How should we as a society view Columbus? Should he be celebrated? Vilified? Something else? Why?
Read the following articles on Columbus, each of which provides a differing interpretation, and answer the questions posed above.
The moral dimensions of 1492
Genocide in the Americas
When Worlds Collide:
Clash of Cultures during the Age of Discovery
Responses due by Tuesday 7:30am 10/11
49 comments:
It was over 500 years ago when Christopher Columbus first set foot on Western Hemisphere soil. Columbus had the important task of establishing a president of the behaviors one should exhibit, and the relations one should keep with the native inhabitants. Unfortunately for the tribes that encountered Columbus, there were only two things that were a given: brutal treatment, and plague. After this horrid man was finished with one tribe, he selfishly moved to others seeking treasure and slaves. Rather than celebrated as the man whom discovered the New World, Columbus should be vilified, and be remembered for what he truly was; a monster that unleashed disease on innocent people, and started a trend of horrendous treatment towards these native tribes.
Although not entirely his fault, Christopher Columbus almost single handedly unleashed a plague many times worse than that of the bubonic plague a few centuries before. Upon Columbus’s arrival, it is estimated that over 25 million people were living in the Americas. After only one month, the island of Hispaniola had lost 50,000 inhabitants just to disease alone. In central Mexico too, the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was once a sprawling capitol with tens of millions of civilians. Columbus’s voyage killed all but about a million of them in a matter of three quarters of a century. Such massive death and disease of the native people is only one of the accomplishments executed by Columbus. If Americans surely don’t celebrate the man that began spreading the Spanish flu, or even the Swine Flu, why celebrate a man who did the same centuries ago? It makes very little sense why a man who led to the killings of over 90% of a people be celebrated and hailed as a hero and man of brilliance when his quest for riches caused such unneeded death.
Similar to George Washington, Christopher Columbus had the crucial and risky job of establishing a president for the new world he helped create. Rather than focusing on relations and creating a period of peace and prosperity, Columbus had his own plans. For his own profit, Columbus began enslaving the men and women who gave him kindness and goods that he eventually brought back to Europe. He brutally and shamelessly worked men and children to death through forced labor, and tortured those who didn’t work exactly how he wanted them to. Added to the plague he had introduced to the New World, the result was utter chaos and destruction like the world hadn’t seen, and wouldn’t see again until the Holocaust more than a few centuries later. As if it couldn’t get any worse, this horrific treatment became the “norm” so to speak in most of Spain’s and Europe’s behavior towards the native inhabitants of the Americas. This man created a movement that has killed and displaced almost all of the natives in the Western Hemisphere, and only recently has there been notions to stop the catastrophe. It is similar to compare Columbus to Hitler himself, murdering the innocent for self profit and glory. It’s very un-American and morally wrong to celebrate such a cruel and heartless individual.
Although a perpetrator of both of these things, Columbus is still loved and adored by many, whereas he should be treated with contempt. He unleashed a plague and brutally murdered and tortured innocent men women and children, and somehow is still hailed as a hero in many parts of the world. This day should be one that is somber and full of remembrance, rather than an excuse to celebrate such a cruel and thoughtless man.
While many Americans consider Columbus Day a holiday and celebrate the day by taking off from school and work, Christopher Columbus is not the hero he is made out to be. He was responsible for a mass genocide of the native people living in the Americas. However, he was also responsible for initiating an intellectual transformation which changed the world forever. Therefore, Columbus is a man who should not be regarded as a hero or a benefactor. However, he should not be completely looked down upon due to the fact he started a new age of learning and research in Europe.
There is no disputing the fact Columbus exterminated many Native Americans. When Columbus landed in the Americas, he realized that it was full of land that can be used for European profit. So, in order for the land to be utilized, he must eliminate the people already living on the land. This contributed to a mass genocide of the Native Americans. One British Colonist wrote, “so rowted, slayne, and dispersed…that they are no longer a nation” (Stannard 431). In addition, Columbus’s treatment of the Native Americans has been compared to Hitler’s Holocaust by Jan Elliott, editor of an anti-Columbus newspaper. In addition to massacres, Columbus used many inhumane ways to torture the natives. With a method called germ warfare, Columbus and other European explorers spread smallpox to Native American tribes through infected blankets and handkerchiefs. If Columbus did not murder the Native Americans right away, he used them as a source of labor and work them to death. According to David Stannard, the life expectancy of Native Americans who were put to work was about 4 months, which was the same of the life expectancy as a prisoner working in Auschwitz. The workers of Auschwitz are not considered heroes by society, so in no way should Columbus be considered a hero as well.
However, all of Columbus’s actions should not be condemned. His journey to the New World sparked the Modern Age in Europe, which changed the way people viewed the world. After Columbus’ voyage, scientists moved away from the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe. People started to realize that the Earth revolved around the sun and rotated on an axis. This idea influenced great astronomers and scientists such as Galileo and Copernicus to make observations about the planets. Most importantly, however, Columbus’s journey changed the social order of the world. A new class of people, called the bourgeoisie, emerged and were now in charge of spreading ideas found during Columbus’ age of discovery, such as a confirmation that the Earth was spherical. This gave less power to the church because they no longer relayed scientific information to the people.
In conclusion, Columbus should not be regarded as a hero due to the mass genocide he caused in the New World. However, he should be given credit as a man who sparked a new age of learning in society.
When Christopher Columbus is mentioned, he is thought of as the man who discovered the "New World". This is an untrue assumption however. Although Columbus was one of the first people to reach the Americas, he himself believed that he had simply found a faster way to reach the Indies, hence calling them Indians. Many people also see Columbus as either a hero or a villain, but he is actually both.
There is a major dispute among historians and many people alike as to whether Columbus should be actually seen as a hero and that Americans should celebrate his discovery. He should not be celebrated nor vilified, but simply recognized for what he did. Without his discovery, the course of history itself would have been completely changed, especially for the Americas. From this, many people would concur that he is indeed a hero to the American population. He simply cannot be recognized as hero, however. Because of Columbus, millions of innocent Native American lives were lost. Not to mention the loss of other lives due to disease and conquistadors that followed in Columbus's footsteps. As a society, we should recognize Columbus as the man who discovered the Americas and therefore there should in fact be a holiday remebering him.
That being said, however, the repurcussions of his actions should also be recognized worldwide. The deaths of Native Americans during the post Columbus era has been compared to Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jewish people. The word genocide should not be used to describe this however. Columbus described these newly discovered people as fit to work, and it was not his goal to eliminate them. His unfair view of these people will not be overlooked. Because of Columbus, prejudice towards people of a darker skin color arose and they were seen as "inferior" to whites because they did not believe in Christianity. So because of Columbus, Native Americans were treated unfairly and he should be held responsible for that.
In conclusion, Columbus should be recognized for what he did: the discovery of America and the mistreatment of Native Americans. One can only look at history as the past which cannot be changed. Columbus's treatment of Native Americans was not seen as wrong to Europeans at the time, although it clearly was. Therefore, he is given full responsiblity for what he did to them. That does not mean, however, that we can take away his achievement(s). So as a society, we should recognize Columbus as an important character in our history, despite the good and the bad.
Society's opinion of Christopher Columbus is completely divided; views are strong among people, and debates of Columbus' heroism are heated. To Indians, the European discovery of America was nothing less than invasion - a genocide. There are Indian activists like Russell Means who stress that "Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent," and others like Jan Elliott (editor of Indigenous Thought) who have described the loss of Native American life as "the biggest holocaust in history". The National Council of Churches of Christ declared that after Columbus, America was bombarded with "invasion, genocide, slavery... and the rape of mineral as well as other natural resources." It is clear that Columbus's actions led to severe and unjust consequences for an innocent population. Columbus is not a hero, and should not be celebrated.
Despite the actions of unspeakable terror against the Native American civilization made by Spain, society cannot overlook the most important aspect of Christopher Columbus's history. As a result of his voyage, two previously disconnected worlds unknown to each other came together. He "remade the World"; his discoveries ushered in the Modern Age. Author Alfred Crosby agrees that "[The Encounter's] significance towers far above the fate of this or that group of humans. This Encounter marks one of the major discontinuities in the course of life on this planet." Because of Columbus' discovery, Western Europeans gained the ability to exchange information with nearly all parts of the world. This was an intellectual transformation that Columbus deserves recognition for - it was a profound change that had never been experienced before anywhere on the planet.
His discoveries were indeed monumental, but the plight of Native Americans 500 years ago was immensely horrific. "Why should we celebrate the 500th Anniversary?" An Indian Organization in Argentina writes. "The Spaniards invaded our culture and forced us into colonial subjugation." Another group states that "Europe forced us to prostitute ourselves; after they poisoned our minds and filled us with lies." Hostility towards Columbus rages on during present-day, especially when other ethnic groups are in celebration, like the Italian Americans. Respect was absent; Spain was blinded by "religious fanaticism" and failed to recognize the cultures they were exterminating.
Most people today view Christopher Columbus as a hero, the man who discovered America. But what they don't know could drastically change their opinion. Although Columbus did make discoveries in the Western Hemisphere, the way he handled those discoveries and the people he encountered shift his reputation from brave and courageous, to aggressive and selfish.
Although Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover America, he was not the first man to step foot on the continent. When he arrived, there were already large numbers of Native Americans who had been living there for years. Instead of trying to communicate peacefully with these inhabitants, Columbus took advantage of the Natives, and used them to collect resources as well as slaves. He saw them as laborers, and inferior to himself because of their difference in skin color and religious differences. He came to their land, and forced them to become his slaves. This was cruel and unfair punishment on people who did not deserve any of it. His goal in coming to what he thought were the West Indies, was to encounter gold and riches. In order to do this, he relentlessly worked the Native Americans to death all for his own benefit. He was in the Western Hemisphere for exploration, sent by the King and Queen of Spain. Therefore, he had to impress them or he would not be paid. He did not intend on leaving empty handed. These actions taken by Columbus have been previously compared to those of Adolf Hitler in his concentration camps, and his prisoners of Auschwitz. Hitler is viewed as a villain, and Columbus's actions prove him to be the same kind of leader. Is that the kind of person we should be celebrating?
As well as poor treatment, Columbus unleashed European diseases that the Native Americans were not immune to, leading to a massive execution. Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, over 25 million people were already living in America. Diseases brought on by the Europeans wiped out 50,000 people on the island of Hispaniola in a single month. Approximately 90% of the population in the Western Hemisphere was wiped out because of the germs Columbus and his crew brought over from Europe. One man's greed and desire to obtain large amounts of riches led to the untimely deaths of the majority of the Western Hemisphere. This description does not exactly match up to how one would describe a hero.
Some of Christopher Columbus's discoveries did have their benefits, but none that could counterbalance the harmful effects of his voyage on the Native Americans. The knowledge he allowed us to gain was a catalyst for the development of the modern world and intellectual growth. For example, it was discovered that the world was not flat. However, the lives that were lost on his watch were hardly acknowledged, or appreciated for their own hard work for Columbus, or their contributions made to his discoveries.
For Americans, Columbus Day is a day to celebrate and take the day off from work or school. This causes Americans to celebrate the day that Columbus landed in the “New World” and makes Americans believe that Columbus should be celebrated when in fact he should be vilified. When Columbus landed in the “New World” over 500 years ago, the Natives were fascinated by these new people and were kind to them. In return, Columbus enslaved the natives, killed many for fun, and spread an epidemic of disease throughout their land. When Columbus arrived in the New World, he looked for silver and gold. To accomplish this task faster, he enslaved the Native Americans living on the islands that he landed on and forced them to toil away mining for precious minerals that they would never get to enjoy. It has been said that Columbus’s treatment of the natives was genocide. Comparatively, Hitler forced the Jews in the internment camps to death just like Columbus did to the Native Americans. Columbus also sent Native Americans back to Europe in slavery to work for citizens there.
Columbus and his men also took pleasure in killing the Native Americans when they did not do what the Europeans wanted. Columbus and his men would also “test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians” by betting on who could decapitate a native or cut the native’s body in half with only one strike. Columbus didn’t treat the Native Americans like real people by enslaving them and killing them for sport. In this way, he acted just like Hitler and the Nazis. Celebrating Columbus Day as a holiday is the same as celebrating the Holocaust.
The Europeans also unleashed an epidemic of smallpox upon their arrival in the West Indies. Columbus and his men had developed immunity to the disease because they lived in Europe but still carried the germs with them. A couple of months after Columbus landed on the island of Espanola, 50000 of the Native Americans died of smallpox. The disease spread like wildfire, infecting natives that Columbus and his men never even came into contact with. Although spreading smallpox was not an intention of Columbus, it still happened and is not something to be celebrated.
In conclusion, Columbus may have “discovered” the New World, but his approach to dealing with the Native Americans was atrocious. Columbus viewed the native people below himself and took over their homes as soon as he arrived. He set a standard of torture of the native people as a norm for the rest of the explorers who landed in the New World. As a society, we should vilify Columbus as a man who infected millions of people with smallpox, enslaved the Native Americans who lived on an island that he had just arrived on, and enjoyed killing numerous natives for sport.
When people think of Christopher Columbus they think of a great man who discovered America. This perception is not true. Columbus did discover new land but it was mostly by accident seeing as how he thought he was going to the East Indies. Although Columbus’s discovery of Central America led to mass amount of death of the natives, I don’t believe he should necessarily be classified as a villain. But he was not a hero either, his discoveries led to good and bad things and he has both good and bad qualities.
Columbus had good intentions in trying to find new land. But once he did and realized there were already people there he discovered some problems. He himself and the Spanish understood that they would need the help of the natives to create their colonies in this new land. He might have had this opinion but those who came to this new land years later did not share this opinion, such as the English. They brought with them mass genocide off the innocent natives. When they came to Canada, and where the United States is today their only intentions were of killing and using all natives. Often if they did not just kill the natives they enslaved them and worked them to death. Not only were they overworked but they were weakened with new diseases the Europeans brought over. This led to faster death rate. Because of the side effects of European colonization ninety five percent of the natives perished.
Columbus’s discovery had great influence on the world we know today. He helped bring in the modern age. If Columbus had never made his mistake and found Central America the world would not be what it is today. He helped people spread throughout the world and found land which provided more space and resources. At the time no one knew how big this discovery would be but it provided new opportunities for people in new places.
Christopher Columbus did good and bad things and was not completely heroic or villainous in his actions.
Suddenly people in American and in other places in the world are starting to question whether it is morally correct to commemorate Columbus when his voyage was possibly responsible for 60 to 80 million deaths. I don't think it is quite morally correct to celebrate Columbus when celebrating the "founding of the New World." I also believe that we should not be celebrating the discovery of the New World because it was obviously inhabited well before the Europeans. It should be celebrated as described in the article "When Worlds Collide", the connecting of the Eastern and Western societies.
Columbus, although I believe was not morally correct, was not a villain and did greatly impact his time period, and is even considered to be the greatest impact in human history ever; "What Columbus did was more than simply crossing the ocean" (When Worlds Collide-Thomas C. Tirado). Basically, we should be celebrating not what Christopher Columbus did, but the result of what he did. If we did celebrate Christopher Colombus I think we would be clebrating a man that, whether directly or indirectly, caused the death of millions of people with the likes of Hitler. Although this mass death was set in a time period 500 years ago that does not mean you can throw all morals out the window. Although their morals were different that does not make them correct. However because of Columbus' voyage the world changed forever and many will argue for the better.
Colombus' voyage not only connected two worlds to form one but he also transformed a time period where the church controlled all information to where people started to question the make up of the universe that the church had condemned, such as astronomers like Copernicus. They suggested that the Earth is not the center of the Solar System with the heliocentric model over the geocentric model.
In the end I have a moral problem celebrating a man that condoned so much useless death and atrocity. As a whole, this historical lapse of time was very important, however, its importance depends on who's angle your looking at it from. A Native American's point of view consists of horrendous images of mass murder, and from a European point of view it was a fantastic discovery. Regardless of perspective it was an important event that should be recognized, but not necessarily celebrated. But Columbus as an individual should not be the reason behind any sort of celebration.
While hundreds of thousands of people around the world celebrate Christopher Columbus today and accredit him for finding the “new world” people who have done learned more about the man will know that he is not a hero and should not be treated as such. Just this morning while listening to the radio on the way to practice the host was listing facts about all the amazing things Columbus did and she made a point to say what an amazing man he was. I could not help but think that this woman was an ignoramus to think that in any way he was a good person. Columbus is not only responsible for carrying out a massive genocide in lands he was intruding on in the first place, but he also just found the Americas by happenstance and didn’t actually hypothesize that any land was over here at all.
The genocide that Columbus began encompassed three things; slavery, greed, and plague. Although plague and disease was not intentionally brought over by Columbus and his men its affects were devastating. Millions of natives died painfully as a result of all the sickness the Europeans brought over. The second thing this genocide had was slavery. As soon as Columbus realized he had any sort of power over these people he immediately put them to work for him. Just because he was European he felt he had the right to control everyone in this new world he had discovered because of an error in his own navigation. Columbus could have simply tried to coexist with the people here and made a peace with them but because he was only out for his own personal gain he put them through torturous work days and various hardships just so he could become wealthy.
Columbus began his sea voyage in hopes of finding a faster route to asia which had become a huge center for trade and raw goods such as silk. However along the way he made what many would probably consider a “lucky mistake” in his navigation and ended up discovering the Americans. During this trip there was a lot that went on that isn’t talked about in history books. Very few people know that Columbus was horrible to his crew and right before they found land they threatened him that if in 48 more hours they did not find anything he would either have to turn around or they would jump ship. Obviously they found land and this did not happen. Once they arrived Columbus still actually thought that he was in Asia and explored the area still thinking he was in the right place. On his return voyage he still thought he had been to Asia and it was not until other explorers made the trip was it realized that new land had been discovered.
Although Columbus did technically find the Americas he should not be considered a hero at all due to this cruel treatment of Native Americans and the fact that he happened upon the land through a mistake in navigation.
Annually, the second Monday of October, is marked the holiday of Columbus Day. Americans spend the day celebrating the man known to have discovered the “New World”, which we now know as America. But what did Columbus really do? To this day, historians are still debating whether or not to celebrate Christopher Columbus and his achievements. Over the years historians have discovered that contrary to common belief, it was not Columbus who had discovered that the Earth was round. Furthermore, it has been found that Columbus mistreated the natives of the lands he “discovered” and even carried out genocide.
As stated above, it was not Columbus who discovered that the Earth was round. This information was already known in ancient times by following the path of sun through the daytime sky. Also, Egyptian-Greek scientist, Erastosthenes had already measured the diameter and circumference of the Earth. Even philosopher-scientist Aristotle was able to give reasons as to why the Earth was round in the fourth century! Therefore, given this proof, Christopher Columbus should not be praised for the discovery that the earth was round.
The “rumor” of Christopher Columbus poorly treating the natives of the lands he “discovered” is one, which angers many people. Why praise someone who mistreated innocent people? It has been found that one of his greatest offenses was against the Arawak people, whom he first met at the Bahama Islands. The one thing on Columbus’ mind was the gold that was known to inhabit the area. He immediately took action by putting the natives to work in order to find what he desired. In later years, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after another in search of gold fields. Then in the year 1495, Columbus gathered 500 slaves to bring back to his homeland, where 200 died en route. Those who lived were sold in Spain as slaves. Others were sometimes tricked into doing work and eventually killed! Because of this poor treatment, European diseases were unleashed I several of the natives, slowly killing the population.
Lastly, Columbus should not be praised because of the confusion about his location. Although he had good intentions about finding the land, people were already living there. He took credit for what was not rightfully his own. Based on these actions, it is easy to identify Columbus as a villain. It is likely that the majority of people enjoy having the day off from work or school, but Columbus is a man who should not be praised.
The topic of celebrating or vilifying Columbus Day is a difficult one for many reasons. Columbus supposedly discovered America and introduced new philosophies and ideals to the world. However, Columbus also ruined an entire civilization. He murdered thousands of Native Americans and Indians just to gain land. So, the question is should he be glorified for making a discovery but along the way taking the thousands of innocent lives?
My answer to this question is no. Columbus is a figure that should not be celebrated in our society. The purpose of holidays is to celebrate joyous occasions and triumphs. I would not consider destroying villages and towns and murder to be a triumph. Yes, I would consider the discovery of America to be a joyous occasion; however we must weigh the consequences. The fact that Columbus discovered America is not even certain. There are other theories stating that Leaf Erickson discovered America and not Columbus. Others say that America was already discovered before Columbus. Needless to say, Columbus may not be given full credit for the discovery of America. Even if it was a known fact that he did discover America, I still would not celebrate him. I just do not think it is right of human beings to celebrate someone who was so unnecessarily violent. Some may argue that he did it for the future of the country, but I would have to disagree with this also. He specifically targeted the Native Americans and Indians and decided to rule them out as a population, which is simply unacceptable. The fact that the actions Columbus carried out against the Indians and Native Americans are compared to the Jewish Holocaust should tell all of us that he should not be celebrated. The similarities between his massacre and the Holocaust are very clear and present. Both Hitler and Columbus aimed for a specific nation of innocent people and wished to exterminate them as a whole. The purposes behind the exterminations matter little in the grand scheme of things considering the final outcome. Thousands of people were killed because of one person. This to me shows that this one person (Columbus) should not be admired, let alone celebrated. The ways in which he carried this extermination out were far beyond violent. When someone acts so cruel to other human beings, something must be immoral about them. Not only did he instigate this hatred towards Native Americans and Indians, but he carried it out in ways which are simply inhumane. Because of the ideas Columbus proposed, others began to follow his example and think it was okay to treat Indians and Native Americans horribly. Celebrating a man whose accomplishments we are not even positive about, but whose acts of cruelty we are is not something we as Americans should do.
Columbus should not be praised as a hero like he commonly is. He was greedy, cruel, and disrespectful because he killed millions of people in his selfish quest. His quest was to find the East Indies and he accidentally founded the Americas. So, Columbus truthfully got lucky when he founded America. There should not be a holiday for him because his genocide was worse than Hitler’s. Would we want a holiday for Adolf Hitler?
The only reason why he is viewed positively is because he got lucky. Columbus didn’t even discover this land because the Native Americans were already here. Having a holiday for him is like having a holiday for the person that wins the lottery. Any above average sailor could have done what Columbus did because Columbus made a mistake in his voyage that clearly helped him out.
Once he got to the Americas, Columbus and his crew killed millions of Native Americans intentionally and unintentionally. They killed them with disease from Europe and with weapons. Native Americans were put to work for Columbus, just like the Jews were for Adolf Hitler. Columbus felt that the Native Americans were inferior to him because he was European. Clearly, you can see similar traits between him and Adolf Hitler, one of the most evil men in world history.
So why isn't Columbus treated like Hitler? Maybe because Americans only care that he discovered our land. We frown upon Hitler for killing Jews, but don't frown upon Columbus for killing Native Americans. Is it because Columbus lived so long ago? It also might be because Jews have more say, power, and people than Native Americans. Or, of course, Columbus just got lucky.
In 1992, people across the world faced the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas with a heated question; was this a date to be celebrated or lament? Nineteen years later, that question is still asked. But today, with hindsight on over 500 years of shifting opinions, it is possible to form a more rounded view of Columbus. He was certainly not the shining hero of the 1892 Chicago Columbian Exposition, and he may or may not have been the genocidal villain denounced today. But it is obvious that Columbus was, above all else, simply a man who acted by his beliefs, and so became the catalyst for one of the most significant changes in our world’s history.
Columbus was a man of extremely strong beliefs. Convinced by his own calculations of the proximity of Asia over the Western ocean, Columbus pioneered the Age of Exploration by setting sail in a completely new direction. This act set huge changes into motion that have effected humanity for over half a millennium. It was his staunchness that allowed him to reach the Bahamas, and to leave them with the misnomer the West Indies. Columbus’s stubborn attitude was still a human one, however, and proved to be a curse as well as an aid in his exploration. So convinced of his discovering a path to Asia, Columbus refused even the most obvious evidence to the contrary. He eventually destroyed his fortune, his titles, and even his health trying to prove his beliefs. A terrible leader and cruel abuser of the native population, Columbus became infamous for his mismanagement of the island colonies. His personality showed that even the greatest of men in history are still men, and still far from perfect.
“Far from perfect” is a very apt description of Columbus, but it is important to remember that so is the descriptor “great.” The fact that we are still arguing over the effects of Columbus’s actions is proof to how important they were. With his cruelty toward the native population and insistence of their inferiority, Columbus set a precedent that led to the eradication of over 95% of the native population over the next few hundred years. Slaughtering millions by disease and millions more by war, slavery, abuse and hunting, European peoples managed to reduce the population of the American continents to near extinction by the 1700's. Some call these acts “genocide,” while others refer to them as the unintended side effects of colonization. Either way, this legacy of extermination of a unique and underappreciated culture is one of the worst, and greatest, effects of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.
Columbus’s voyage had many other effects on the world that should not be blotted out under the shadow of his darkest legacy. Columbus completely changed our world view, revolutionizing the spread of information and ushering in the Age of Discovery and the Modern Era. In American history, we are taught about the Columbian Exchange, the trade of plants, animals, and even diseases between Europe and the Americas. This was not the only exchange taking place. The real exchanges were those of two completely alien cultures that had no idea of each other’s existence. The effects of such a meeting are extraordinary. Aside from direct cultural transfers, this meeting revolutionized people’s view of the world. While information up to that point had been a tool of the powerful to stay in power, greatly centered on tradition, the discovery of this New World ushered in an era of knowledge by observation, not history and tradition. This was the era wen it was finally admitted that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. Columbus created an Era of Exploration ,not just geographically but intellectually.
It is hard to weigh the life of one man, judge his actions as either that of a “hero” or a “villain.” Columbus day should not be a day of trial for the long-dead explorer. Instead, it should be a day of recognition for his accomplishments, good and bad, and a day to reflect on the incredible effects Columbus left both the New and Old Worlds still felt today.
Throughout the world, Christopher Columbus is viewed in numerous different ways. His actions in the America's give light to the kind of person he really was. Overall, he was a cruel, misguided and greedy man, hoping to gain the respect and money given to explorers favored by the king and queen of Spain. He was the cause of possibly the largest displacement of people ever, and changed the lives of Native Americans for centuries onward.
Upon his arrival in 1492, Columbus believed himself to be in the East Indies. His original goal to find a new route to those trading ports seemed to have been met. Unfortunately for the Native Americans, Columbus was quite wrong. His arrival not only confused the inhabitants of San Salvador, but would eventually cost many their lives. Columbus brought more than he originally expected to America with him. Along with food, water and the other necessities, he also brought European diseases and ideas. These ideas, such as the idea that slavery wasn’t morally wrong, would decimate the culture of natives throughout the western hemisphere.
Columbus’ arrival definitely changed the lives of those who he encountered. His original hope was to find gold in the East Indies, in order to show the King and Queen of Spain that his trip was a success. Upon arrival in the Western Hemisphere, Columbus found no gold at all. To make up for the obvious losses associated with his trip, Columbus decided to bring back another currency of the time; slave labor. Inhabitants of San Salvador became the first of many to be taken captive and sold as slaves throughout Europe. Slavery in that time was a booming business, and the large number of people in the Western Hemisphere gave Columbus an almost unlimited supply to fill any needs the monarchs of Spain could have.
Another accidental addition to Columbus’ expedition was the numerous diseases associated with livestock. Malaria, Tuberculosis and Influenza were only a few of the devastating viruses that obliterated the population of Native Americans. Having never dealt with such diseases before, the Natives had no chance of defending against them. The immune systems of Europeans had faced these diseases before, and therefore had developed the ability to defend against them. By bringing those diseases to America with him, Columbus effectively sealed the fate of any Native American to come into contact with them.
Overall, Columbus was much more a villain than a hero. His actions in the western hemisphere caused the deaths of an enormous percentage of the native population at the time. By coming to America, it is safe to say that Columbus did much more harm than good.
Christopher Columbus has been celebrated and cherished for centuries by the american people as the man who "found the new world". He is perceived as a hero but he is largely misunderstood. Though Columbus did in fact discover the Americas, it was by default when he ran into them in hopes of discovering the Indies. Columbus actually died believing he had discovered a new trade route. Upon arriving to this new land he believed to be India, Columbus murdered millions. His arrival to the Americas is thought to have caused the first real genocide. Though he never discovered the trade route he had hoped, and killed millions for no apparent reason the question still remains was he a hero or a villain? The answer is he was neither.
When Christopher Columbus set off on his voyage he was planning to find an alternate trade route to India. Most explorers had attempted to sail east around Africa, which proved to be a long, and difficult trip. Columbus however thought differently than everyone else and decided to sail west to India, in order to cut out traveling around Africa. Instead of discovering India Columbus ran into the Americas. News traveled fast the Columbus was successful in finding another trade route. Some did not believe he had actually discovered India, he tried to keep those who didn't believe him quiet. Columbus ended up dying with his belief that he had successfully completed his goal. Many historians believe that Columbus should not be awarded for what he accomplished, because it was an accident. Though he did discover the America's, he was not aware of this. Columbus should not be looked at as a hero for what he did, because it was an accident. However he should not be considered a villain either, because accident or not he did in fact discover a continent unknown by the European World.
Upon his arrival to the "New World" Columbus discovered an entirely new culture. The food, sickness, religion, and clothing were all vastly different from the developed culture of Europe. Seeing this, Columbus decided the right thing to do would be to civilize what he thought to be "Indians". However ended up creating the first genocide in the Americas. He murdered thousands of native people by enslaving them and brutally murdering many when they failed to comply with the new lifestyle he tried to force upon them. Many believe that by celebrating his actions when he came to the "new world" is the equivilant of celebrating Hitler. Hitler is thought of as a villain so why is Columbus thought of as a hero? Columbus may have murdered many of the indigenous people he came across, however the exact number is not known. This is because Columbus brought over new diseases that ended up wiping out entire populations of people. Therefore can Columbus really be villainized entirely? He may have killed many intentionally in order to gain control of his new territory, however many of the deaths were accidental.
Christopher Columbus should not be thought of as a hero or a villain. IN history it is difficult to depict someone as either or. Much of what Columbus did was extremely heroic. He left on a dangerous voyage that no one had ever attempted, in order to find a faster and cheaper trade route. Though he did not accomplish his goal he did discover a land completely new to the European culture. In doing so he murdered many people, some necessary to gain control, while others were accidental and out of his control. Columbus should not be labeled, he should be looked at as a figure in history that did tremendous things, some heroic and others villain-like.
During the year of 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue sea and discovered what is known as today, North America. However, the question to ponder is, should we as a society celebrate his discoveries and how should we remember? After reading the articles about Christopher Columbus, I strongly believe that Columbus Day should not be celebrated based on Columbus’s actions, but we should recognize him for his findings. Even though Columbus discovered the “New World” and set up a good cultural empire in North America, he is still considered to be a cruel, selfish man.
Christopher Columbus today is remembered as a cruel, revolting, and harsh man because he killed many Native Americans. Many Native Americans who greeted Columbus and were considered to be blameless were later tortured by Columbus, along with his crew. For example, when Columbus stopped in Haiti, the Tranio Indians were beaten to death and were also suffering due to the brutality giving by Columbus. Not only is Columbus viewed as a “mass murderer,” but he also forced the Native Americans to become slaves for him. Columbus only cared about gold and enforced the Native Americans to look everywhere for it. However, if the slaves did not find the gold that Columbus wanted, he would kill them. Columbus was so eager to find gold because he owed money to Queen Isabella and he also wanted to become rich. Not only did Columbus have people searching for gold, but he also had many slaves that worked on farms and were tortured. Based on Christopher Columbus’s actions and killings, I strongly believe that we as a society should not honor him for doing this.
In addition to Christopher Columbus’s cruelty, he is also remembered as a greedy, selfish man. Columbus sailed to America for gold, glory, and god. Columbus thought that he could have dominant the world by finding gold. His idea of finding gold lead him to think that he was going to become wealth and have enough money to trade with other countries. Columbus also sailed for glory because he thought that he would have more power, when finding a new continent. Lastly, with the idea of God, when Columbus found the new land he thought that he was going to convert the Native Americans. Moreover, with Christopher Columbus’s greediness, he always told people that he found so much gold, when he encountered a very small amount. Additionally, Columbus was unfair because he took the Native American’s goods and made them work hard for him.
In conclusion, Christopher Columbus can be viewed as a cruel, selfish man. He killed a massive amount of people, that were innocent and tortured others by making them work hard for him. For example, in the article called The Moral Dimensions of 1492, Jan Elliott states that this time period was “the biggest Holocaust in history” and she said that Columbus is known as a “mass murder.” However as a society today, I believe that we should not penalize Christopher Columbus for what he did, but we should acknowledge him for his findings. He was successful for finding different trade routes and “represented a hope of the future” (Tirado).
On October 10th our country will celebrate Columbus Day like we have for years. It’s common knowledge that Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean blue with three ships and discovered America. Some people think that we should take this day to honor Columbus for finding the place we call our home. But do people take in to consider or think about how Columbus claimed America or the damage that was caused and the lives that were taken? Did Columbus cause more harm than good? Should we have a day dedicated to just celebrating him?
In 1492 Columbus did the unthinkable. He discovered an entire new land. Of course many explorers have tried to expand their nations but none were as successful as Columbus. Because of Christopher Columbus’ successful two worlds would now be connected forever. America and Europe would be joined for years and years. If it were not for Columbus we would not be here today. The American country would not exist. Although many see this as a wonderful thing and are extremely grateful towards Christopher Columbus for his efforts and his findings, with the good, must also come the bad. Christopher Columbus may be credited with finding and claiming America, but he is also responsible for what some people call a genocide of the Indian people.
Christopher Columbus may be seen as a hero today, but three hundred years ago people may have a different view. Columbus had no respect for the Natives. Instead he claimed their land as his. Some experts have said that his actions created the biggest Holocaust in the world. He began the harsh treatment of the native people of America. Even years after Columbus’ death, the cruel behavior towards the natives continued. Some people went as far as to say that “Hitler looks better than Columbus”. Columbus invaded families’ land and homes. From Europe he brought over foreign diseases to the people, known as germ warfare. Even two hundred years after Columbus, people continued to use smallpox to infect the native people. Columbus would enslave the native people. He would take people from their homes and relocate them to the Bahamas and the Caribbean to be used as slaves. For sport the Europeans would cut of the Indian women’s breasts. The babies of the Indians would be taken from their mothers and fed to dogs. What kind of hero treats people this way? Christopher would do this because the Indians stood in front of what he wanted, which was the land and the glory.
So would we view Christopher Columbus as a great man? A hero? Should the people of the United States take a day every year to recognize all the good he did? He may be responsible for finding what we know today as home. He may also be responsible for changing the world and finding America, but he is also the reason Indians were taken from their homes and forced off their land. Christopher Columbus enslaved, murdered, and tortured the natives. Looking back, to some people Christopher Columbus should be thanked and celebrated, but to others, Christopher Columbus should be regarded as a terrible, inconsiderate, and horrendous man.
I believe in giving credit where it is due and I know that no one is without sin. But in Christopher Columbus’s character I see little that lends itself to extraordinary merit, and in his name I see nothing to celebrate. Growing up, there was a certain sense of bravery that surrounded Columbus. He was courageous enough, after all, to risk sailing off the side of the earth. But now we know that that was a worry held only by the most superstitious of the time. Then we learned that he didn’t even really reach the mainland, but the isle of Hispaniola, still a feat. He promptly set up a poorly run system for the people to function under, a government, I suppose, and “On the island of Española, under Columbus’s governorship, 50,000 native people died within a matter of months following the establishment of the first Spanish colony.” The natives were treated in an entirely inhuman manner. It is true that many of the natives died only because of the germs that the Europeans brought. For this, I do not think that Columbus or the other Europeans can be blamed. However, I may be wrong, but I have read nowhere that there was any concerted effort by them to nurse the natives back to health from the diseases they brought. Nor did they, seeing that they spread maladies with every breath, pack up and look for another shore where their inhabitance wouldn’t mean the neighbor’s bane. The article, “The Moral Dimensions of 1942” points out that what Columbus did should not be considered a genocide, like many call it, and its reasoning was sound. But, does it take a genocide to make some one immoral? Are we supposed to ignore the cruel act of slavery that he imposed because it at least was not genocide? If the National Italian American Foundation needs an Italian hero to celebrate, they can just swap Columbus for Vespucci. He reached the New World (mainland, I should mention) only a few years after Columbus, and didn’t abuse the natives as much as Columbus did, as far as I know. If we, as Americans, need a nationally-recognized figure that inspires us to look beyond to new, far-off reaches of the universe and, by extension, the mind, then that’s great. We have plenty of people in our history aside from Columbus who actually fulfilled that ideal with some decency.
Every story has two sides to it. Unfortunately, the stories found in many history books are those of the victor. Seldom has the losers of a conflict's opinions and experiences been recorded as history, but rather their opinions and experiences are...history. One such example is the story of Christopher Columbus, hailed and celebrated explorer from Italy, who, under the Spanish flag, discovered America and began the civilization here we know today.
Many historians rightly compare Columbus's actions to those of the Nazi's in World War 2 in order to classify Columbus's actions and those of other European explorers as genocide. Genocide, is defined as the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Columbus landed in October 1492 in the modern day country of the Dominican Republic. Upon landing, Columbus was greeted by the native population of the island, whom he and his men promptly enslaved, treating them worse than a lame dog. The ones who they decided not to mutilate were sent off to Europe as a labor force. Once Columbus had finished off Hispaniola, he moved on to the surrounding islands, repeating the murderous behavior. Sound familiar? If one studied World War 2, it would. One could also study the history of Armenians, Gypsies, Timorese, Cambodians, Ugandans, and other groups to find worthy comparisons, but one horrifically similar story is one of Jews in Europe during the second World War. It is true that many of them perished by bullet and gas, but the large majority of Jews died of malnutrition and disease in a very similar fashion to the Native Americans. Almost immediately after Columbus stepped ashore in the Caribbean sea, deadly disease began to spread among the native population, which in turn spread to other islands, and eventually, the continental mainland, where the spread of the plague killed off an estimated 95% of the population. It is unlikely that Columbus intentionally caused the deaths of an estimated 60 million people, but that is still no excuse for the crime, especially because he did intend to cause the deaths of 50,000 in Hispaniola. The fact that Columbus caused that many deaths is largely ignored in the common knowledge the man because "Average Joe" Americans cannot stomach the information.
Christopher Columbus was a genocidal maniac, whose crimes against the people of the Caribbean Islands are championed in the form of a legitimate holiday; a symbol of American ignorance equal to, or worse than, celebrating the Holocaust. It is even inappropriate to dub him, "The Great Navigator," as happens so often, as the idiot's homemade maps were 150 degrees off target. The evil actions of Columbus and his "men" set a precedent for treatment of Native Americans for the next five hundred years; from his landing at Hispaniola to the massacres and atrocities committed by US forces in the Midwest.
Christopher Columbus has been revered for his supposed discovery of the Americas. People seldom consider the ramifications to his actions. His actions had nothing but detrimental effects on the natives,intentionally or not. We should not let the common misconception of Columbus discovering America cloud our judgement. He is a mass murderer and a villain.
Supposing that he was actually the first European to discover the Americas, which he is not, the amount of deaths associated with his "discovery" are not justified. There were many causes for the deaths brought by the explorers. If they were not brutally beaten or enslaved they suffered the often fatal diseases brought by the Europeans.In the Central American country of Nicaragua, they lost 99% of their population in 60 years. Honduras lost 95% of their population in 50 years.There were once prospering cities, until the explorers. It is believed that 25,000,000 people used to populate the Americas. After 75 years of exploration, the population soared down to 1,000,000 people. Columbus killed over 4,000,000 more people than Hitler did, putting into account all the deaths that were a result of World War II. We do not celebrate Hitler because he helped restore the American economy after the great depression. Why should we celebrate someone responsible for more lives than Hitler?
The new perspective of recent centuries has reshaped society’s view of Christopher Columbus. Once viewed as a man of valor and as perhaps the most pivotal figure in the exploration of our world, a dark, formidable side of Columbus and his legacy has been revealed. In truth, the man was responsible for the brutal deaths of thousands of native people, and for the disintegration of their unique culture. He saw these natives as savages, suitable only for use as slaves, and his treatment of these people clearly should not have earned him a national holiday and the respect of thousands of schoolchildren around the country. Only a few months after his first Spanish settlement was established, 50,000 native people were dead. His people killed the natives for sport, feeding babies to their dogs or placing bets on the ability to slice a body in half with one blow. For these clear demonstrations of viciousness and cruelty, I think that society’s celebratory view of Columbus as a hero must be revised.
However, the argument has been made that Columbus did in fact discover a new world, thus ushering in the modern age. His voyages were the pinnacle of the Age of Discovery. Though this is true, I believe that the discovery of the North American continent was inevitable. With so many explorers searching for gold and glory, if Columbus had not existed, someone else would surely have made the discovery and changed the world, possibly without causing so much damage. Perhaps they would even have had the aptitude to realize that the continent was not Asia. Ironically, Columbus died without ever knowing that he had not simply discovered a new way to get to Asia, but a new continent altogether. Amérigo Vespucci, on the other hand, spent more time with the natives. He eventually accepted the theory that the land was not Asia, where Columbus stubbornly ignored reality. This fact demonstrates even more that Columbus should not be celebrated as the brilliant hero who discovered America. He was not a hero and he did not even realize he had discovered America.
While I do not think Columbus should be celebrated, I also do not think that he should be vilified. In some respects, the brutality of Columbus’ nature was typical of the people of his time period. Harsh killings could be seen even in the 16th century hangings and burnings of heretics and witches in Europe. Also, though this certainly does not exonerate Columbus, the human sacrifices of the native people, such as the Aztecs, were terminated by Columbus’s actions, as the tribes were reduced by such great amounts. It is also true that he was not solely responsible for the immense death toll of the native people. Though he certainly played a part, the disease that the Europeans unknowingly brought with them to the Americas was a major aspect of the destruction of the populations.
There is no doubt that Columbus Day parades are far too celebratory of the man who destroyed lives and cultures of so many people. However, Columbus was responsible for a great shift in world history. With his discovery, no matter how unintentional, the Modern Age suddenly began. Communication of ideas was made possible through the Columbian Exchange, and new ideas, such as the heliocentric theory were progressed. This progress deserves to be celebrated. In the end, Columbus should be viewed as an excellent lesson for our society. He perfectly embodies the fact that history is never set in stone. The truth about his explorations has taught students everywhere about the tentative nature of history. There will never be one right way to evaluate an event, and different historians will always have different points of view. To conclude, Columbus should neither be wholly celebrated, nor wholly vilified. His profound effect on society should be admired, and his brutal annihilation of people should be abhorred. Most importantly, however, society should view him as an example, exemplifying the many different perspectives involved in historical events.
Some interesting responses thus far. I happened to be in NYC Sunday afternoon and around 5th Avenue as the Columbus Day Parade was getting underway. While the parade organizers of the Columbus Citizens Foundation refer to the event as the " world’s largest celebration of Italian-American culture (http://www.columbuscitizensfd.org/columbus-celebration/columbus_parade.html)," the event was dominated by groups representing Central and South American culture. It is celebrated as Dia de la Raza or Dia de la Hispanidad (Spanish National Day) throughout the Spanish speaking world. I found this celebration interesting given many of the divisions in Latin America with regard to Columbus' legacy. Anyway, it beat shopping in American Girl with my wife and daughter.
People often think of Christopher Columbus as the brave explorer who courageously ventured into the New World and discovered America. However, while he may have been the first European to reach America, he was by no means the first person to be there. Native Americans had been living there for years by the time Columbus arrived. It is what people today don't know about Columbus and his treatment of the natives that will put in a new light and make him look less like a hero and more like a villain.
Christopher Columbus brought genocide to the native peoples. He plagued them with disease, murdered them, and enslaved them for his own, selfish needs.
When Columbus arrived in America he not only brought his crew but the diseases that they all carried. Diseases that the Europeans may have been immune to, however the natives had never been exposed to these sicknesses and were very vulnerable to their terrible effects. European disease was a leading cause of death for Native Americans once Columbus arrived in America. While this spread of disease may not have been intentional, other methods used to weaken the natives were intentional.
Because of a different skin color, religion, and language, Columbus claimed the natives were inferior. Because the natives were less advanced and could not defend themselves, Columbus took advantage of them and enslaved them. He used them for his own, selfish means of discovering gold in order to please the monarhcy of Spain. He worked many Native Americans to death. Any natives who refused to become his slaves were imprisoned or killed. It is because of the forced labor and executions that the "great" Christopher Columbus can be compared to the evil Adolf Hitler. A man cannot be considered a hero if he is compared to someone so terrible.
Because of Columbus's cruelty to the native people and his selfishness he does not deserved to be celebrated as a hero. While he made a great discovery for Europe, it was not a new land to the natives who had been living there for years prior to his arrival, so in my opinion he is lucky to be credited with the discovery in the first place. Not only is he taking credit for a discovery that he wasn't the first to make he is also a brutal human being. He killed natives for his own pleasure and enslaved them to do his work. This man, Christopher Columbus, should not be celebrated as a hero because he is a villain.
Although Columbus discovered the Western Hemisphere and new land, he also condoned many intolerable acts on the island of Hispanola. From slavery to imperialism he destroyed the Natives way of life out self-interest and greed.
When Columbus intially discovered Hispanola (Dominican) he came off as friendly and not hostile. Eventually though Columbus expanded his rule using man power and excessive force. He did this by enslaving and excuting Natives as punishments and examples. In addition to slavery and excutioning he managed to exploit the Native Arawak tribe of their natural resources and use for his own profit. Some of these resources included gold and other valuable fruits.
In addition to Columbus despicable ways of captivating Hispanolas Natives he also brought over from Europe with his fellow men the two contagions gaunerrea and spyhillis. Both of these diseases ended up killing some 50,000 people of Hispionla alone. In nearly less than a century it killed practically one million people. These two plagues disrupted the Natives way of life and culture. In addtion to the effect on Hispionla other Spanish voyages that took place due to Columbus' original discovery decimated hundreds of thousands of the Aztecs. Indirectly he not only ruined the Hispionla Natives but Natives from Mexico and other parts of the Carribean.
In conlcusion Columbus should not be view heroically by society becuase of his crimes against humanity. He enforced the slave trade,ordered mass excutions of people, and indirectly spread two plagues which practically decimated a million people in nearly one century. Instead of finding a new trade route as he set out to do he imperialsed and deterioated and immense amount of people out of self greed. By no means should Columbus be remembered as hero, but instead a villian.
Maggie Kulpa
If one were to find a man who has not before heard of Christopher Columbus they would most likely deem him as uneducated or detached. However, if one were to explain to this man all knowledge on what Columbus did, would their opinion be the same as others who have learned about "the great Columbus, so called founder of the Americas", or would they see him as a cruel man?
To say that Columbus sailed to what he thought was the Indies and just took people to be his slaves for reason no other than to do hard labor for those that did not wish to do it, would make Columbus a tyrannical person, looking only for power. In doing this Columbus had no good intentions what so ever for the slaves he took, only for those which would own the slaves. Thus, making his decision not only barbarous, but inhuman. In doing this Columbus killed a near 10,000 innocent, helpless people. However, one must not look just at the number, but the ways of death, such as roastings, hangings, the cracking open of babies heads. All unruly, unnecessary deaths. Columbus, after the raw facts of these deaths, should no longer be looked at as a honorable man of any kind.
On the other hand, however, when one writes or hears about the inhuman ideas and actions of Columbus they often tend to push these facts aside. The reason for this being, one has only been taught one side of Columbus' story since birth, never has he been mentioned as a murderer. By using this fact, the other side, the cruel side of Columbus, is therefore deleted or erased. One believes that he is good, that he is paired with the idea of discovering new land and the Americas for people to live on. This however, should not be what is revolved around.
While Columbus did find new land, he did not find what is now America. So why is he placed with that title, a title that we use as a cover for the wicked actions that he has used? For one must also think, is the robber let out of jail just because he helped the old lady across the street? Isn't that in reality what we have been doing for Columbus all these years? Covering bad with good? Letting him get away with worse than what others have suffered from?
By the stance of the previous paragraphs it is very much obvious what my ruling on Columbus would be. For he is a vicious man who cared nothing about anyone who stood in his way of getting what he wanted and would use diabolical force to do what he wished with people, often killing them. One could easily compare him to someone of the means of Hitler, someone who is believed to have had no once of good in him. Columbus is not a man to be looked upon as someone who should be celebrated in anyway. We do not celebrate past murders or present ones, but by just looking beyond the genocide that Columbus started in 1942 he is not deemed a murderer. Therefore, on the second Monday of October every year we "celebrate" a man that did nothing other than use power that he forced upon himself to mass murder and enslave innocent human beings.
"Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator." Looking at this definition with the knowledge of what Columbus did to the native Americans when he arrived by accident, it is clear that he should not be glorified as a her and that there should not be a holiday in his name. He treated these people with brutality and brought horrific plague upon them.
Jan Elliot compared what Columbus did to the Holocaust where the Nazi's brutally killed over 6 million Jewish people. This is an accurate comparison when you take into account the amount of people that were killed because of either war with Columbus' people or plague. In addition to successfully murdering a huge portion of a race of people, Columbus' main goal when he set out on this expedition was to find riches and treasure so he would become a rich man. This in itself is a selfish goal of the expedition, and the ending results of him finding America make it even worse. When he discovered all of these people with primitive technology compared to himself, he decided that it would be easy to force them to work for his people, and he also decided he could work them as hard and cruelly as he wished. With this in mind, he worked many to death and put them through horrible conditions with absolutely no respect for their wellbeing.
Even among all of these horrible things, it should still be known that he did in fact discover America. Because of what America has become today, many think of him as the one who started it all. I still do not think that a holiday should be made in his honor because the bad things he did and caused overwhelm his discover by a lot. People need to be educated on what he did to the innocent inhabitants of this land and not just on the fact that he was the first to "stumble upon" America. That is why I believe that a holiday is unnecessary, and Columbus should be thought of as more of a villain and a hero.
-Ben Gallo
Christopher Columbus is best known today as the man who "discovered" America. He was one of the first to land in the new world of the western hemisphere, although it was by accident, and we give credit to him for starting the mad rush of colonization in this western world. What people don't understand is that this man should not be idolized or celebrated as a valiant adventurer or even an above average explorer as we think of him today. He was a cruel man.
When Christopher Columbus first arrived on the shores of an island in the bahamas one of the initial conclusions he came to about the peaceful natives was that they would make good slaves. He had noted their lack of modern weaponry and vulnerability caused by this, making them easy to enslave. This shows how he was only thinking of how the resources and people in this new land could be taken advantage of and seized for himself. In his log he also wrote that he would be sure to take a few of them back to spain with him as servants for the queen. Columbus had already began a slave trade on his first voyage to the Americas.
Secondly, as he and his crew kept returning after the initial voyage, they began to spread diseases like influenza, smallpox, and both pneumonic and bubonic plagues to which the crew were immune, but not the native americans. The diseases ravaged each native american population that they came into contact with. This made them even more vulnerable and much easier to take advantage of, which columbus did.
The only thing about Christopher Columbus that should be celebrated is the fact that his voyages marked the beginning of colonization and the blossoming of modern civilization in the western hemisphere; and that is what I think Columbus Day should celebrate. It should not have anything to do with the man, as he was not a good person and by no means one that people should be celebrating because of his oppression of the native americans.
When Christopher Columbus is spoken about, most people either associate him with the man who discovered the Americas, or more likely, a man that did something in the past to get us a day off of school. From the time we first start to learn about him in elementary school, we were taught that he was a great man. He sailed across the ocean which was a perilous journey and survived to find new land. However, what these teachers forgot to mention was what actually happened. Yes he did find this land, but he was not even close to being the first. Seeing how the Native Americans were already there when he arrived just strengthens that point. Also, through his arrival, thousands of Native Americans died from illness, not to mention the fact that tortured the natives and raped their women. Christopher Columbus should be perceived as what he truly was, a monster.
Columbus should be vilified for the mere fact that once he arrived, a majority of the Native Americans that already resided there were killed. The article “Genocide in the Americas” takes a look through the eyes of those who sympathize with the natives. Although this article is biased against Columbus, it does have some merit to it. It speaks of how in the first few months of the establishment of a Spanish colony, 50,000 Native Americans were killed. This is a vast number of people dying for no other reason then the fact that Columbus was a monster. He and his fellow adventurers would also torture the natives. They would test their weapons by cutting off women's breasts for fun and by feeding babies to packs of wild animals. They would make sport of cutting off people's heads. This is one of the most inhumane practices I have ever heard about. There was no sense of morality for these adventurers and many innocent people were killed just for the fun of it. I can't seem to imagine why anyone once knowing the proper facts would want to celebrate this man's actions.
Besides the violent acts brought on by Columbus and his men, European diseases also killed vast numbers of Native Americans. The immune systems of the Native Americans were not accustomed to or had never faced some of the common germs that the Europeans brought over. Although this massacre of Native Americans through biological warfare was most likely not a primary goal of these explorers, it should not be over looked. By defining genocide as “a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator"(Axtell and James), what Columbus did definitely can be called genocide. This genocide of Native Americans can be seen as almost as the massacre of Jews by the Nazis many years later. They both were terrible acts and happened because one group of people thought they were superior to the “lesser” group of individuals.
Through Columbus' terrible acts of mass murder and inhumane practices, we as a society should not look at him in a good light. The lives of thousands of innocent people were taken for the mere fact that they were bullied and pushed around by those who thought they were better. Columbus was a villain and everyone should view his as such.
It has been over 500 years since Christopher Columbus discovered the “new land”. Many might view Columbus as a hero but some see him as a malicious person who never cared about the Native Americans. To many scholars when they think of Columbus they think of genocide. In my opinion Columbus day should not be celebrated. Columbus did bad in the world and by celebrating him we are celebrating every other historical figure who did the same.
Columbus thought so low of the natives that he said they would make good servants. He thought to bring them back with him for the Majesties. Before European exploration in the Americas the natives lived pure healthy lives. The Europeans brought with them diseases that the natives did not know how to cure. Before Columbus’ discovery there were approximately 24 million residents in the Americas. Eighty years of exploration dropped the population to 1 million residents. In my opinion if we celebrate Columbus we might as well have national holidays for Hitler and Stalin. Columbus killed equal to or even more people then Hitler and Stalin did.
As children we only learned the good Columbus did but why shouldn’t we teach the future generations that his doings ended the lives of people trying to live life the way they had before a random explorer came around? His doings were unfair and unlawful. If the native Americans had began exploring before Columbus they wouldn’t have killed people to have more land. In conclusion Columbus day may be a good day off from school and work but Christopher Columbus should defiantly not be considered a hero.
History is written by the scribes of the victors. Columbus’s story is no different. For many a years, he was glorifies for his discovery of the new world, and the glory of changing the mindset of Europe at the time. Only now are we realizing that maybe, just maybe, that isn’t entirely true. And if it’s false, well, where does that leave Columbus Day.
Many radicals argue that Columbus invaded the New World, and slaughtered the natives in an act of genocide. And certainly, smallpox, harsh treatment, and senseless violence took a toll on their numbers. Some go on to list all the wrongs done to the Natives Americans, all the way up to the Trail of Tears. However, while those wrongs are certainly wrong, they have nothing to do with Columbus, so this pathos should not be used against him. Only his own misdeeds should even be mentioned, and, when narrowed to that, his deeps can hardly be called genocide, however barbaric they were.
Columbus was by no means good for the Natives. He killed the majority of their numbers via unintentional spread of European disease, which they had no resilience for. They were enslaved and taken advantage of, looked on as ‘sub-humans’, and even enslaved. These are by no means small misdemeanors, and should not be celebrated.
However, one must not forget the intellectual impact of Columbus’s voyage, which, despite his misdeeds, must be praised. In a time where accurate knowledge was not abundant, and scraps of new information was a blessing. Even though Columbus never believed he had set foot in a New World, others did, and they were able to spread their accurate information.
Therefore, Columbus is not as big as a hero as so previously claimed, but not so villainous as now set up to be. In this author’s personal opinion, Columbus was neither a ‘good guy’ nor a ‘bad guy’ but simply a ‘guy’. Hence, maybe Columbus Day should not be celebrated, on account of all his wrongs, but nor should it be a day for burning his likeness. The fact is, this ‘discovery’ ‘invasion’, whatever the new phrase is for Columbus setting foot in the New World, happened five centuries ago, and the man’s been dead for nearly all of that time. Isn’t it time for the world to move on, forgive, and stop celebrating questionable anniversaries from so long ago, it’s no longer imperative to modern life?
The debate amongst many regarding the fashion in which we should view Columbus has become a very heated topic, especially this weekend as we ‘celebrate’ Columbus’ discovery of the New World. Despite the fact that he was not the first to arrive at the New World although commonly thought to be, as well as being seen as a great navigator even though his navigational calculations were extremely off, taking away his influence in his finding is unreasonable. Columbus, through his voyages, greatly impacted the course of history that followed and helped shape today’s world. Although following his landfall Americas, mass murder and genocide took place against the native people, I do not think it is appropriate to solely place the actions of a great many on this one man. This does not mean in any way that he should be celebrated, but instead recognized as a figure in history.
The actions of many following Columbus’ ‘discovery’ are rightly described as genocide as well as intentional, unjustified extermination of the natives of the land. A lot of the information and statistics presented in the readings were astonishing and seemingly unprecedented. The misconception that Columbus should be hailed as a hero is no surprise being that I haven’t heard of the in depth research done on him until last night, and that’s because I had to read it. If more were informed or at least provided with a glimpse of the true horrors following Columbus’ discovery many opinions of him would undoubtedly shift.
Since first grade, kids in the U.S. has been taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America and every year on Columbus Day his life has been celebrated. A hero forever immortalized in the mind of most Americans. However unknown to Americans are the truths behind this man. He set sail in a time where people already knew the Earth is round, he miscalculated the Earth’s size and accidentally stumbled on North America, and paved the way for the deaths of millions of Natives Americans.
Many consider his actions genocide on the Native Americans. Despite the atrocities Columbus had caused his actions cannot be classified as genocide. Though he did kill many, it wasn’t systematic killings designed to annihilate the entire Native American race. Furthermore, most of the killings were due to disease. This was entirely unintentional. It was not until well past Columbus’ time that the French used biological warfare on the inhabitants of the Mississippi. Yes Columbus enslaved Native Americans as well but that is not what genocide is defined as.
Although one can acknowledge Columbus’ actions were not justified we cannot let it overshadow what he did accomplish. Though he didn’t “discover” America he can be accredited with greatly influencing Europe to colonize in North America. Without Columbus, there is a good chance America would look difference today
In conclusion, we cannot jump on the bandwagon and discredit Columbus for all he did but we cannot celebrate him as a hero either. Columbus stumbled upon the West Indies during a time in which what he had done to the natives was perfectly acceptable. His intent wasn’t to kill and to destroy every Native American he encountered. Though what he did was definitely not moral nowadays and shouldn’t be viewed moral just because he did them when it was acceptable, nearly any explorer during the time would have done the same. Most of the lives were taken by disease, unintentionally. Columbus should simply be recognized for the good he did and the bad he did. He should be neither celebrated nor vilified.
In this day and age, people in the United States are starting to realize more and more that perhaps the great Christopher Columbus is not quite the hero that he has been made out to be. I say the United States, because in many other places in the America’s he was never a hero. Christopher Columbus “discovered” America is what is told, but how much is to his credit? If Columbus’s calculations about the Earth’s circumference were accurate, he, and his entire crew, would have landed in Japan, not modern day Haiti. In fact, that’s where he believed he had landed, despite all the evidence against the fact.
The population of the indigenous people was very great before the Europeans arrived on their land. One of the greatest killers of the native people was disease, brought over from Europe. However, it was not just disease that diminished the populations. Mass murder and working to death was also the cause. When the first Spaniards came to Latin America, they did not see a civilization, they saw cheap labor. The native people were a cheap and easy way to work the mines. It was not necessary to keep their laborers healthy or well fed. The reason for this was the great number of people at their dispense. The life expectancy of the indigenous people working in the mines for the Spanish was about three to four months. As mass amounts of people died of being over worked in the harsh conditions, they could just be replaced.
Another reason for the deaths of the native people of Central and South America was mass murdering. The killing of the native people was a sort of a sport for the conquistadors. This killing for sport is perhaps the most vilifying act committed by the invaders of America.
So, is Columbus a hero, or a villain? Many people, such as the Italian Americans, hold him as a hero. However, the same cannot be said for the people whose ancestors fell under his rule. I cannot pass judgment on Columbus specifically, however, I do believe that Columbus and other “explorers”/”invaders” can more accurately be labeled by the title of villain rather than hero. Columbus and many others on similar quests in the New World committed atrocities that we can hardly imagine now.
When people hear the name Christopher Columbus, they often think of good he did by "discovering" the New World. When he first landed in this uncharted Western Hemisphere, he quickly saw the financial prosperity located in this new land. He abused the land and people for his own riches
Columbus and his crew came to West Indies in search of new routes to the East Indies as well as gold and riches. When he stepped foot on the already settled land, he now saw unlimited resources and riches. He would abuse the native people and their land to benefit himself. Columbus accounted for countless deaths, some historians would even consider it the worst massacre or genocide in history, around 25 million people. People talk about people like Hitler or Joseph Stalin and their mass genocides, but never Columbus. Instead of resenting him and recognizing all the repercussions of his actions, we celebrate his living as a holiday. Instead of leaving empty-handed or disappointed back to Spain, he worked the people and land even harder for riches.
Death and slavery were not the only direct affects of Columbus and the European explorers. Often in the long harsh boat voyages across the Atlantic, new diseases and infections would sprout and immediately unleash on the native people. Directly or indirectly the Europeans unleashed hell with these diseases or in some cases, just common germs to the Europeans but not the natives.
Columbus is revered by the common man in most of America, he should instead be vilified despite his finding of the "New World". It would be the equivalent of letting Hitler's genocide go unnoticed, as long as he found a new distant land. Columbus should instead of being celebrated as a hero, should be renowned for his accomplishments as well as his wrong doings.
When Christopher Columbus started his journey west from Europe, he embarked on a journey that no one had ever gone on before. He was looking for a shorter route to the spice rich waters of India and China. Instead, Columbus landed on land that Europeans had never seen. He believed that he landed on the shores of a far east island, but in fact he had landed on the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Some consider Columbus a villain, but he is not. He started the long exploration of this country, and kept the tradition of the Age of Exploration to go where you know not where you will end up. He did as any other explorer of that period would have.
Just like every other instance where a European country discovered a previously unknown land to them, Columbus claimed the land for Spain, as he was sponsored by the Spanish crown. That meant that Spain in effect controlled and owned the land, resources, and everything else, including the people. It did not matter if they were black, brown or white, the country believed they owned them. Whether this was right or wrong, if was the way of life. In an age where slavery was commonplace, an opportunity for free labor was an easy choice for Columbus. Slavery was very profitable, so it did not take a lot to understand the money to be earned from these peoples who were ‘owned’ by Spain.
In addition, as soon as he set foot on the island, Columbus and his men brought a disease that would eventually kill many Natives. This was an unintentional consequence of the exploration. These civilizations had never seen these diseases before, and they had no defenses to them. No matter how or when the Natives could have been discovered, by Columbus or another, their population would still have been devastated. The only prevention would have been if no European or any other foreign person had ever set foot on the Americas. Of the millions of people that died in the following years of European exploration, the majority would die of disease unintentionally brought by the explorers.
As Columbus and other explorers advanced inland, they searched for gold and other valuable good to bring back to Europe. As these men advanced they did not specifically target the natives to harm. Explorers such as Columbus saw these people as an opportunity to convert to Christianity, as well as use to make money. The many people in this new land were seen by many priests as possible converts, and even the Spanish King and Queen issued a declaration that these people should be converted. The conquest phases of the various European invasions of the Americas were dedicated to the achievement of military, political, economic, and religious rule over the native peoples, not their mass destruction, and they were aimed at superior political and military opponents. In Central and South America, resistant native armies were targeted for defeat or destruction, but native populations were protected by Spanish law and colonial interests, because they could provide labor or tribute to Spain.
In general, Christopher Columbus should be viewed as an important figure in American history, and a person vital in bringing the Americas to the attention or the rest of the world. Though he did commit many murders on the native population, as well as use many in the slave trade, which is now known to be a horrendous thing, Christopher Columbus should be viewed as a hero because he entire history of Europeans in America stems from Columbus's First Voyage. Without Columbus, the North American continent would not have been discovered by Europeans until much later. Columbus paved the way for further exploration and discovery. Through Columbus, down through history, our own history might have been different because of his exploration.
The second Monday every October is dedicated to Christopher Columbus in celebration of his discovery of the Americas, but should there be a day dedicated each year to celebrating the so-called “achievements” of Christopher Columbus? It is a topic of debate among many people; some believe he should be celebrated while others believe that Columbus should be vilified. I don’t believe that he should be celebrated, but I also don’t believe that he should be defamed.
On October 12, 1492 Columbus landed on the shores of one of the islands that make up the Bahamas, believing that he had landed in the Indies. When he arrived there he eventually met the indigenous people and called them “Indians” when they were actually natives of the Bahamas. Not only did Christopher Columbus sail to the incorrect place, he also helped to spread disease among the people living there and lead to the death of vast quantities of natives. Despite these two blunders he is still celebrated as being the man who discovered the Americas. Now, overlooking those mistakes, if we think about how life would be today had Christopher Columbus not discovered the Americas it leads us to wonder: what would life be like in the Americas today? and even, would there be a United States of America had he not discovered the Americas? Had Christopher Columbus not decided to try and get to the Indies by sailing west, and had he not discovered the Americas, the United States of America might not have ever existed and the very land we live on could have been obtained and controlled by a completely different world power later in time.
Now when these vastly different aspects are looked at, should we vilify Columbus or should we celebrate his discovery, or maybe neither? Columbus did cause the destruction of many people and didn’t even achieve his original goal, but he discover and record the discovery of a new land, opening up many possibilities for future travelers. I don’t believe that Columbus should be celebrated or vilified, rather just treated as man who made a fortunate discovery due to a mistake, because sooner or later the Americas would have been discovered by someone else had he not discovered it.
Christopher Columbus’s landing in the New World in 1492 was undoubtedly an event that had an impressive impact on the world we live in today; that much is clear. Whether that event should be celebrated or cursed is another matter entirely. For many of us, it is easy to quickly make the assumption that Columbus was a cold blooded mass murderer. For others, we are quick to defend his honor. While it is impossible to completely comprehend every detail of Columbus’s disposition and set of morals, it is possible to evaluate all the horrible acts he committed, while keeping in mind the society in which he lived and the social norm at that time.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that Columbus and his men committed vile and despicable acts upon the Native Americans that they encountered during their exploration of the New World. While it is true that a large portion of these millions were killed by diseases that were unintentionally carried over by the explorers, a just as frightening portion of the Indians were brutally slaughtered. David E. Stannard, a professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii paints a vivid scene in which the Native Americans that were captured by Columbus and his explorers were chained together “at the neck and (marched) in columns to toil in gold and silver mines, decapitating anyone who did not walk quickly enough” (Stannard 430). It is very difficult to justify giving a holiday to someone who allowed this act (along with many others) of violence to happen to those indigenous people. Columbus has been compared by several historians and notable names in the field of history, such as Jan Elliot, to Hitler or Stalin (“The moral dimensions of 1492”). Historian James Axtell makes the counter argument that the acts that Columbus committed like relocating Native Americans, or working them to death does not constitute as genocide because it is the intent of the Spanish was not to exterminate the Native Americans (“The moral dimensions of 1492”). However, I argue that this claim does not make the meaning of the matter any less atrocious. Although Columbus might not have been deliberately committing a mass genocide of over 6 million people, he was still murdering for entertainment at times, and working these human beings until they were dead. Because Columbus and his men worked the Natives so hard, the life expectancy of a Native American in captivity was the same as a Jew captive in the Holocaust: three to four months (Stannard 431).
I believe that historian William McNeill said it perfectly when he stated, “We ought not to celebrate the discovery of America in 1492—that had been done long before. What Columbus did was to change the world in which he lived and the world in which the American Indians lived by connecting the two in a way that has lasted for half a millennium” (“When Worlds Collide”). Although I do not think that Columbus is someone to be celebrated, I do think that he is an important figure in history who needs to be recognized for his contributions (however revoltingly they may have been made) to our world today. Columbus had a desire to discover a much more effective trade route to Asia, and in doing so, Columbus accidently merged two worlds together in such a manner that would never make our world the same. His voyages helped to transfer the world of Renaissance thinkers and scholars into a Modern Age (“When Worlds Collide” Tirado). And through these voyages Columbus and his men wiped out large portions of culture that thrived in these individual and unique tribes of Native Americans. Columbus wiped out not only millions of lives, but also helped to erase parts of the Native American’s culture that Columbus regarded as primitive (“When Worlds Collide”).
Columbus Day has been a great part of my life as long as I remember. I was told that he was the man who discovered the New World and a day off. Now that there are new pieces of evidence coming out of him not discovering America, and that he was actually damaging the Native American culture, I do not believe there should be a named after him. He was not the hero that many see him as but he was also not a villain as others imply. He was just a great explorer that was like many others.
The claim that Columbus discovered the New World has been corrected since I have been in elementary school. It is known that Vikings made large communities in Greenland and Canada. There is also some evidence claiming that even some ancient tribe traveled to Virginia during the last ice age on boats. Columbus was only responsible for the boom in interest for the new resources there. He was really interested in the slave trade because of the large amount of Indians and that they were not well armed. He supported the colonization of the New World leading to many genocides and great wars. If nearly 99% of the population of Native Americans was wiped out due to Europeans’ want for more wealth, then the word genocide does sound fitting. Not all of the murders were directly related to Columbus, but his show of disrespect for the natives and his greed does make him a sort of criminal. If anyone should be accused of genocide, it should be Cortez. Cortez was ruthless and showed no mercy to the natives. Diseases were unintentionally brought over by Columbus, but the many areas that did bring them, it is genocide. Knowing that they have a high resistance to smallpox and that the natives were holding valuable land, they carried out the systematic killing of an ethnic group. Columbus should not be vilified but his status as a hero should not be supported.
As young kids, we all learned a great deal about Christopher Columbus. In class before Columbus Day we were taught of the great explorer and we all idolized him. But in reality, does Columbus deserve as much credit as he is given? While society should not all conform to view a person a specific way, one must look at both the good and the bad that Columbus has done and then decide. Columbus may not be the man we all dreamed about in elementary school, but maybe he is not entirely evil either.
Columbus being called a mass murderer can be true depending on the way you see things. The genocide that is described in these articles is greatly exaggerated due to the fact that a genocide is something intentionally done, but did Columbus intentionally end all these lives? Was it even his fault? Columbus was not the one walking around demanding all these lives be cut short. Sure he was looking for slaves and treated people harshly, but that was the way things were done at that time. Columbus was racist, but to him and the explorers with him they were not doing anything wrong.
A negative to Columbus coming to America was that he brought smallpox and other European disease with him. These deadly diseases killed many of the Native Americans, even those he did not come in direct contact with. Because Columbus was immune to the diseases, he still carried the bacteria on him and passed it along to the Native Americans. While this was unintentionally done, it still shows a down side in Columbus coming to America.
Another problem with celebrating Columbus is that when he spotted land, he had assumed he found another route to India, which is why he called the Native Americans “Indians”. He took credit for discovering something that was not correct. While Columbus took credit for discovering a new land, he did not truly discover it, as it already had people living there.
Perhaps Columbus should be neither celebrated nor vilified, as he is important in American history he should be recognized for what he has done, both the good and the bad.
The American public has recently been coming to a realization that our neighbors to the south in Latin America have had for quite some time now, that Christopher Columbus was not necessarily a hero. While most people in the United States have not yet completely condemned Columbus as many Latin Americans have, a growing portion has began to recognize other sides to the story that stray away from his traditional glorification as discoverer of the New World. Even though it is generally human nature to attempt to assign labels, it is not appropriate to do so in the case of Christopher Columbus. Millions of Native Americans lost their lives as direct results of his arrival, but not all of these deaths were intentional or could have been prevented by him once he had arrived. A significant amount of these deaths were completely his fault, however, as he placed these men and women in lives of slavery where they eventually perished. Yet, his settling of the Americas is still obviously an enormous event in world history, even if it was accidental and he was not technically the first.
There is certainly enough evidence available to make a strong case for the vilification of Columbus, however it is still my opinion that these arguments are not enough to give him the black-and-white label as a villain. Call me a fence-sitter, but it is difficult to assign that label considering how monumental his discovery was. Columbus’ arrival in the Americas completely altered the status of the world today. The land we live on today was completely unknown to the European world and it was Columbus who essentially opened up that half of the world to the rest of it. Columbus established a new cultural empire when he discovered the “New World” and this cannot be disregarded.
Honestly, Christopher Columbus and his men did commit some horrendous and vile acts upon millions of innocent Native Americans. He is considered by many to be responsible for the first genocide in history. In accordance with the normal mindset of the time, Columbus believed himself to be superior to the Native Americans he encountered because of his European heritage. These beliefs were a crucial foundation as they led to his enslavement of these innocent people. Frankly, he worked these men and women until they perished and if they did not satisfy him or his men, their fate could likely be death. These were clearly atrocious acts but they do not account for all of the deaths Columbus is blamed for. Millions of men and women died from disease brought to the New World by the Spanish ships. However, these deaths were of course not truly Columbus’ fault as he surely could not have predicted this result from European-Native American contact with the medical knowledge of 1492. If another explorer replaced Columbus in his position, results could have very well been similar as the disease would have undoubtedly still occurred and the slavery would still be likely considering the conventional beliefs of Europeans of the era.
In conclusion, I do truly believe that Christopher Columbus cannot be rightfully categorized as either a hero or a villain. While the man certainly committed some horrific crimes, it is not certain that another man would have acted differently and the deaths still do not completely overshadow the significance of his discovery. Perhaps, an appropriate solution to this dilemma would be to celebrate the arrival into the Americas itself rather than focussing on Columbus and giving the holiday his name.
Each year, thousands of preschoolers through first graders set about the task of painstakingly constructing the Niña, the Pinta, and the lovely Santa Maria out of such fine materials as Play-Doh, straws(bend optional), and paper. These marvelous recreations of the ships and a parade in New York represent nearly the entirety of the Columbus Day celebrations. Columbus is a name that represents the discovery of America, and an idol that we should all strive to emulate. This has been widely accepted by Americans for decades. Yet, recent studies and theories aim to dethrone this quintessential American hero and designate him as no better than Josef Stalin or Adolf Hitler. Columbus is being blamed for the deaths of millions and millions of Native American people, who perished as a result of his landing in the Americas. Is such a designation warranted? I do not believe so. Columbus should remain the symbol of America, and progression that he has been for so long.
The claim that Columbus caused the mass-murdering of millions of Native Americans is genuine malarkey. Historians are claiming that the fact that other explorers and colonists enslaved and slaughtered millions of “Indians” justifies the shunning of Columbus. It is true that the colonization of Hispaniola did not come without the loss of innocent natives’ lives, and that many were exploited as slaves. Yet, this claim does not justify removing the status of Columbus as an important figure in history who should be celebrated. It is especially insufficient evidence to justify claims of genocide. It is very clear that the intention of Columbus was not to destroy, dehumanize, and annihilate the native population. It was more that he needed to set up a permanent colony, and he had the assets necessary to do so already on the island.
Justifying the vilification of Columbus is simply not feasible. The man did what he was sent to do valiantly, and properly. The resulting casualties of his endeavors hardly mimic those of genocide. To not celebrate Columbus, and to reject him is a similar action to rejecting Karl Benz for every death involving the internal combustion engine since 1884, and exiling the Wright brothers and Leonardo da Vinci for the civilian casualties of September 11th. Columbus never meant for germs to spread and the death of millions as a result. Such knowledge simply didn’t exist. He was exploring, and setting the foundation on which the modern Americas would soon form. For that, his actions should be celebrated as if no such accusations were ever made, as if the future he never saw coming never happened.
Columbus vowed to become a wealthy man and perhaps do European civilizations a great favor by finding a route to the East Indies and the Orient; however he lacked the means to finance such a voyage. To compensate for this, he had petitioned to several European powers such as Portugal, Genoa and Venice for financial funding but they denied his requests. The decision makers in these countries correctly deducted that Columbus’s estimated distance of 2,400 miles between Europe and the East Indies was far too short. He would eventually receive the reluctant support of the Spanish Queen Isabella, since she had finished the expensive Reconquista and was desperately needed of some sort of edge over the other European countries. Even though his mathematical deductions were laughably inaccurate, he somehow discovered the West Indies and the island Hispaniola. Even to his death, he actually believed he found the East Indies. Even though his ambitions were mostly selfish in the end, many Europeans believed he did them a great favor by spreading Christianity beyond the borders of Europe and by securing a source of wealth for them to loot from the “New World”.
While the Europeans had everything to gain from Columbus’s discovery’s, the natives of the Americas had everything to lose. As colonial governor of Hispaniola, he did not hesitate to tyrannize and enslave the native population to cruel labor. It did not help that the natives were not accustomed to diseases such as smallpox that Europeans had taken for granted. It is estimated that there were roughly eight million natives in Hispaniola before Columbus’s arrival while there were only a hundred thousand left by the end of his reign. To Columbus’s meager defense however, he likely only intended to keep the natives in slavery, rather than mindlessly slaughter them like the Englishmen did. This doesn’t however, justify his cruel actions in any shape or form.
There will never be a define consensus on the actions and impacts caused by explorer Christopher Columbus and those that succeeded his attempts to colonize the “New World”. He will be however, vilified in Latin America for inadvertently or not, exterminating the Native Americans in the West Indies. Meanwhile, many people in the Spain or another European nation that has a history of colonialism revere him as a hero for establishing the first permanent European settlement in the Western Hemisphere. Even here in the US, the people who look at Columbus in a positive light far outnumber those who vilify him.
Christopher Columbus has been credited over the years with America's discovery, how ever looking at his actions from a historical viewpoint, Columbus was not the man who truly discovered America, and his actions in this newly found continent were morally deplorable. Celebrating this man, would also be celebrating his actions and how he conducted him self in the Americas, as he murdered numerous natives, by infecting them with European diseases or brutally attacking.
As children we celebrate this day, as the founding of our nation, and we celebrate the man that brought us this land, however, we fail to realize how Christopher Columbus pillaged his way through the Americas, enslaving the natives to bring back to Europe.
By honoring this man, we are literally sending ourselves backwards in time, undoing hundreds of years of progress, was the Civil War fought for nothing then, if we still honor a man that does not stand for current American ideals? in these modern times, American is still trying to reach for greater equality and believe factors like celebrating Columbus Day and being blindly unaware of his actions in the past as he brutalized the natives, is a factor of if we are able to move forward as a country.
I believe that Christopher Columbus was largely credited for the actions of others, as there were many other seafarers that did stumble upon America, even before Christopher Columbus. Not only that, but he is a very poor representation of American values.
Columbus day is always that day that children look forward too, because it is a day off from school. What kid wouldn’t love that? I sure do, but we must look at why we celebrate this day. Christopher Columbus headed west towards what he thought was going to be India. He made a deal with the Spaniards and told them he was going to try to get to the Indian Ocean without having to go around all of Africa. He made a terrible miss calculation about the size of the Earth and also didn’t realize that there were two huge continents blocking his route to his destination. He ended up landing in Hispaniola. This is where Columbus made his mark on the world, and not a good one in my opinion. It is said that he enslaved and killed many Natives due to over working and disease. This man should no be celebrated, but rather vilified.
When the word genocide is heard, most people think of the Holocaust in Europe. This was a mass killing of mainly jewish people and many other minority groups in Europe. It is said that over 10 million people were killed. Could it be possible that even more people were killed under the selfish eye of Christopher Columbus? Many people say yes.
When he landed in Hispaniola, he got right to work. He put the Natives to his work. He was looking for gold and other things to make him rich and he took advantage of the people there to do his work. This killed many thousands of people. The hard work that they went through almost guaranteed their death. This could easily be compared to the Jewish people in the 40’s. Many of them were put to work in the concentration camps. This often killed them before they were even sent to the gas chambers. Why should this selfishness be celebrated? Killing millions of people for Columbus’s benefit is not something that should have a holiday.
Also, when the Europeans came to the Americas, they unleashed a disease so deadly that in a matter of months it had killed over 50,000 people. The virus spread so fast that many people consider it worse than the Black Plague. Although this was not entirely controllable on Columbus’s part, had he not gone there and taken over the island, none of those innocent people would have died because they would not have been exposed to that terrible disease.
Columbus was a very selfish man and many people died under his harsh rule. He did many terrible things to the people of this island and should not be celebrated. I don’t believe that many people know about what he actually did to these people, and if people did know, they may think of him very differently. Columbus should be vilified and rather than having a day to celebrate his life, we should have a day to mourn the loss of life that he created.
There is much controversy surrounding Christopher Columbus’ actions that we as a country commemorate on Columbus Day. Many believe he was a vile murderer who should be condemned eternally for the way he dealt with the Native American peoples he encountered. Many others applaud his findings in discovering the “New World” and introducing Europe to lands that had never before been seen. I believe that we should do neither of the above. Both sides have a point: Columbus sailed across the great ocean and discovered foreign lands, but when he arrived, he massacred many of the residents that had been living there peacefully for years. Simply commemorating and acknowledging this event is the proper way to go about “celebrating” Columbus Day.
Before Columbus, no European country had tried to cross what we now know as the Atlantic Ocean. Under the belief that the Earth was flat, they were legitimately terrified that if they attempted a crossing, they could fall off the edge of the earth. Columbus, however, had a different idea. He was convinced that the Earth was instead shaped like a sphere. By sailing around this sphere in the opposite direction, Columbus hoped to find and establish a more efficient sea route to Asia. It was later realized that Columbus had miscalculated: the Earth had a much larger diameter than he had expected. Instead of ending up in Asia, he landed in what, at that point, was “undiscovered” land. A New World was founded, with the credit given to Columbus himself.
Although accredited to Columbus was the discovery of the New World, for years had there been inhabitants taking up residence in the Americas. The Native Americans (known as Indians to Columbus, since he still believed that they had landed in East Asia) were there to meet Columbus as he landed on the banks of their land. The European explorers, including Columbus, could not even begin to understand these people. Instead of attempting to comprehend their culture, the Europeans simply considered them “savages”, no better than wild animals or wolves. Because of this belief, the Native Americans were often treated inhumanely and horribly. Diseases such as smallpox were also unwittingly passed on to the native peoples from the Europeans, causing many casualties. There is no excuse for the mindless massacre of these people orchestrated by Columbus, and for that reason it is comprehendible why many suggest the condemnation of Columbus on this national day.
There are two sides to every story. In the one discussed here, there is the side of historical significance, and the side of moral values. In my view, it is essential that both are considered in the final decision. The historical significance of Columbus’ discoveries plays out somewhat like this: had Columbus not accidentally ran into this New World, the entire course of American and European history could have been changed drastically. On the other hand, Columbus’ morals relating to the humane treatment of the native peoples seem to be ironically barbaric. In my opinion, it is enough to commemorate and acknowledge Columbus Day, and it is not necessary to either celebrate or condemn Columbus’ actions.
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