Christopher Columbus
Learn all about the famous Italian explorer, find out when Christopher Columbus discovered America, the three boats he sailed on, and more! You will also find links to some handy teaching resources that you can use to amplify your lessons.
Who was Christopher Columbus?
Christopher Columbus was a 15th century Italian explorer and naval navigator who undertook several voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. His initial goal was to discover a new route to India and Asia for easier trade. His well-known expeditions were sponsored and paid for by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Columbus' voyages were the first instances of Europeans making contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Whilst many scholars agree that he was born in Genoa, it is unclear whether Christopher Columbus was his actual name. He has also been referred to, by himself and others, as Christoual, Christovam, Christofferus de Colombo, and even Xpoual de Colón. There is even a theory that his name was adopted from a pirate called Colombo!
Christopher Columbus is believed to have been born on October 31, 1451, in Genoa, Italy. Columbus grew up as a sailor and began when he was just a teenager. During this time, he would join local sea captains on voyages around the Mediterranean Sea.
Columbus' first voyage out of the Mediterranean Sea and into the Atlantic Ocean was met with disaster when in 1476 he was attacked by pirates and his ship set on fire. He survived by swimming to the coast of Portugal, where he settled and married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo. They had one son together.
His wife died and Columbus eventually moved to Spain.
He became famous as the explorer who discovered new lands that came to be called the West Indies. Columbus originally believed them to be the eastern edge of the Asian continent, specifically India. Throughout his lifetime, it was widely believed that Columbus discovered America. Read on to find out why that is not actually the case.When Did Columbus Discover America?
The answer to when did Columbus discover America is more complex than yes or no. Columbus did land on islands within what we now call the Americas, but he did not know where he had landed. Also, the land would not become known as the Americas until Amerigo Vespucci (for whom the land is named) landed on the mainland of the continent some years later.
During Columbus' life, European powers were trading extensively with countries in Asia, particularly India and China. Though travelling by either land or sea was not easy, Columbus thought he could uncover a more direct route by sailing around the globe.
His journey was sponsored by the King of Spain and in 1492, he set sail to find the eastern coast of India by sailing west. After several months, the crew finally spotted land. Columbus thought he had reached the Indies. But he was wrong! He'd landed in what we now know as the Caribbean, specifically The Bahamas.
The King of Spain was very happy at the discovery Columbus had made, as it meant he could amass more wealth and resources. He sent lots of ships and soldiers to the new land to take advantage of such wealth. This did not end well for the local people and cultures that already inhabited the islands.
Today, Columbus is considered a controversial figure. A lot of people consider him to be a brave hero who made a history changing discovery. But others suggest that his expedition to the Americas had a negative impact on indigenous cultures.
The Three Boats of Christopher Columbus
The three boats of Christopher Columbus were called the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa Maria.
Two of the ships, the Niña and Pinta, were tiny by today’s standards - only about 50 to 70 feet in length. But, they were prized for their speed and manoeuvrability. In contrast, the Santa Maria, was Columbus’s flagship as it was a much larger and heavier cargo ship.
Although most of us know the three boats of Christopher Columbus but the names Pinta, Niña and Santa Maria, it's believed that at least two of those were likely nicknames.
In Columbus’s time, it was the common in Spain to officially name ships after saints, but to refer to them by nicknames instead. La Niña was likely a nickname for a ship called Santa Clara. The nickname is thought to have come from the name of the ship’s owner, Juan Niño.
It is unknown what the Pinta’s original name might have been. Santa Maria is a perfectly saintly name for the third, which was also nicknamed La Gallega.
Christopher Columbus's Later Voyages
In the discussion of whether Columbus discovered America, the conversation is centred around his first voyage to the country. However, the famous explorer made a number of other important journeys.
Second Voyage
In September 1493, just 6 months after his first voyage to the Americas, Columbus returned to the country. During this visit, Columbus discovered that an American settlement, called the Hispaniola settlement, had been destroyed. In response to this, Columbus left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego Columbus behind to rebuild the settlement with the assistance of various crew members from his ships and hundreds of enslaved indigenous people.
With these people left behind, Columbus travelled west in search of gold and other profitable goods. During the first stage of his visit to the Americas, Columbus also gathered and enslaved a large group of indigenous people, who he added to his crew. Part of the reason he did this was that he had promised to bring the Spanish monarchs various riches from his travels, but his search for them had been largely unsuccessful. Therefore, in replacement of these riches, Columbus sent Queen Isabella of Spain 500 enslaved indigenous people. As Columbus was travelling on a Spanish-sponsored expedition, Queen Isabella believed that any people that Columbus discovered in the Americas were Spanish subjects who should not be enslaved. The queen was, therefore, appalled at Columbus’ offering of the enslaved people, and swiftly returned them to the explorer.
Third Voyage
In May 1498, Columbus made his third journey across the Atlantic Ocean. As part of this voyage, Columbus visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before making his way to the Hispaniola settlement. When Columbus had last seen the settlement, he had entrusted his brothers with repairing it after it had been destroyed. However, upon this next visit, the settlement was in arguably worse condition. The colonists had staged a revolt against the Columbus brothers, who had been ruling with an iron fist. The settlement was completely obliterated, and the Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over.
To make matters even worse, the native Taino population, who Columbus had charged with searching for gold and working on plantations, was almost completely gone. Just 60 years after Columbus landed in the Americas, the Taino population, which once sat around 250,000, had been widdled down to just a few hundred.
As you can probably tell, this voyage to the Americas was pretty disastrous, and Columbus ended up being arrested and returned to Spain in complete dishonour. Thankfully for the explorer, the majority of the more serious charges against him were clear in 1502. However, he had still been stripped of his noble titles. Even in his sorry state, Columbus managed to persuade the Spanish crown to sponsor one last voyage across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus travelled all the way to Panama, which is just a few miles away from the Pacific Ocean. Here, he was forced to abandon two of his four ships after they had been irreparably damaged by storms and hostile natives. This was another unsuccessful voyage for Columbus. He returned to Spain empty-handed and would never voyage again.
The Legacy of Christopher Columbus
When Christopher Columbus died in 1506, he was still under the impression that he had discovered a new route to the West Indies. However, as we know now, this was not the case. Not only is it false to say that Columbus discovered America, there is also significant evidence to suggest that he was not even the first European to visit the country. According to a selection of Viking prose poems and various archaeological findings, it is widely believed that the Vikings actually landed in North America around 500 years before Columbus ever got there. These findings take a lot away from the importance of Columbus’ legacy.
Despite his cruel treatment of natives and numerous unsuccessful ventures, there were a number of achievements that Columbus made throughout his lifetime. For instance, Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas sparked a great deal of exploration of the land in the centuries following. This had many negative effects on the native population of the Americas, unfortunately, as with exploration came huge amounts of exploitation.
The Columbian Exchange is also a huge part of Columbus’ legacy, albeit, not a very good one. The exchange, which is named after Columbus himself, refers to the transfer of people, animals, food, and disease across different cultures. This resulted in the complete devastation of the Native American population, crops, animals, goods, and trade flows. The exchange also meant that Old World wheat became a food staple in America, and American foods like corn, tomatoes, and potatoes were introduced to people’s diets across Europe.
Nowadays, Christopher Columbus is a controversial and widely criticised figure in history. Whilst his legacy of groundbreaking exploration led to many positive changes, his work also destroyed any and all of the native populations that he came into contact with.
The three ships Christopher Columbus sailed on.
Three Interesting Facts About Christopher Columbus:
- Columbus’s accidental stumbled across the Americas: At the time, a lot of overseas travel was guesswork. This was because people didn’t know how big planet Earth was, and to complicate matters further for Columbus, there were two main ways of measuring degrees of latitude: the method developed by the Greek philosopher Poseidonius, and the method developed by the medieval Arabs. In making his own calculations, Columbus argued that the both methods equalled the same circumference, forgetting that Arab miles were longer than Roman miles. Relying on this knowledge, Columbus assured his backers that the three ships could make it from Spain to Japan in 30 days!
- Even posthumously, Columbus has travelled around the world! How so? Well, after Columbus died in 1506, he was buried in Valladolid, Spain. Following three years there, his remains were then taken to his family mausoleum, which was in Sevilla. In 1542, in accordance with the will of his son Diego, his remains were moved to Santo Domingo, Hispaniola (in what is now the Dominican Republic). France gained official control of Hispaniola in 1795, and in the same year Columbus’s bones were transferred to Havana, Cuba. Finally, after another 100 years passed, he was shipped back across the Atlantic and returned to Sevilla in 1898.
- Columbus travelled a further three times to the Americas. Following his first voyage in 1492, he also sailed back in 1493, 1498, and 1502. In 1493, he explored the Lesser Antilles and in 1498, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America were explored in 1498. His final voyage in 1502 explored the eastern coast of Central America. Many of the names he gave to geographical features, particularly islands, are still in use today.
