A Man with low Character
Christopher Columbus, the man that sailed across the Atlantic in search for a route to the Indies, but found the New World instead. That is all we really here about him, but what about his time in the New World, especially his interactions with the Indians? Why was he cruel and unfriendly to them? Showing the natives violence in effort to find riches in the New World, and forcing them to convert to Christianity? Indeed, through his life, and from his actions, towards the Indians, he showed to have a virtue ethic perspective. Virtue ethics is what Aristotle argued, that based on a man’s character he determines right or wrong, and that a man of character would make the right decision, based on universal virtues. However,
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There were many routes that Europeans used to trade with Asia; the latest water route was discovered in 1488, by Bartolomeu Dias. He sailed around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) to Asia. Also, during the time of Christopher Columbus, scholars had a good idea that the world was indeed round and not flat. Columbus thought that by traveling the Atlantic westward, he would find Asia. However, he had much trouble getting anyone to fund his expedition. He proposed his ideas to the crowns of England, and Portugal, and other countries, but no one would sponsor his voyage due to several reasons. One main reason was that Columbus proposed the Atlantic to be shorter than many scholars believed it to be. But once the new monarchs of Spain started to rule they decided to fund Columbus’ voyage, in thinking this would be a great way to spread Christianity, and increase their wealth. Columbus ended up with a business contract with the King and Queen of Spain, entitling him to 10% of all …show more content…
Religious-Based ethics is a type of Deontological ethical perspective, it is the belief that God determines what is right and what is wrong, and to know what God wants one must interpret His word (the Bible), listening to religious leaders, or be told by God himself. Yes, Christopher Columbus showed somewhat of this ethic in his reason to discover the New World, but yet failed to carry it out in his actions. If he were to carry out this ethic, and treat others like the Bible says in Mark 12:31: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” by rewarding the Indians for their work (if they chose to work). Perhaps, the Indians would have worked harder, maybe even show the Spaniards where a greater supply of gold could be found, or where a better area for growing crops could be found. And better yet maybe these Indians would not have seen so much loss amongst their
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”.
Christopher Columbus was a man who much credit was given to for a very small deed. In fact he discovered a new world, but that world was only new to him and the men of his previous generations. What about the many Native Americans whose fathers and father’s fathers shed their blood for the land in which they had lived for so many years. How could one such as Christopher Columbus who was looking for freedom and hope cause so much bondage and destruction? One man’s victory turned out to be devastation for millions.
Despite being one of the most renowned explorers in history, Christopher Columbus’ legacy remains controversial. The debate on whether Columbus should be celebrated has captured news headlines for decades. While many view him simply as a gifted Italian navigator who laid the seeds for the colonization of the New World, history paints a much more complicated picture. His journal entries and eye-witness testimony reveal Columbus to be a man of intolerance and indifference towards those deemed inferior to himself. Christopher Columbus’ treatment of Indigenous’ people, in addition to his ethnocentric worldview, allows for the conclusion that he should not be idolized as a hero in the modern age.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus unintentionally discovered America, when he landed in the Caribbean Islands, while looking for a direct sea route to Asia. Despite the fact that Columbus believed he had found a direct sea route to India, he has been called the discoverer of America and hailed as a hero. More recently, however, he has been called a villain, with accusations saying that not only did he not discover America, but also that he was the cause of slavery and oppression in the Americas. These allegations are absurd and lack logical evidence.
In the mid 1400’s Spain and Portugal began to take separate routes of discovery. Prince Henry of Portugal, in reaction to the shortage of bullion in Western Europe, was interested in sending his captains to the African coast in search of gold. As a result, many Portuguese ports were established along the African coast and “The Portuguese were able to exploit at least a part of the African caravan trade they had sought.” (p.340) While Portugal was focused on expansion along the African coast; the Spanish were the first to discover the “new world” despite the lack of geographical knowledge the Spaniards and Columbus in particular possessed. This “new world” wasn’t quite what Columbus had though it was, however; as Columbus maintained to his death that he had reached Asia. He hadn’t, “He had landed at one of the Bahaman Islands, San Salvador.” (p. 342) Columbus’ distorted reality proved to...
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.
He was intending to reach Asia by sailing west rather than taking the traditional route around the Cape of Good Horn. On October 12, 1492, Columbus and his men landed on an island in the Bahamas. “As European adventurers traversed the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they initiated the “Columbian Exchange” of plants, animals, and diseases. ”(P. 26). The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of exchanges between the New and Old Worlds.
For generations upon generations, students have been taught about the “hero” Christopher Columbus who had discovered our new world. However, to say he was a hero would not exactly be the truth; Columbus was an eccentric man who cared much more about his profits than the well being and even lives of the natives. It is documented in journals that he and his crew had slaughtered entire villages at a time, and that he had even killed people just for the point of testing how sharp his sword was. Not only did Columbus and his crew have a thing for violence, on multiple accounts crew members wrote down every single successful rape of women; and used the voyage to help begin a slave export for the royalty of Spain.
...icas. “{There} can be no doubt that when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the West Indian islands in 1492, he set in motion some of the most pivotal developments in human history” (Foner 1). He braved the inconceivable task of sailing across the Atlantic for an undetermined length of time without certainty that he would ever return. In today’s age, getting on a plane and venturing to a foreign country is brave. Joining the military and fighting for your country is brave. Was Christopher Columbus brave or just a mad man? I believe he was both. Sometimes you need to be a little crazy to do “great things”.
Some would say that Christopher Columbus was a devout Christian. He believed that "his was a mission that would put Christian civilization on the offensive after centuries of Muslim ascendancy" (Dor-Ner 45). Columbus' original mission was to find a western route to the Indies. But when that failed, his mission became clear: convert these new people to Christianity. Throughout this paper I will show the view of the natives by Columbus and Christendom and how these views changed over a span of fifty years.
Reaching towards the peak of trade, Europe faced difficulties in trading with Asia due to sections of multiple trade routes being dominated by Muslims. This meant that men were lost and it took a great amount of time to be able to give and receive the products being traded. This was when Christopher Columbus proposed a solution, believing that a route which sailed west through the Atlantic Ocean, would be a much safer and faster way of trading with Asia.
Although this essay is historically accurate it lacks important details, which might paint a different view of Columbus. Boorstin writes favorable of Columbus and depicts him as a heroic and determined figure who helped shape history, but he neglects to include Columbus’ unethical acts committed in the world that was not supposed to exist, the Americas. When Columbus first discovered the New World, he took care that the royal standard had been brought ashore and he claimed the land for Spain in front of all, including the indigenous population who had been sighted even before Columbus made landfall. According to the medieval concepts of natural law, only those territories that are uninhabited can become the property of the first person to discover them. Clearly this was an unethical act. Thus, the first contact between European and non-European worlds was carried out through a decidedly European prism, which ensured Spanish claim to the islands of the Americas. Faced with a colony in an inhospitable area, the Spanish soon inaugurated the practice of sending regular military parties inland to subdue the increasingly hostile natives. Members of the indigenous population were captured and enslaved to support the fledgling colony. The object of Columbus’ desire changed from exploration and trade to conquest and subjugation.
The most posing problems with the set routes to Asia, which went around the Cape of Good Hope and along the coast of Africa, were that it was very dangerous due to enemy colonies along the route and was also very long. These problems made some people, including Christopher Columbus, decide to turn to the west to find safer and faster routes to the riches of Asia. What they found was the Americas. Believing that he would reach Asia, Columbus accidentally found a new continent, full of new riches and unclaimed lands. All of this occurred near the end of the Renaissance, beginning with the founding of America in 1492, near the end of the 15th century.