Why Columbus Isnt a Hero

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who was sailing for Spain. Many people credit him for the discovery of America, but he didn’t really discover anything. He took credit for finding land that already had people living on it and claiming it for Spain. Some people look at Columbus as a hero and the founder of America. Others look at him a different way, more like a villain for the terrible things he did to the native Americans and how he took credit for something he never discovered. Columbus is not worthy of his honor and shouldn’t be looked at as a hero because of the things he did and because he was a liar. Columbus established many things while he was trying to colonize the Americas. A couple of those things are the tribute and encomienda systems. These systems forced the native Americans to work for the colonists. The majority of the work they did was mining for gold. Unfortunately because of the hard forced labor many Indians suffered and committed suicide. Since so many of them committed suicide and even mass suicides there was a dramatic decrease in their population. The decrease in population and suicides can all be blamed on Columbus because the systems he established were the reasons for them. After Columbus returned to Spain after his voyage he told king Ferdinand he discovered such fertile lands. He never discovered any of the land he did he just took over the natives lands. After he took over the lands he asked the king to send people so he could start a colony. He told the king “ and your highness will command a city and fortress to be built in these parts, and these lands converted.” He wanted to build a new city and use the lands to make a great profit. This is another reason why he’s not worthy of his honor because he could care less about the native Americans all he wanted was their land and to use them as slaves. Columbus was a very greedy person that got extremely lucky when he came across the Americas. All he wanted was to take all the gold he could get. Las Casas says an Arawak leader told his tribe “they make us suffer” “persecute us” the reason Columbus did this is all for gold it was his “lord” and why he was so greedy. Since the Indians never saw anyone like Columbus he knew it would be easy to make them fear him. Since many of them feared him it made it very easy for him to take advantage of them especially since they were not as advanced as other parts of the world like Europe. During this time Columbus did many things without telling the Spanish king. He was only worried about himself and didn’t care about anything except what was best for him. Columbus was a ruthless killer that thought during his time what he was doing could be justified, he even tried to defend what he was doing. Through his eyes he saw nothing wrong with everything he did, but many others did. People such as Pedro de Cordoba and Las Casas knew what he was doing to the native Americans was horrible. He created new slave systems that caused mass suicides and decreased populations, took over lands, and was and extremely greedy person. Columbus is not worthy of his honor as an American hero and we shouldn’t celebrate his achievements for killing people and claiming land that wasn’t his because of all of these things.