The expeditions of Columbus led to a new period of exploration. The newly discovered lands were conquered and colonised and would be suppressed for hundreds of years.
After the first voyage to the Americas, Columbus went there three more times. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
New Delhi: Christopher Columbus is one of the greatest explorers in history. His navigations and introduction of new lands to Europe changed the course of world history and gave rise to rapid colonial expansions. Hailing for the Republic of Genoa, a medieval and early modern maritime republic, the Italian Iexplorer and navigator completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. It paved the way for Europe to explore and colonise the Americas. Infact, it was due to his expeditions that Europe first came to know about the Caribbean and the Americas.
Christopher Columbus and the change in world history
Born on October 31, 1451, Christopher Columbus grew up on the coast of Liguria. He was still young when he went to sea and travelled to many places, to the British Isles in the north and to present-day Ghana in the south. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, a Portuguese noblewoman. The couple had a son named Diego and the family lived in Lisbon for several years.
Despite being mostly self-educated, Columbus had a good amount of knowledge in astronomy, history and geography. He came up with a plan to find a western sea passage to the East Indies as he hoped to make some profit from the spice trade, a lucrative business at that time. To get finance, Columbus persistently requested multiple kingdoms. Once the Granada War was over, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, the Catholic Monarchs, agreed to finance his journey.
The Journey to the Americas
In August 1942, Columbus left Castile with three ships and reached the Americas on October 12. His arrival marked the end of the habitation of the local people in the region, a time which is now called the pre-Columbian era. He landed at an island in the Bahamas which was called Guanahani by local people. He then went to places which are currently known as Hispaniola and Cuba and established a colony which is today known as Haiti. In early 1493, he returned to Castile with natives as his prisoners.
Notably, in 1494, after Columbus left Hispaniola on April 24, he arrived at the island of Cuba on April 30 and Discovery Bay, Jamaica, on May 5. His arrival in Jamaica would signal the beginning of the colonisation of the Caribbean Islands and the export of a large number of slaves to the European countries.
After the first voyage to the Americas, Columbus went there three more times. He called the indigenous peoples Indians and named several islands. It is possible that he still had certain beliefs that he had reached the Far East, which was his intention in the first place. Columbus was governor of the colonies and some of his contemporaries accused him of significant brutality while serving in that role, for which he was removed.
The Colombian exchange
The expeditions of Columbus led to a new period of exploration. The newly discovered lands were conquered and colonised and would be suppressed for hundreds of years. His explorations would completely change the history of the world and Europe would go on to influence the entire Americas. After his first voyage, the transfer of human populations, precious metals, plants, animals, culture, technology, ideas and diseases between the Old World and the New World is called the Columbian exchange.
The effects of the expeditions of Columbus persist to this day and are often regarded as the beginning of the modern era. His legacy was popular till the 21st century when public perception about him began to crumble due to greater attention to the brutality he inflicted on the native people of the lands he found, including slavery. Even though many places in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, especially in the United States, the legacy of Columbus is being viewed in a whole new light in today’s world.
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