Christopher Columbus a Hero?
In the 1500’s, people were curious about the world and wanted to advance so they explored, the explorers who discovered different things were regarded as hero’s but even though Christopher Columbus found America, he was no hero. Christopher Columbus unintentionally discovered America, when he landed in the Caribbean Islands, while looking for a direct sea route to Asia. Columbus was a selfish and untrustworthy man but was given honor. He was the cause of slavery, oppression, and mass genocide in the Americas and Africa.
Obviously, Columbus was not a hero but the exact opposite. The first fact about Columbus being a villain is that he deculturalized people. When Columbus met the Tainos in North America, he wanted to make them just like Europeans, he was trying to make them all Christian. He forced them to find gold where there was none, and if they did not find any Columbus would kill them. Columbus also forced the natives to become slaves, most of the natives died on their way to Spain. Columbus and his men threw natives corpses over the side of the boat and into the ocean.
The natives that did not become slaves worked on plantations or mines where they too would die from the hard working conditions. After they greeted the Europeans to their land with open arms, they were thrown aside like animals. Another important fact that makes Columbus not a hero is lying. Columbus lied to the queen about the explored island, He said that there’s a lot of gold and spices, and people there would share anything with anyone. Columbus also lied that he reached Asia, which was his destination spot and then insisted that he discovered this land when the Taino were found their.
He said all those things to make the queen believe that he’s a good man and to save himself from the death. This doesn’t only make him a liar but it also makes him selfish, he even took the prize of reaching the Bahamas from one of his crew mates in order to pay off a debt. The worst thing that Columbus did to gain a “bad character” name is genocide. When Columbus went to America second time, he brought a lot of Indians back with him to make them slaves to work for his queen.
A lot of people died on the way to Columbus’s country, and others were dying because they worked hard as slaves in mines and fields, which were hard and dangerous, or they wee sick with a disease, but he wasn’t the cause of not just one genocide but two. The African Americans were mistreated just as much if not worse, his reason for this was a shortage of Indian slaves. He enslaved these people after they were betrayed by their own and trade for guns. There were many deaths and the lives of the Africans were beyond comprehension and this was all thank to Christopher Columbus.
Without a doubt, Columbus was a terrible man and doesn’t deserve the recognition of a hero but a villain. An entire culture was ruined when it has been alive for maybe hundreds of years before Columbus arrived. Columbus betrayed his crew and the native after they were being kind and generous to him, just to cover for the lies he told. The Natives and Africans were killed, raped, and enslaved all because Columbus. Many men and women are thought of as hero and they do this by accomplishing something for the greater good of people but this is the opposite of what he has done.
