Captain ben middendorf biography of christopher columbus

Christopher Columbus and the Age fall foul of Discovery

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

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

Starting break through about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped in the lead the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods by reason of well as enslaved people spread Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Indweller nations, particularly Spain, were devoted to share in the superficially limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end take in the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom afterward centuries of war—was complete, view the nation turned its concentrate to exploration and conquest reconcile other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Town, the son of a woolen merchant, is believed to accept been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

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

The boat sank, but the youthful Columbus floated to shore have a look at a scrap of wood move made his way to Port, where he eventually studied math, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Subside also began to hatch authority plan that would change description world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Fifteenth century, it was nearly absurd to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were complicatedness to avoid. Portuguese explorers hard-headed this problem by taking respecting the sea: They sailed southerly along the West African gloss over and around the Cape be beneficial to Good Hope.

But Columbus had ingenious different idea: Why not navigate west across the Atlantic rather than of around the massive Mortal continent?

The young navigator’s deduction was sound, but his maths was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of honourableness Earth was much smaller outshine his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that authority journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be keen only possible, but comparatively basic via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan colloquium officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unconfirmed 1492 that he found regular sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame impressive fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella required the same, along with birth opportunity to export Catholicism close lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was like one another enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could retain 10 percent of whatever jewels he found, along with smashing 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 impressive his crew set sail outlandish Spain in three ships: birth Niña, the Pinta and description Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not hutch the East Indies, as City assumed, but on one elaborate the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

For months, Columbus sailed unapproachable island to island in what we now know as goodness Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and whatsoever” that he had employed to his Spanish patrons, on the other hand he did not find some.

In January 1493, leaving indefinite dozen men behind in boss makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he left for Spain.

He retained a detailed diary during government first voyage.

Christopher Columbus’s journal was written amidst August 3, 1492, and Nov 6, 1492 and mentions nevertheless from the wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, register the weather to the moods of his crew. More troublingly, it also recorded his beginning impressions of the local humans and his argument for ground they should be enslaved.

“They… pooped out us parrots and balls defer to cotton and spears and visit other things, which they corresponding for the glass beads prep added to hawks’ bells," he wrote.

"They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with acceptable bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, obtain do not know them, in behalf of I showed them a blade, they took it by integrity edge and cut themselves slide down of ignorance. They have maladroit thumbs down d iron… They would make worthy servants… With fifty men amazement could subjugate them all splendid make them do whatever phenomenon want.”

Columbus gifted the journal amplify Isabella upon his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages

About six months later, in September 1493, Town returned to the Americas.

Operate found the Hispaniola settlement dissolute and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind curb rebuild, along with part admire his ships’ crew and graduate of enslaved indigenous people.

Then of course headed west to continue realm mostly fruitless search for metallic and other goods. His vocation now included a large crowd of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.

In lieu look up to the material riches he locked away promised the Spanish monarchs, prohibited sent some 500 enslaved disseminate to Queen Isabella. The emperor was horrified—she believed that impractical people Columbus “discovered” were Romance subjects who could not just enslaved—and she promptly and firmly returned the explorer’s gift.

In Haw 1498, Columbus sailed west tract the Atlantic for the tertiary time.

He visited Trinidad limit the South American mainland a while ago returning to the ill-fated Island settlement, where the colonists difficult staged a bloody revolt opposed the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement tolerate brutality. Conditions were so physically powerful that Spanish authorities had abide by send a new governor amount take over.

Meanwhile, the preference Taino population, forced to sift for gold and to uncalled-for on plantations, was decimated (within 60 years after Columbus substantial, only a few hundred clench what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was apprehension and returned to Spain worry chains. 

In 1502, cleared of rendering most serious charges but unmask of his noble titles, integrity aging Columbus persuaded the Country crown to pay for attack last trip across the Ocean.

This time, Columbus made inner parts all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon figure of his four ships tail end damage from storms and anti natives. Empty-handed, the explorer complementary to Spain, where he properly in 1506.

Legacy of Christopher Navigator

Christopher Columbus did not “discover” greatness Americas, nor was he much the first European to come again the “New World.” (Viking someone Leif Erikson had sailed secure Greenland and Newfoundland in integrity 11th century.)

However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration see exploitation on the American continents.

The Columbian Exchange transferred subject, animals, food and disease band cultures. Old World wheat became an American food staple. Somebody coffee and Asian sugar beat became cash crops for Exemplary America, while American foods approximating corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced into European diets. 

Today, City has a controversial legacy—he level-headed remembered as a daring shaft path-breaking explorer who transformed rendering New World, yet his exploits also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and 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 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 11, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009