General pol saroeun biography of christopher columbus
On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador. In January , leaving several dozen men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic , he left for Spain. He kept a detailed diary during his first voyage. More troublingly, it also recorded his initial impressions of the local people and his argument for why they should be enslaved.
They have no iron… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. Check out 10 things you may not know about the Genoese explorer who sailed the ocean blue in About six months later, in September , Columbus returned to the Americas. Then he headed west to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods.
His group now included a large number of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some enslaved people to Queen Isabella. In May , Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over.
Meanwhile, the native Taino population, forced to search for gold and to work on plantations, was decimated within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been , Taino were left on their island. Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains. In , cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish crown to pay for one last trip across the Atlantic.
This time, Columbus made it all the way to Panama—just miles from the Pacific Ocean—where he had to abandon two of his four ships after damage from storms and hostile natives. Empty-handed, the explorer returned to Spain, where he died in However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. Christopher Columbus, while primarily known for his voyages, did not amass significant wealth from his explorations during his lifetime.
After his initial journey in , Columbus was rewarded by the Spanish Crown with titles and a share of any riches discovered in the lands he explored.
General pol saroeun biography of christopher columbus
His rewards included the governorship of the newly found territories and the right to collect a percentage of any gold, spices, or profits generated. However, the financial returns from these endeavors were often less than expected, primarily due to poor mismanagement and declining relations with indigenous populations. Throughout his four voyages, Columbus struggled to balance the expectations of the Spanish monarchy against the actual resources acquired.
His estimates of the wealth he would find were vastly overstated, leading to dissatisfaction among his investors and the Crown. By the end of his life, Columbus faced financial ruin as much of his promised gold and treasures never materialized. He lived off his modest earnings as he fought to restore his reputation, ultimately dying in relative obscurity and not as a wealthy man despite his monumental impact on world history.
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Biography Host. Christopher Columbus Biography. Italian Explorer and Navigator Christopher Columbus Biography Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who made historical voyages across the Atlantic, mistakenly discovering the Americas in Columbus Search of Asia Filipa Perestrelo. More territory was covered, but the Asian lands that Columbus was aiming for remained elusive.
Indeed, others began to dispute whether this was in fact the Orient or a completely 'new' world. Columbus made two further voyages to the newfound territories, but suffered defeat and humiliation along the way. A great navigator, Columbus was less successful as an administrator and was accused of mismanagement. He died on 20 May a wealthy but disappointed man.
Search term:. Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator. Between and , he made three more voyages to the Caribbean and South America, believing until his death that he had found a shorter route to Asia. 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.