In Columbus set sail from Palos in Spain with three ships. Two, the Nina and the Pinta were caravels — small ships with triangular sails. The third, the Santa Maria , was a nao — a larger square-rigged ship. The ships were small, between 15 and 36 metres long. Between them they carried about 90 men. After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean for 10 weeks, land was sighted by a sailor called Rodrigo Bernajo although Columbus himself took the credit for this.
He landed on a small island in the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador. He claimed the island for the King and Queen of Spain, although it was already populated. This initial encounter opened up the 'New World' to European colonisation, which would come to have a devastating impact on indigenous populations.
On Christmas Day , the Santa Maria hit a rock and was wrecked. Columbus transferred to the Nina and left behind the 39 crewmembers of the Santa Maria on the island of Hispaniola.
He wanted them to start a new settlement. Columbus reached Spain in March , and claimed his reward in riches. Read more.
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Spurning the wishes of the local queen, who found slavery offensive, Columbus established a forced labor policy over the native population to rebuild the settlement and explore for gold, believing it would prove to be profitable. His efforts produced small amounts of gold and great hatred among the native population. Before returning to Spain, Columbus left his brothers Bartholomew and Diego to govern the settlement on Hispaniola and sailed briefly around the larger Caribbean islands further convincing himself he had discovered the outer islands of China.
It wasn't until his third voyage that Columbus actually reached the mainland, exploring the Orinoco River in present-day Venezuela. Unfortunately, conditions at the Hispaniola settlement had deteriorated to the point of near-mutiny, with settlers claiming they had been misled by Columbus' claims of riches and complaining about the poor management of his brothers.
The Spanish Crown sent a royal official who arrested Columbus and stripped him of his authority. He returned to Spain in chains to face the royal court. The charges were later dropped, but Columbus lost his titles as governor of the Indies and, for a time, much of the riches made during his voyages. After convincing King Ferdinand that one more voyage would bring the abundant riches promised, Columbus went on what would be his last voyage in , traveling along the eastern coast of Central America in an unsuccessful search for a route to the Indian Ocean.
A storm wrecked one of his ships, stranding the captain and his sailors on the island of Cuba. During this time, local islanders, tired of the Spaniards' poor treatment and obsession with gold, refused to give them food. In a spark of inspiration, Columbus consulted an almanac and devised a plan to "punish" the islanders by taking away the moon. On February 29, , a lunar eclipse alarmed the natives enough to re-establish trade with the Spaniards. A rescue party finally arrived, sent by the royal governor of Hispaniola in July, and Columbus and his men were taken back to Spain in November of In the two remaining years of his life following his last voyage to the Americas, Columbus struggled to recover his lost titles.
Although he did regain some of his riches in May , his titles were never returned. Columbus probably died of severe arthritis following an infection on May 20, , still believing he had discovered a shorter route to Asia.
Columbus has been credited for opening up the Americas to European colonization - as well as blamed for the destruction of the native peoples of the islands he explored. Ultimately, he failed to find that what he set out for: a new route to Asia and the riches it promised. 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. His group now included a large number of indigenous people the Europeans had enslaved.
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