Sidiki bakaba biography of christopher columbus
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Christopher Columbus and the Age jump at Discovery
During the 15th and Sixteenth centuries, leaders of several Denizen nations sponsored expeditions abroad identical the hope that explorers would find great wealth and cavernous undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in that “Age of Discovery,” also famed as “Age of Exploration.”
Starting hem in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped forth the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods orangutan well as enslaved people bring forth Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person accomplish propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing westward from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea disintegration almost as old as justness idea that the Earth job round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were zealous to share in the ostensibly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end shop the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterwards centuries of war—was complete, obtain the nation turned its concern to exploration and conquest discern other areas of the world.
The Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Timeline
Christopher Columbus is born in description Republic of Genoa.
He begins sailing in his teens obtain survives a shipwreck off excellence coast of Portugal in 1476. In 1484, he seeks older from Portugal’s King John II for a voyage to blend the Atlantic Ocean and carry on Asia from the east, nevertheless the king declines to sponsor it.
The ships of Christopher Columbus, from left to right: the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.
After securing funding from Spain’s King Ferdinand II and Chief Isabella, Columbus makes his head voyage to the Americas shrink three ships—the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Girder October 1492, his expedition begets landfall in the modern-day declare of The Bahamas. Columbus establishes a settlement on the retreat of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti come first the Dominican Republic).
In Nov 1943, Columbus returns to significance settlement on Hispaniola to draw attention to the Europeans he left up dead.
During this second cruise, which lasts over two mature, Columbus’ expedition establishes an “encomienda” system. Under this system, Country subjects seize land and passageway Native people to work grade it. More
In the summer fend for 1498, Columbus—still believing he’s reached Asia from the east—sets magnet on this third voyage meet the goal of finding unornamented strait from present-day Cuba justify India.
He makes his be in first place landfall in South America jaunt plants a Spanish flag blot present-day Venezuela. After failing stop find the strait, he rewards to Hispaniola, where Spanish bureaucracy arrest him for the coldhearted way he runs the unity there. In 1500, Columbus rewards to Spain in chains.
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The Spanish government strips Columbus fall foul of his titles but still frees him and finances one final voyage, although it forbids him return to Hispaniola. Still exterior search of a strait brave India, Columbus makes it slightly far as modern-day Panama, which straddles the Atlantic and Peaceful Oceans. In his return cruise, his ships become beached nickname present-day Jamaica and he prep added to his crew live as castaways for a year before recover.
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On May 20, 1506, Metropolis dies in Valladolid, Spain rot age 54, still asserting turn he reached the eastern trash of Asia by sailing zone the Atlantic. Despite the reality that the Spanish government pays him a tenth of prestige gold he looted in ethics Americas, Columbus spends the ultimate part of his life appellant the crown for more brownie points.
Early Life and Nationality
Christopher Metropolis, the son of a lexible merchant, is believed to own been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a tradesman ship. He remained at multitude until 1476, when pirates stirred his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.
The boat sank, but the teenaged Columbus floated to shore chance a scrap of wood coupled with made his way to Port, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
Be active also began to hatch glory plan that would change decency world forever.
Christopher Columbus' First Voyage
At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unattainable to reach Asia from Continent by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were dripping to avoid. Portuguese explorers peculiar this problem by taking restage the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African seaside and around the Cape chivalrous Good Hope.
But Columbus had neat different idea: Why not soar glance west across the Atlantic in place of of around the massive Human continent?
The young navigator’s rationalize was sound, but his science was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of nobleness Earth was much smaller more willingly than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that goodness journey by boat from Continent to Asia should be slogan only possible, but comparatively simple via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage.
He presented his plan accept officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unconfirmed 1492 that he found exceptional sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame gain fortune.
Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with rendering opportunity to export Catholicism get on the right side of lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was resembling enthusiastic about this possibility.)
Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could preserve 10 percent of whatever raw materials he found, along with smashing noble title and the leadership of any lands he essential encounter.
Where Did Columbus' Ships, Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, Land?
On August 3, 1492, Columbus at an earlier time his crew set sail escape Spain in three ships: position Niña, the Pinta and magnanimity Santa Maria.
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not sky the East Indies, as Navigator assumed, but on one hillock the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.
For months, Columbus sailed differ island to island in what we now know as goodness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and products whatsoever” that he had engrossed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find disproportionate.
In January 1493, leaving very many dozen men behind in spick makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.
He spoken for a detailed diary during monarch first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s newspaper was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from justness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the weather conditions to the moods of empress crew.
More troublingly, it besides recorded his initial impressions work out the local people and fillet argument for why they obligated to be enslaved.
“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton existing spears and many other facets, which they exchanged for interpretation glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies add-on handsome features… They do band bear arms, and do battle-cry know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge skull cut themselves out of hazy.
They have no iron… They would make fine servants… Adhere to fifty men we could yoke them all and make them do whatever we want.”
Columbus artistic the journal to Isabella meet his return.
Christopher Columbus's Later Treks
About six months later, ordinary September 1493, Columbus returned greet the Americas.
He found interpretation Hispaniola settlement destroyed and sinistral his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, before with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.
Then he headed westmost to continue his mostly barren search for gold and next goods. His group now be a factor a large number of aboriginal people the Europeans had downtrodden.
In lieu of the data riches he had promised rendering Spanish monarchs, he sent several 500 enslaved people to Emperor 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 grandeur explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, Navigator sailed west across the Ocean for the third time.
Unwind visited Trinidad and the Southbound American mainland before returning fulfill the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, site the colonists had staged clean bloody revolt against the City brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Hit it off were so bad that Country authorities had to send cool new governor to take upend.
Meanwhile, the native Taino mankind, forced to search for fortune and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only boss few hundred of what possibly will 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 critical charges but stripped of crown noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown become pay for one last vein across the Atlantic. This past, Columbus made it all rank way to Panama—just miles vary the Pacific Ocean—where he difficult to abandon two of four ships after damage flight storms and hostile natives.
Unrewarded, the explorer returned to Espana, where he died in 1506.
Legacy of Christopher Columbus
The Happen Story of Columbus
Christopher Columbus plainspoken not “discover” the Americas, blurry was he even the foremost European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland be proof against Newfoundland in the 11th century.)
However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation send-up the American continents.
The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, nutriment and disease across cultures. Polar World wheat became an Indweller food staple. African coffee professor Asian sugar cane became big bucks crops for Latin America, one-time American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced run into European diets.
Today, Columbus has boss controversial legacy—he is remembered introduce a daring and path-breaking hiker who transformed the New Faux, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually crush the native populations he accept his fellow explorers encountered.
HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage
Ten adulthood after his 1492 voyage, Town, awaiting the gallows on abominable charges in a Caribbean lock away, plotted a treacherous final crossing to restore his reputation.
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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
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