Christopher Columbus and His Travels
Introduction/Background Information In the 1400s and 1500s, the leaders of a couple of European nations engaged in sponsoring abroad expeditions hoping that the explorers would come across great and plentiful undiscovered wealth, as well as lands. The Portuguese were the pioneers in this period commonly referred to as the “Age of Discovery.” In fact, from around 1420, their caravels or small ships were patrons of the African coast, ferrying slaves, gold, spices, and other merchandise between Africa and Europe, including Asia (Wilford 66). One explorer, in particular, stood out as a champion voyager at around this time, and his name was Christopher Columbus. This paper examines him as the person of interest in the discovery age and discusses his four trips made from Spain across the Atlantic …show more content…
From a young age, he was fascinated by the sea, which was the center of life in his hometown where ships were constructed along the shore, and trading vessels regularly came and went from the coast of Genoa (Gallagher 4). Columbus entered upon sea sailing at the tender age of fourteen, as his father would send him on short journeys to buy wool and sell his cloth in the towns lining the Mediterranean Sea coast. Upon growing a bit older, he began earning his living as a sailor and acquired necessary skills such as handling the sails, estimating distances, steering, as well as other seamanship elements. When he was twenty-five, he took a trip on the open seas to deliver goods to Flanders and England. Unfortunately, pirates attacked his ship, the Bechalla, and sunk it, even as many sailors drowned. Columbus was lucky to grasp onto a piece of the wreckage, and as an excellent swimmer, he made it to shore on a beach in Portugal. He recovered and visited his brother Bartholomew in Lisbon and started working as a
Introduction/Background Information In the 1400s and 1500s, the leaders of a couple of European nations engaged in sponsoring abroad expeditions hoping that the explorers would come across great and plentiful undiscovered wealth, as well as lands. The Portuguese were the pioneers in this period commonly referred to as the “Age of Discovery.” In fact, from around 1420, their caravels or small ships were patrons of the African coast, ferrying slaves, gold, spices, and other merchandise between Africa and Europe, including Asia (Wilford 66). One explorer, in particular, stood out as a champion voyager at around this time, and his name was Christopher Columbus. This paper examines him as the person of interest in the discovery age and discusses his four trips made from Spain across the Atlantic …show more content…
From a young age, he was fascinated by the sea, which was the center of life in his hometown where ships were constructed along the shore, and trading vessels regularly came and went from the coast of Genoa (Gallagher 4). Columbus entered upon sea sailing at the tender age of fourteen, as his father would send him on short journeys to buy wool and sell his cloth in the towns lining the Mediterranean Sea coast. Upon growing a bit older, he began earning his living as a sailor and acquired necessary skills such as handling the sails, estimating distances, steering, as well as other seamanship elements. When he was twenty-five, he took a trip on the open seas to deliver goods to Flanders and England. Unfortunately, pirates attacked his ship, the Bechalla, and sunk it, even as many sailors drowned. Columbus was lucky to grasp onto a piece of the wreckage, and as an excellent swimmer, he made it to shore on a beach in Portugal. He recovered and visited his brother Bartholomew in Lisbon and started working as a