Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?

School taught us about the infamous Christopher Columbus who was known as the hero who found the Americas in 1492, but is that the truth? Is Columbus really the hero that grade school portrayed him to be? Columbus was not. Columbus was a greedy man who destroyed an entire race of people with genocide just so only he could benefit and become a man of money and power.

Columbus was a very good speaker and very persuasive. He convinced the King and Queen of Spain to fund his expedition to “Asia” and he told about all the gold and spices that would be discovered there and how they would be wealthy.# Columbus told them his famous terms which stated that he would receive no less than one-tenth of all the wealth that would arrive from Asia through the new route, and not only wealth he had made on his expedition but for all the wealth made from all future expeditions.# Columbus did not want this to be limited to himself, but after he died the profits would continue on to his heir. He also wanted to have receive titles such of “viceroy” and “admiral of the ocean sea”. # This shows his amount of greed and how much he wanted to be known as someone with high power.

Columbus started his voyage in 1492 to sailing to what he thought was Asia which was really South America. He kept two logs on the expedition, one to show the crew so they do not get suspicious, and one to show the King and Queen which to lie about the discoveries, mileage, and probably much more.# His crewmen weren’t paid wonderfully ; despite the money Columbus was given to pay the crew members from the King and Queen he only paid them around a thousand Marvdeis a month, which today would be about a thousand three hundred dollars.#

The King and Queen had offered a te...

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