Peter robertson chevron biography of christopher columbus

In , he traveled to Portugal, where he set up a mapmaking business with his brother, Bartholomew.

Peter robertson chevron biography of christopher columbus

In , he married Felipa Perestrello Moniz, the daughter of the governor of a Portguese island. Their only child, Diego, was born in Felipa died a few years later. His second son, Fernando, was born in to Beatriz Enriquez de Arana. In the s, the Turkish Empire controlled northern Africa, blocking Europe's easiest access to the valuable goods of the Orient, such as spices.

In a search for an alternative to the dangerous and time-consuming land route, many countries turned their eyes to the sea. Portugal in particular made great strides in finding a route around the southern tip of Africa, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope in Rather than circling the southern-stretching continent, Columbus began a campaign to reach Asia by traveling west.

Educated people knew that the world was round; the looming question was, just how large was the planet? The Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes first calculated its size around BCE, and subsequent scholars had refined the number, but it had never been proven. Columbus argued that the numbers most scholars agreed on were too large, and that the vast land mass of Asia would further shrink the amount of sea travel necessary.

His calculations set the world at 66 percent smaller than previous estimates—estimates that were actually impressively close to the Earth's true size. Columbus first presented his plan to Portugal in , where it was rejected. He went on to Spain, ruled jointly by the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. The royal pair were engaged in driving the Muslims from Granada but granted him a salary and a position in the Spanish court.

With the Age of Discovery starting in the 15th century, Europeans explored the world by ocean, searching for particular trade goods, humans to enslave, and trading locations and ports. The most desired trading goods were gold, silver and spices. For the Catholic monarchies of Spain and Portugal, a division of influence of the land discovered by Columbus became necessary to avoid conflict.

This was resolved by papal intervention in when the Treaty of Tordesillas purported to divide the world between the two powers. This would lead to the Portuguese colonization of what is now Brazil. In , Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated in a voyage to the western world with Columbus's associates Alonso de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa.

He gathered information later that year from the natives of Central America which seem to further indicate that he realized he had found a new land. Later, on 29 October , Magellan's circumnavigation expedition discovered the first maritime passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, at the southern end of what is now Chile Strait of Magellan , and his fleet ended up sailing around the whole Earth.

Almost a century later, another, wider passage to the Pacific would be discovered farther to the south, bordering Cape Horn. In the Americas the Spanish found a number of empires that were as large and populous as those in Europe. Small bodies of Spanish conquistadors, with large armies of indigenous groups, managed to conquer these states.

The most notable amongst them were the Aztec Empire in modern Mexico conquered in and the Inca Empire in modern Peru conquered in During this time, pandemics of European diseases such as smallpox devastated the indigenous populations. While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom.

I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears.

Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikivoyage Wikidata item. Background [ edit ]. Navigation plans [ edit ].

Diameter of Earth and travel distance estimates [ edit ]. Trade winds [ edit ]. Funding campaign [ edit ]. History [ edit ]. First voyage — [ edit ]. Ships of the first voyage. A replica of the Pinta in Palos de la Frontera , Huelva. First landing in the Americas [ edit ]. First return [ edit ]. Second voyage — [ edit ]. Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico [ edit ].

Hispaniola and Jamaica [ edit ]. Slavery, settlers, and tribute [ edit ]. Third voyage — [ edit ]. Governorship [ edit ]. Colonist rebellions [ edit ]. Bobadilla's inquiry [ edit ]. Trial in Spain [ edit ]. Fourth voyage — [ edit ]. Main article: Fourth voyage of Columbus. Legacy [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. The strong winds and the fact that they were some 56 kilometres 35 mi from land indicate that this was unlikely from a native inhabitant fishing.

He was given his own footmen to open doors for him and to serve him at the table. Columbus was even rewarded with his own coat of arms. It was owned by Antonio Torres, brother of the nurse to Don Juan. He also left his daughter to the admiral's care, calling him "his lordship", although it is unknown what became of her. It contained an account of Columbus's seven-year reign as the first governor of the Indies.

Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place. The Amerindian societies of Mesoamerica occupied the land ranging from central Mexico in the north to Costa Rica in the south. The cultures of Panama traded with both Mesoamerica and South America and can be considered transitional between those two cultural areas.

References [ edit ]. Retrieved November 15, Accessed September 16, The Vikings and America. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario: Sault Daily Star. Archived from the original on May 2, Retrieved April 12, The red atlantic. American Indian Quarterly. Archived from the original on August 21, Retrieved September 5, Not So!

New York: Oxford University Press. Inventing the Flat Earth. Cosmos ; the mean circumference of the Earth is 40, km about 22, nautical miles or 25, miles. The Story of Civilization Vol. VI, The Reformation. New York. OCLC Archived from the original on May 26, Retrieved October 12, Outlook India. Archived from the original on October 25, Retrieved October 25, Autumn, , pp.

Kelley, Jr. Bernard Cohen , —, ed. Everett Mendelsohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. III, p. August Archived PDF from the original on 7 July Retrieved 16 March Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Markham, ed. Phillips Jr. Fuson, ed. Encyclopedia of North American Indians. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Columbus has been credited—and blamed—for opening up the Americas to European colonization.

Christopher Columbus, whose real name was Cristoforo Colombo, was born in in the Republic of Genoa, part of what is now Italy. He is believed to have been the son of Dominico Colombo and Susanna Fontanarossa and had four siblings: brothers Bartholomew, Giovanni, and Giacomo, and a sister named Bianchinetta. In his 20s, Columbus moved to Lisbon, Portugal, and later resettled in Spain, which remained his home base for the duration of his life.

Columbus first went to sea as a teenager, participating in several trading voyages in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. One such voyage, to the island of Khios, in modern-day Greece, brought him the closest he would ever come to Asia. His first voyage into the Atlantic Ocean in nearly cost him his life, as the commercial fleet he was sailing with was attacked by French privateers off the coast of Portugal.

His ship was burned, and Columbus had to swim to the Portuguese shore. He made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually settled and married Filipa Perestrelo. The couple had one son, Diego, around His wife died when Diego was a young boy, and Columbus moved to Spain. He had a second son, Fernando, who was born out of wedlock in with Beatriz Enriquez de Arana.

After participating in several other expeditions to Africa, Columbus learned about the Atlantic currents that flow east and west from the Canary Islands. The Asian islands near China and India were fabled for their spices and gold, making them an attractive destination for Europeans—but Muslim domination of the trade routes through the Middle East made travel eastward difficult.

Columbus devised a route to sail west across the Atlantic to reach Asia, believing it would be quicker and safer. He estimated the earth to be a sphere and the distance between the Canary Islands and Japan to be about 2, miles. Despite their disagreement with Columbus on matters of distance, they concurred that a westward voyage from Europe would be an uninterrupted water route.

Columbus proposed a three-ship voyage of discovery across the Atlantic first to the Portuguese king, then to Genoa, and finally to Venice. He was rejected each time. Their focus was on a war with the Muslims, and their nautical experts were skeptical, so they initially rejected Columbus. The idea, however, must have intrigued the monarchs, because they kept Columbus on a retainer.

Columbus continued to lobby the royal court, and soon, the Spanish army captured the last Muslim stronghold in Granada in January Shortly thereafter, the monarchs agreed to finance his expedition. It was here that he initially attempted to gain royal patronage for a westward voyage to the Orient - his 'enterprise of the Indies'. When this failed, and appeals to the French and English courts were also rejected, Columbus found himself in Spain, still struggling to win backing for his project.

Ten weeks later, land was sighted. On 12 October, Columbus and a group of his men set foot on an island in what later became known as the Bahamas. Believing that they had reached the Indies, the newcomers dubbed the natives 'Indians'. Initial encounters were friendly, but indigenous populations all over the New World were soon to be devastated by their contact with Europeans.