I think that Christopher Columbus was a selfish person. He is not what I thought he was as a child and I am going to explain exactly why. After reading the article about columbus and hearing the Dr. Engel lecture my views on him have changed.
When I was in 5th grade we started discussing Christopher Columbus, “the hero that discovered America”. I thought very highly of him because I was told that none of us would be here if it wasn’t for his discovering of America. I mean there is a day after him, usually mean or selfless people don’t have a day of the year that celebrates them and their life. America celebrates Columbus day because on October 12th, 1492, Christopher landed in the New World. We have in our minds that he was the first person to ever land in America, but it was the Native Americans.
From Dr. Engel’s lecture I learned that Christopher Columbus was an extraordinary man, but he wasn’t as heroic as I thought he was. He did go to America but there had already been people there. What really made me change my thoughts about Columbus was when he landed and shared his thoughts on the Native Americans. They were kind to him but he took advantage of that by thinking they should be
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Even though they found America first. Also, Christopher was not a very nice or thoughtful person. He was rather greedy and selfless, considering what he did to the Native Americans and his crew. What really made me upset about Columbus was when Queen Isabella agreed to give the first man who saw land, 10,000 dollars. It was not Christopher but he took credit for it, as I said he was greedy. It just surprises me that we have a day to celebrate someone who did such selfish things. I do kind of see why we give him some recognition a day a year, because he was brilliant with his journals and created
The credit for this change of view can be given to Washington Irving, who wrote a biography based on Columbus in 1828. This biography romanticized him and gave people the idea that he was this courageous hero who despite people’s claims that he’ll never succeed, ended up discovering what lies past the Atlantic. This biography gathered the momentum needed to catapult the collective opinion of Columbus higher in America. As time passed, more biographers wrote about him which resulted in groups forming, particularly the Knights of Columbus. They’re the group that pressed for a nationally recognized Columbus Day, which passed in
Columbus’s “intentions were far from selfless.” (Myint, 2015, Para. 5). The greed was immense as Columbus believed in the entitlement of ten percent of all the treasures that were plundered. Nothing was shared with the crew. Natives were also mutilated and enslaved. If the natives did no collect enough money they lost limbs, some also lost their lives. A hero would not hurt innocent people trying to survive.
Who is Christopher Columbus? You may already have prior knowledge of him, but if you do not, Christopher Columbus was a Spanish explorer who made four voyages to the Americas. His voyages led to the Columbian Exchange and colonization. Many cultures, ideas, technology, and foods were spread between the Americas, the “New World,” and Europe, Africa, and Asia, the “Old World”. Even though many great things were exchanged between the Old World and the New World, many diseases from Europe were introduced to the Natives. Does this make Christopher Columbus a hero, or a villain? The answer is not that debatable. A closer look must be taken at Christopher Columbus 's life to be able to judge such things. This essay will take a look at his life,
Christopher Columbus does not deserve to be honored as a hero with his own holiday. Close to 500 years, people have praised Christopher Columbus and also celebrated him as though he was the one who truly founded America. Teachers teach students that he was a great man, also how he found treasures and land known as America. Students are also taught about the names of his three ships he used on his first voyage. However, they did not teach us the truth about Christopher Columbus, and his so called “discovery”.
A great hero from Europe or a man with only himself and his people in mind? Many people believe that he was a hero whose discoveries lead to the possibilities we have in America today, while many other condemn him for the deaths of many Native Americans that occurred to make it possible to live in America today. What would someone like me see in Columbus’ discoveries and enslavements? He introduced the Europeans to new products and ways of financial expansion. Even though Columbus gave us a head start to a better life here in America, what lengths did he go to make such a life possible? He brought over diseases to the natives and also grazing animals to eat up the vegetation. These deaths would have never occurred if not for the countries that funded the exploration. Columbus and the Europeans would never have come to the Americas when they did and so many natives would not have died.
Christopher Columbus was a cruel, delusional, and self-centered man who does not deserve high praises for the discovery of America.
Christopher Columbus is a mythical hero or in other words, not a true hero. The story of Christopher Columbus is part of the many myths of Western civilization. Also the story of Christopher Columbus represents the power of those that are privileged and in most cases white European men that have written this mythical history. Zinn (2009 exposes the truth about Columbus through eyes of the people who were there when he had arrived which were the Native Indians (p.481). Columbus had kept a personal journal for his voyage to describe the people and the journey. What was evident throughout his journal was the Native Americans were very nice, gentle and kind hearted people (Zinn, 2009, 481). As Zinn suggests Columbus spoke of the Native Americans as” they are the best people in the world and
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.
Other than what was taught in primary education I knew little of Christopher Columbus. I certainly did not know the truth. Educators and school board officials provided a faulty historical account of Christopher Columbus growing up. Most youth raised in America grew up with nursery rhymes and bedtime stories fictionalizing the heroic efforts and swash-buckling adventures of Columbus’ and men alike making their thievery and lack of concern for human life acceptable. All Americans including the Native and African Americans who were indirectly affected by Christopher Columbus via the slave trade and destruction of their people, observe Christopher Columbus Day. If this is so, why don’t we have a Hail Hitler Day? Hitler, though many see him as a terrible man, was simply doing what power hungry individuals have done for centuries. He simply took a page out of Christopher Columbus’ book destroying the weak and enslaving those left standing. In the case of Christopher Columbus quest for gold, he went to extreme measures to ensure he would get every last golden flake that glittered in Hai...
I didn?t know much about Columbus, but when it was taught to us as a class, which was rarely, the lessons were brief and covered only the ?positive? things that he did. That is, from the eyes of those who believe Columbus was a noble man. It wasn?t until 6th grade when my teacher showed my class the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen that we opened our eyes and saw reality. We had been deceived. Deceived by videos. Deceived by books. Deceived by teachers. But at least it felt good to know the truth-finally.
The average American thinks of Christopher Columbus as a hero, but in reality, Columbus was arrogant, manipulative, and cruel in the eyes of the Native Americans, which was repeatedly shown through the violent acts and brutality that took place under his command.
Christopher Columbus first set off on his first exploration in 1492. With all of his explorations, he has made American history by far amazing. Columbus changed American history and if he didn’t set sail, our world and the place we live would be much different. Not only did he sail off to hopefully find new land, it all started with him wanting to find new riches to make his land richer and accomplish more. What his explorations found, and what happened on the explorations are my main focus. The points that are given are what make Christopher Columbus, a hero.
For the past eighty years, Columbus Day has been a federal holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October. On that day, we celebrate the great and noble explorer, Christopher Columbus, and all of his epic voyages and groundbreaking discoveries. That's the narrative we mostly hear about. But is that really the truth? It appears as though the actual story of Christopher Columbus is far worse than the romanticized versions we often hear. The morality of Columbus' values, actions, and character are questionable. The things he did and his motives for doing so were quite atrocious. His actions, if done in this day and age, would have been totally and completely unacceptable. Columbus should be judged by today’s standards. Therefore, we should not continue to celebrate Columbus Day because of the materialistic motives of Christopher Columbus, the horrendous acts he carried out against the indigenous people, and the legitimacy of his discoveries. (Dobbs, 1997)
Columbus day marks the start of a migration of culture, It signifies the beginning of the new world that is know today. Columbus's personality and moral wrongdoings do not change the fact the he bridged the gap between two worlds and started a universal culture. His name today represents the beginning of the age of exploration, where ideas flourished and curiosity bloomed. It is important not to look at this issue through 21st century approach. Many individuals simply identify columbus cruelties, such as his involvement in the slave trade or the bloody conquest of the indigenous people. This is a 21st century point of view. The fact is Columbus doings were quite normal for that time period. He wasn’t performing unheard of atrocities, and his actions weren't deviant to the culture norms of conquest and exploration. He was no different than any other explorer of his time period.
Columbus killed and enslaved many native americans. What he did was evil and selfish, and the native americans did not do anything wrong to have deserved those harmful things."By celebrating it, we're silently saying that this is ok and it's not. This is not someone that we should be looking up to, that we should be teaching our children he's a hero" (Franklin). Christopher Columbus shouldn’t be someone people can look up too. He isn’t worthy of being honored, even all the good that he did will never make up for the injustices that he created. Our school’s shouldn’t be teaching children that he was a “hero”, instead we should talk about other people who have impacted the world in a good way. “To me, the bottom line is this is public education. And if people find it offensive — even if the people who use it don’t think it is or don’t mean it to be — the public is paying for public education, and no one should be put in an uncomfortable position. My kids were uncomfortable”(Franklin). Nobody deserves to feel uncomfortable by a subject like this, which is why I find that Columbus shouldn’t be talked about, or at least teach people what he really did. We have the opportunity to reveal historical truths about the genocide and oppression of Indigenous peoples in the americas, and make society a bit