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Christopher Columbus Persuasive Essay

1169 Words5 Pages

Aishah Al Tarmoum 0013962
American Lit. 1, 1:00 PM

Christopher Columbus: An Explorer or a Victim?
We all have plans and dreams for our futures that we cherish and nurture. We often hold these plans close to our hearts, an interior blueprint we can refer back to and attempt to build our lives. We eventually learn through the years that we don’t always get our way. What we want is not always handed to us regardless of how hard we fight for it or how much we want it. It seems to be the case with Christopher Columbus, an explorer who had been exploited by a higher power in the race of colonization.
Columbus was an Italian explorer born in 1451 in Genoa. After developing a plan to find an easier and new way to Asia, in 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. Columbus had persisted in demonstrating his project to the court of Portugal twice. However, with Portugal, Genoa and Venice’s rejection, he resorted to Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain, who accepted to financially aid him in his journey.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships. In late October, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December, the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus …show more content…

A friendly group, they willingly traded jewelry, animals, and supplies with the sailors. “They were very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces,” Columbus wrote in his letter to the king and queen of Spain. “They do not carry arms or know them.... They should be good servants.” The natives were soon forced into slavery and punished with the loss of a limb or death if they did not collect enough gold. Between the European’s brutal treatment and their infectious diseases, within decades, the Taino population was

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