Christopher Columbus, the Conquerer
Depending on how you look at it, Christopher Columbus was either a great man of adventure and achievement Or the kind of person that does not see shame in killing and enslaving thousand of Native Americans. Christopher Columbus came to America in hopes of finding new land, new opportunities, and gold. On the view of the Spaniards side he was helping them expand a money thirsty empire. He was helping route and map new uncharted land. He was bringing his ships back so full of gold that they almost sunk. On the view of Native Americans he was looting and plundering their valubles, family members, houses, pictures and basically anything he wanted. He sacrificed many Natives, crushing their whole world for the purpose of expanding his and make himself known. Christopher Columbus was a destroyer.
Whether it was a day of huge discovery or a day of dark doom, Christopher Columbus set out from Spain on August 3, 1492 (Microsoft Encarta). With him he had high hopes, great expectations, a dream, a highly moraled crew, and three Spanish caravel ships. The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. At that time the crew and Columbus had strong intentions of reaching what they thought was the East Indies (Burdette 26). However, the crews were a week and a half out from Spain. They were sure they were near land. It could have been just a see bird or the weeds growing on the Sargasso Sea. A prime example that the rest of the crew or Columbus himself had not had any exact information such as maps about the sea. Following the trade winds they had followed, they were being lead to N. America
With a bold yell Columbus sat perched on the tower of the Santa Maria and hollered, "From the West to the East we will...
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...on stake war on great empires such as the Aztecs. Although the natives were very willing to defend their empire, Spain had the upper hand. With canons, swords, and rifles the Spanish soon totally annihilated the people. Killing, burning, hanging or decapitating were of the possibilities (Stannard 237). Spain showed no mercy and ultimately crushed the empire. With enough gold to nearly sink Columbus ships, the ships returned to celebrate. The "fantastic voyage" was nothing short of the expected success.
Works Cited
Burdette, Silver. Christopher Columbus. Milan: Silver Burdett, 1982.
"Chistopher Columbus." Microsoft Encarta. 1995.
Levinson, Nancy. Columbus: Voyager to the Unknown. New York: Knopf, 1990.
Sperry, Armstrong. Voyages of Columbus. New York: Random House, 1950.
Stannard, David E. American Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
First, Columbus was a cruel man who enslaved, raped, and murdered the natives of the countries he sailed to. According to an article by John Margolis entitled "Goodbye Columbus", Columbus "oversaw the killings of some (Indians) and ordered the enslavement of others." Margolis goes on to say that Columbus did not prevent his crewmen from raping the innocent natives, and even that he himself raped an Indian women after beating her "with a piece of rope". If these actions do not constitute villainy, I don't know what does.
For more than five centuries Americans have lifted Christopher Columbus to heights of greatness and god-like. We celebrate his life as though he was a man that had done us a great favor. In resent years Christopher Columbus has come under scrutiny, his life and works being questioned more than celebrated. There have be many great men and women that contributed to the building of our great nation but they do not receive anywhere as much recognition as Columbus. When a person begins to study the actual accounts of the "finding of the New World" they begin to wonder if Columbus should adored or hated for his actions. As a child I was taught that Columbus was a great man that had accomplished great things for the sake of humanity, but in reality his agenda was not to better humanity but to better himself. He found the Americas by mere chance and he did not even know of what he found. We give him credit for "finding" the Americas but history tells of the people, that he called Indians, already inhabiting the foreign land. So you decide whether or not Christopher Columbus should be revered a hero.
My personal opinion? Villain. Christopher Columbus was a nasty man who was motivated by greed. “The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the Gold” (Zinn 4)? He logged in his journal his first encounter with the Arawak people, stating “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might give me information of whatever there is in these parts” (Zinn 4). Their crime? “They wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears” (Zinn 5). Columbus would stop at nothing to gain what he most desired. Horrible as he was, he ultimately paved the way for America as we know it. All things happen for a reason, right?
Christopher Columbus, was he a hero, or villain? For about 500 years, people have praised him and celebrated his life as though he was someone who did good for us. Schools teach students that Columbus was a great man, found gold and pearls, and discovered new lands. Students are even taught the names of Christopher Columbus' three ships he used on his first voyage. However, they grow up not knowing the truth about Christopher Columbus, what he really did to 'accomplish' his tasks. I simply believe that schools should show both sides of Columbus' story, so that students can be aware of the facts behind the 'discovery' of Early America.
It is thought by many that Christopher Columbus was a skilled sailor on a mission of greed. Many think that he in fact did it all for the money, honor and the status that comes with an explorer, but this is not the case entirely. Columbus was an adventurer and was enthused by the thrill of the quest of the unknown. “Columbus had a firm religious faith and a scientific curiosity, a zest for life, the felling for beauty and the striving for novelty that we associate with the advancement of learning”. He had heard of the legendary Atlantic voyages and sailors reports of land to the west of Madeira and the Azores. He believed that Japan was about 4,800 km to the west of Portugal. In 1484, Columbus wanted support for an exploratory voyage from King John II of Portugal, but he was refused. In 1485, Columbus took his son Diego and went to Spain to get some help.
Christopher Columbus is famed today for discovering the Americas. It was his leadership that made this discovery, the hardest and most difficult one. Columbus had requested three ships for an expedition in Asia in order to obtain spices from countries there and bring it back to his country. Lucky for him, Queen Isabella agreed to sponsor Christopher Columbus on an expedition to the Indies. This was not one’s typical expedition. Columbus had high hopes of reaching the Indies by sailing west; something that seemed impossible to do during the time. He was given the three ships he requested and was deemed as the captain and general of this journey. It was very difficult for Columbus to successfully direct the ship members onboard since all of them believed they were doomed to death. This journey took about two months to complete. It is hard to imagine constantly have the uncertainty of whether one was going to fall off the Earth or not. This very though drove the ship members ins...
The second Monday in October is celebrated across America as Columbus Day. It is a celebration of the man who discovered America. In school, children are taught that Christopher Columbus was a national hero. In actuality, the man was a murderer. It is true that he found a land that was unknown to the "civilized" world, yet in this discovery, he erased the natives inhabiting the land. With slavery, warfare, and inhumane acts, Christopher Columbus and the men who accompanied him completely destroyed a people, a culture, and a land. These are not actions that should be heralded as heroic.
Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator who sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean in search for the all-water route to Asia, but instead achieved fame for making landfall in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus' plan was based in part on two major miscalculations. First, he underestimated the circumference of the world by about 25 per cent. Columbus also mistakenly believed that most of the world consisted of land rather than water. This mistake led him to conclude that Asia extended much farther east than it actually did. In 1492, Columbus embarked on his first voyage. Queen Isabella of Spain ordered that the port of Palos supply him with three ships the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria. A total of about 90 crew members sailed aboard the three ships. In addition to the officers and sailors, the expedition included a translator, three physicians, a servant for each captain, a secretary, and an accountant. On October 12, 1492, at 2:00 in the morning he spouted a small island, which he called San Salvador. In January, the Santa Maria was wrecked off the coast of Espanola. The Nina, with Columbus in command, along with the Pinta began the homeward voyage in January 1493. The storms drove the ships first to the Azores and then to Lisbon, Columbus arrived in Palos, Spain, in March. He was enthusiastically received by the Spanish Monarchs. Columbus planned immediately for a second expedition, with about 1500 men, which left Spain in September 1493. They landed on the island of Dominica, Gaudeloupe. His stop at Puerto Rico is the closest he came to setting foot on land that would later form part of the United States, the main foundation for the claim that Columbus “discovered America.”
Even though he is celebrated in the United States, Christopher Columbus should not be considered a hero. He took advantage of the generosity of the American natives he found. His greedy ambition had horrible results that most Americans do not even realize.
“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Every elementary student across the United States has been taught this tune about the great explorer, Christopher Columbus. Columbus was a very important historical figure, and he has been credited with uniting Europe and America. He was not the first European to discover America, but he discovered a lot of land that was unknown to the Europeans, and he paved the path for Spanish land claims and spread of Spanish culture. As the Anthology of American Literature states, “He changed the way the world saw itself” (Columbus, 14). For this reason, his name and life story has been preserved in history books all around the world.
In many of the colleges and universities today, there are a tremendous amount of students who Drink. The students who consume at least five drinks in a row at one point during a two week period are considered Binge Drinkers. Binge Drinking by college students is the cause to some of the students’ deaths, causes some students grades to fall, and is very dangerous and unhealthy.
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Young, A. M., Morales, M., McCabe, S. E., Boyd, C. J., & D'arcy, H. (2005). Drinking Like a Guy: Frequent Binge Drinking Among Undergraduate Women. Substance Use & Misuse, 40(2), 241-267. doi:10.1081/ja-200048464
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