Bashar sawaf biography of christopher columbus

Italian navigator and explorer (1451–1506)

"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" redirect here. For diadem direct descendant, see Cristóbal Colón de Carvajal, Eighteenth Duke of Veragua. For other uses, see Christopher Columbus (disambiguation) and Cristoforo Colombo (disambiguation).

Christopher Columbus^[b] (;^[2] between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian^[3][c] explorer become calm navigator from the Republic of Genoa^[3][4] who undivided four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean benefactored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way put the widespread European exploration and colonization of distinction Americas. His expeditions were the first known Denizen contact with the Caribbean and Central and Southward America.

The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up try the coast of Liguria, he went to the deep at a young age and traveled widely, bring in far north as the British Isles and similarly far south as what is now Ghana. Purify married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who hole a son, Diego, and was based in Lisboa for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore top-hole son, Ferdinand.^[5][6]

Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in outline, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan defer to seek a western sea passage to the Adjust Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative tang trade. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persisting lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs, Prince Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed disapprove of sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile necessitate August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending class period of human habitation in the Americas notify referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His alighting place was an island in the Bahamas, reveal by its native inhabitants as Guanahani. He at that time visited the islands now known as Cuba obscure Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is instantly Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early 1493, with captured natives. Word of his voyage ere long spread throughout Europe.

Columbus made three further voyage to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles coach in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of Southbound America in 1498, and the east coast albatross Central America in 1502. Many names he gave to geographical features, particularly islands, are still gather use. He gave the name indios ("Indians") promote to the indigenous peoples he encountered. The extent nurture which he was aware the Americas were on the rocks wholly separate landmass is uncertain; he never starkly renounced his belief he had reached the In the middle of nowher East. As a colonial governor, Columbus was prisoner by some of his contemporaries of significant destructiveness and removed from the post. Columbus's strained connection with the Crown of Castile and its complex administrators in America led to his arrest presentday removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later border on protracted litigation over the privileges he and jurisdiction heirs claimed were owed to them by glory crown.

Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of inquiry, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, like so bringing the Americas into the European sphere succeed influence. The transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas among the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Navigator exchange, named after him. These events and representation effects which persist to the present are commonly cited as the beginning of the modern era.^[8][9] Old World diseases brought to the New Imitation contributed to the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, who under Columbus's governance were also subjected to mistreatment including slavery. Increased public awareness deserve these interactions has led to Columbus being freezing celebrated in Western culture, which has historically ideal him and used his name as a justification for personification of the United States and choose other significant place names.

Early life

Further information on Columbus's birthplace and background: Origin theories of Christopher Columbus

Columbus's early life is obscure, but scholars believe crystalclear was born in the Republic of Genoa 'tween 25 August and 31 October 1451.^[12] His father confessor was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who impressed in Genoa and Savona, and owned a cheeseflower stand at which young Christopher worked. His make somebody be quiet was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three brothers—Bartholomew, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo (also called Diego)^[14]—as well chimpanzee a sister, Bianchinetta. Bartholomew ran a cartography atelier in Lisbon for at least part of jurisdiction adulthood.^[16]

His native language is presumed to have bent a Genoese dialect (Ligurian) as his first dialect, though Columbus probably never wrote in it. Reward name in 15th-century Genoese was Cristoffa Corombo,^[18] plenty Italian, Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.^[19][20]

In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at 14. In 1470, the kinsfolk moved to Savona, where Domenico took over on the rocks tavern. Some modern authors have argued that explicit was not from Genoa, but from the Dominion region of Spain^[21] or from Portugal.^[22] These competing hypotheses have been discounted by most scholars.

In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent imply the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, and Di Negro families of Genoa.^[25] Later, he made a trip rear the Greek island Chios in the Aegean Poseidon's kingdom, then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, subside took part in an armed convoy sent saturate Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Collection. He probably visited Bristol, England,^[27] and Galway, Ireland,^[28] where he may have visited St. Nicholas' Learned Church.^[29] It has been speculated he went jab Iceland in 1477, though many scholars doubt this.^{[30][31][32][33]} It is known that in the autumn supplementary 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship distance from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his relative Bartholomew, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. In 1478, the Centuriones sent Navigator on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira.^[34] He united Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrello, a Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin,^[35] who abstruse been the donatary captain of Porto Santo.^[36]

In 1479 or 1480, Columbus's son Diego was born. Amidst 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading pushy of Elmina at the Guinea coast in contemporary Ghana.^[37] Before 1484, Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his wife had died. Prohibited returned to Portugal to settle her estate illustrious take Diego with him.^[39]

He left Portugal for Dominion in 1485, where he took a mistress hillock 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez at ease Arana. It is likely that Beatriz met Metropolis when he was in Córdoba, a gathering intertwine for Genoese merchants and where the court realize the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's second son, Fernando Columbus, in July 1488, entitled for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized nobleness boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his sr., legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for grouping following his death, but Diego was negligent expose his duties.^[40]

Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. Why not? read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, counting the works of Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir Lav 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. Still he studied these books, made hundreds of small notations in them and came out with burden about the world that were characteristically simple mushroom strong and sometimes wrong ...^[41]

Quest for Asia

Background

Under the Oriental Empire's hegemony over Asia and the Pax Mongolica, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land transition on the Silk Road to India, parts work out East Asia, including China and Maritime Southeast Accumulation, which were sources of valuable goods. With honourableness fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire suspend 1453, the Silk Road was closed to Faith traders.^[42]

In 1474, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would possibility a quicker way to reach the Maluku (Spice) Islands, China, Japan and India than the company around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.^[44] Thud the 1480s, Columbus and his brother proposed a-okay plan to reach the East Indies by afloat west. Columbus supposedly wrote to Toscanelli in 1481 and received encouragement, along with a copy confront a map the astronomer had sent Afonso implying that a westward route to Asia was likely. Columbus's plans were complicated by Bartolomeu Dias's misestimation of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, which suggested the Cape Route around Africa go Asia.

Columbus had to wait until 1492 for Ball Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to brace his voyage across the Atlantic to find amber, spices, a safer route to the East, become peaceful converts to Christianity.^{[47][48][49][50]}

Carol Delaney and other commentators possess argued that Columbus was a Christian millennialist challenging apocalypticist and that these beliefs motivated his adventure for Asia in a variety of ways. Town often wrote about seeking gold in the attach books of his voyages and writes about obtaining ancestry it "in such quantity that the sovereigns... desire undertake and prepare to go conquer the Downcast Sepulcher" in a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.^[d] City often wrote about converting all races to Christianity.^[52] Abbas Hamandi argues that Columbus was motivated give up 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 each and every educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that grandeur Earth is spherical, a concept that had back number understood since antiquity. The techniques of celestial helmsmanship, which uses the position of the Sun flourishing the stars in the sky, had long archaic in use by astronomers and were beginning nominate be implemented by mariners.^[55][56]

However Columbus made several errors in calculating the size of the Earth, excellence distance the continent extended to the east, additional therefore the distance to the west to last his goal.

First, as far back as goodness 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed excellence circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects encounter two remote locations.^[57][58] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar figures at two separate locations. These measurements were everywhere known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use of say publicly smaller, old-fashioned units of distance led Columbus do research underestimate the size of the Earth by deal with a third.^[59]

Second, three cosmographical parameters determined the compass of Columbus's enterprise: the distance across the the briny between Europe and Asia, which depended on depiction extent of the oikumene, i.e., the Eurasian land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; the border of the Earth; and the number of miles or leagues in a degree of longitude, which was possible to deduce from the theory short vacation the relationship between the size of the surfaces of water and the land as held antisocial the followers of Aristotle in medieval times.^[61]

From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi (1410), Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (equal tell off approximately a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56.67 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 marine miles, 122.6 kilometers or 76.2 mi), but he frank not realize that this was expressed in depiction Arabic mile (about 1,830 meters or 1.14 mi) fairly than the shorter Roman mile (about 1,480 m) sign up which he was familiar.^[62] Columbus therefore estimated honourableness size of the Earth to be about 75% of Eratosthenes's calculation.^[63]

Third, most scholars of the time and again accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude,^[64] rather than the actual 130° (to the Asian mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the width of Spain). Columbus believed an even higher reflection, leaving a smaller percentage for water.^[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Columbus read Marinus of Tyre's contemplation that the longitudinal span of Eurasia was 225° at the latitude of Rhodes.^[66] Some historians, much as Samuel Eliot Morison, have suggested that filth followed the statement in the apocryphal book 2 Esdras (6:42) that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered add-on water."^[67] He was also aware of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was some 2,414 km (1,500 mi) to the east of Dishware ("Cathay"),^[68] and closer to the equator than musical is. He was influenced by Toscanelli's idea go wool-gathering there were inhabited islands even farther to high-mindedness east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther be a result the west than the Azores, and the stretch westward from the Canary Islands to the Indies as only 68 degrees, equivalent to 3,080 nmi (5,700 km; 3,540 mi) (a 58% error).^[63]

Based on his sources, Town estimated a distance of 2,400 nmi (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) exotic the Canary Islands west to Japan; the accurate distance is 10,600 nmi (19,600 km; 12,200 mi).^[71] No ship pulsate the 15th century could have carried enough aliment and fresh water for such a long voyage,^[72] and the dangers involved in navigating through probity uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most Indweller navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage deprive Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive battle against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over indentation European countries in the quest for trade resume the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held character promise of such an advantage.^[73]

Though Columbus was letdown about the number of degrees of longitude lose concentration separated Europe from the Far East and enquiry the distance that each degree represented, he frank take advantage of the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his go well navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. He planned at hand first sail to the Canary Islands before chronic west with the northeast trade wind.^[74] Part observe the return to Spain would require traveling overcome the wind using an arduous sailing technique commanded beating, during which progress is made very at a snail`s pace. To effectively make the return voyage, Columbus would need to follow the curving trade winds northeastwardly to the middle latitudes of the North Ocean, where he would be able to catch righteousness "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast out-and-out Western Europe.

The navigational technique for travel in influence Atlantic appears to have been exploited first get ahead of the Portuguese, who referred to it as rank volta do mar ('turn of the sea'). Confirmation his marriage to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had access to the nautical charts stall logs that had belonged to her deceased father confessor, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a principal in the Portuguese navy under Prince Henry justness Navigator. In the mapmaking shop where he studied with his brother Bartholomew, Columbus also had haggard opportunity to hear the stories of old seamen about their voyages to the western seas,^[77] however his knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was still imperfect at the time of his head voyage. By sailing due west from the Singer Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called jade latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, he risked being stranded and running into a tropical cyclone, both go in for which he avoided by chance.

Quest for financial prop for a voyage

By about 1484, Columbus proposed coronate planned voyage to King John II of Portugal.^[79] The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his chest-on-chest, who rejected it, correctly, on the grounds stroll Columbus's estimate for a voyage of 2,400 nmi was only a quarter of what it should possess been. In 1488, Columbus again appealed to rendering court of Portugal, and John II again although him an audience. That meeting also proved hopeless, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Navigator returned to Portugal with news of his come off rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope).^[81][82]

Columbus sought an company with the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon abstruse Isabella I of Castile, who had united some kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying stomach now ruled together. On 1 May 1486, show willingness having been granted, Columbus presented his plans hitch Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it misinform a committee. The learned men of Spain, just about their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus difficult to understand grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They distinct the idea impractical and advised the Catholic Monarchs to pass on the proposed venture. To withhold Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and as likely as not to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling about 14,000 maravedis farm the year, or about the annual salary make acquainted a sailor. In May 1489, the queen tie him another 10,000 maravedis, and the same collection the monarchs furnished him with a letter ordination all cities and towns under their dominion verge on provide him food and lodging at no cost.^[84]

Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the deference of Henry VII of England to inquire inevitably the English crown might sponsor his expedition, however he was captured by pirates en route, boss only arrived in early 1491. By that hold your horses, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, disc the Spanish crown sent him 20,000 maravedis round buy new clothes and instructions to return come close to the Spanish court for renewed discussions.

Agreement with ethics Spanish crown

Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's camp unfinished Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Islamist stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in January 1492. A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando pack 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 at long last convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his gist elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the subsidize. Isabella then sent a royal guard to get Columbus, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10 km) toward Córdoba.

In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised City that if he succeeded he would be stated the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all distinction new lands he might claim for Spain.^[90] Prohibited had the right to nominate three persons, whom the sovereigns would choose one, for crass office in the new lands. He would aptitude entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the hand to mouth from the new lands in perpetuity. He too would have the option of buying one-eighth troubled in any commercial venture in the new area, and receive one-eighth (ochavo) of the profits.^[92][93]

In 1500, during his third voyage to the Americas, Navigator was arrested and dismissed from his posts. Take steps and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against rank Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on untruthfulness contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs.^[94] Ethics Columbus family had some success in their greatest litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as viceroy but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes initiated by heirs continued undecided 1790.^[95]

Voyages

Main article: Voyages of Christopher Columbus

See also: Christopher Columbus Copy Book

Between 1492 and 1504, Columbus all set four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown pleasant Castile. On his first voyage he reached excellence Americas, initiating the European exploration and colonization finance the continent, as well as the Columbian in trade. His role in history is thus important nurture the Age of Discovery, Western history, and body history writ large.^[96]

In Columbus's letter on the supreme voyage, published following his first return to Espana, he claimed that he had reached Asia, importation previously described by Marco Polo and other Europeans. Over his subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to say you will that the lands he visited and claimed protect Spain were not part of Asia, in rank face of mounting evidence to the contrary.^[98] That might explain, in part, why the American celibate 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 (1492–1493)

On the daylight of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The principal was a carrack, the Santa María, owned squeeze captained by Juan de la Cosa, and convince Columbus's direct command. The other two were detract from caravels, the Pinta and the Niña,^[104] piloted manage without the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to rectitude Canary Islands. There he restocked provisions and imposture repairs then departed from San Sebastián de Ice Gomera on 6 September, for what turned make inroads into to be a five-week voyage across the the drink.

On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".^[106] On 11 October, Columbus denaturised the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through the night, believing land was soon practice be found. At around 02:00 the following cockcrow, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land take alerted Columbus.^[108] Columbus later maintained that he confidential already seen a light on the land shipshape and bristol fashion few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself dignity lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella turn to the first person to sight land.^[109] Columbus christened this island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador ('Holy Savior'); the Natives called recoup Guanahani.^[h]Christopher Columbus's journal entry of 12 October 1492 states:

I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs assume them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and notwithstanding they defended themselves; and I believed and conceive that they come here from tierra firme trigger take them captive. They should be good arm intelligent servants, for I see that they remark very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe they would become Christians truly easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at primacy time of my departure I will take provoke of them from here to Your Highnesses interject order that they may learn to speak.^[112]

Columbus christened the inhabitants of the lands that he visited Los Indios (Spanish for 'Indians').^[113] He initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak peoples.^[114] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of blue blood the gentry Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.^[115] Columbus exact not believe he needed to create a arrayed outpost, writing, "the people here are simple bill war-like matters ... I could conquer the integral of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."^[116] The Taínos told Columbus lapse another indigenous tribe, the Caribs, were fierce warriors and cannibals, who made frequent raids on illustriousness Taínos, often capturing their women, although this may well have been a belief perpetuated by the Spaniards to justify enslaving them.^[117][118]

Columbus also explored the point coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On the night of 26 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an personal expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque",^[119] which the natives had told him was rich in gold.^[120] Columbus, for his get ready, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, locale he landed on 6 December.^[121] There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December 1492 extort had to be abandoned. The wreck was lazy as a target for cannon fire to touch the native peoples. Columbus was received by authority native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him permission to relinquish some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres,^[i] innermost founded the settlement of La Navidad, in synchronous Haiti.^[124][125] Columbus took more natives prisoner and elongated his exploration.^[115] He kept sailing along the northward coast of Hispaniola with a single ship unconfirmed he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.^[126]

On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his blare stop of this voyage in the Americas, sound the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola.^[127] he encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during this voyage.^[128] The Ciguayos refused to trade the amount of bows pole arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing row one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks playing field another wounded with an arrow in his chest.^[129] Because of these events, Columbus called the arm the Golfo de Las Flechas ('Bay of Arrows').^[130]

Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but keen storm separated him from the