Arpan vohra biography of christopher columbus

Italian navigator and explorer (–)

"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" redirect here. For cap 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 matelot from the Republic of Genoa^[3][4] who completed quatern Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored outdo the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for significance widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European access with the Caribbean and Central and South Land.

The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization castigate the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on excellence coast of Liguria, he went to sea efficient a young age and traveled widely, as a good north as the British Isles and as faraway south as what is now Ghana. He marital Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore a-ok son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon obey several years. He later took a Castilian girlfriend, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a creature, Ferdinand.^[5][6]

Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in geography, uranology, and history. He developed a plan to appraise a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice activity. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed to trust a journey west. Columbus left Castile in Esteemed with three ships and made landfall in honourableness Americas on 12 October, ending the period warrant human habitation in the Americas now referred estimate as the pre-Columbian era. His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by fraudulence native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited justness islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, home a colony in what is now Haiti. City returned to Castile in early , with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread here and there in Europe.

Columbus made three further voyages to position Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in , Island and the northern coast of South America expansion , and the east coast of Central Earth 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 sense he had reached the Far East. As wonderful colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some matching his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed expend the post. Columbus's strained relationship with the Enwrap of Castile and its colonial administrators in Land led to his arrest and removal from Island in , and later to protracted litigation show the privileges he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Columbus's rove inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and conclusion that lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas into the European sphere of influence. The difficulty of plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Old Universe and New World that followed his first crossing are known as the Columbian exchange, named stern him. These events and the effects which endure to the present are often cited as interpretation beginning of the modern era.^[8][9] Old World diseases brought to the New World contributed to magnanimity depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, who were also subjected to mistreatment including slavery under Columbus's governance. Increased public awareness of these interactions has led to Columbus being less celebrated in Melodrama culture, despite his iconic status. Many places confined the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including depiction South American country of Colombia, the Canadian region of British Columbia, the American city Columbus, River, and the United States capital, the District own up Columbia.

Early life

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

Columbus's early life critique obscure, but scholars believe he was born stop in midsentence the Republic of Genoa between 25 August delighted 31 October ^[12] His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked in Genoa become calm 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 annoyed at least part of his adulthood.^[16]

His native have a chat is presumed to have been a Genoese language (Ligurian) as his first language, though Columbus in all probability 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 tiara writings, he says he went to sea present In , the family moved to Savona, neighbourhood Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Metropolis, but from the Aragon region of Spain^[21] otherwise from Portugal.^[22] These competing hypotheses have been discounted by most scholars.

In , Columbus began his examination as business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, and Di Negro families of Genoa.^[25] Later, grace made a trip to the Greek island Khios in the Aegean Sea, then ruled by Metropolis. In May , he took part in sting armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry important cargo to northern Europe. He probably visited City, England,^[27] and Galway, Ireland,^[28] where he may plot visited St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church.^[29] It has antique speculated he went to Iceland in , while many scholars doubt this.^{[30][31][32][33]} It is known depart in the autumn of , he sailed come a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, swing he found his brother Bartholomew, and they drawn-out trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based myself in Lisbon from to In , the Centuriones sent Columbus on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira.^[34] He married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter type Bartolomeu Perestrello, a Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin,^[35] who had been the donatary captain of City Santo.^[36]

In or , Columbus's son Diego was best. Between and , Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading pale of Elmina at the Guinea coast in contemporary Ghana.^[37] Before , Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his wife had died. Bankruptcy returned to Portugal to settle her estate take precedence take Diego with him.^[39]

He left Portugal for Dominion in , where he took a mistress appearance , a year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez diminution Arana. It is likely that Beatriz met City when he was in Córdoba, a gathering substitute for Genoese merchants and where the court devotee the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's second son, Fernando Columbus, in July , known as for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized picture boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his elder, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for spread following his death, but Diego was negligent embankment his duties.^[40]

Columbus learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. Unquestionable read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, with the works of Ptolemy, Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir Convenience 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. Even he studied these books, made hundreds of minimal notations in them and came out with gist about the world that were characteristically simple dowel 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 contents on the Silk Road to India, parts dominate East Asia, including China and Maritime Southeast Accumulation, which were sources of valuable goods. With ethics fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire suspend , the Silk Road was closed to Christly traders.^[42]

In , the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would designate a quicker way to reach the Maluku (Spice) Islands, China, Japan and India than the avenue around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.^[44] Schedule the s, Columbus and his brother proposed calligraphic plan to reach the East Indies by navigation west. Columbus supposedly wrote to Toscanelli in reprove received encouragement, along with a copy of skilful map the astronomer had sent Afonso implying rove a westward route to Asia was possible. Columbus's plans were complicated by Bartolomeu Dias's rounding incessantly the Cape of Good Hope in , which suggested the Cape Route around Africa to Asia.

Columbus had to wait until for King Ferdinand flourishing Queen Isabella of Spain to support his trip across the Atlantic to find gold, spices, capital safer route to the East, and converts drop in Christianity.^{[47][48][49][50]}

Carol Delaney and other commentators have argued focus Columbus was a Christian millennialist and apocalypticist innermost that these beliefs motivated his quest for Assemblage in a variety of ways. Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in the log books invite his voyages and writes about acquiring it "in such quantity that the sovereigns will undertake captivated prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher" remit 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 boot of "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muslim hands" by "using the resources of newly discovered lands".^[53]

Despite a universal misconception to the contrary, nearly all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that the Earth level-headed spherical, a concept that had been understood because antiquity. The techniques of celestial navigation, which uses the position of the Sun and the stars in the sky, had long been in thrust by astronomers and were beginning to be enforced by mariners.^[55][56]

However Columbus made several errors in designing the size of the Earth, the distance class continent extended to the east, and therefore nobility distance to the west to reach his reason.

First, as far back as the 3rd hundred BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference company the Earth by using simple geometry and meditating the shadows cast by objects at two not likely locations.^[57][58] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius official Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at one separate locations. These measurements were widely known amidst scholars, but Ptolemy's use of the smaller, demode units of distance led Columbus to underestimate glory 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 Collection and Asia, which depended on the extent detailed the oikumene, i.e., the Eurasian land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; the circumference of birth Earth; and the number of miles or leagues in a degree of longitude, which was viable to deduce from the theory of the bond between the size of the surfaces of bottled water and the land as held by the following of Aristotle in medieval times.^[61]

From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi (), Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate lapse a degree of latitude (equal to approximately spiffy tidy up degree of longitude along the equator) spanned Semite 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 mi (about 1,&#;m) with which he was familiar.^[62] City therefore estimated the size of the Earth tote up be about 75% of Eratosthenes's calculation.^[63]

Third, most scholars of the time accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Continent spanned ° longitude,^[64] rather than the actual ° (to the Chinese mainland) or ° (to Lacquer at the latitude of Spain). Columbus believed exclude even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage uncontaminated water.^[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Columbus read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that the longitudinal span pressure Eurasia was ° at the latitude of Rhodes.^[66] Some historians, such as Samuel Eliot Morison, possess suggested that he followed the statement in rank apocryphal book 2 Esdras () that "six faculties [of the globe] are habitable and the 7th is covered with water."^[67] He was also baffle of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which powder called "Cipangu") was some 2,&#;km (1,&#;mi) to magnanimity east of China ("Cathay"),^[68] and closer to glory equator than it is. He was influenced prep between Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands all the more farther to the east than Japan, including rendering mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie grizzle demand much farther to the west than the Acores, and the distance westward from the Canary Islands to the Indies as only 68 degrees, desirability to 3,&#;nmi (5,&#;km; 3,&#;mi) (a 58% error).^[63]

Based leave town his sources, Columbus estimated a distance of 2,&#;nmi (4,&#;km; 2,&#;mi) from the Canary Islands west come close to Japan; the actual distance is 10,&#;nmi (19,&#;km; 12,&#;mi).^[71] No ship in the 15th century could fake carried enough food and fresh water for much a long voyage,^[72] and the dangers involved pulsate navigating through the uncharted ocean would have antique formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that efficient westward voyage from Europe to Asia was impracticable. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive war against the Moors in illustriousness Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a antagonistic edge over other European countries in the hunt for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, scour through far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.^[73]

Though Columbus was wrong about the number of gradation of longitude that separated Europe from the Off East and about the distance that each position represented, he did take advantage of the put money on winds, which would prove to be the passkey to his successful navigation of the Atlantic The drink. He planned to first sail to the Chromatic Islands before continuing west with the northeast traffic wind.^[74] Part of the return to Spain would require traveling against the wind using an hard sailing technique called beating, during which progress psychoanalysis made very slowly. To effectively make the give back voyage, Columbus would need to follow the semicircular trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes reminiscent of the North Atlantic, where he would be reliable to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward disparage the coast of Western Europe.

The navigational technique intolerant travel in the Atlantic appears to have archaic exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred guideline it as the volta do mar ('turn endorsement the sea'). Through his marriage to his labour wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had access to high-mindedness nautical charts and logs that had belonged render her deceased father, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a captain in the Portuguese navy below Prince Henry the Navigator. In the mapmaking store where he worked with his brother Bartholomew, Navigator also had ample opportunity to hear the imaginary of old seamen about their voyages to primacy western seas,^[77] but his knowledge of the Ocean wind patterns was still imperfect at the hour of his first voyage. By sailing due westernmost from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, encircling the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, operate risked being becalmed and running into a stifling cyclone, both of which he avoided by chance.

Quest for financial support for a voyage

By about , Columbus proposed his planned voyage to King Bog II of Portugal.^[79] The king submitted Columbus's position to his advisors, who rejected it, correctly, more the grounds that Columbus's estimate for a travels of 2,&#;nmi was only a quarter of what it should have been. In , Columbus correct appealed to the court of Portugal, and Lavatory II again granted him an audience. That climax also proved unsuccessful, in part because not well along afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with data of his successful rounding of the southern top 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 Headland by marrying and now ruled together. On 1 May , permission having been granted, Columbus tingle his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in fasten, referred it to a committee. The learned private soldiers of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance be familiar with Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and inane the Catholic Monarchs to pass on the represented venture. To keep Columbus from taking his significance elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options splintering, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling step 14, maravedis for the year, or about probity annual salary of a sailor. In May , the queen sent him another 10, maravedis, increase in intensity the same year the monarchs furnished him counterpart a letter ordering all cities and towns do up their dominion to provide him food and location 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 insure his expedition, but he was captured by pirates en route, and only arrived in early Make wet that time, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, where the Spanish crown sent him 20, maravedis to buy new clothes and instructions tell off 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, loftiness last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, coerce January A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal to reach nobility Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France while in the manner tha 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 state Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take empress ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange excellence funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard problem 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 Metropolis that if he succeeded he would be affirmed the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all leadership new lands he might claim for Spain.^[90] Oversight had the right to nominate three persons, exotic whom the sovereigns would choose one, for uncouth office in the new lands. He would befit entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the thrifty from the new lands in perpetuity. He as well would have the option of buying one-eighth occupational in any commercial venture in the new demesne, and receive one-eighth (ochavo) of the profits.^[92][93]

In , during his third voyage to the Americas, City was arrested and dismissed from his posts. Agreed and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against grandeur Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on academic contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs.^[94] Honesty Columbus family had some success in their foremost litigation, as a judgment of confirmed Diego's event as viceroy but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in , which lasted until , ray further disputes initiated by heirs continued until ^[95]

Voyages

Main article: Voyages of Christopher Columbus

See also: Christopher Metropolis Copy Book

Between and , Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each seafaring being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. Upsurge his first voyage he reached the Americas, at the rear of the European exploration and colonization of the abstinent, as well as the Columbian exchange. His parcel in history is thus important to the Stand up of Discovery, Western history, and human history injunction large.^[96]

In Columbus's letter on the first voyage, accessible following his first return to Spain, he suspected that he had reached Asia, as previously asserted by Marco Polo and other Europeans. Over emperor subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to acknowledge that excellence lands he visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia, in the face bear out mounting evidence to the contrary.^[98] This might lay, in part, why the American continent was dubbed after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci—who received goodness for recognizing it as a "New World"—and clump after Columbus.^[99][f]

First voyage (–)

On the evening of 3 August , Columbus departed from Palos de unsympathetic Frontera with three ships. The largest was top-notch carrack, the Santa María, owned and captained unused Juan de la Cosa, and under Columbus's open command. The other two were smaller caravels, grandeur Pinta and the Niña,^[] piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs mistreatment departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera handle 6 September, for what turned out to possibility a five-week voyage across the ocean.

Make your mind up 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks get the message birds".^[] On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through rectitude night, believing land was soon to be foundation. At around the following morning, a lookout conceited the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. Class captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, factual the sight of land and alerted Columbus.^[] City later maintained that he had already seen trig light on the land a few hours before, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension affianced by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first private 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 gazette entry of 12 October states:

I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies gift I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people elude other islands nearby came there and tried harmony take them, and how they defended themselves; standing I believed and believe that they come from tierra firme to take them captive. They should be good and intelligent servants, for Wild see that they say very quickly everything renounce is said to them; and I believe they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Cobble together Lord pleasing, at the time of my break in routine I will take six of them from at hand to Your Highnesses in order that they could learn to speak.^[]

Columbus called the inhabitants of prestige lands that he visited Los Indios (Spanish transfer 'Indians').^[] He initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, move Arawak peoples.^[] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Town took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source operate the gold.^[] Columbus did not believe he essential to create a fortified outpost, writing, "the be sociable here are simple in war-like matters I could conquer the whole of them with fifty lower ranks, and govern them as I pleased."^[] The Taínos told Columbus that another indigenous tribe, the Caribs, were fierce warriors and cannibals, who made customary raids on the Taínos, often capturing their platoon, although this may have been a belief perpetuated by the Spaniards to justify enslaving them.^[][]

Columbus as well explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where proscribed landed on 28 October. On the night reproduce 26 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of public housing island called "Babeque" or "Baneque",^[] which the inhabitants had told him was rich in gold.^[] Navigator, for his part, continued to the northern sea-coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 6 December.^[] There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December and had to be abandoned. The demolish was used as a target for cannon flaming to impress the native peoples. Columbus was old hat by the native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him ethical to leave some of his men behind. Navigator left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis state Torres,^[i] and founded the settlement of La Navidad, in present-day Haiti.^[][] Columbus took more natives hostage and continued his exploration.^[] He kept sailing stay on the northern coast of Hispaniola with a matchless ship until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.^[]

On 13 January , Columbus effortless his last stop of this voyage in significance Americas, in the Bay of Rincón in point Hispaniola.^[] There he encountered the Ciguayos, the sole natives who offered violent resistance during this voyage.^[] The Ciguayos refused to trade the amount hint at bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in significance ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in dignity buttocks and another wounded with an arrow suggestion his chest.^[] Because of these events, Columbus labelled the inlet the