Why Columbus is a worthy representative of his time. Four Expeditions of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus (autumn 1451, Republic of Genoa - May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain) - spanish navigator of Italian origin, who in 1492 discovered America for Europeans.
Columbus was the first known traveler to cross Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical and tropical zone of the northern hemisphere and the first European to walk in the Caribbean. He laid the foundation for the study of the South and Central America. He discovered all the Greater Antilles - central part The Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles, as well as a number of small islands in the Caribbean Sea and the island of Trinidad off the coast of South America. Columbus can be called the discoverer of America with reservations, because back in the Middle Ages, Europeans represented by the Icelandic Vikings visited North America. Since there was no information about these campaigns outside Scandinavia, it was the Columbus expeditions that first made information about the lands in the west public and laid the foundation for the colonization of America by Europeans.
Columbus made 4 voyages to America:
First voyage (August 2, 1492 - March 15, 1493).
Second voyage (September 25, 1493 - June 11, 1496).
Third voyage (May 30, 1498 - November 25, 1500).
Fourth voyage (May 9, 1502 - November 1504).
Biography
Christopher Columbus- Navigator, Viceroy of the Indies (1492), discoverer of the Sargasso Sea and caribbean, the Bahamas and Antilles, parts north coast South America and the Caribbean coastline of Central America.
In 1492-1493, Columbus led a Spanish expedition to find the shortest sea route to India; on 3 caravels ("Santa Maria", "Pinta" and "Nina") crossed the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the Sargasso Sea and reached Samana Island on October 12, 1492, later - the ancient Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti. In subsequent expeditions (1493-1496, 1498-1500, 1502-1504) he discovered the Greater Antilles, part of the Lesser Antilles and the coasts of South and Central America and the Caribbean Sea.
Christopher Columbus was born in the autumn of 1451 in Genoa, Genoese by origin. He was above average height, strong and well built. Reddish in his youth, his hair turned gray early, which made him look older than his years. On an oblong, wrinkled and weather-beaten face with a beard, living Blue eyes and aquiline nose. He was distinguished by faith in divine providence and omens, and at the same time rare practicality, morbid pride and suspicion, and a passion for gold. He had a sharp mind, the gift of persuasion and versatile knowledge. Christopher Columbus was married twice and had two sons from these marriages.

Christopher Columbus spent three quarters of his life on the voyage. Among the great figures of world civilization, few can compare with Columbus in the number of publications devoted to his life, and at the same time in the abundance of "blank spots" in his biography. More or less confidently, it can be argued that he was a Genoese by origin and around 1465 he entered the Genoese fleet, after some time he was seriously wounded. Until 1485, Christopher sailed on Portuguese ships, lived in Lisbon and on the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo, engaged in trade, mapping and self-education. It is not clear when and where he drafted the western, in his opinion, the shortest sea route from Europe to India; the project was based on the ancient doctrine of the sphericity of the Earth and on the incorrect calculations of scientists of the 15th century. In 1485, after the refusal of the Portuguese king to support this project, Columbus moved to Castile, where, with the help of Andalusian merchants and bankers, he organized a government sea expedition under his command.
The first expedition of Christopher Columbus 1492-1493 consisting of 90 people on three ships - "Santa Maria", "Pinta" and "Nina" - left Palos on August 3, 1492, turned west from the Canary Islands, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, opening the Sargasso Sea, and reached an island in the Bahamas the archipelago named San Salvador by the traveler, where Columbus landed on October 12, 1492. For a long time, Watling Island was considered San Salvador. However, our contemporary American geographer J. Judge in 1986 processed all the collected materials on a computer and came to the conclusion that the first American land seen by Columbus was the island of Samana. On October 14-24, Columbus approached several more Bahamas, and on October 28-December 5, he discovered part of the northeast coast of Cuba. December 6 reached the island of Haiti and moved along the northern coast. On the night of December 25, the flagship Santa Maria landed on a reef, but the crew escaped. For the first time in the history of navigation, on the orders of Columbus, Indian hammocks were adapted for sailor bunks. Columbus returned to Castile on the Nina on March 15, 1499. The political resonance of the voyage of H. Columbus was the "papal meridian": chapter catholic church established a demarcation line in the Atlantic, indicating different directions for rival Spain and Portugal to discover new lands.
Second expedition (1493-96), which was headed by Admiral Columbus, in the position of Viceroy of the newly discovered lands, consisted of 17 ships with a crew of 1.5-2.5 thousand people. On November 3-15, 1493, Columbus discovered the islands of Dominica, Guadeloupe and about 20 Lesser Antilles, on November 19, the island of Puerto Rico. In March 1494, in search of gold, he made a military campaign deep into the island of Haiti, in the summer he discovered the southeastern and southern coasts of Cuba, the islands of Youth and Jamaica.
For 40 days, Columbus explored the southern coast of Haiti, the conquest of which continued in 1495. But in the spring of 1496 he sailed home, completing his second voyage on June 11 in Castile. Columbus announced the discovery of a new route to Asia. The colonization of new lands by free settlers, which began soon, cost Spanish crown very expensive, and Columbus proposed to populate the islands with criminals, halving their sentence. With fire and sword, plundering and destroying the country ancient culture, on the land of the Aztecs - Mexico - the military detachments of Cortes passed, on the land of the Incas - Peru - the detachments of Pizarro.
Third expedition of Columbus (1498-1500) consisted of six ships, three of which he himself led across the Atlantic. On July 31, 1498, the island of Trinidad was discovered, entered the Gulf of Paria, discovered the mouth of the western arm of the Orinoco Delta and the Paria Peninsula, marking the beginning of the discovery of South America. Having entered the Caribbean Sea, he approached the Araya Peninsula, discovered the island of Margarita on August 15 and arrived in Haiti on August 31. In 1500, upon a denunciation of Christopher Columbus, he was arrested and shackled (which he then kept all his life) was sent to Castile, where he was expected to be released. Having obtained permission to continue searching for a western route to India, Columbus on four ships (fourth expedition, 1502-1504) reached the island of Martinique on June 15, 1502, on July 30 - the Gulf of Honduras, where he first met representatives ancient civilization Maya, but did not attach any importance to this. From August 1, 1502 to May 1, 1503 opened 2000 km Caribbean shores Central America (to Uraba Gulf). Unable to find a passage to the west, he turned north and on June 25, 1503, was wrecked off the coast of Jamaica. Help from Santo Domingo came only a year later. Columbus returned to Castile on November 7, 1504, already seriously ill.
last years of life
Illness, fruitless and painful negotiations with the king about the restoration of rights, lack of money undermined the last forces of Columbus, and on May 20, 1506 he died in Valladolid. His discoveries were accompanied by the colonization of lands, the foundation of Spanish settlements, the brutal enslavement and mass extermination of the indigenous population called "Indians" by the conquistadors. Christopher Columbus was not the discoverer of America: the islands and coast of North America were visited by the Normans hundreds of years before him. However, only the discoveries of Columbus were of world-historical significance. What he found new part light, was finally proved by the voyage of Magellan. The name Columbus is: the state in South America, a province of Canada, a federal district and a river in the USA, the capital of Sri Lanka, as well as many rivers, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, capes, cities, parks, squares, streets and bridges in different countries.
Truth and fiction in the biography of Christopher Columbus
Columbus was born into a poor family. Indeed, his family was not rich, but this did not stop Columbus from getting a good education- According to some sources, he graduated from the University of Pavia. The marriage to Dona Felipe Moniz de Palestrello most likely played a significant role, since her father was a famous navigator of the time of Prince Enrique.
The traveler who gave the world New World died never knowing that he had found the wrong continent he was looking for. In those days, there was an assumption that in order to get to India, China or Japan it is necessary to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The entire expedition of Columbus was organized precisely to open a new direct route to Far East. The geographer Paolo Toscanelli calculated that it would take 5,600 km to reach the shore, which coincided with Columbus' calculations. As a result, having discovered the New World during his first trip, Columbus believed to the last that he had landed on the border with China.

Columbus did not equip his first expedition for long. This is wrong. Quite a lot of time had passed from the moment he conceived the expedition to its equipment. Until 1485, Columbus served on the Genoese and Portuguese ships, visited Ireland, England, and Madeira. At this time, in addition to trading, he was intensively engaged in self-education. He conducted extensive correspondence with famous scientists and cartographers of that time, compiled maps, studied shipping routes. Most likely, it was in those years that he got the idea to get to India. western way. Presumably in the period from 1475-1480. (no exact data) he sent the first proposal to the merchants and the government of Genoa. He had to write many more such letters, for about 10 years he received only refusals. Moreover, having been wrecked off the coast of Portugal, he tried for a long time to persuade the Portuguese king, and only after a few lost years he went to Spain. As a result, he was able to go on his first expedition only in 1492, thanks to the support of the Spanish Queen Isabella.

The return of Columbus from the first expedition exacerbated the political situation. When Columbus returned in 1493, discovering new lands, this message stirred the minds and aggravated the situation between Spain and Portugal. Until that time, Portugal was the main discoverer of all new routes to Africa. She was granted all the lands south of the Canary Islands. But the Spanish king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were not going to give Spain the rights to the newly discovered lands, in connection with which they turned to Pope Alexander VI. The Pope decreed that 600 km west of Azores on the map you need to draw a vertical line (the so-called papal meridian), to the east of which all the lands will belong to Portugal, and to the west - to Spain. However, the Portuguese king did not agree with this decision, since in this case the Portuguese ships could not sail south and east without entering Spanish territory. As a result, the Spaniards made concessions and moved the vertical line 1600 km to the west. Spain could not even imagine how fatal this decision would be. Literally 7 years later, in 1500, the Portuguese navigator Pedro Cabral, sailing to India, stumbled upon land that was not marked on the map. As it turned out, the line drawn on the map cut off this piece in favor of Portugal, which immediately laid claim to its rights. As a result, even before America was recognized as a new continent, the future Brazil became part of Portugal.
Thanks to Columbus, the locals began to be called Indians. Columbus was looking for India and when he reached the Bahamas, he was completely sure that he had found it. Therefore, he began to call the locals Indians. This name has stuck with the indigenous people to this day.
Columbus managed to equip the second expedition thanks to boasting. Nobody can confirm this for sure. But it is known that upon his return to Barcelona, ​​Columbus really boasted of his achievements. Moreover, he repeatedly demonstrated gold jewelry obtained from local tribes, while talking about the riches of Indian land. His vanity sometimes lifted him so high that he began to talk about future negotiations with the Great Khan. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the king and queen of Spain could succumb to the speeches of Columbus. In any case, they very quickly, with the support of the Pope, organized a second expedition (from 1493 to 1496).
Columbus was a pirate. This is a controversial proposition. However, there are some facts that characterize not his best features. In his reports from the second expedition, he asks to send ships from Spain with cattle, supplies, and tools. Further, he writes: "Payment ... can be made by slaves from among the cannibals, cruel people ... well-built and very smart." This means that he caught local residents for Spain as slaves. In fact, all his activities in the new lands were reduced to robbery and robbery, which is characteristic of pirates, although it cannot be denied that this may be a consequence of the upbringing of the era. Of course, you can blame Columbus for all the further troubles of the American continent, but this is unlikely to be fair. No one is required to answer for the sins of others.

Columbus had a monopoly on all open land. Indeed, upon arrival from the first expedition, Columbus (Donn Christoval Colon) was given the title of admiral of the sea - ocean, vice - king and governor of the islands discovered in India. His monopoly was unquestionable, until, after the second expedition, it turned out that the new territories were too vast and one person was not able to rule them. In 1499, the kings abolished Columbus' monopoly on the discovery of new lands. This was primarily due to the fact that in 1498 the Portuguese Vasco da Gama sailed by sea to real India and began trade relations with it. Against the background of his achievements, Columbus, with his complicated situation, small profits to the treasury and conflicts in new territories, seemed like a liar. In an instant, he lost all the privileges he had won.
Christopher Columbus gloriously completed all three of his expeditions. The first expedition brought fame to Columbus. The second, for which 17 ships were allocated, brought doubts about the wealth of open lands. The third expedition was fatal for Columbus. During it, he lost all rights to the land. Francisco Bobadilla, sent to Hispaniola with unlimited powers, arrested the admiral and his brothers Bartalomeo and Diego. They were shackled. Columbus was shackled by his own chef. They were imprisoned in Sandoming Fortress. Columbus was accused of "cruelty and inability to govern the country." Two months later they were sent to Spain in shackles. Only two years later, the kings dropped the charges against Columbus. He was granted 2,000 gold pieces, but the promise given to him to return his property and money was not fulfilled.
Christopher Columbus was buried with honors. From the fourth expedition, Columbus returned seriously ill. He still hoped to defend his rights, but with the death of his patroness, Queen Isabella, this hope faded. At the end of his life he needed money. In 1505, an order was given to sell all movable and immovable property of Columbus in Hispaniola to pay off creditors. On May 20, 1506, the great navigator died. Nobody noticed his death. His discoveries were almost forgotten against the backdrop of the conquests of the Portuguese. His death was recorded only after 27 years. At the end of his life, all his dreams of wealth, gold and honors were completely destroyed ...

Name: Christopher Columbus

State: Italy, Spain

Field of activity: Navigator

Greatest Achievement: First to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Opened America to Europeans.

Christopher Columbus used his strong personality to persuade rulers and scientists to rethink conventional wisdom and theories about the size of the Earth in order to find and discover new way to Asia. Although he was not the first European to find the Americas (the honor fell to the Viking Leif Eriksson), his journey opened up the possibility of trade between the two continents.

born by the sea

Born in 1451 to Domenic and Susanna (Fontanarossa), Christopher grew up in Genoa, Italy. Later, while living in Spain, he was better known as Cristobal Colon. He was the eldest of five children in the family and adulthood worked with his brothers.

Located on the northwest coast of Italy, Genoa was a port city. Columbus completed his basic studies at an early age and began to travel with merchant ships. In 1476 he visited Portugal where he started his cartographic business with his brother Bartholomew. In 1479 he married Felippa Moniz de Palestrello, daughter of the governor of the Portuguese island.

Their only child Diego was born in 1480. Felippa died a few years later. His second son Fernando was born in 1488 to Beatriz Henriques de Arana.

Round the world trip of Christopher Columbus

In the 50s of the 15th century, she took control of northern Africa, blocking the shortest and easiest access for Europeans to valuable Asian goods, such as spices. In search of an alternative to this dangerous and long journey, many countries have turned their eyes to the sea. Portugal, in particular, took a huge step towards finding a way around southern Africa, eventually rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

Instead of trying to go around the African continent from the south, Columbus decided to go west. Educated people knew the fact that the earth was round, the only question was how big it was.

The Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes first determined its size in 240 BC, later scientists improved this number, but none of these assumptions have been proven. Columbus believed that the figure voiced by scientists was too large, and that a large Asian continent would reduce the need for a long sea ​​travel.

According to his calculations, the Earth was 66% smaller than it was according to scientists. Surprisingly, his calculations were very close to the actual size of the globe.

Columbus first presented his plans to Portugal in 1483, but they were not heard. He left for Spain, which was ruled jointly by the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. Although Spain was at the time engaged in a war with the Muslim states, it provided Columbus with a job in the Spanish court. Spain took possession of the southern provinces in January 1492, and in April of that year Columbus's plan was approved. He began preparations for the journey.

Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria

Columbus set out on a journey from the Canary Islands in September 1492. He drove the caravel (a type of Portuguese ship) "Santa Maria". Two other ships, the Nina and the Pinta, sailed alongside 90 sailors on board. October 12, 1492 they reached small island in the Caribbean, which Columbus named San Salvador. This day is celebrated as Columbus Day in the US every second Monday in October; other countries also celebrate this day under different names.

Confident that he had arrived in the East Indies, Columbus named the natives Indians. According to his description, kind, but primitive people had to experience harsh treatment from the Europeans.

Leaving San Salvador, the team continued their journey along the coast of Cuba and Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). On the eve of Christmas Eve, the Santa Maria crashed on a reef off the island of Haiti. Forty men were forced to stay in a hastily constructed camp in search of gold while Columbus, taking the Nina and the Pinta, sailed back to Spain to announce his success.

Several captured natives were taken on board as proof of their mission, but some of them did not survive the arduous sea voyage.

Columbus was not the first European to set foot on the land of the New World. The Vikings discovered this land several centuries before. But their raids were scattered, and information about them never spread throughout Europe.

After the discovery of Columbus, trade in goods, people and ideas began between the two continents.

Three more trips

In the rest of his life, Columbus made three more trips to the New World in search of the Asian mainland. He returned to the islands with 17 ships and 1,500 sailors, but did not find any traces of people there, which he observed a few months ago. Columbus established a company in several small forts along the coast of Hispaniola.

But problems soon arose when the colonists realized that the gold promised by Columbus did not exist. At the same time, a dozen ships with a disgruntled crew on board returned back to Spain. Relations with the indigenous also did not go well, as they abandoned their search for gold. When criticism of Columbus's policies reached the monarchs, he returned to Spain and successfully dispelled all rumors, shielding himself from complaints and restoring his reputation.

In 1498, Columbus took six ships and went in search of the Asian continent to the south of the area he had previously explored. Instead, he arrived off the coast of Venezuela. Returning to Hispaniola, he gave the land to the settlers and allowed the enslavement of the Taíno peoples to govern it. Complaints about the activities of Columbus continued to come to the monarchs, until they finally sent a commission to check the validity of the complaints. Shocked by the conditions of life in the colony, the commission arrested Columbus and his brother and sent them to Spain for trial. Soon they were set free by the royal authorities, but Columbus lost his post as governor of Hispaniola forever.

In 1502, he made his last attempt to find the Asian continent, setting sail with his son Ferdinand. They passed along the coast of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Two ships were forced to dock on the northern coast of Jamaica due to holes, where their crews spent a whole year waiting for help and returning to their homeland.

Columbus returned to Spain in 1504. He died two years later, on May 20, 1506, still convinced that he had found a sea route to Asia.

Biography

Youth of Christopher Columbus

It is believed that Columbus was born into a poor Genoese family: father - Domenico Colombo (ital. Domenico Colombo), mother - Susanna Fontanarossa (ital. Susanna Fontanarossa). The exact transliteration of his name from Spanish is Cristobal Colon , however, he became world famous as Christopher Columbus ( Christopher- Latin transliteration of the Greek name). In addition to Christopher, there were other children in the family: Giovanni (died in childhood, in 1484), Bartolomeo, Giacomo, Bianchella (married Giacomo Bavarello). Traditionally, six cities in Italy and Spain dispute the honor of being the small homeland of Columbus.

The appearance of Columbus is known from portraits that were painted after his death. Bartolome de Las Casas, who saw Columbus in 1493, describes him thus:

He was tall, above average, his face was long and commanding respect, his nose was aquiline, his eyes were bluish-gray, his skin was white, with redness, his beard and mustache were reddish in his youth, but turned gray in his works.

Studied at the University of Pavia. Around 1470, he marries Doña Felipe Moniz de Palestrello, daughter of a navigator from the time of Prince Enrique. Until 1472 Columbus lived in Genoa, and from 1472 in Savona. In the 1470s, he participated in sea trading expeditions. It is believed that as early as 1474, the astronomer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli told him in a letter that, in his opinion, India can be reached by a much shorter sea route if you sail west. Apparently, already then Columbus was thinking about his project of a sea voyage to India. Having made his own calculations based on the advice of Toscanelli, he decided that it was most convenient to sail through the Canary Islands, from which, in his opinion, Japan was about five thousand kilometers away.

Here, Queen Isabella took a step forward. The idea of ​​the coming liberation of the Holy Sepulcher captured her heart so much that she decided not to give this chance to either Portugal or France. Although the Kingdom of Spain was formed as a result of the dynastic marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, their monarchies retained, however, separate independent administrations, cortes and finances. "I'll pawn my jewels," she said.

Second expedition

Second expedition

The second flotilla of Columbus already consisted of 17 ships. Flagship - "Maria Galante" (displacement of two hundred tons). According to various sources, the expedition consisted of 1500-2500 people. There were already not only sailors, but also monks, priests, officials, service nobles, courtiers. They brought horses and donkeys, cattle and pigs, vines, seeds of agricultural crops with them to organize a permanent colony.

During the expedition, the complete conquest of Hispaniola was carried out, and the mass extermination of the local population began. City of Santo Domingo laid down. The most convenient sea route to the West Indies was laid. The Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, the islands of Puerto Rico, Jamaica have been discovered, the southern coast of Cuba has been almost completely explored. At the same time, Columbus continues to claim that he is in Western India.

Chronology

• September 25, 1493 - The expedition left Cadiz. In the Canary Islands they took sugar cane and dogs accustomed to hunting. The course ran about 10° southerly than the first time. Later, all ships from Europe to the "Western Indies" began to use this route.
• With a good tailwind (in the equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean the winds constantly blow to the west), the journey took only 20 days, and already on November 3, 1493 (on Sunday), an island from the Lesser Antilles ridge was discovered, called Dominica.
• November 4 - the expedition arrived at the largest of the local islands, called Guadeloupe. On open islands lived Caribs who made raids on the islands of peaceful Arawaks on large canoes. Their weapons were bows and arrows tipped with fragments of tortoiseshell or serrated fish bones.
• November 11 – Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis islands are opened.
• November 13 - the first armed clash with the Caribs took place off the island of Santa Cruz.
• November 15 - an archipelago was discovered north of Santa Cruz, which Columbus called the "Islands of Eleven Thousand Maidens" - now they are called the Virgin Islands. Having bypassed the archipelago on both sides, the ships of the flotilla united three days later at the western end of the ridge.
• November 19 - The Spaniards land on the west coast of a large island that Columbus named San Juan Bautista. It has been called Puerto Rico since the 16th century.
• November 27 - the flotilla approached the one built during the first expedition to about. Haiti fort La Navidad, but on the shore the Spaniards found only traces of a fire and corpses.
• January 1494 - A city was built to the east of the burned fort, La Isabella in honor of Queen Isabella. Many Spaniards were struck by the yellow fever epidemic. A detachment sent to reconnaissance inland found gold in the river sand in the mountainous region of the Cordillera Central.
• March 1494 - Columbus made a trip to the interior of the island. Meanwhile, in La Isabella, due to the heat, most of the food has deteriorated, and Columbus decided to leave only 5 ships and about 500 people on the island, and send the rest to Spain. With them, he conveyed to the king and queen that he had found rich deposits of gold, and asked to send cattle, food supplies and agricultural tools, offering to pay for them with slaves from among the local residents.
• April 24, 1494 - leaving a garrison in La Isabella under the command of his younger brother Diego, Columbus led three small ships west along southeast coast Cuba.
• May 1 - a narrow and deep bay is discovered ( modern city Guantanamo with Guantanamo Bay). Further to the west are the Sierra Maestra mountains. From here, Columbus turned south.
• May 5 - Jamaica is discovered (Columbus named it Santiago).
• May 14 - Having passed along the northern coast of Jamaica and not finding gold, Columbus returned to Cuba. For the next 25 days, the ships moved through small islands along the southern coast of the island.
• June 12 - having traveled almost 1700 km along the southern coast of Cuba and not having reached only 100 km to the western tip of the island, Columbus decided to turn around, because the sea was very shallow, the sailors were dissatisfied, and provisions were running out. Before that, in order to protect himself from accusations of cowardice that could follow in Spain, he demanded that the entire team swear that Cuba is part of the continent, and therefore there is no point in sailing further. Turning back, the flotilla discovered the island of Evangelista (later named Pinos, and since 1979 - Juventud).
• June 25 - September 29 - on the way back they rounded Jamaica from the west and south, passed along the southern coast of Hispaniola and returned to La Isabella. By this time, Columbus was already quite seriously ill.
• In the past five months, Columbus's second brother, Bartolome, has brought three ships from Spain with troops and supplies. A group of Spaniards captured them and fled home. The rest scattered around the island, robbing and raping the natives. They resisted and killed part of the Spaniards. After returning, Christopher was ill for five months, and when he recovered, in March 1495 he organized the conquest of Hispaniola by a detachment of two hundred soldiers. The natives were almost unarmed, and Columbus used against them cavalry and specially trained dogs brought with him. After nine months of this persecution, the island was conquered. The Indians were taxed, enslaved in the gold mines and plantations. The Indians fled from the villages to the mountains, dying from unknown diseases brought by colonists from Europe. Meanwhile, the colonists moved to the southern coast of the island, where in 1496 Bartolome Columbus founded the city of Santo Domingo - future center Hispaniola, and later - the capital of the Dominican Republic.
• Meanwhile, the Spanish royal couple, having discovered that the income from Hispaniola (some gold, copper, valuable wood and several hundred slaves sent to Spain by Columbus) was insignificant, allowed all Castilian subjects to move to new lands, paying off the treasury in gold.
• April 10, 1495 - The Spanish government broke off relations with Columbus, and Amerigo Vespucci obtained the right to supply India until May 1498. January 11, 1496 Vespucci receives 10,000 maravedis from the treasurer Pinelo to pay the sailors' wages. In fact, he contracted to supply in Andalusia one (if not two) expeditions in India, in particular the third expedition of Columbus. The success of the Columbus enterprise inspired Amerigo with the idea of ​​​​leaving the trading business in order to get acquainted with the newly discovered part of the world.
• On June 11, 1496, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain to defend the rights granted to him earlier. He provided a document according to which he actually reached the Asian mainland (see above, although in fact it was the island of Cuba), stated that in the center of Hispaniola he discovered the wonderful country of Ophir, where gold was once mined for the biblical King Solomon. In addition, Columbus proposed sending not free settlers, but criminals, to new lands, reducing their sentence by half. The last proposal could not fail to find a response from the ruling elite, since, on the one hand, it rid Spain of unwanted elements, reducing the cost of keeping them in prisons, and on the other hand, it ensured the development of newly discovered lands with rather desperate “human material”.

Third expedition

Third expedition

Little money was found for the third expedition, and only six small ships and about 300 crew members went with Columbus, and criminals from Spanish prisons were accepted into the crew.

A representative of the Florentine bankers who financed the enterprise, Amerigo Vespucci, also went on an expedition with Alonso Ojeda in 1499. Approaching the South American mainland at a latitude of approximately 5 ° N. sh., Ojeda headed northwest, passed 1200 km along the coast of Guiana and Venezuela to the Orinoco Delta, then through the straits to the Caribbean Sea and to the Pearl Coast.

Meanwhile, Amerigo Vespucci, moving southeast, opened the mouths of the Amazon and Para rivers. Having risen in boats 100 kilometers upstream, he was never able to land on the shore because of the dense forest. Movement further to the southeast was extremely hampered by a strong oncoming current. This is how the Guiana Current was discovered. In total, Vespucci discovered about 1200 kilometers of the northeast coast of South America. Returning back to the north and northwest, Vespucci landed on Trinidad, and later connected with the ships of Ojeda. Together they surveyed the coast to the west of pearl coast, opened eastern part Caribbean Andes, participated in armed clashes with unfriendly Indians, discovered the islands of Curaçao and Aruba - the westernmost of the Lesser Antilles. The bay to the west was named Ojeda Venezuela ("little Venice"). Later, this name spread to the entire southern coast of the Caribbean Sea to the Orinoco Delta. In total, Ojeda explored more than 3,000 kilometers of the northern coast of unknown land and never found an end to it, which meant that such a land should be a mainland.

The fate of the remains

Tomb of Columbus in Seville

However, at the end of the 19th century, during the restoration of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, the oldest in the New World, a box with bones was discovered, on which it was written that they belonged to Columbus. After that, a dispute arose between Seville and Santo Domingo for the right to be considered the place where the great navigator rests.

The statue of Columbus has a height of 90 meters, which is twice more height Statue of Liberty without a pedestal. The sculpture weighs 599 tons. The Baltimore Sun called an article about Tsereteli's Columbus "From Russia with "ugh"".

Subsequently, the achievements of the Columbus monument were used by the sculptor in 1997 when erecting in Moscow, by order of the Moscow government, on the spit of Balchug Island between the Moscow River and the Vodootvodny Canal, a huge statue of Peter the Great in medieval clothes of a Spanish grandee at the helm of a Russian sloop 98 meters high.

In July 2010, it became known that on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, near the city of Arecibo, a statue of Christopher Columbus by Zurab Tsereteli would be installed.

The statue, divided into 2750 parts, lay in warehouses for two years. According to the government of Puerto Rico, it takes $20 million to reassemble it. The statue, if installed, will be the most tall building in US controlled territories Caribbean.

Demolition of monuments to Columbus in Venezuela

named after Columbus

• asteroid (327) Columbia, discovered in 1892
• ISS module Columbus

• Main Opera theatre Argentina Colon theater
• Columbus Theater in the book by Ilf and Petrov "12 chairs"

• Studio Columbia Pictures
• Monetary units of Costa Rica and El Salvador colon
• Argentinean football club from Santa Fe Colon
• Columbus exchange- movement of plants, animals, microorganisms and people from the Old World to the New and vice versa

On the money

Columbus on columns

In honor of Christopher Columbus (in Spanish Cristobal Colon) was named the currency of El Salvador - Salvadoran colon. On all issued denominations of all years of issue and all denominations, without exception, a portrait of a young or elderly Columbus was placed on the reverse side.

Reverse : 1 column , and		5, and

10, and		10 and 2

25 and 50		100, and

Columbus in philately

Filmography

• "Christopher Columbus" / Christopher Columbus (Italy-France-USA, 1985). Mini-series (4 episodes). Director

Columbus Christopher (1451-1506), navigator.

About 1472 he became a sailor; walked along mediterranean sea. In 1476 he arrived in Portugal, joined a small colony of Italian merchants in Lisbon and participated in voyages across the North Atlantic.

Around 1484, Columbus tried to interest the Portuguese king João II with his plan for an expedition to Asia not around Africa, but moving west. But the project was rejected (1485), and Columbus moved to Castile.

Queen Isabella of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon, agreed to support the expedition and promised to give Columbus a noble rank, the titles of admiral, viceroy and governor-general of all the islands and continents that he would discover.

On the morning of August 3, 1492, three ships ("Santa Maria", "Nina" and "Pinta") left Palos and headed west. On October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered one of the Bahamas, which he named San Salvador.

Assuming that he is in Asia, the navigator called the natives Indians. On October 27, he discovered the northeastern coast of Cuba, and on December 6, the island of Hispaniola (Haiti). Off the coast of Hispaniola, the ship "Santa Maria" ran aground, and Columbus, having founded the first settlement of Navidad, returned to Castile in March 1493.

Message about the discovery of rich lands, which the navigator considered part of East Asia, prompted the Castilian authorities to organize a second expedition. On September 25, 1493, a flotilla of 17 ships left Cadiz, reached the Canary Islands on October 2, and ten days later set sail across the Atlantic.

Having discovered a number of the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico, Columbus arrived in Hispaniola. However, it turned out that all the settlers left in Navidad died as a result of skirmishes with the natives. Columbus founded a new settlement, naming it La Isabela. In the spring of 1494, he undertook a voyage along the southern coast of Cuba, during which the islands of Guadeloupe and Jamaica were discovered, after which he returned to Hispaniola, where he organized a series of campaigns against the Indians who resisted the colonists. June 11, 1496 Columbus returned to Spain.

In the spring of 1498, he went on a third expedition, during which he discovered the island of Trinidad, the Orinoco Delta and a section of the northern coast of South America.

In 1500, Isabella and Ferdinand, in connection with the revolts of the Spanish colonists against Columbus, removed him from the management of the newly discovered lands, and only in March 1502
agreed to a new expedition. On May 11 of the same year, Columbus left Cadiz on four small caravels, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and reached the island on June 15, which he called Martinique.

Sailing through the Antilles archipelago, the expedition reached Hispaniola and continued along the coast of Central America. Columbus still believed that he was in Asia, not far from the Ganges River. Guayami Indians who lived on the newly open area(modern Panama), offered gold in exchange for goods, but resisted Columbus's attempts to establish a settlement and in April 1503 forced the Europeans to leave their lands.

Christopher Columbus - Spanish navigator and discoverer of new lands. He is best known for his discovery of America (1492).

Columbus was the first reliably known traveler to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the subtropical and tropical zone of the northern hemisphere and the first European to walk in the Caribbean. He laid the foundation for the discovery of the mainland of South America and the isthmuses of Central America. He discovered all the Greater Antilles - the central part of the Bahamas archipelago, the Lesser Antilles (from Dominica to Virgin Islands inclusive), as well as a number of small islands in the Caribbean Sea and the island of Trinidad off the coast of South America.

Since Europeans represented by the Icelandic Vikings (Leif Eriksson and others) visited North America as early as the 11th century, Columbus, strictly speaking, cannot be called the discoverer of America. However, since the expeditions of Columbus were essential to the subsequent colonization of the Americas, this terminology is widely used.

Italian by birth. Born in Genoa between August 25 and October 31, 1451 in the family of woolen weaver Domenico Colombo.
In 1470 he began to actively participate in commercial transactions (until 1473 under the leadership of his father). In 1474–1479 he made several voyages as part of the trading expeditions of the Genoese company Centurione Negro: he visited the island of Chios, England, Ireland, the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira. In 1476 he settled in Portugal. In 1482-1484 he visited the Azores and the Guinean coast (fort Sao Jorge da Mina).

Columbus was born into a poor Genoese family: father - Domenico Colombo, mother - Susanna Fontanarossa. In addition to Christopher, there were other children in the family: Giovanni (died in childhood, in 1484), Bartolomeo, Giacomo, Bianchella (married Giacomo Bavarello). Studied at the University of Pavia. Around 1470 he marries Doña Felipe Moniz de Palestrello. Her father was a famous navigator from the time of Prince Enrique. Until 1472, Columbus lived in Genoa, and from 1472 - in Savona. In the 1470s, he participated in sea trading expeditions. It is believed that as early as 1474, the astronomer and geographer Paolo Toscanelli told him in a letter that, in his opinion, India can be reached by a much shorter sea route if you sail west. Apparently, already then Columbus was thinking about his project of a sea voyage to India. Having made his own calculations based on the advice of Toscanelli, he decided that it was most convenient to sail through the Canary Islands, from which, in his opinion, there were about five thousand kilometers to Japan.

Christopher Columbus

From 1476, Columbus moved to Portugal, where he lived for nine years. It is known that in 1477 Columbus visited England, Ireland and Iceland, where he could get acquainted with the data of the Icelanders about the lands in the west. During this time, he also manages to visit Guinea as part of the expedition of Diogo de Azambuja, who went there in 1481 to build the fortress of Elmina (Sao Jorge da Mina)

The first appeal of Columbus with a proposal to sail to India to the west was in 1475-1480. He addressed it to the government and merchants of his native Genoa. There was no response.

1480s - During this period, the Portuguese were preoccupied with finding a sea route to Asia. The interest in this part of the world is explained quite simply: at that time, Asian spices alone often replaced money, but there were also incense, silk, carpets, luxury items ... There was no land route to Asia then - it was blocked by the powerful Ottoman Empire. I had to buy spices, silk and other exotic oriental goods from Arab merchants, losing big profits. The Portuguese saw only one route: round Africa, climb to Indian Ocean, and at the beginning of the decade, the king of Portugal, João II, equipped and sent an appropriate expedition. Columbus offered an alternative: reach Asia by moving west. Columbus's theory was based on the navigator's own calculations. But in fairness, it must be said that Columbus was not an innovator - the idea of ​​​​a western route to India was put forward in the ancient world by Aristotle and Protagoras.

Cristobal Colon

Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio .: This Portrait was made by the Florentine painter Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483-1561). This illustration may be considered to be in the public domain. This portrait was executed in the first half of the sixteenth century, after the death of Columbus. It is displayed in a showcase of the Museum of the sea and navigation of Genoa, "It Padiglione del Mare e della Navigazione."

In 1483, he proposes his project to the Portuguese king João II, but after a long study, the project is rejected.

In 1485, Columbus moved to Spain with his son Diego (apparently, he was fleeing persecution. In the winter of 1485-1486, he found shelter in the monastery of Santa Maria da Rabida in the status of a beggar. Abbot Juan Perez de Marchena accepted him and actually saved from starvation. He also organized the first letter to Fernando de Talavera, his friend - the queen's confessor, with a summary of the ideas of Columbus. The king of Spain was at that time in the city of Cordoba, where preparations were made for the war with Granada with the personal participation of sovereigns. During Columbus establishes links with royal financial advisers, merchants and bankers in 1486. ​​It was not until the winter of 1486 that Columbus was introduced to Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Grand Cardinal of Spain, who in turn facilitated an audience with the King of Spain. theologians, cosmographers, jurists, monks, courtiers reject him, considering his demands excessive.

Christopher Columbus, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right.

On April 20, 1488, Columbus unexpectedly received a letter from the Portuguese king with an offer to return to Portugal. The most interesting here were the following words of Their Majesty:

“And if you fear Our justice for some of your obligations, then know that neither after your arrival, nor during your stay in Portugal, nor after your departure, you will be arrested, detained, charged, convicted, or persecuted. for any reason arising from civil, criminal or any other law. »

Columbus sends his proposals to other addresses: from King Henry VII of England in February 1488, he received a favorable answer, but without any specific proposals.

Columbus and the Indian Maiden

1488 - a certain Beatriz Henriquez de Arana gives birth to Columbus's son Fernando. Columbus not only recognized the child, but also did not forget him later, after thirteen years he took him on one of his expeditions. It was Fernando who would later write a biography of his father, which would become the main source of information about the great navigator.

1492 - Spain is liberated from the Moors, and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella finally make a final decision about funding the search for a western route to Asia. In case of failure, they lost only the funds invested in the enterprise. In case of success, dizzying prospects opened up before Spain. Columbus was promised: a noble rank, the titles of admiral, viceroy and governor-general of all the islands and continents discovered on the expedition.

Christopher Columbus kneeling in front of Queen Isabella I.

On April 30, 1492, the royal couple grants Columbus and his heirs the title of “don” (that is, they make him a nobleman) and confirms that, if the overseas project is successful, he will be Admiral of the Sea-Ocean and Viceroy of all the lands that he discovers or will acquire, and be able to pass on these titles by inheritance. True, Columbus had to look for money to equip the expedition on his own due to the lost state tax payments of Her Majesty the Queen of Castile. In addition, according to the agreement, Columbus himself, who did not have a penny, had to bear an eighth of the costs.

Christopher Columbus being greeted by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on his return to Spain.

However, Columbus was helped by Martin Alonso Pinson. One of the ships - "Pinta" - was his own, and he equipped it at his own expense; he gave money for the second ship to Christopher, so that Columbus could make his formal contribution under the agreement. The money for the third ship, under his own guarantee, was given out by local Marranos (baptized Jews) as an offset of their payments to the budget. Among them was the rabbi and royal treasurer, the Castilian tutor Abraham Senior (Coronel) and his son-in-law Mayer Melomedes.

Between 1492 and 1504, Christopher Columbus undertook four exploratory expeditions at the behest of the Spanish king. He described the events of these expeditions in his logbook. Unfortunately, the original journal has not been preserved, but Bartolome de Las Casas made a partial copy of this journal, which has survived to this day, thanks to which many details of the expeditions described have become known.

Map four expeditions Columbus

First journey (August 3, 1492 - March 15, 1493).
Second journey (September 25, 1493 - June 11, 1496).
Third voyage (May 30, 1498 - November 25, 1500).
Fourth journey (May 9, 1502 - November 1504).

Dagli Orti "PINTA", "NINA" AND "SANTA MARIA" - the ships on which Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to the shores of America

First journey (1492–1493).
Early in the morning of August 3, 1492, the Columbus flotilla of three ships (the caravels Pinta and Nina and the four-masted sailing ship (nao) Santa Maria) with a crew of 90 people. left the port of Palos de la Frontera (near the confluence of the Rio Tinto in the Gulf of Cadiz).
On August 9, she approached the Canary Islands. After the repair of the "Pint" on the island of Homer, on September 6, 1492, heading west, the ships began crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Having passed the Sargasso Sea, Columbus turned to the southwest on October 7. On October 12, the Spaniards reached the island of Guanahani (modern Watling) in the Bahamas, the first land they encountered in the Western Hemisphere. Columbus Island called San Salvador (St. Savior), and its inhabitants - Indians, believing that he was off the coast of India. This day is considered the official date of the discovery of America.

Columbus announces open land property of the Spanish king

Having learned from the natives about the existence of a rich island in the south, Columbus left the Bahamas on October 24 and sailed further to the southwest. On October 28, the flotilla approached the shores of Cuba, named by Columbus "Juan". Then the Spaniards, inspired by the stories of local Indians, spent a month looking for the golden island of Baneke (modern Great Inagua).

The Landing of Columbus. Christopher Columbus and others showing objects to Native American men and women on shore.

On November 21, the captain of the Pinta M.A. Pinson took his ship away, deciding to search for this island on his own. Having lost hope of finding Baneke, Columbus turned east with the two remaining ships and on December 5 reached the northwestern tip of the island of Bohio (modern Haiti), which he named Hispaniola (“Spanish”). Moving along the northern coast of Hispaniola, on December 25, the expedition approached the Holy Cape (modern Cap Haitien), where the Santa Maria crashed and sank. This forced Columbus to leave part of the team (39 people) in the fort Navidad (“Christmas”) he founded and set off on the Nina on the way back (January 2, 1493). On January 6, he met "Pint".
On January 16, both ships headed northeast, using a favorable current - the Gulf Stream. On February 11-14, they got into a severe storm, during which the Pint was lost.
On February 15, Nina reached the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, but only on February 18 did she manage to land on the shore. The Portuguese governor of the island tried to detain the ship by force, but ran into the determined resistance of Columbus and let the travelers go.
On February 24, Nina left the Azores. On February 26, she again fell into a storm, which washed her on the coast of Portugal on March 4 near the mouth of the Tagus (Tajo). Juan II gave an audience to Columbus, at which he informed the king about the discovery of a western route to India and reproached him for refusing to support his project in 1484. Despite the advice of the courtiers to kill the admiral, Juan II did not dare to go into conflict with Spain, and on March 13, the Nina was able to sail home. March 15, on the 225th day of the voyage, she returned to Palos. Later, "Pinta" also came there. Isabella and Ferdinand gave Columbus a solemn reception and gave permission for a new expedition.

First Voyage, Departure for the New World, August 3, 1492

Second voyage (1493–1496).
On September 25, 1493, Columbus' flotilla of 17 caravels (except for ship crews, there were soldiers, officials, monks and colonists on board) left Cadiz and on October 2 reached Canary Islands ov.
On October 11, Columbus began crossing the Atlantic, heading more southerly than on his first voyage, as he planned to reach Hispaniola from the southeast. On November 3, the ships approached one of the Lesser Antilles, to which Columbus gave the name Dominica (it was Sunday - “the day of the Lord”); Aboriginal people who practiced ritual cannibalism, he called "cannibals." Then navigators discovered a number of other islands in the northern part of the Lesser Antilles archipelago - Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis, San Cristobal (modern St. Christopher), San Eustasio (modern Sint Eustatius), Santa Cruz and the "Islands of the Eleven Thousand Virgins "(Virgin Islands), and the large island of Boriken, renamed by the admiral to San Juan Batista (modern Puerto Rico).
Approaching the eastern tip of Hispaniola, the flotilla moved along its northern coast and on November 27 reached Fort Navidad, which was ruined; not a single colonist survived. East of the fort (at extreme bad place) Columbus founded a new settlement, naming it La Isabela in honor of the Queen of Spain. In January 1494, he sent an expedition inland under the command of A. de Ojeda, who obtained a huge amount of gold objects from the Indians. On February 2, the admiral sent twelve ships with booty home. In the spring of 1494, the Spaniards switched to a policy of systematic robbery and extermination of the local population.

Cristobal Colon apaciguando una rebelion a bordo.

Cristoforo Colombo in mezzo agli indigen

Leaving his brother Diego to manage Hispaniola, Columbus sailed west on April 24, 1494 with three ships, continuing to search for a route to Asia (China). April 29, he approached the eastern tip of Cuba. Moving along its southern coast, the flotilla reached Guantanamo Bay, and then turned south and on May 5 anchored off the northern coast of Jamaica. Faced with the open hostility of the natives, Columbus returned to the Cuban coast, headed west and reached Cortez Bay near the western tip of the island. Deciding that the Malacca Peninsula was in front of him, he turned back (June 13). Bypassing Jamaica from the south, the flotilla returned to La Isabela on September 29.

Christopher Columbus and his crew leaving the port of Palos, Spain, for the New World; crowd of well wishers looks on.

Throughout 1495, Columbus suppressed the uprising of the Indians that broke out in Hispaniola. In the same year, under the influence of complaints about the admiral from the colonists who fled to Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella deprived him of his monopoly on discovering overseas lands and sent their plenipotentiary J. Aguado to the island. After a conflict with J. Aguado, Columbus left Hispaniola on March 10, 1496, transferring power to his brother Bartolome. On June 11 he arrived in Cadiz.

Columbus and son at the convention of La Rábída, approaching prior Juan Pérez, who is surrounded by poor people.

The First Sight of the New World

Third voyage (1498–1500).
Although Ferdinand and Isabella had serious doubts about the profitability of Columbus' discoveries, the preparation by the Portuguese of a flotilla under the command of Vasco da Gama for a decisive throw into the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope forced them to agree to organize a third expedition to the west.

The Landing of Columbus at San Salvador, October 12, 1492.

The Landing of Columbus, 1492.

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