Preview

Christopher Columbus

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
481 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Christopher Columbus
As he exits the large pyramid built to the god of the sun, a young Mayan boy watches the sun rise over what is now known as the Gulf of Mexico. Mayan’s, Aztec’s, Inca’s, and a whole legion of different peoples lived, cultivated, and died in what is now known as America. These peoples did not have to be told that their land “America”, existed. Year after year people innocently, and ignorantly celebrate the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Convincing Evidence shall be presented that will demonstrate that Murder, manipulation, and malice, were just three things that Columbus believed in and practiced when he arrived in America. After reading this paper, I challenge you, if you can, to celebrate in all joy the day of Christopher Colombus.
According to Richards topical encyclopedia, volume 14 (pg.441), Christopher Columbus and most of his contemporaries believed he was the first discoverer of the new continent, but they were all wrong. It has been proven that the Scandinavian Leif Eriksson breifly colonized what is now called NewFoundland in A.D. 1011. Interestingly enough, the world renowned historian David Beers Quinn, suggests that Englishmen arrived in 1481, a few years before Colombus. Not only was Colombus not the first to discover the new world, he did not even land on the new world. Colombus actually landed on an Island near the virgin Islands, 1200 miles south east of the new world which is in Atlantic waters.
In light of the fact that all this information is widely known, people continue to celebrate Columbus as a hero who deserves to be celebrated for all the good things which he did. Good things? On his return to Spain from the new world, Colombus took several of the Native prisoners with him as evidence of his discovery. However only seven survived the trip. Colombus reported in his journals to the King of Spain that he would repeatedly killed natives in order to show the rest of them that he had power over them. One of the native

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Christopher Columbus: Spanish explorer who, with the backing of Ferdinand V and Isabella I, discovered the North American continent on October 12,1492. Though he was originally seeking a westward route to India, his fleet of ships consisting of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria reached the island of Hispanola, claiming it for Spain.…

    • 806 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Intro: The discovery of the “New World” is portrayed as a wonderful time by almost all Americans on Columbus Day each and every year. If people knew the true story about what really happened as accounted by Bartolome de Las Casas then there would be less celebrating and realization that we, as people, are idolizing a false hero. The brutal awakening portrayed by de Las Casas in his account allows us to see what really happened in the Indies and prove why Columbus and other explorers aren’t the…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This paper is about Christopher Columbus and how he sailed 33 days to find a quicker route to Asia. Only to land in the Caribbean islands and enslave the Indians to gain power and information. This suppose to show how Columbus was a villain instead of a hero discovering America.…

    • 340 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reading Howard Zinn’s viewpoint on Columbus, the Indians, and the human progress I can now confirm/characterize that Columbus is, as historical figure, not a hero, but somewhere in between being a hero and a villain (being more towards a villain). Throughout the whole reading the reader can notice how Colombus’ mistake of finding a new route to Asia and mistakenly discovering an unknown land to the Europeans caused great pain for the natives who were forced into labor/made into slaves to go find and bring Colombus gold, so he can give it to Spain for them to send more ships to Columbus to get more gold for the country’s wealth, and when they couldn’t find any they would be killed. Colombus’ discovery led to many deaths and the Europeans…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    So, after all his horrible treatment to the natives, lying to the Spanish rulers, and doing all the horrible things he did, did Columbus do anything good? Well, there are several things that can be considered okay.…

    • 984 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    today Christopher Columbus is one of two people to have their name marked on a national holiday. If we knew the true facts of Christopher Columbus would we be less likely to celebrate and honor him on that day? Christopher Columbus was ooking for a new route to the east to get spices because the Turks closed the land route. After two months at sea he landed in the West Indies. He found a new contient, so we were taught. For centuries fishermen and seamen had known the earth was roung. The Turks made money from the land routes being open so they had not reason to close the land routes. Europeans had been fishing off of Newfoundland in 1480's. For thousand of years the Irish an dPhoenicians had visited Canada and New England, Columbus' purpose fro the beginning was not exploration or trade, but conquest and exploitation. the fact that sailors carried small pox, bubonic plague adn influenza killed a very large percentage of the natives everywhere they went. Taking of land , wealth and labor from the natives which caused their near extermination and the transatlanti slave trade which created racial underclass were introduces by Columbus that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world. When Christopher Columbus could not find gold to take, he took slaves and shipped them to Europe. He mistreatedthe natives he came upon, taking their land and raping their…

    • 1398 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Regardless of whether or not Christopher Columbus was a moral man, or the fact he discovered America with the intentions of finding a trade route to Asia, or whether or not his intentions were good or bad he was a man of his era who started a new period of exploration and trade. This period ultimately led to the development of the greatest republic known to this date.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I must admit, at the onset, that I have a pretty negative thoughts about Columbus. My teenage idealization of the man who "discovered" America was crushed when I read the text book and hearing class discussions. From the book, I learned how Columbus enslaved and murdered thousands of Arawaks and other Native American people. The New World he had once portrayed as a paradise had swiftly spun into something much darker. Columbus's actions were unjustifiable immoral, to say the very least, inhumane. However, he honestly believed that he was doing a good thing by "converting" the Arawaks. Based on the cruel historical events and the fact that he didn’t really discover America. Why should he be celebrated?…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” We all have been hearing this saying ever since we were little. Is he really a hero? He found a new world and jump started an age of exploration like no other. After he found the Americas there…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Christopher Columbus is one of the most well known names in the western world because of what he accomplished during his lifetime. He was an explorer, a navigator, and a colonizer and, with his unrelenting determination, he would be the man to “discover” the New World. Although he thought that he found India and a better route to Asia rather than sailing around the southern tip of Africa, he had really stumbled upon the Americas. While he may have had the actual location wrong, his accidental discovery has effectively changed the timeline of human existence greatly, and has helped shape the world as we know it into what it is today.…

    • 3292 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Christopher Columbus is well known in history as the greatest explorer of all time. His voyages and discoveries of new land inspired many other Europeans to explore the world. One of his biggest and most significant discoveries, was the New World. During his voyage, Columbus kept a detailed record of what occurred during his time of exploration. His record is a clear depiction of his poor treatment of the Natives who already lived in the New World. Christopher Columbus was a villain, because of his treatment of the Native Americans and the tremendous decline in population he was responsible for when he arrived to the New World.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The textbook also fails to mention that the “copper-skinned people Columbus brought back” were likely either treated as slaves or ultimately killed by their European oppressors. In conclusion, the textbook attempts to portray Columbus in a heroic manner by describing him as a man with unmatched determination, while choosing to leave out certain details that may tarnish his reputation.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bartolome de las Casas

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The impressions I had about Columbus’ discovery of the New World are completely destroyed by this firsthand account of the horrible truth concerning the native people of America. In both middle and elementary school, I read about the discovery of Christopher Columbus and the evils of both the settlers and Native Americans. Never before, though, had I heard of the torturous, unprovoked attacks directed at the innocent. Never before had I felt such disgust toward people claiming to be Christians. Never before had I known how good and virtuous the natives, at least a large portion of them, were toward the settlers and in their lifestyles. We spend so much time in our schools learning about the horrors of World War II and about how Jews were discriminated against to the point of extermination towards extinction. Civil rights are also studied, and I am in no way displacing the crucial reminders of what African Americans went through in the United States’ past. However, although history textbooks typically mention settlers taking lands, killing off tribes, and taking advantage of the Indians ignorance in the ways of earthly possessions and worth, all I have ever learned concerning the unfair treatment adds up to nothing more than a single scratch on a gory corpse. Compared to this brief, breathtaking, bone-chilling account, I consider my days as blissfully ignorant over as the ugly facts melt away the sugar-coated excuses of angry, murderous tribes forcing…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Christopher Columbus can in no way, shape, or form be considered a hero. A hero is someone who performs good deeds for the sake of others and not for their own benefit. Christopher Columbus did not do a single good deed in any of his four voyages in the late 1400 's. Christopher Columbus was not the founder of the Americas we live in today because he did not set a single foot on these grounds, even if he did there were already the natives who inhabited the land. When he first sited land it was further down south in the Caribbean Islands. Christopher Columbus can be considered the enforcer of slavery. Slavery was already going on when he left Spain. However, the natives could be used for trade with other goods, this was known as the slave trade. He and his crew basically enslaved a whole race of men, women, and children. When Christopher Columbus discovered what he thought to be the "New World", he had no idea that he would find a whole race of people. His intensions were to go out and find gold and spices to bring back to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in Spain.…

    • 668 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Columbus day is a national holiday in America celebrating the man that “discovered’ America. The problem is that he did nothing good for America. He brought slaves and disease to America, or what he thought was Asia. Columbus was an Italian, when Italy didn’t want to pay for his voyages he went to Spain's king and queen to ask them for the money, they agreed on the condition that he paid them back. When Columbus got to what he thought was Asia, but in reality was the caribbean islands, he captured slaves and sent them back to spain. This didn’t make him as much money as he hoped because most of the slaved died on the ships returning from the caribbean. When he went back he had the help of hundreds of slaves to help him find gold. When the…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics