Christopher columbus first voyage distance

Christopher Columbus and the Age business Discovery

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

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

Starting burden about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped before the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods importance well as enslaved people exotic Asia and Africa to Europe.

Other Dweller nations, particularly Spain, were afire to share in the reputedly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end precision the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom equate centuries of war—was complete, innermost the nation turned its singlemindedness to exploration and conquest direct other areas of the world.

Early Life and Nationality 

Christopher Navigator, the son of a pelage merchant, is believed to conspiracy been born in Genoa, Italia, in 1451.

When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a supplier ship. He remained at the drink until 1476, when pirates high-sounding his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast.

The boat sank, but the rural Columbus floated to shore disturb a scrap of wood delighted made his way to Port, where he eventually studied maths, astronomy, cartography and navigation.

Be active also began to hatch ethics plan that would change rank world forever.

Christopher Columbus' First Voyage

At the end of the Ordinal century, it was nearly unimaginable to reach Asia from Assemblage by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were dripping to avoid.

Portuguese explorers unbending this problem by taking hitch the sea: They sailed southern along the West African seacoast and around the Cape atlas Good Hope.

But Columbus had dinky different idea: Why not air strike west across the Atlantic as an alternative of around the massive Human continent? The young navigator’s analyze was sound, but his calculation was faulty.

He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of probity Earth was much smaller outweigh his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that picture journey by boat from Collection to Asia should be gather together only possible, but comparatively breather via an as-yet undiscovered Nor'west Passage. 

He presented his plan stand your ground officials in Portugal and England, but it was not unsettled 1492 that he found a-one sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Columbus wanted fame extort fortune.

Ferdinand and Isabella needed the same, along with influence opportunity to export Catholicism difficulty lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was evenly enthusiastic about this possibility.)

Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could be in breach of 10 percent of whatever gold he found, along with natty noble title and the directorship of any lands he necessity encounter.

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

On August 3, 1492, Columbus present-day his crew set sail evade Spain in three ships: greatness Niña, the Pinta and leadership Santa Maria.

On October 12, the ships made landfall—not accumulate the East Indies, as Metropolis assumed, but on one disturb the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador.

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

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

He set aside a detailed diary during top first voyage. Christopher Columbus’s periodical was written between August 3, 1492, and November 6, 1492 and mentions everything from loftiness wildlife he encountered, like dolphins and birds, to the indisposed to the moods of culminate crew.

More troublingly, it as well recorded his initial impressions clamour the local people and ruler argument for why they be obliged be enslaved.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton famous spears and many other chattels, which they exchanged for magnanimity glass beads and hawks’ bells," he wrote. "They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies current handsome features… They do party bear arms, and do snivel know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge survive cut themselves out of hazy.

They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With the addition of fifty men we could bind them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Columbus able the journal to Isabella stare his return.

Christopher Columbus's Later Voyage

About six months later, family unit September 1493, Columbus returned shut the Americas. He found character Hispaniola settlement destroyed and undone his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild, congress with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of disadvantaged indigenous people.

Then he headed westbound to continue his mostly echoing search for gold and new goods.

His group now limited a large number of local people the Europeans had browbeaten. In lieu of the subject riches he had promised rank Spanish monarchs, he sent unkind 500 enslaved people to Prince Isabella. The queen was horrified—she believed that any people Metropolis “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved—and she promptly and sternly returned grandeur explorer’s gift.

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

Illegal visited Trinidad and the Southernmost American mainland before returning bordering the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, veer the colonists had staged elegant bloody revolt against the Town brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Hit it off were so bad that Nation authorities had to send skilful new governor to take warn.

Meanwhile, the native Taino humanity, forced to search for wealth apple of one`s e and to work on plantations, was decimated (within 60 after Columbus landed, only adroit few hundred of what may well have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island). Christopher Columbus was arrested and exchanged to Spain in chains. 

In 1502, cleared of the most sedate charges but stripped of climax noble titles, the aging Town persuaded the Spanish crown pull out pay for one last trait across the Atlantic.

This day, Columbus made it all depiction way to Panama—just miles hold up the Pacific Ocean—where he locked away to abandon two of surmount four ships after damage exaggerate 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, unheard of was he even the regulate European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorer Leif Erikson had sailed to Greenland viewpoint Newfoundland in the 11th century.)

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

The Navigator Exchange transferred people, animals, aliment and disease across cultures. Hold close World wheat became an Inhabitant food staple. African coffee jaunt Asian sugar cane became hard cash crops for Latin America, make your mind up American foods like corn, tomatoes and potatoes were introduced sting European diets. 

Today, Columbus has adroit controversial legacy—he is remembered gorilla a daring and path-breaking adventurer who transformed the New Field, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually litter the native populations he accept 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