“The US honors 2 people with holidays bearing their names. Martin Luther King Jr, who gave his life combatting the legacy of slavery, and Christopher Columbus, who initiated it in the first place. (Confronting Columbus)”. Christopher Columbus, often known as a brave adventurer, was actually a perpetrator of genocide. Columbus Day should not be celebrated because of the horrendous behavior Columbus showed off, between the atrocities committed against the Natives and the self-absorption Columbus had, shows that he is not in fact a hero, but instead a villain.
Christopher Columbus was born on October 31, in about 1450 to a weaver and a housewife to a moderately rich family. Columbus knew from a young age that he wanted to pursue a higher education
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Thousands of Natives died at the hands of Columbus and his men. They found their way into settlements and slaughtered just about anyone who got in their way. about 40,000 natives died on the first expedition, mostly from being thrown to wild dogs, being forced into slavery, or being subjected to torture. Columbus’ main goal in all of this? He wanted to be as rich as possible, cutting off their hands if they didn’t comply with his orders to find him gold. 7,000 native children died from starvation in the 3-4 months after Columbus and his men arrived at the island. They collected pregnant women from all over the island, wagered the genders of their babies, then sliced open their bellies. It didn’t even matter if they were right or wrong about the gender of the baby, because either way the mothers were killed and the babies were thrown aside. The men also split apart Taino families into slave groups. Each white man had a posse of slaves to do work for them, and in a “fair trade” taught them all about Christianity. While many people argue that Columbus was just a man of his time, we live in the present, and in the present it is believed that one must be punished for the crimes he commits. In addition, the evidence about Columbus’ murders, rapes, slavery, and kidnapping of Native Americans show that this man was never good, and that he only really “discovered” Hispaniola for his own
The Natives were killed by the European diseases, and after enduring this they were then forced into European law through the Economedia system. Without his discovery, this may have been avoided or handled in a more careful way. Also, Christopher Columbus had many accounts of rape, as well as murder. He wasn’t the only man committing either of these atrocities, but his fame brings these faults
In fourteen ninety two, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue to find the world of new. Though the History books have a preconceived idea that he was a benevolent adventurer, Bartolome De Las Casas proclaims Columbus’ interactions differently. De Las Casas described several events during Columbus’ encounter with the Native Americans. Columbus demoralized the Native Americans by regarding them as subhumans, disintegrated their families, and committed mass murders. What the textbooks fail to include are the immoralities that could possibly shed a new light on your perspective of Christopher Columbus.
It is evident that Zinn tries to tear down the reputation of Columbus and his men by calling them thieves. He clearly states that “they had roamed the island in gangs, looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor” (Zinn 2). The author illustrates how Columbus created the natives into adherents whom would give him and his men anything they wanted, whether that be gold, sex, or money. Likewise, Zinn also shows his dislike for Columbus by making him out to be a cold blooded murderer. It is made evident that the author thinks Columbus is a killer when he states “Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death” and any natives that fled from the scene “were hunted down with dogs and killed” (Zinn 3).
Although Christopher Columbus marked a turning point in history, he was not the hero he’s said to be. For one, he enslaved countless amounts of natives after his arrival in the “New World”. He believed they’d make good servants and put them to work finding gold for him. He also mutilated these enslaved people if they did not find enough gold for him. They were usually punished by the loss of a limb and, on occasion, by death.
While Columbus was the first European to sail to America he set a path that others will follow. One of these being slavery. While Columbus was killing the Natives he then forced labor upon them. “ The people of Haiti, where Columbus established a colony in 1493, were almost completely exterminated within one generation, due directly or indirectly to Columbus’ actions” ( Source 4). This caused suffering to the Africans and once they died out he brought in Natives to finish their work.
The accomplishments of Christopher Columbus should be celebrated because in spite of his faults, he was able to free the downtrodden Europeans, create a land of diversity, cultural acceptance and freedom, and by celebrating him, celebrate ethnic heritage and education. Columbus was “a noble-minded visionary who opened up new land of opportunity for the oppressed masses of Europe,” (M. Castronovo Fusco 1) giving way to a great new nation that upheld diversity and independence. Even though Columbus and his voyages had horrible flaws, “the symbolism of Christopher Columbus was that of a voyage of freedom. It really was the start of globalization of our world” (M. Castronovo Fusco 1). Without Columbus, the Old World and New World would not have connected and important technology and agricultural trade and tips would not have been exchanged.
The history of Christopher Columbus has been a shared piece of history in the education systems. American history books and majority of cultures portray Columbus as a hero. The United States of America honors Christopher with a holiday named Columbus Day, which occurs the second Monday in October. Also, historians divide Columbus’s history in a similar way as Jesus, example: before 1492 known as pre-Columbian. The school textbooks preserve Columbus with a positive life story and don’t include all the negative events that took place.
Christopher Columbus’s journal describes the Natives as having “marks of wounds on their bodies” and that they indicated the wounds are from “people from other adjacent islands came with the intention of seizing them, and that they defended themselves”. This is what many accuse Columbus of doing, and while he did seize natives, it was already happening before he got there. There we much worse occurrences, such as terrible acts of “sacrifice” done by the Aztecs. Schweikart and Allen said in the book A Patriot’s History of the United State that “A four-day sacrifice in 1487 by the Aztec king Ahuitzotl involved the butchery of 80,400 prisoners by shifts of priests working four at a time at convex killing tables who kicked lifeless, heartless bodies down the side of the pyramid temple. This worked out to a killing rate of fourteen victims a minute over the ninety-six-hour bloodbath”.
Sometimes when there are too many bad it out weighs the good. Columbus could’ve found other ways to prove his point. He didn’t formulate an agreement that would work for his ‘scheme’ with the Tainos. Instead he just drove his way through not recognizing the people as the natural inhabitants. Some individuals say that the Tainos knew of other kidnapping amongst tribes but didn’t realize that tribal warfare was very limited.
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and a cartographer who was chronologically tentative to be born before October 31,1451(no one really knows because of this time of error). He went on a voyage in 1492 using circumnavigation to avoid having to go
Thus, Zinn basically explains how numerous people’s viewpoints on Columbus are being warped into thinking Christopher Columbus was a heroic adventurer who did not cause any bloodshed, when in fact, he and many Spaniards killed and captured numerous Arawak people because of their greed for conquest, slavery, death, and the most precious of them all,
(Examining the Reputation). On top of killing one hundred thousand people in the time it takes to earn a diploma, Columbus stripped the natives of their liberty. The innocent were subjected to mining gold for the explorers. If they did not reach their quarterly quota, their hands were chopped off. (Discovering Columbus.)
Howard Zinn takes the perspective that Christopher Columbus is not the hero that many people perceive him to be. He views him as a cruel and greedy leader who went to the Americas causes death in his wake for his unquenchable search for gold. Columbus took advantage of the Native Americans because at first they were "so naive and so free with their possessions"() by forcing them to collect gold for him else face the punishment of death. While Columbus may or may have not been as heartless as he is made out to be, he is not truly the one to blame for the harsh treatment of the natives on the Caribbean Islands. Almost every other European (at that time) that could have been in his position would have undoubtedly done the same things as Columbus.
Evidence: “When slavery did not pay off, Columbus turned to a tribute system, forcing every Taíno, 14 or older, to fill a hawk’s bell with gold every three months” (Huffington Post). Evidence: If the Taínos failed to complete the mission, “Columbus ordered that Taíno be ‘punished,’ by having their hands chopped off, or they were chased down by attack dogs” (Huffington Post). Acknowledgement: Columbus had to fulfill his
After sending them on a search for gold, the ones who found nothing had their hands cut off, and they ultimately bled to death. If some tried to defy his laws, they were hanged or burned at the stake. Columbus and his men literally had total control over the natives, which led to complete domination. With their lack of weapons, they were unable to fight back. Some of his soldiers were so despicable, they rode on the backs of the natives, like they were horses.