People born in 1990
Christopher Columbus
Italian navigator and explorer (–)
"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" redirect here. For his direct descendant, see Cristóbal Colón de Carvajal, 18th 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 navigator from the Republic of Genoa[3][4] who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.
His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana.
He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore a son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand.[5][6]
Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in geography, astronomy, and history.
He developed a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed to sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile in August with three ships and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in the Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era.
His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani.
Ezna sands biography of christopher columbus book Updated 22 January His landfall in the Bahamas not only opened the door to further exploration but also signaled the start of European colonization in the New World. Christopher Columbus — was an Italian explorer, colonizer, and navigator. He makes his first landfall in South America and plants a Spanish flag in present-day Venezuela.He then visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early , with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread throughout Europe.
Columbus made three further voyages to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in , Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in , and the east coast of Central America in Many names he gave to geographical features, 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 belief he had reached the Far East. As a colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed from the post.
Columbus's strained relationship with the Crown of Castile and its colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in , and later to protracted litigation over the privileges he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.
Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas into the European sphere of influence.
The transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, named after him.
These events and the effects which persist to the present are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.[8][9]
Columbus was widely celebrated in the centuries after his death, but public perception fractured in the 21st century due to greater attention to the harms committed under his governance, particularly the beginning of the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, caused by Old World diseases and mistreatment, including slavery.
Many places in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the South American country of Colombia, the Canadian province of British Columbia, the American city Columbus, Ohio, and the United States capital, the District of Columbia.
Early life
Further information on Columbus's birthplace and background: Origin theories of Christopher Columbus
Columbus's early life is obscure, but scholars believe he was born in the Republic of Genoa between 25 August and 31 October [12] His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked in Genoa and Savona, and owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked.
His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. He 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 at least part of his adulthood.[16]
His native language is presumed to have been a Genoese dialect (Ligurian) as his first language, though Columbus probably never wrote in it.
His name in 15th-century Genoese was Cristoffa Corombo,[18] in Italian, Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[19][20]
In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at In , the family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa, but from the Aragon region of Spain[21] or from Portugal.[22] These competing hypotheses have been discounted by most scholars.
In , Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, and Di Negro families of Genoa.[25] Later, he made a trip to the Greek island Chios in the Aegean Sea, then ruled by Genoa.
In May , he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo 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 speculated he went to Iceland in , though many scholars doubt this.[30][31][32][33] It is known that in the autumn of , he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartholomew, and they continued trading for the Centurione family.
Columbus based himself in Lisbon from to In , the Centuriones sent Columbus on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira.[34] He 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.
Between and , Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast in present-day Ghana.[37] Before , Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his wife had died. He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take Diego with him.[39]
He left Portugal for Castile in , where he took a mistress in , a year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.
It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering place for Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's second son, Fernando Columbus, in July , named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring.
Columbus entrusted his older, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[40]
Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian.
Ezna sands biography of christopher columbus Read more. Ten years after his voyage, Columbus, awaiting the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison, plotted a treacherous final voyage to restore his reputation. The introduction of Old World diseases like smallpox devastated native communities, effectively decimating their populations. The lookout on the Pinta spotted land around am on October 12, although Columbus later claimed that he had seen lights on land several hours earlier, thus granting himself the right to a lifetime pension promised by Spain.He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the 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 Morgan,
Columbus was not a scholarly man.
Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong 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 on the Silk Road to India, parts of East Asia, including China and Maritime Southeast Asia, which were sources of valuable goods.
With the fall 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 that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Maluku (Spice) Islands, China, Japan and India than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[44] In the s, Columbus and his brother proposed a plan to reach the East Indies by sailing west.
Biography of marco polo We commit to cover sensible issues responsibly through the principles of neutrality. The exact date and place of Columbus' birth are unknown, but he was born somewhere in Genoa between October 31, , and October 30, In November , Columbus returns to the settlement on Hispaniola to find the Europeans he left there dead. The Real Story of Columbus.Columbus supposedly wrote to Toscanelli in and received encouragement, along with a copy of a map the astronomer had sent Afonso implying that a westward route to Asia was possible. Columbus's plans were complicated by Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in , which suggested the Cape Route around Africa to Asia.
Columbus had to wait until for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to support his voyage across the Atlantic to find gold, spices, a safer route to the East, and converts to Christianity.[47][48][49][50]
Carol Delaney and other commentators have argued that Columbus was a Christian millennialist and apocalypticist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways.
Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in the log books of his voyages and writes about acquiring it "in such quantity that the sovereigns will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher" in a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.[d] Columbus often wrote about converting all races to Christianity.[52] Abbas Hamandi argues that Columbus was motivated by the hope of "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muslim hands" by "using the resources of newly discovered lands".[53]
Despite a popular misconception to the contrary, nearly all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that the Earth is spherical, a concept that had been understood since antiquity.
The techniques of celestial navigation, which uses the position of the Sun and the stars in the sky, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.[55][56]
However Columbus made several errors in calculating the size of the Earth, the distance the continent extended to the east, and therefore the distance to the west to reach his goal.
First, as far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[57][58] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations.
These measurements were widely known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use of the smaller, old-fashioned units of distance led Columbus to underestimate the size of the Earth by about a third.[59]
Second, three cosmographical parameters determined the bounds of Columbus's enterprise: the distance across the ocean between Europe and Asia, which depended on the extent of the oikumene, i.e., the Eurasian land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; the circumference of the Earth; and the number of miles or leagues in a degree of longitude, which was possible to deduce from the theory of the relationship between the size of the surfaces of water and the land as held by the followers of Aristotle in medieval times.[61]
From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi (), Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (equal to approximately a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned Arabic miles (equivalent to nautical miles, kilometers or &#;mi), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1, meters or &#;mi) rather than the shorter Roman mile (about 1,&#;m) with which he was familiar.[62] Columbus therefore estimated the size of 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 than the actual ° (to the Chinese mainland) or ° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain).
Columbus believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water.[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Columbus read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that the longitudinal span of Eurasia was ° at the latitude of Rhodes.[66] Some historians, such as Samuel Eliot Morison, have suggested that he followed the statement in the apocryphal book 2 Esdras () that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water."[67] He was also aware of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was some 2,&#;km (1,&#;mi) to the east of China ("Cathay"),[68] and closer to the equator than it is.
He was influenced by Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores, and the distance westward from the Canary Islands to the Indies as only 68 degrees, equivalent to 3,&#;nmi (5,&#;km; 3,&#;mi) (a 58% error).[63]
Based on his sources, Columbus estimated a distance of 2,&#;nmi (4,&#;km; 2,&#;mi) from the Canary Islands west to Japan; the actual distance is 10,&#;nmi (19,&#;km; 12,&#;mi).[71] No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage,[72] and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable.
Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive war against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to 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 of such an advantage.[73]
Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did take advantage of the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean.
He planned to first sail to the Canary Islands before continuing west with the northeast trade wind.[74] Part of the return to Spain would require traveling against the wind using an arduous sailing technique called beating, during which progress is made very slowly. To effectively make the return voyage, Columbus would need to follow the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he would be able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe.
The navigational technique for travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the volta do mar ('turn of the sea').
Through his marriage to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had access to the nautical charts and logs that had belonged to her deceased father, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a captain in the Portuguese navy under Prince Henry the Navigator. In the mapmaking shop where he worked with his brother Bartholomew, Columbus also had ample opportunity to hear the stories of old seamen about their voyages to the western seas,[77] but his knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was still imperfect at the time of his first voyage.
By sailing due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, he risked being becalmed and running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he avoided by chance.
Quest for financial support for a voyage
By about , Columbus proposed his planned voyage to King John II of Portugal.[79] The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his advisors, who rejected it, correctly, on the grounds that Columbus's estimate for a voyage of 2,&#;nmi was only a quarter of what it should have been.
In , Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, and John II again granted him an audience.
Ezna sands biography of christopher columbus for kids His landfall in the Bahamas not only opened the door to further exploration but also signaled the start of European colonization in the New World. Columbus also lost his exclusive right to explore the new territories. Columbus was not the first person to reach America. One of his favorite books was the Bible, and he frequently quoted it in his letters and diaries.That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope).[81][82]
Columbus sought an audience with the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and now ruled together.
On 1 May , permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. The learned men of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised the Catholic Monarchs to pass on the proposed venture.
To keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling about 14, maravedis for the year, or about the annual salary of a sailor. In May , 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 and lodging at no cost.[84]
Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but he was captured by pirates en route, and only arrived in early By that time, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, where the Spanish crown sent him 20, maravedis to buy new clothes and instructions to return to the Spanish court for renewed discussions.
Agreement with the Spanish crown
Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's camp until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in January A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal to reach the Indies implausible.
Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened,[e] first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza to appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the funding.
Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch Columbus, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10&#;km) toward Córdoba.
In the April "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he might claim for Spain.[90] He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands.
He would be entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. He also would have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture in the new 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.
Biography of charles darwin: There, the explorers encountered the native inhabitants and discovered their friendliness and love for gold ornaments. In , he became an apprentice and business agent for representatives of wealthy Genoese families. The Columbian Exchange transferred people, animals, food and disease across cultures. Today, Columbus has a controversial legacy —he is remembered as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.
He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on 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 until [95]
Voyages
Main article: Voyages of Christopher Columbus
See also: Christopher Columbus Copy Book
Between and , Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile.
On his first voyage he reached the Americas, initiating the European exploration and colonization of the continent, as well as the Columbian exchange. His role in history is thus important to the Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large.[96]
In Columbus's letter on the first voyage, published following his first return to Spain, he claimed that he had reached Asia, as previously described by Marco Polo and other Europeans.
Over his subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to acknowledge that the lands he visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.[98] This might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci—who received credit for recognizing 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 with three ships.
The largest was a carrack, the Santa María, owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa, and under Columbus's direct command. The other two were smaller caravels, the Pinta and the Niña,[] piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.
On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".[] On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through the night, believing land was soon to be found. At around the following morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus.[] Columbus later maintained that he had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[] Columbus called this island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador ('Holy Savior'); the Natives called it Guanahani.[h]Christopher Columbus's journal entry of 12 October states:
I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they come here from tierra firme to take them captive.
They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak.[]
Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited Los Indios (Spanish for 'Indians').[] He initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak peoples.[] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[] Columbus did not believe he needed to create a fortified outpost, writing, "the people here are simple in war-like matters I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."[] The Taínos told Columbus that another indigenous tribe, the Caribs, were fierce warriors and cannibals, who made frequent raids on the Taínos, often capturing their women, although this may have been a belief perpetuated by the Spaniards to justify enslaving them.[][]
Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October.
On the night of 26 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque",[] which the natives had told him was rich in gold.[] Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 6 December.[] There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December and had to be abandoned.
The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received by the native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres,[i] and founded the settlement of La Navidad, in present-day Haiti.[][] Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration.[] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.[]
On 13 January , Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the Americas, in the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola.[] There he encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during this voyage.[] The Ciguayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[] Because of these events, Columbus called the inlet the Golfo de Las Flechas