Cristóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus)

1156 Words3 Pages

Monday, October 12 is Columbus Day. A day spent by our great nation at malls all across America, where immense deals are being held and prices are being slashed. The reason’s for these sales are obsolete and are merely there to justify making a profit on a Pseudo Holiday. I believe that most individuals have no idea why Columbus Day is celebrated. Honestly, I have no clue as to why Columbus Day became a holiday in the first place. Is it because he was the first european to discover America? Is it because of the old nursery rhyme “In 1492, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue?” While catchy, this rhyme holds no resemblance to what actually occurred in 1492. This great navigator, Columbus, did absolutely nothing to deserve a holiday and the knowledge of his achievements is skewed by society’s witty rhymes and lack of proper historical education. I am blessed to be one of the exceptions, as someone who has great educators and someone who loves to learn the truths of history. One of the first aspects of Columbus Day that I find humorous is the fact that the name of this holiday is incorrect. In fact, the name that we’ve assigned Columbus is far from his real name! Gerald Erichsen of (spanish.about.com) is baffled by the fact that English has changed Cristóbal Colón’s name into Christopher Columbus. He goes in to linguistics about how we have changed his name, however, what is important in this case is that we essentially gave a false name to this Spanish Navigator and created a holiday with a meaningless title. Should we be celebrating Colón day? I assume that would be a silly name for a holiday. A more well suited name for this holiday would be Genocide Day.
Colón was a greedy sociopath, who did not discover America first and who...

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...Dec. 2013.
Minster, Christopher. "Spain’s American Colonies and the Encomienda System." About.com Latin American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.
Philips, Carla R., and William D. Phillips. "Christopher Columbus in United States Historiography: Biography as Projection." Http://www.jstor.org/stable/494269. Society for History Education, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.
"Spanish Colonization of the Americas." Spanish Colonization of the Americas. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
Strauss, Valerie. "Christopher Columbus: 3 Things You Think He Did That He Didn’t." Http:// www.washingtonpost.com/. © 1996-2013 The Washington Post, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.
"The Voyages of Christopher Columbus." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.
Zin, Howard. "(Excerpt) Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress." Columbus Peoples Hx Zinn. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.

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