John Smith

Comparing John Smith and Christopher Columbus would be like comparing a rusty sword to a bronze shield: one can only hurt you while the other can only help you. Both John Smith and Christopher Columbus were travelers from Europe, however, both had extremely contrasting motives on what to do when they arrived in the land now known as present-day United States. Along with contrasting motives, their relationships with the natives also were extremely different. While Christopher Columbus demonstrated that he was a kind, knowledgeable explorer, John Smith showed the world he was just a narcissistic fool.

Christopher Columbus knew how to handle problems, such as obtaining food for his crew and communicating with other people, when he arrived in the new world because of his intense degree of knowledge, while John Smith barely survived and would have surely died without the help of the natives that he would later kill. To begin with, Christopher Columbus communicated effectively with the natives to build strong relationships with them so that it would be a mutually benefitting relationship between the two sides. As soon as he arrived, Christopher Columbus greeted them by endowing them with gifts from Europe. By doing this, he gained the favor of the natives and was able to flourish in the new world, and demonstrated to the world that he was extremely knowledgeable, even if at times he used that knowledge for the wrong reasons. On the other half of this mutually beneficial relationship, the natives gave some of their goods to the Columbus’s crew and told them how to obtain foreign goods. John Smith, on the other hand, did almost the exact opposite. Starting with his first arrival, he and his crew were almost dying because of the harsh wi...

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...d said that living under John Smith’s rule was almost like living under a dictatorship. Columbus, on the contrary, made sure that his whole crew would get an equal say on how they should rule the colony. So now not only can one see how conceited John Smith was, they can also see that he was a cruel man.

In the end, while one can see the apparent difference between John Smith and Christopher Columbus, it is hard to compare John Smith with other explorers of his time because they all basically did the same thing. While John Smith would use natives as shields, Christopher Columbus would give them goods and new ideas for their advancement, as well as his own. Now, while John Smith was cruel, he was a playground bully compared to the previously mentioned infamous explorer, William Bradford, who ordered the straight execution of over five thousand native Americans.