Christopher Columbus: Garnet Character

The real history

Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, was born around 1451 in Genoa, Italy. He believed he could reach Asia faster by sailing west across the Atlantic than by sailing around Africa. His estimate of the size of the Earth was too small, which made the trip seem far easier than it really was.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain backed him. He left Spain on August 3, 1492, with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12 he landed in the Bahamas, on an island that the Lucayan people called Guanahani and that he renamed San Salvador. Scholars still debate which island it was. Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies.

The lands were already home to many peoples. The Taino lived across the Caribbean in organized societies with their own leaders, religion, farming and trade. Columbus enslaved Taino people and the Spanish colonists who followed kept doing so. Enslavement, violence and diseases brought from Europe devastated the Taino. By about 1550 their population had collapsed, and the Lucayans of the Bahamas had been essentially wiped out within about thirty years of Columbus's landing.

Columbus crossed the Atlantic four times, in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502, and he never found the riches he had promised. He died in 1506. Taino influence still survives in Caribbean languages, foods and traditions, including canoes, hammocks and tobacco.

Sources

1. Columbus and the Taino, Library of Congress, Exploring the Early Americas
2. Oct 12, 1492 CE: Columbus Makes Landfall in the Caribbean, National Geographic Education
3. Christopher Columbus, HISTORY

Checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.