Life of christopher columbus
Christopher Columbus
Italian navigator and explorer (–)
"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" redirect here. For top direct descendant, see Cristóbal Colón de Carvajal, Ordinal Duke of Veragua. For other uses, see Christopher Columbus (disambiguation) and Cristoforo Colombo (disambiguation).
Christopher Columbus[b] (;[2] between 25 August and 31 October – 20 May ) was an Italian[3][c] explorer and lascar from the Republic of Genoa[3][4] who completed Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored overstep the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for decency widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.
His expeditions were the first known European connection with the Caribbean and Central and South Usa.
The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization more than a few the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on nobleness coast of Liguria, he went to sea soughtafter a young age and traveled widely, as a good north as the British Isles and as afar south as what is now Ghana.
He joined Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore capital son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon avoidable several years. He later took a Castilian ideal, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a offspring, Ferdinand.[5][6]
Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in geography, physics, and history.
He developed a plan to dwell on a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice conglomerate. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed to source a journey west. Columbus left Castile in Honorable with three ships and made landfall in class Americas on 12 October, ending the period be totally convinced by human habitation in the Americas now referred count up as the pre-Columbian era.
His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by untruthfulness native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited nobleness islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, installation a colony in what is now Haiti. Navigator returned to Castile in early , with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread during Europe.
Columbus made three further voyages to say publicly Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in , Island and the northern coast of South America imprison , and the east coast of Central Ground in Many names he gave to geographical nature, particularly islands, are still in use.
He gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. The extent to which he was aware the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain; he never clearly renounced his security he had reached the Far East. As orderly colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some well his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed use up the post.
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Columbus's strained relationship with the Crown resembling Castile and its colonial administrators in America direct to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola mission , and later to protracted litigation over rectitude privileges he and his heirs claimed were virtuous to them by the crown.
Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization meander lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas halt the European sphere of influence.
The transfer break into plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, bailiwick, diseases, and ideas between the Old World suffer New World that followed his first voyage flake known as the Columbian exchange, named after him. These events and the effects which persist contract the present are often cited as the dawn of the modern era.[8][9]
Columbus was widely celebrated purchase the centuries after his death, but public eyesight fractured in the 21st century due to preferable attention to the harms committed under his establishment, particularly the beginning of the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, caused by Old World diseases and mistreatment, including slavery.
Many places in picture Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the Southmost American country of Colombia, the Canadian province insinuate British Columbia, the American city Columbus, Ohio, don the United States capital, the District of River.
Early life
Further information on Columbus's birthplace and background: Beginning theories of Christopher Columbus
Columbus's early life is disguise, but scholars believe he was born in authority Republic of Genoa between 25 August and 31 October [12] His father was Domenico Colombo, copperplate wool weaver who worked in Genoa and Savona, and owned a cheese stand at which adolescent Christopher worked.
His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. Operate had three brothers—Bartholomew, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo (also called Diego)[14]—as well as a sister, Bianchinetta. Bartholomew ran a cartography workshop in Lisbon for amalgamation least part of his adulthood.[16]
His native language anticipation presumed to have been a Genoese dialect (Ligurian) as his first language, though Columbus probably at no time wrote in it.
His name in 15th-century Metropolis was Cristoffa Corombo,[18] in Italian, Cristoforo Colombo, other in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[19][20]
In one of his literature, he says he went to sea at Hill , the family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors maintain argued that he was not from Genoa, on the other hand from the Aragon region of Spain[21] or exotic Portugal.[22] These competing hypotheses have been discounted jam most scholars.
In , Columbus began his apprenticeship translation business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, take precedence Di Negro families of Genoa.[25] Later, he required a trip to the Greek island Chios pressure the Aegean Sea, then ruled by Genoa.
Unsavory May , he took part in an barbed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable trainload to northern Europe. He probably visited Bristol, England,[27] and Galway, Ireland,[28] where he may have visited St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church.[29] It has been supposed he went to Iceland in , though numerous scholars doubt this.[30][31][32][33] It is known that bayou the autumn of , he sailed on uncluttered Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where type found his brother Bartholomew, and they continued commercial for the Centurione family.
Columbus based himself bed Lisbon from to In , the Centuriones extract Columbus on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira.[34] Closure married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrello, a Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin,[35] who had been the donatary captain of Porto Santo.[36]
In or , Columbus's son Diego was born.
Mid and , Columbus traded along the coasts reproach West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post robust Elmina at the Guinea coast in present-day Ghana.[37] Before , Columbus returned to Porto Santo condemnation find that his wife had died. He mutual to Portugal to settle her estate and grip Diego with him.[39]
He left Portugal for Castile underside , where he took a mistress in , a year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.
It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus during the time that he was in Córdoba, a gathering place take to mean Genoese merchants and where the court of significance Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, ascetic at the time, gave birth to Columbus's erelong son, Fernando Columbus, in July , named be selected for the monarch of Aragon.
Columbus recognized the salad days as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, authorized son Diego to take care of Beatriz gift pay the pension set aside for her followers his death, but Diego was negligent in circlet duties.[40]
Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian.
He become widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including picture works of Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, nobility travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia rerum ubique gestarum. According to historian Edmund Mount,
Columbus was not a scholarly man.
Yet misstep studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas pine the world that were characteristically simple and sinewy and sometimes wrong&#;[41]
Quest for Asia
Background
Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia and the Pax Mongolica, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage interchange the Silk Road to India, parts of Orientate Asia, including China and Maritime Southeast Asia, which were sources of valuable goods.
With the hunch of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in , the Silk Road was closed to Christian traders.[42]
In , the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal drift sailing west across the Atlantic would be unblended quicker way to reach the Maluku (Spice) Islands, China, Japan and India than the route turn over Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[44] In representation s, Columbus and his brother proposed a dispose to reach the East Indies by sailing westerly.
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Columbus supposedly wrote stamp out Toscanelli in and received encouragement, along with elegant copy of a map the astronomer had warp Afonso implying that a westward route to Assemblage was possible. Columbus's plans were complicated by Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Wish in , which suggested the Cape Route encompassing Africa to Asia.
Columbus had to wait until expend King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain profit support his voyage across the Atlantic to godsend gold, spices, a safer route to the Suck in air, and converts to Christianity.[47][48][49][50]
Carol Delaney and other mill have argued that Columbus was a Christian millennialist and apocalypticist and that these beliefs motivated authority quest for Asia in a variety of shipway.
Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in class log books of his voyages and writes pounce on acquiring it "in such quantity that the sovereigns will undertake and prepare to go conquer position Holy Sepulcher" in a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.[d] Columbus often wrote about converting all races survive Christianity.[52] Abbas Hamandi argues that Columbus was driven by the hope of "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muhammadan hands" by "using the resources of newly observed lands".[53]
Despite a popular misconception to the contrary, almost all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew focus the Earth is spherical, a concept that confidential been understood since antiquity.
The techniques of paradisaic navigation, which uses the position of the Bake and the stars in the sky, had humiliate yourself been in use by astronomers and were advent to be implemented by mariners.[55][56]
However Columbus made very many errors in calculating the size of the Rake, the distance the continent extended to the accustom, and therefore the distance to the west inconspicuously reach his goal.
First, as far back considerably the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using unsympathetic geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[57][58] In the 1st c BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing chief observations at two separate locations.
These measurements were widely known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use in this area the smaller, old-fashioned units of distance led Town to underestimate the size of the Earth afford about a third.[59]
Second, three cosmographical parameters determined blue blood the gentry bounds of Columbus's enterprise: the distance across say publicly ocean between Europe and Asia, which depended thrust the extent of the oikumene, i.e., the European land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; position circumference of the Earth; and the number footnote miles or leagues in a degree of measure, which was possible to deduce from the idea of the relationship between the size of excellence surfaces of water and the land as reserved by the followers of Aristotle in medieval times.[61]
From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi (), Columbus learned inducing Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (equal to approximately a degree of longitude along class equator) spanned Arabic miles (equivalent to nautical miles, kilometers or &#;mi), but he did not conceive that this was expressed in the Arabic knot (about 1, meters or &#;mi) rather than nobleness shorter Roman mile (about 1,&#;m) with which crystalclear was familiar.[62] Columbus therefore estimated the size make known the Earth to be about 75% of Eratosthenes's calculation.[63]
Third, most scholars of the time accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned ° longitude,[64] rather overrun the actual ° (to the Chinese mainland) fit in ° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain).
Columbus believed an even higher estimate, leaving excellent smaller percentage for water.[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Columbus read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that interpretation longitudinal span of Eurasia was ° at glory latitude of Rhodes.[66] Some historians, such as Prophet Eliot Morison, have suggested that he followed significance statement in the apocryphal book 2 Esdras () that "six parts [of the globe] are inhabitable and the seventh is covered with water."[67] Inaccuracy was also aware of Marco Polo's claim prowl Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was some 2,&#;km (1,&#;mi) to the east of China ("Cathay"),[68] explode closer to the equator than it is.
Unquestionable was influenced by Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east puzzle Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he supposition might lie not much farther to the westerly than the Azores, and the distance westward getaway the Canary Islands to the Indies as unique 68 degrees, equivalent to 3,&#;nmi (5,&#;km; 3,&#;mi) (a 58% error).[63]
Based on his sources, Columbus estimated natty distance of 2,&#;nmi (4,&#;km; 2,&#;mi) from the Informant Islands west to Japan; the actual distance review 10,&#;nmi (19,&#;km; 12,&#;mi).[71] No ship in the Fifteenth century could have carried enough food and unfamiliar water for such a long voyage,[72] and depiction dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted multitude would have been formidable.
Most European navigators somewhat concluded that a westward voyage from Europe designate Asia was unfeasible.
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The Catholic Monarchs, however, obtaining completed the Reconquista, an expensive war against significance Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager chance on obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise depose such an advantage.[73]
Though Columbus was wrong about blue blood the gentry number of degrees of longitude that separated Accumulation from the Far East and about the shyness that each degree represented, he did take misappropriate of the trade winds, which would prove lend your energies to be the key to his successful navigation assert the Atlantic Ocean.
He planned to first assault to the Canary Islands before continuing west conform to the northeast trade wind.[74] Part of the reappear to Spain would require traveling against the enwrap using an arduous sailing technique called beating, all along which progress is made very slowly. To generous make the return voyage, Columbus would need promote to follow the curving trade winds northeastward to prestige middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where powder would be able to catch the "westerlies" turn blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe.
The navigational technique for travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the European, who referred to it as the volta transpose mar ('turn of the sea').
Through his wedlock to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus confidential access to the nautical charts and logs become absent-minded had belonged to her deceased father, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a captain in excellence Portuguese navy under Prince Henry the Navigator. Rip open the mapmaking shop where he worked with realm brother Bartholomew, Columbus also had ample opportunity purify hear the stories of old seamen about their voyages to the western seas,[77] but his nurse of the Atlantic wind patterns was still defective at the time of his first voyage.
Contempt sailing due west from the Canary Islands aside hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes pay no attention to the mid-Atlantic, he risked being becalmed and sprint into a tropical cyclone, both of which noteworthy avoided by chance.
Quest for financial support for well-ordered voyage
By about , Columbus proposed his planned passage to King John II of Portugal.[79] The awkward submitted Columbus's proposal to his advisors, who unacceptable it, correctly, on the grounds that Columbus's thoughtfulness for a voyage of 2,&#;nmi was only adroit quarter of what it should have been.
Wear , Columbus again appealed to the court exert a pull on Portugal, and John II again granted him double-cross audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in fabric because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned close Portugal with news of his successful rounding execute the southern tip of Africa (near the Panorama of Good Hope).[81][82]
Columbus sought an audience with excellence monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella Wild of Castile, who had united several kingdoms control the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and now ruled together.
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In shape 1 May , permission having been granted, Metropolis presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, bond turn, referred it to a committee. The judicious men of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the gap to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical gift advised the Catholic Monarchs to pass on significance proposed venture.
To keep Columbus from taking sovereignty ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling about 14, maravedis for the year, or rough the annual salary of a sailor. In Might , the queen sent him another 10, maravedis, and the same year the monarchs furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their dominion to provide him food captivated lodging at no cost.[84]
Columbus also dispatched his fellow Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII come close to England to inquire whether the English crown fortitude sponsor his expedition, but he was captured infant pirates en route, and only arrived in steady By that time, Columbus had retreated to Building block Rábida Friary, where the Spanish crown sent him 20, maravedis to buy new clothes and mission to return to the Spanish court for green discussions.
Agreement with the Spanish crown
Columbus waited at Beautiful Ferdinand's camp until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered City, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Point, in January A council led by Isabella's paterfamilias, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal to go kaput the Indies implausible.
Columbus had left for Writer when Ferdinand intervened,[e] first sending Talavera and Priest Diego Deza to appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would perception his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help dispose the funding.
Isabella then sent a royal thug to fetch Columbus, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10&#;km) toward Córdoba.
In the April "Capitulations be in command of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella pledged Columbus that if he succeeded he would have on given the rank of Admiral of the Deep blue sea Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of screen the new lands he might claim for Spain.[90] He had the right to nominate three humanity, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, reserve any office in the new lands.
He would be entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all honesty revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Purify also would have the option of buying eighth interest in any commercial venture in the newborn lands, and receive one-eighth (ochavo) of the profits.[92][93]
In , during his third voyage to the Americas, Columbus was arrested and dismissed from his posts.
He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, misuse conducted a lengthy series of court cases be realistic the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged slash its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs.[94] The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of confirmed Diego's position as viceroy but reduced his powers.
Diego resumed litigation in , which lasted until , and further disputes initiated by heirs continued awaiting [95]
Voyages
Main article: Voyages of Christopher Columbus
See also: Christopher Columbus Copy Book
Between and , Columbus completed twosome round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, intrusion voyage being sponsored by the Crown of District.
On his first voyage he reached the Americas, initiating the European exploration and colonization of representation continent, as well as the Columbian exchange. Sovereignty role in history is thus important to distinction Age of Discovery, Western history, and human features writ large.[96]
In Columbus's letter on the first expedition, published following his first return to Spain, blooper claimed that he had reached Asia, as once described by Marco Polo and other Europeans.
Over his subsequent Columbus refused to acknowledge that the lands no problem visited and claimed for Spain were not accredit of Asia, in the face of mounting attest to the contrary.[98] This might explain, in district, why the American continent was named after rank Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci—who received credit for attention it as a "New World"—and not after Columbus.[99][f]
First voyage (–)
On the evening of 3 August , Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera tie in with three ships.
The largest was a carrack, high-mindedness Santa María, owned and captained by Juan group la Cosa, and under Columbus's direct command. High-mindedness other two were smaller caravels, the Pinta coupled with the Niña,[] piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Navigator first sailed to the Canary Islands.
There stylishness restocked provisions and made repairs then departed elude San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 Sep, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.
On 7 Oct, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".[] Data 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's course look up to due west, and sailed through the night, believing land was soon to be found.
At loosen the following morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. The captain work the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the perception of land and alerted Columbus.[] Columbus later serviceable that he had already seen a light perceive the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to secrete land.[] Columbus called this island (in what report now the Bahamas) San Salvador ('Holy Savior'); character Natives called it Guanahani.[h]Christopher Columbus's journal entry look up to 12 October states:
I saw some who had businessman of wounds on their bodies and I idea signs to them asking what they were; soar they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I ostensible and believe that they come here from tierra firme to take them captive.
They should snigger good and intelligent servants, for I see zigzag they say very quickly everything that is alleged to them; and I believe they would walk Christians very easily, for it seemed to inference that they had no religion. Our Lord diversity, at the time of my departure I disposition take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn be adjacent to speak.[]
Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands go off at a tangent he visited Los Indios (Spanish for 'Indians').[] Grace initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak peoples.[] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took repellent of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[] Columbus did not believe he needed to pioneer a fortified outpost, writing, "the people here recognize the value of simple in war-like matters I could conquer character whole of them with fifty men, and frank them as I pleased."[] The Taínos told Town that another indigenous tribe, the Caribs, were native warriors and cannibals, who made frequent raids form the Taínos, often capturing their women, although that may have been a belief perpetuated by primacy Spaniards to justify enslaving them.[][]
Columbus also explored honourableness northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed prevent 28 October.
Biography of charles darwin: Christopher Metropolis (born between August 26 and October 31?, , Genoa [Italy]—died May 20, , Valladolid, Spain) was a master navigator and admiral whose four unrelated voyages (–93, –96, –, and –04) opened dignity way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization reminisce the Americas.
On the night of 26 Nov, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on stupendous unauthorized expedition in search of an island titled "Babeque" or "Baneque",[] which the natives had sonorous him was rich in gold.[] Columbus, for authority part, continued to the northern coast of Hayti, where he landed on 6 December.[] There, significance Santa María ran aground on 25 December current had to be abandoned.
The wreck was pathetic as a target for cannon fire to reach the native peoples. Columbus was received by glory native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him permission to lack of restraint some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres,[i] limit founded the settlement of La Navidad, in modern Haiti.[][] Columbus took more natives prisoner and long his exploration.[] He kept sailing along the federal coast of Hispaniola with a single ship in the offing he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.[]
On 13 January , Columbus made his christian name stop of this voyage in the Americas, double up the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola.[] Round he encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during this voyage.[] The Ciguayos refused to trade the amount of bows predominant arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clank one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks scold another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[] Because of these events, Columbus called the entrance the Golfo de Las Flechas