During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. Starting in about , small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods as well as enslaved people from Asia and Africa to Europe.
Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy, in When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until , when pirates attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast. The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he eventually studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation.
He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever. At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid.
Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent? He argued incorrectly that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage.
He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe.
Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility. 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. 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. In , however, a box full of bones bearing his name was found in Santo Domingo. Since then, two cities — Seville, Spain and Santo Domingo — claim to have his remains.
In each city, the bones in question are housed in elaborate mausoleums. Happy Columbus Day! Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Let us know. Phone Number. About New Empire Insurance Services. New Empire Insurance Services is an award-winning national Insurance Program Administrator that specializes in insurance programs for real estate.
For Brokers. Get Appointed Applications Resources Claims. About Us. The exact location of Vinland is debated among scholars, but it is generally agreed it was somewhere along the northern Atlantic coast. Columbus may not have discovered the Americas, but it was his arrival—and subsquent three additional voyages over the next twelve years—that shephereded in an era of exploration and colonization of North and South America.
While this opened up economic and political opportunities for European powers, the colonization of the New World led to the exploitation of its indigenous peoples, often violently and eventually with disastrous results for many cultures.
Columbus Day is a national holiday in the United States, but due to inhumane actions taken by the European powers who came in waves to the Americas, several states have replaced the holiday with Indigenous People's Day to honor the original inhabitants of these lands.
Columbus also continued to believe that he had found a route to Asia, despite the increasing evidence that proved otherwise—a denial that would severely tarnish his reputation. While Columbus obtained great wealth from his expeditions, he became an outcast and died of age-related causes on May 20, in Valladolid, Spain. All rights reserved. Why do we celebrate it? Find out the history of the holiday, the voyage it commemorates, and the controversy it has ignited.
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