Christopher Columbus Biography
The credit for discovering Americas goes to Christopher Columbus, who was under the impression that he had discovered India. While everyone knows this fact today, very few people know anything about Christopher Columbus' birth and life prior to the discovery of the Americas. So, reading his biography is always an interesting read. |
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Columbus was born to a wool weaver called Demenico Colombo and his wife, Susanna Fontanarossa, in 1451. They lived in Genoa. While there is no much information about Christopher Columbus' childhood, most probably his parents educated him well, as he had the ability to speak many languages and was quite knowledgeable about classical literature.
At the age of 14, Christopher went for the first time on a sea voyage and this trend continued for most part of his youth. It is believed that he traveled the Aegean Sea, Northern part of Europe and also went as far as Iceland. In the year 1480, Columbus got married to a lady named Filipa Moniz Prestrello and had a son named Diego. The Columbus family lived in Lisbon till Filipa died in the year 1485. Thereafter, father and son relocated to Spain. It was in Spain that Columbus began to look for sponsors, so that he could explore trades routes in the west. According to Christopher, due to the spherical shape of the earth, a ship had the ability to sail to the Far East by sailing due West.
For many years, Christopher Columbus tried to convince the kings of Spain and Portugal, but to no avail. However, after the Moors left Spain in the year 1492, the king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, were a little more receptive to Columbus' plea when they were assured that he would come back from his voyage with gold, silk and spice, explore China and spread Christianity in Asia. Finally, the king and queen relented and Columbus got substantial amount of money to sail.
On 3 August 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail with 3 ships and 104 crew. The ships' first stop was at Canary Island and thereafter, they set sail across the Atlantic. The voyage was 5 weeks long and unfortunately many of the men succumbed to diseases and died and there were still others who died due to starvation and thirst. Just when everything seem to be lost, land was sighted on 12 October 1492. Christopher Columbus thought he had reached Asia, when it was present-day Bahamas. He christened the island as San Salvador. However, on not finding as riches to take back to Spain, Columbus decided to continue sailing, so that he could reach China. Instead, he found his way to Cuba and Hispaniola.
One of the ships, the Pinta, decided to continue its voyage on its own; while the ship carrying Christopher Columbus, Santa Maria, was wrecked along the coast of Hispaniola on December 25. So, Columbus boarded on to the other ship, Nina, but left behind 40 of his crew in the Navidad Fort. Then Christopher Columbus decided to sail back to Spain to announce his exciting discovery and he reached Spain on 15 March 1493, bringing his first voyage to an end.
However, just finding "Asia" was not sufficient for Christopher Columbus. He wanted to establish settlements on behalf of Spain in the new land that he had discovered and also wanted to check the fate of the 40 men he had left behind. So, on 23 September 1493, Columbus set sail a second time. This time he had 1,200 crew and 17 ships at his disposal. Furthermore, Columbus wanted to use the second voyage to find riches, which evaded him during his first voyage.
On the second voyage, Columbus discovered three additional islands, namely Dominica, Guadeloupe and Jamaica. This occurred on 3 November 1493; and Christopher believed that he had managed to sail his way to Japan! However, here too no wealth was found, and so he made his way to Hispaniola. There he discovered that the Navidad Fort had been destroyed and his 40 men were killed by the natives after the men mistreated them. While Columbus was shocked by this, it did not stop him from establishing the settlement of Santo Domingo here and after a battle in the year 1495 he was able to capture entire Hispaniola. Thereafter, in March 1496, Columbus decided to return to Spain and he arrived there on the last day of July.
Then on 30 May 1498, Columbus undertook a third voyage, but this time he traveled a more southern route with the hope of finding China finally. However, he ended up in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Margarita. He then made his way to South America. He returned to Hispaniola, only to find the new settlement of Santo Domingo destroyed. This prompted the Spanish government to send an official to investigate the destruction, leading to Columbus' arrest and deportation to Spain. On arriving in Spain, Columbus was accused of treating the Spaniards and locals badly. However, he successfully defended himself and was exonerated.
Finally, Columbus took his last voyage in search China. He set sail on 9 May 1502. In June, he landed in Hispaniola, but due to the earlier problems, he was not allowed to set a foot into the colony. Hence, he decided to sail further and this led his to discover Central America. In January 1503, he made his way to Panama, where he finally found some amount of gold. However, he was chased out of the area by the locals living there. Columbus returned to Jamaica and stayed there for a year, as his ships were having some problems. He finally started his return trip to Spain on 7 November 1504. On his return, he lived with his son in Seville.
Christopher Columbus died on 20 May 1506, a year after he a petitioned the king of Spain to make him the governor of Hispaniola once more.
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About.com: Geography: Christopher Columbus
http://geography.about.com/od/christophercolumbus/a/columbus.htm
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Though all Americans know that Christopher Columbus was responsible for finding the New World, very few know any facts about him. This could be because there is not much known about his childhood, other than his date of birth and name of his parents. The records and written text keeps talking about October 12, 1492, which is celebrated in the United States as Columbus Day, when Columbus sailed into present-day Bahamas. 