Christopher Columbus - Explorer ｜ Mini Bio ｜ BIO

Legendary explorer Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in a sea town in Italy and began sailing as a teenager. He became probably one of the best dead reckoning, that's where you use a compass, one of the best dead reckoning sailors that ever walked the planet. Inspired by a letter from Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, Columbus believed that sailing west would be a faster way to get to India. After his idea was rejected in Portugal, Columbus went to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. They were intrigued with the idea and eventually gave Columbus the financing for the voyage. The Queen said, well, what do we got to lose? Maybe he's right and maybe that's why she did it. If he finds something, all is good. If he sails off into the sunset and we never see him again, so what have we lost? In August of 1492, Columbus set sail with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. After two months, Columbus and his crew arrived in the present day Bahamas, convinced this was India. They were greeted by the native population and Columbus couldn't help but notice the gold they were wearing. He had to prove that there was wealth there to justify himself to Ferdinand and Isabella. He had to bring back gold, he had to bring back spices. After establishing a settlement on what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, then called Hispaniola, Columbus set sail for Spain. Of course, he's immediately famous, he becomes a great hero and the Spanish King and Queen then have to decide how to exploit this great possibility that has come their way. So immediately they take their great heroic Captain Columbus and they put him in charge of a new voyage, which will be a voyage of colonization. Upon arriving back in the Caribbean, Columbus found the settlement destroyed. Columbus enslaved the indigenous people, forcing them to mine for gold and rebuild the settlement. But the new world was not the golden paradise Columbus had promised. Conditions were poor and deteriorated further when Columbus left the settlement to explore the other Caribbean islands. By the third voyage, they were having a hard time getting through. This guy was crazy, everybody died, there was no gold, you weren't going to get rich if you went over there, there were no cities paved with gold. On the third voyage, Columbus would finally reach the mainland in Venezuela. But due to the mismanagement of Hispaniola, King Ferdinand had him arrested and returned to Spain. Though he was never convicted, Columbus had lost his titles and most of his wealth. After a final, unsuccessful voyage, he returned to Spain in 1504 and spent the last two years of his life bitter and disillusioned. He felt that the Spanish crown had not treated him as well as they should have. I think Columbus probably went to his grave still believing that what he had found was Asia.