Who was Christopher Columbus?

Christopher Columbus was a Genoese seaman who married into a seafaring family; his wife’s grandfather had worked with Henry the Navigator himself, and Columbus’s father-in-law had made a name for himself exploring the African coast. Like many Italians of his age, he found work in Lisbon (where he moved in 1470) sailing under the Portuguese flag or, while stuck on land, selling charts and maps he drew himself. Like his wife’s father, Columbus had spent some time on Africa’s Gold Coast—where he’d seen firsthand how Portuguese and Africans dealt in slaves (among other commodities) with one another.