Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer who is well known for “discovering” North America. In reality Christopher was trying to get to China and thought he was in Japan all 4 times he went to North America. He was actually in what is now the Bahamas and Cuba. And really Christopher didn't even discover America. The Native Americans beat Columbus by thousands of years.
Almost every state and school use to celebrate this national holiday; Columbus Day. Sadly, people around the country have decided that Columbus Day should no longer have his own holiday. Schools, and many Columbus Day parades have decided to cancel their parades and schools no longer have a ¨Columbus Day¨. Still people think Columbus was a brave good man, while others believe he was a terrible soul that’s greedy and cruel.
Columbus had never seen people like those of the natives and the natives likewise so for both groups it was a new experience. Columbus took advantage of this and showed social oppression over the natives. He and his men murdered many natives and enslaved even more and forced them to adopt their culture. The natives were tortured, their resources were taken, they were raped and slaughtered all for Columbus’s gain. He made the natives think that he was a friendly face from a foreign land but in reality he only wished to use the intermingling of the two cultures to obtain personal goals.
The first reason for why Christopher Columbus should not be celebrated is because he committed mass genocide against the Native Americans. “Endless testimonies...prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives…. But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder,” -Bartolome Las Casas, 1527. This shows how Columbus's crew, as well as him killed for amusement. Not only that he liked to kill in brutal ways like mutilation or being ripped apart by dogs.
Americans celebrate so many holidays and enjoy their days off without truly knowing the history behind the events leading up to the creation of these “sacred” days. Elementary school students all around America learn the rhyme “in 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean blue” and celebrate his “discovery” of America. Columbus Day has been celebrated for two hundred years. Although the American population does not know all the details about Columbus. He was a greedy person and essentially started slavery in the United States. People should not celebrate Columbus Day because Christopher Columbus is not the heroic and courageous man many believe him to be.
The world has glorified many historical people especially early explorers. One such explorer is Christopher Columbus. Historians have discovered that perhaps Columbus Was given honor prematurely.
Christopher Columbus is a man who is commonly depicted as a hero and great explorer who discovered our modern day America, but many of the so called “facts” are not all completely true as people would like to believe. Columbus was undoubtedly a courageous explorer who brought many new ideas, cultures, and resources to be exchanged between the New World and Europe. While this is true, it is not uncommon for people to forget the harmful effects brought along with the voyages made by Columbus and the darker details of his times in America.
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”. That is absolutely insane. Christopher Columbus may have killed people for shady reasons, he didn’t rip out the beating heart of innocent people, which may be one of the most painful ways to die. Even outside of sacrifices, apparently “crime and street carnage were commonplace” in the Aztec empire. Some Native Americans weren’t as peaceful as many make them out to be. This is why Columbus shouldn’t be criticized as much as he is for killing
Was Christopher Columbus a hero or a villain? Not everyone will agree on this topic because everyone has a different point of view in the way he discovered the New World. Most people would say that he is a hero. We celebrate each year on the second Monday of every October of when he discovered the New World.
For many years, people have debated over whether Christopher Columbus is a hero or a villain. Based on background research I have done, Columbus, to me, has proven to be a villain. Columbus forced the Indigenous people of America (Native Americans) to change their religion. He put them into slavery and abused them. They were also infected by the diseases that the Spaniards were immune to. He showed not on ounce of respect for the Native American people. This is why Columbus is a villain. General Summary of why stating there are __ reasons that will be discussed
First, Columbus treated the Native Americans like uncivilized people by enslaving them and forcing them to work for him although they greeted him and his crew peacefully. ”They could make fine servants,”(document 2) he wrote in his journal,”I took them by force.”(document 3)
Christopher Columbus did more than explore the new world. His punishments to the native people included “hacking off hands, noses and ears if the natives protested their forced enslavement to work in gold mines” (Murphy). According to Columbus, if the Native Americans refused to follow the “superior” Europeans’ orders,
I have my reasons for considering Columbus a villain. For example Because of him there is much less diversity in animals. And if that wasn’t bad enough he is also the reason why there are very few native americans left. Because of Columbus fifty to ninety percent of
To start off with I will be telling you how Christopher Columbus is a bad villain. One reason on how C.C. was a villain is that he never treated the native americans equal to each other and he had them as slaves that would work for him, but if they didn’t work or didn’t cooperate with him they would kill them. Also another reason why C.C. was
Even though many people believe that christopher columbus was a hero I have found in my opinion that I believe he was a villain. I believe this because in the 4th document in the article about Christopher Columbus it was said that many people and indians were killed after his arrival and before his arrival there were many more people there than after his arrival. The people were killed from war, slavery and working in mines for Columbus. One other reason that I believe he was a villain is because if I was those people who were ruled by Columbus I would have stood up for not just me but everyone who was being mistreated by Columbus.