Who is Cristopher Columbus?
Christopher Columbus was an Italian Explorer, commonly credited with discovering America. But let's start at the beginning, Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, the son of a wool merchant, in 1451. As a teenager, he worked on a merchant ship, which was attacked by pirates in 1476 along the Portuguese coast. Columbus escaped death at sea by floating to shore on a wood scrap while the boat sank behind him. Once he got to shore, he traveled to Lisbon to study. He studied many things, including mathematics, cartography, and navigation. This began his interest in discovery, and he started to think about what would eventually become his famous voyage. At the time, it was very very difficult to travel to Asia from Europe on land, and it took a very long time to travel by sea, sailing around the West coast of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Columbus’s idea was to sail west instead, across the Atlantic Ocean. After pitching this idea to the officials of many different countries, he finally found similarly-minded officials. The Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. All three of them were passionate about three things. Fame, Fortune, and spreading the Catholic religion across the world.
The First Voyage
We started our day in the opening markets with a bit of background on who Christopher Columbus was, if you missed it, visit ksfarm.net to hear the whole story. We left off with Christopher Columbus talking to Spanish Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella about his idea of sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean to travel from Europe to Asia. They signed a contract that promised Columbus 10% of any riches that he could find on his voyage, in addition to having governorship of any lands he might encounter. With this contract, Columbus and his crew set out with three goals, fame, fortune, and to spread the Catholic faith. They also had three ships, the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria. They left Spain on August 3rd, 1492. He thought he was heading for the west Indies but instead landed at the Caribbean islands on October 12. The crew sailed between the island, looking for jewels, gold, silver, and spices on each island. They did this until January, when Columbus left some of his crew behind in what is now the Dominican Republic, and sailed back to Spain. He wrote down details of the whole Journey and gifted it to the Spanish Monarch Isabella when he returned to Spain. He returned to the Americas twice after that first voyage, so stay tuned for closing markets to hear about Columbus’s later and more controversial adventures.
The Later Voyages and the Ultimate Demise
About 6 months after he returned from his first voyage, he sailed back to the settlement where he had left part of his crew the first time. This settlement was called the Hispaniola Settlement, and it was completely destroyed upon his return. He left his brothers Bartholomeo and Diego, along with more crew members and hundreds of indigenous people that he enslaved at Hispaniola to rebuild, and he sailed west to look for gold. He was not able to find any of the gold that he had promised the Spanish Monarchs, so he instead sent 500 enslaved people to the queen Isabella. The queen sent them back, and was horrified, because she believed they were Spanish subjects that should not be enslaved. On his third trip across the Atlantic in 1498, Columbus returned to the Hispaniola settlement to find a bloody revolt of the colonists. The native Taino population, who Columbus had enslaved and forced to search for gold, was almost completely decimated with 60 years of Columbus landing on their island. Christopher Columbus was arrested, and sailed back to Spain in chains. He died in 1506 stripped of all his noble titles.
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