To many, Christopher Columbus was a very remarkable man of history. His many discoveries and conquests, despite all the hardships faced, have led others to believe that he is some sort of hero. But is that really what he is? A hero? In A people’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, he states, “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity, but an ideological choice”. This quote is true, in the sense that history is often told from a biased perspective due to being told or written by an objective historian that is able to prove their thoughts with details and information.
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States describes Columbus’ arrival to the West Indies. The Arawak natives greeted Columbus and his men once they came ashore. Zinn states Columbus’ encounter with the Indians: “They would make fine servants….With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want (Zinn, 1)”. With that approach, it didn’t take time before enslavement, murders, and rape to begin. With the goal of bringing back gold for the royalty in Spain, Columbus and his men took slaves and forced them to find gold or they were to be murdered. By the end of the 16th century, the Arawak Indians became extinct due
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He too had one obsessive goal which was to find gold. Cortes was deceptively regarded as a godly figure by the Aztecs. Soon the Aztecs realized that he wasn't who or that they thought him to be, so they rebelled. And due to their rebellion, “Cortes then began his march of death from town to town, using deception, turning Aztec against Aztec, killing with the kind of deliberateness that accompanies a strategy—to paralyze the will of the population by a sudden frightful deed (Zinn, 11)” and continued to massacre them until every human soul of the Aztec civilization was completely wiped
In the book Zinn, The author gives a point of view of Christopher Columbus that is usually not given. Most of the time the story of Christopher Columbus is told from a historian point of view. They usually tell you of his mission, and of the three ships that he takes in order to find gold and other new riches. Zinn informs us that he is not the hero that, that we all think that he is. It shows us that he tortured, abused, and overwhelmingly embarrasses the Arwark Indians.
We were told about his great adventures and significant discoveries. Our textbooks describe him as a hero who changed the world for the good by following his dreams. Columbus was seen as such an influential person that we even had a holiday named after him. All of this is what we’re taught in history
Many people when they were younger, including myself, were taught that Columbus is a hero and an amazing person who discover the New World. We were all told that Columbus’s purpose for sailing thousands of miles across the Atlantic was to come here in search of undiscovered land. Columbus DID want land but he was expecting to get that land from
I agree that his accidental discovery ultimately led to the massacre of countless Natives. Although, he might be considered a hero for 'discovering ' the New World. However, there were several who came before him and inhabited the land, such as the Natives. Thus, the impossibility of discovering something that had already been in place. For this reason, I would not consider Columbus a hero.
The history of Christopher Columbus has been a shared piece of history in the education systems. American history books and majority of cultures portray Columbus as a hero. The United States of America honors Christopher with a holiday named Columbus Day, which occurs the second Monday in October. Also, historians divide Columbus’s history in a similar way as Jesus, example: before 1492 known as pre-Columbian. The school textbooks preserve Columbus with a positive life story and don’t include all the negative events that took place.
He authored a four-book biography of Columbus and portrayed him as a brave American hero. “Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius. His ambition was lofty and noble, inspiring him with high thoughts and an anxiety to distinguish himself by great achievements. His conduct was characterized by the grandeur of his views and the magnanimity [nobility] of his spirit.” Instead of writing, that Columbus was devastating to the newly found nation and that he sought to take over, cultivate and civilize the Natives.
A heavily debated topic in this day and age is if Christopher Columbus was really a hero or a mass murderer. On one hand, he opened up access to the New World and created trade routes, on the other, he primarily unintentionally almost wiped out a population and abused Native Americans. I believe that Columbus was more of a hero than he was a villain because he had a normal mindset and goal for Spaniards during the time period, many things he is blamed for happened completely unintentionally or by accident, and Columbus wasn’t the only one who had servants and took Natives captive. Often when looking back into history, we unintentionally judge events, people, and actions based off of our current mindset, and Christopher Columbus was no exception.
When I was younger I was under the impression that Christopher Columbus was a great man and that he discovered America. We celebrate Columbus day because we honor him for “discovering America”. From this new information that I have learned today, Christopher Columbus is not the man iv have been taught about.
Cortes, as well as many other explorers during this time, was inspired by the Three G’s: God, gold, and glory. He planned to conquer the new lands for Spain, to convert the natives to Catholicism, and to obtain the riches of the land, mostly gold. Conquistador is basically a record of the last days of the Aztec civilization, as the two groups, the Aztecs and the Spaniards, clash, and the Spaniards ultimately come out on top.
Inclusively, the professor explained that stories such as the flat earth, and the challenges Columbus faced while discovering America, only help to empower the concept of heroification. Surprisingly, Loewen explains that these and other erroneous stories are learned through history textbooks. Dr. Jendian explained that these misconceptions, keep students unaware of the real nature of history. According to Loewen (32), “The authors of history textbooks have taken us on a trip of their own, away from the facts of history, into the realm of myth.” As mentioned previously, Columbus is presented to us as a symbol of heroification, demonstrating how history textbooks contain errors about his real life.
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus hero or villain? I personal think he's both a hero and a villain in the sense that he was brave enough to sail across an uncharted ocean, but at the same time he enslaved and mutilated innocent natives. He’s a hero for taking on the challenge to set out and find a new world that as unknown to the Europeans. While he may not have set foot on the shores of North America, he still found a new piece of land that was unknown to the Europeans.
Some say Christopher Columbus was a hero because he was the explorer that discovered America. In reality, Christopher Columbus had an incredibly negative impact on the world because he enslaved the Native Americans, didn’t help the kind Natives when they got infected by diseases that the Spaniards had brought to America, and killed off most of the Native American population. The tactics he chose to use were violent and destructive by the standards back then and now. First, Columbus treated the Native Americans like uncivilized people by enslaving them and forcing them to work for him although they greeted him and his crew peacefully. ” They could make fine servants,”(document 2) he wrote in his journal,”I took them by force.
Christopher Columbus Hero or Villain ? Christopher Columbus is a Villain. On some accounts he can be a Hero. But on many other accounts he's a vicious Villain. Yes he discovered America ;
Almost everybody has heard of Christopher Columbus, but do you know that he tried to sail for 15 years. Christopher Columbus found new land, was a good navigator, and never gave up. Here are some reasons why Columbus should be considered a hero. The first reason that Christopher Columbus was a hero is because he found new land.
Christopher Columbus is a man who is commonly depicted as a hero and great explorer who discovered our modern day America, but many of the so called “facts” are not all completely true as people would like to believe. Columbus was undoubtedly a courageous explorer who brought many new ideas, cultures, and resources to be exchanged between the New World and Europe. While this is true, it is not uncommon for people to forget the harmful effects brought along with the voyages made by Columbus and the darker details of his times in America. Columbus started from humble middle class family. Columbus was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa as the oldest of his four siblings.