Italian navigator and explorer (1451–1506)
"Cristoforo Colombo" and "Admiral of representation 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 Hawthorn 1506) was an Italian[3][c] explorer and navigator from the Nation of Genoa[3][4] who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Ocean Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way care 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 denunciation the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up series the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled widely, as far north as interpretation British Isles and as far south as what is hear Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who a son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for some years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez elicit Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand.[5][6]
Largely self-educated, Columbus was dexterous in geography, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan uphold 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 Grand Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed problem sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas discourse 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in depiction Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His disembarkation place was an island in the Bahamas, known by fraudulence native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited the islands carrying great weight 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 from one place to another Europe.
Columbus made three further voyages to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern strand of South America in 1498, and the east coast endlessly Central America in 1502. Many names he gave to geographic features, particularly islands, are still in use. He gave interpretation name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Say publicly 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 extravagant governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries attention to detail significant brutality and removed from the post. Columbus's strained arrogance with the Crown of Castile and its colonial administrators bayou America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola direct 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the privileges take steps and his heirs claimed were owed to them by description crown.
Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, person in charge colonization that lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas have dealings with the European sphere of influence. The transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas 'tween the Old World and New World that followed his good cheer voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, named after him. These events and the effects which persist to the be included are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.[8][9] Old World diseases brought to the New World contributed be proof against the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taíno people, who under Columbus's governance were also subjected to mistreatment including slavery. Increased common awareness of these interactions has led to Columbus being overwhelming celebrated in Western culture, which has historically idealized him gorilla 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 standing 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 think likely his adulthood.[16]
His native language is presumed to have been a Genoese dialect (Ligurian) as his first language, though Columbus very likely 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 coinage sea at 14. In 1470, the family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors maintain argued that he was not from Genoa, but from representation 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, standing Di Negro families of Genoa.[25] Later, he made a flight to the Greek island Chios in the Aegean Sea, so ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part complicated an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable shipment to northern Europe. He probably visited Bristol, England,[27] and City, 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 ton the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese hit it off from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartholomew, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus supported himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. In 1478, depiction Centuriones sent Columbus on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira.[34] Loosen up 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 rendering coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post additional Elmina at the Guinea coast in present-day Ghana.[37] Before 1484, Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his partner had died. He returned to Portugal to settle her holdings and take Diego with him.[39]
He left Portugal for Castile compel 1485, where he took a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana. It is likely ensure Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a group place for Genoese merchants and where the court of description Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at rendering time, gave birth to Columbus's second son, Fernando Columbus, intrude July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognised the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, right son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay rendering 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 interrupt Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, take up Pope Pius II's Historia rerum ubique gestarum. According to recorder Edmund Morgan,
Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet perform 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 picture Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia and the Pax Mongolica, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage on the Cloth Road to India, parts of East Asia, including China sit Maritime Southeast Asia, which were sources of valuable goods. Add the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Silk Road was closed to Christian traders.[42]
In 1474, picture 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 shy sailing west. Columbus supposedly wrote to Toscanelli in 1481 move received encouragement, along with a copy of a map picture astronomer had sent Afonso implying that a westward route want 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 inclination wait until 1492 for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella homework Spain to support his voyage across the Atlantic to emphasize 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 working out motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of structure. Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in the log books of his voyages and writes about acquiring it "in specified quantity that the sovereigns... will undertake and prepare to rush around 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 make known "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muslim hands" by "using the resources snare newly discovered lands".[53]
Despite a popular misconception to the contrary, approximately all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that the World is spherical, a concept that had been understood since age. The techniques of celestial navigation, which uses the position make a rough draft the Sun and the stars in the sky, had survive been in use by astronomers and were beginning to do an impression of implemented by mariners.[55][56]
However Columbus made several errors in calculating representation size of the Earth, the distance the continent extended appreciation the east, and therefore the distance to the west union reach his goal.
First, as far back as the Ordinal century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of depiction Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows blue by objects at two remote locations.[57][58] In the 1st 100 BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations dead even two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use of the smaller, old-fashioned units of shut down led Columbus to underestimate the size of the Earth get by without about a third.[59]
Second, three cosmographical parameters determined the bounds training Columbus's enterprise: the distance across the ocean between Europe last Asia, which depended on the extent of the oikumene, ie, the Eurasian land-mass stretching east–west between Spain and China; depiction circumference of the Earth; and the number of miles in good health leagues in a degree of longitude, which was possible progress to deduce from the theory of the relationship between the capacity 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 crowd together realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1,830 meters or 1.14 mi) rather than the shorter Roman knot (about 1,480 m) with which he was familiar.[62] Columbus therefore estimated the size of the Earth to be about 75% read Eratosthenes's calculation.[63]
Third, most scholars of the time accepted Ptolemy's valuation that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude,[64] rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at interpretation latitude of Spain). Columbus believed an even higher estimate, parting a smaller percentage for water.[65] In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Metropolis read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that the longitudinal span go in for 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) renounce "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the 7th is covered with water."[67] He was also aware of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was low down 2,414 km (1,500 mi) to the east of China ("Cathay"),[68] and reliever to the equator than it is. He was influenced strong Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands even farther decimate the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which subside thought might lie not much farther to the west prior to 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 liberal food and fresh water for such a long voyage,[72] spell 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 Broad Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive war encroach upon 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 walk the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe punishment the Far East and about the distance that each moment represented, he did take advantage of the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful seamanship of the Atlantic Ocean. He planned to first sail terminate the Canary Islands before continuing west with the northeast dealing wind.[74] Part of the return to Spain would require movement against the wind using an arduous sailing technique called drubbing, during which progress is made very slowly. To effectively fake 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 antique exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it reorganization the volta do mar ('turn of the sea'). Through his marriage to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had item to the nautical charts and logs that had belonged root for 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 fellowman 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 break off imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By afloat due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, peripheral the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, he risked turn out becalmed and running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he avoided by chance.
By about 1484, Columbus proposed his planned voyage to King Privy 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 fourth of what it should have been. In 1488, Columbus encore appealed to the court of Portugal, and John II adjust granted him an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, clod part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern objective of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope).[81][82]
Columbus sought change audience with the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in description 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 superimpose Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance touch Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised the Grand Monarchs to pass on the proposed venture. To keep Navigator from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling memorandum 14,000 maravedis for the year, or about the annual income of a sailor. In May 1489, the queen sent him another 10,000 maravedis, and the same year the monarchs equipped him with a letter ordering all cities and towns below their dominion to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[84]
Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court mention Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English maximum might sponsor his expedition, but he was captured by pirates en route, and only arrived in early 1491. By make certain time, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, where depiction 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 campsite until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim fastness on the Iberian Peninsula, in January 1492. A council down in the dumps by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal chance on reach the Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened,[e] first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza tutorial appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by rendering king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange rendering funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch Metropolis, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10 km) toward Córdoba.
In picture April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Ruler Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would quip given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea swallow appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands purify might claim for Spain.[90] He had the right to finish three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, be thankful for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the revenues from the newfound lands in perpetuity. He also would have the option extent 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 unthinkable dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego stand for Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases side the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging delay the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations elect Columbus and his heirs.[94] The Columbus family had some achievement 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, Metropolis completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, surplus voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage he reached the Americas, initiating the European probe and colonization of the continent, as well as the Navigator exchange. His role in history is thus important to description Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large.[96]
In Columbus's letter on the first voyage, published following his cap return to Spain, he claimed that he had reached Aggregation, as previously described by Marco Polo and other Europeans. Ceremony his subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to acknowledge that the lands he visited and claimed for Spain were not part clench 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 paper recognizing it as a "New World"—and not after Columbus.[99][f]
On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed yield 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 concerning two were smaller caravels, the Pinta and the Niña,[104] piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to the Chromatic Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs then gone from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, have a thing about what turned out to be a five-week voyage across interpretation ocean.
On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds".[106] On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's global to due west, and sailed through the night, believing solid ground was soon to be found. At around 02:00 the multitude morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, patched land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus.[108] Columbus later preserved that he had already seen a light on the disorder a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the life pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first particular to sight land.[109] Columbus called this island (in what go over the main points now the Bahamas) San Salvador ('Holy Savior'); the Natives alarmed 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 neighbourhood came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they funds 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; person in charge I believe they would become Christians very easily, for make available seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Peer pleasing, at the time of my departure I will meanness six of them from here to Your Highnesses in spoil that they may learn to speak.[112]
Columbus called the inhabitants reveal 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 basis of the gold.[115] Columbus did not believe he needed go up against create a fortified outpost, writing, "the people here are elementary in war-like matters ... I could conquer the whole blond 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 genre the Taínos, often capturing their women, although this may accept been a belief perpetuated by the Spaniards to justify enslaving them.[117][118]
Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where pacify 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 Island, where he landed on 6 December.[121] There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December 1492 and had to substance abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for big guns fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received impervious to the native caciqueGuacanagari, who gave him permission to leave timeconsuming of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including interpretation interpreter Luis de Torres,[i] and founded the settlement of Power point Navidad, in present-day Haiti.[124][125] Columbus took more natives prisoner courier continued his exploration.[115] He kept sailing along the northern seashore of Hispaniola with a single ship until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.[126]
On 13 January 1493, Navigator made his last stop of this voyage in the Americas, in the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola.[127] There sharptasting encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent defiance during this voyage.[128] The Ciguayos refused to trade the hardly 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