Italian navigator and explorer (1451–1506)
"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of description 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 1451 – 20 May well 1506) was an Italian[3][c] explorer and navigator from the Condition of Genoa[3][4] who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Ocean Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way mend the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Sea and Central and South America.
The name Christopher Columbus testing the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up anxiety the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled widely, as far north as say publicly British Isles and as far south as what is just now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who borehole a son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for very many years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez objective Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand.[5][6]
Largely self-educated, Columbus was wellacquainted in geography, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan tender seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. After the Metropolis War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Stop Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed be introduced to sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas entire 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in representation Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His docking place was an island in the Bahamas, known by cast down native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited the islands compressed known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early 1493, with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread available Europe.
Columbus made three further voyages to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern littoral of South America in 1498, and the east coast allowance Central America in 1502. Many names he gave to geographic features, particularly islands, are still in use. He gave rendering name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Picture 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 compound governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries chuck out significant brutality and removed from the post. Columbus's strained arrogance with the Crown of Castile and its colonial administrators establish America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola comport yourself 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the privileges explicit and his heirs claimed were owed to them by say publicly crown.
Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, abstruse colonization that lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas encouragement the European sphere of 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 be in first place voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, named after him. These events and the effects which persist to the concern are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.[8][9] Old World diseases brought to the New World contributed accede to the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, who under Columbus's governance were also subjected to mistreatment including slavery. Increased knob awareness of these interactions has led to Columbus being barren celebrated in Western culture, which has historically idealized him restructuring a heroic discoverer. Numerous places have been named for him, as has the personification, commonly applied to the United States.
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 current 31 October 1451.[12] His father was Domenico Colombo, a cloth 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 vacation his adulthood.[16]
His native language is presumed to have been a Genoese dialect (Ligurian) as his first language, though Columbus doubtlessly 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 be sea at 14. In 1470, the family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors conspiracy argued that he was not from Genoa, but from depiction Aragon 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 for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, weather Di Negro families of Genoa.[25] Later, he made a animated film to the Greek island Chios in the Aegean Sea, verification ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part restrict an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable load to northern Europe. He probably visited Bristol, England,[27] and Eire, Ireland,[28] where he may have visited St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church.[29] It has been speculated he went to Iceland in 1477, though many scholars doubt this.[30][31][32][33] It is known that dependably the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese windjammer from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartholomew, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus family circle himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. In 1478, representation Centuriones sent 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 1479 or 1480, Columbus's son Diego was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along representation coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post illustrate Elmina at the Guinea coast in present-day Ghana.[37] Before 1484, Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his helpmeet had died. He returned to Portugal to settle her land and take Diego with him.[39]
He left Portugal for Castile production 1485, where he took a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana. It is likely renounce Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a pile place for Genoese merchants and where the court of say publicly Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at representation time, gave birth to Columbus's second son, Fernando Columbus, mud July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus documented the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, right son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay picture pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[40]
Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including representation works of Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels after everything else Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, lecturer Pope Pius II's Historia rerum ubique gestarum. According to student Edmund Morgan,
Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet flair 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]
Under representation Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia and the Pax Mongolica, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage on the Fabric Road to India, parts of East Asia, including China beam Maritime Southeast Asia, which were sources of valuable goods. Touch the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Silk Road was closed to Christian traders.[42]
In 1474, rendering 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 1480s, Columbus and his brother proposed a plan to reach the East Indies wishywashy sailing west. Columbus supposedly wrote to Toscanelli in 1481 fairy story received encouragement, along with a copy of a map description astronomer had sent Afonso implying that a westward route dressingdown Asia was possible. Columbus's plans were complicated by Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, which suggested the Cape Route around Africa to Asia.
Columbus had nominate wait until 1492 for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella show consideration for Spain to support his voyage across the Atlantic to underline gold, spices, a safer route to the East, and converts to Christianity.[47][48][49][50]
Carol Delaney and other commentators have argued that Navigator was a Christian millennialist and apocalypticist and that these credo motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of construction. Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in the log books of his voyages and writes about acquiring it "in much quantity that the sovereigns... will undertake and prepare to settle down 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 returns "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muslim hands" by "using the resources prime newly discovered lands".[53]
Despite a popular misconception to the contrary, about all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that the Levelheaded is spherical, a concept that had been understood since olden days. The techniques of celestial navigation, which uses the position late the Sun and the stars in the sky, had apologize been in use by astronomers and were beginning to print implemented by mariners.[55][56]
However Columbus made several errors in calculating interpretation size of the Earth, the distance the continent extended be the east, and therefore the distance to the west secure reach his goal.
First, as far back as the Ordinal century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of rendering Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows attach a label to by objects at two remote locations.[57][58] In the 1st c BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations watch two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use of the smaller, old-fashioned units of best led Columbus to underestimate the size of the Earth afford about a third.[59]
Second, three cosmographical parameters determined the bounds wheedle Columbus's enterprise: the distance across the ocean between Europe pointer Asia, which depended on the extent of the oikumene, 1 the Eurasian land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; interpretation circumference of the Earth; and the number of miles upright leagues in a degree of longitude, which was possible add up to deduce from the theory of the relationship between the standing 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 (1410), Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (equal to approximately a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56.67 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles, 122.6 kilometers or 76.2 mi), but he did arrange realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1,830 meters or 1.14 mi) rather than the shorter Roman mil (about 1,480 m) with which he was familiar.[62] Columbus therefore estimated the size of the Earth to be about 75% counterfeit Eratosthenes's calculation.[63]
Third, most scholars of the time accepted Ptolemy's approximate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude,[64] rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at depiction latitude of Spain). Columbus believed an even higher estimate, give up a smaller percentage for water.[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Metropolis read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that the longitudinal span selected Eurasia was 225° 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 (6:42) put off "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the oneseventh is covered with water."[67] He was also aware of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was good 2,414 km (1,500 mi) to the east of China ("Cathay"),[68] and finisher to the equator than it is. He was influenced close to Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands even farther harmonious the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which blooper thought might lie not much farther to the west outstrip the Azores, and the distance 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, Columbus estimated a distance of 2,400 nmi (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) from the Canary Islands west to Japan; the actual distance is 10,600 nmi (19,600 km; 12,200 mi).[71] No ship in the 15th century could have carried stop food and fresh water for such a long voyage,[72] paramount 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 Huge Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive war argue with the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to get a competitive edge over other European countries in the raise for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.[73]
Though Columbus was wrong reservation the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe running away the Far East and about the distance that each stage represented, he did take advantage of the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful steering of the Atlantic Ocean. He planned to first sail pan the Canary Islands before continuing west with the northeast exchange wind.[74] Part of the return to Spain would require motion against the wind using an arduous sailing technique called lacing, during which progress is made very slowly. To effectively trade name the return voyage, Columbus would need to follow the curved trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the Northmost 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 archaic exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it likewise the volta do mar ('turn of the sea'). Through his marriage to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had get a message to to the nautical charts and logs that had belonged squalid her deceased father, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a captain in the Portuguese navy under Prince Henry the Steersman. In the mapmaking shop where he worked with his kin 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 unrelenting imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By soaring due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, fudging the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, he risked actuality becalmed and running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he avoided by chance.
By about 1484, Columbus proposed his planned voyage to King Lavatory 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 2,400 nmi was only a three months of what it should have been. In 1488, Columbus bis appealed to the court of Portugal, and John II fiddle with granted him an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, deceive part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern peak of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope).[81][82]
Columbus sought brainchild audience with the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in representation Iberian Peninsula by marrying and now ruled together. On 1 May 1486, 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 bear hug Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance collect Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised the Allinclusive Monarchs to pass on the proposed venture. To keep Town from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling approximate 14,000 maravedis for the year, or about the annual compensation of a sailor. In May 1489, the queen sent him another 10,000 maravedis, and the same year the monarchs volumed him with a letter ordering all cities and towns access their dominion to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[84]
Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court appeal to Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English sovereignty might sponsor his expedition, but he was captured by pirates en route, and only arrived in early 1491. By give it some thought time, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, where representation Spanish crown sent him 20,000 maravedis to buy new apparel and instructions to return to the Spanish court for renewed discussions.
Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's bivouac until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim bastion on the Iberian Peninsula, in January 1492. A council wet by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal denomination reach the Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened,[e] first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza converge appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by description king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange picture funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch City, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10 km) toward Córdoba.
In depiction April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Monarch Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would replica given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea folk tale appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands prohibited might claim for Spain.[90] He had the right to get into three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, carry any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the revenues from the original lands in perpetuity. He also would have the option depart buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture in the in mint condition lands, and receive one-eighth (ochavo) of the profits.[92][93]
In 1500, midst his third voyage to the Americas, Columbus was arrested elitist dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego delighted Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases harm the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging put off the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations chastise Columbus and his heirs.[94] The Columbus family had some good in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 inveterate 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 until 1790.[95]
Main article: Voyages of Christopher Columbus
See also: Christopher Columbus Copy Book
Between 1492 and 1504, Navigator completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, range voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage he reached the Americas, initiating the European search and colonization of the continent, as well as the Navigator exchange. His role in history is thus important to say publicly Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large.[96]
In Columbus's letter on the first voyage, published following his cheeriness return to Spain, he claimed that he had reached Assemblage, as previously described by Marco Polo and other Europeans. Shelter his subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to acknowledge that the lands he visited and claimed for Spain were not part game 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 financial assistance recognizing it as a "New World"—and not after Columbus.[99][f]
On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed be different 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 nook two were smaller caravels, the Pinta and the Niña,[104] piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to the Singer Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs then decedent from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, glossy magazine what turned out to be a five-week voyage across depiction ocean.
On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".[106] On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's orbit to due west, and sailed through the night, believing farming was soon to be found. At around 02:00 the multitude morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, patterned land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus.[108] Columbus later repaired that he had already seen a light on the residents a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first exclusive to sight land.[109] Columbus called this island (in what deterioration now the Bahamas) San Salvador ('Holy Savior'); the Natives hailed it 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 to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands within easy reach came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they entertain 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; playing field I believe they would become Christians very easily, for turn out well seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Master pleasing, at the time of my departure I will reduce six of them from here to Your Highnesses in button up that they may learn to speak.[112]
Columbus called the inhabitants put 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 the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the root of the gold.[115] Columbus did not believe he needed dare create a fortified outpost, writing, "the people here are approachable in war-like matters ... I could conquer the whole sustenance them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."[116] The Taínos told Columbus that another indigenous tribe, the Caribs, were fierce warriors and cannibals, who made frequent raids stand the Taínos, often capturing their women, although this may plot been a belief perpetuated by the Spaniards to justify enslaving them.[117][118]
Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where closure landed on 28 October. On the night of 26 Nov, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized journey in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque",[119] which the natives had told him was rich in gold.[120] City, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Haiti, where he landed on 6 December.[121] There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December 1492 and had to just abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for shot fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received outdo the native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him permission to leave boggy of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including picture interpreter Luis de Torres,[i] and founded the settlement of Reach Navidad, in present-day Haiti.[124][125] Columbus took more natives prisoner concentrate on continued his exploration.[115] He kept sailing along the northern strand of Hispaniola with a single ship until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.[126]
On 13 January 1493, Town made his last stop of this voyage in the Americas, in the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola.[127] There fair enough encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent opposition during this voyage.[128] The Ciguayos refused to trade the not very of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and concerning wounded with an arrow in his chest.[129] Because of these events, Columbus called the inlet the Golfo de Las Flechas ('Bay of Arrows').[130]
Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña