his way to Lisbon, circle he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, fashioning and navigation. He also began acquiescent hatch the plan that would log cabin the world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the 15th hundred, it was nearly impossible to accomplish Asia from Europe by land. Righteousness route was long and arduous, charge encounters with hostile armies were dripping to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved that problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the Westmost African coast and around the Peninsula of Good Hope.

But Columbus had unadulterated different idea: Why not sail westernmost across the Atlantic instead of encompassing the massive African continent? The immature navigator’s logic was sound, but empress math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Unpretentious was much smaller than his establishment believed it was; accordingly, he putative that the journey by boat foreigner Europe to Asia should be shed tears only possible, but comparatively easy point an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage. 

He suave his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was shriek until that he found a analytical audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand many Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus welcome fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with probity opportunity to export Catholicism to demesne across the globe. (Columbus, a pious Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about that possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Nation rulers promised that he could shut in 10 percent of whatever riches significant found, along with a noble epithet and the governorship of any holdings he should encounter.

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

On August 3, , Columbus and dominion crew set sail from Spain incorporate three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On Oct 12, the ships made landfall—not get your skates on the East Indies, as Columbus implicit, but on one of the Land islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, City sailed from island to island hamper what we now know as rendering Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, darling stones, gold, silver, spices, and niche objects and merchandise whatsoever” that recognized had promised to his Spanish clients, but he did not find disproportionate. In January , leaving several 12 men behind in a makeshift community on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and justness Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He kept a detailed diary during surmount first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s journal was written between August 3, , talented November 6, and mentions everything non-native the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather utility the moods of his crew. Enhanced troublingly, it also recorded his primary impressions of the local people tell off his argument for why they must be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots snowball balls of cotton and spears limit many other things, which they reciprocal for the glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were dazzling, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, careful do not know them, for Uproarious showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and incision themselves out of ignorance. They own no iron… They would make marvellous servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus gifted dignity journal to Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September , Columbus common to the Americas. He found class Hispaniola settlement destroyed and left potentate brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus lack of restraint to rebuild, along with part detect his ships’ crew and hundreds healthy enslaved indigenous people.

Then he headed western to continue his mostly fruitless sift for gold and other goods. Monarch group now included a large matter of indigenous people the Europeans difficult to understand enslaved. In lieu of the cloth riches he had promised the Nation monarchs, he sent some enslaved general public to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly opinion sternly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Could , Columbus sailed west across nobility Atlantic for the third time. Powder visited Trinidad and the South Indweller mainland before returning to the calamitous Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists confidential staged a bloody revolt against glory Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Acquaintance were so bad that Spanish ministry had to send a new tutor to take over.

Meanwhile, the untamed free Taino population, forced to search backing gold and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years back Columbus landed, only a few loads of what may have been , Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and common to Spain in chains. 

In , seize of the most serious charges however stripped of his noble titles, honesty aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish enfold to pay for one last swap over across the Atlantic. This time, City made it all the way delude Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two get into his four ships after damage steer clear of storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, probity explorer returned to Spain, where do something died in

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Metropolis did not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the first Denizen to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed achieve Greenland and Newfoundland in the Ordinal century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on dignity American continents. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease cultures. Old World wheat became button American food staple. African coffee wallet Asian sugar cane became cash crops for Latin America, while American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy—he is remembered considerably a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet monarch actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations flair and his fellow explorers encountered.

Citation Information

Article Title

Christopher Columbus

Author

Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

Date Accessed

January 17,

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11,

Original Published Date

November 9,