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5 paragraph essay onthe impact of christopher columbus
Essay about christopher columbus
Essay about christopher columbus
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Have you ever met someone who was not what you thought they were? Most of the time it coming from just one source of information a person, place, or thing. An example of this would be the true story of Christopher Columbus. Textbooks give you some of his accomplishments while new research shows that there wasn't just a great guy finding america. He was in fact also pretty much, a cruel dictator. I think that we should change a few things about the holiday but still keep it. One of the main problems that we have concerns for about this holiday is the treatment he brought upon the Native Americans or as he called them “Indians”. He has done numerous things to the Natives as from going to Slavery in both work ethic and Sexually. He captured
Some of the problems when studying history are the texts and documents that have been discovered are only from perspective. Furthermore, on occasion that one perspective is all there may be for historians to study. A good example of this textual imbalance can be found from the texts about the discovery of the New World; more specifically, the letters of Christopher Columbus and Pêro Vaz de Caminha during their voyages to the New World. Plenty of the text from this time is written from the perspective of the Europeans, as the Indigenous population did not have any written text. What this means is that it provided only one perspective, which can drastically hinder how history is interpreted. Columbus’s letter of his first voyage to the Caribbean
The history based on primary source and secondary source, and the history has to have both primary source and secondary source because it has real facts and analyzes. Examples of Primary Sources are speeches, news, photographs..,etc., and examples of secondary sources interpreted topics. This article is primary source essay, and Primary sources are original documents. Primary sources for this article are Christopher Columbus’s Letter,1493 and Fray Bernardino de Sahagun Relates an Aztec Chronicler’s Account of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs,1519.
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”.
The controversy of whether or not Christopher Columbus should continue to be acknowledged by a federal holiday proves that his legacy has not escaped the scrutiny of history. Arguments born of both sides of the controversy stem from issues such as genocide, racism, multiculturalism, geographical land rights, and the superiority of certain cultures over others. In The Christopher Columbus Controversy: Western Civilization vs. Primitivism, Michael Berliner, Ph.D. declares that recognition of Columbus Day is well-deserved, claiming that Western civilization is superior to all other cultures and Columbus personifies this truth. On the contrary, Jack Weatherford's Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus equates Columbus' so-called discovery with brutal genocide and the destruction of ancient sophisticated civilizations. These articles demonstrate two extreme points of view in a manner that makes clear each authors' goals, leading the reader to consider issues of author bias, motivation, and information validity.
Columbus appears to be a dreamer. His goals were selfish and his true knowledge weak. He was deceitful and egotistical and knew how to manipulate others. Throughout his writings he refers to the things that ‘he’ accomplished, as if he had done them alone. He lied almost daily to the sailors according to his journal when he stated “less than the true number” (Halsall) of leagues travelled each day was reported to them. He spoke of an abundance of gold he found in the islands when he wrote “the majority [of rivers]…contain gold” (Belasco and Johnson 82). According to his journal entries, he only observes the existence of gold two times and both times it is seen hanging from a man’s nose. For example, on October 17 he encounters a man that had “hanging at his nose a piece of gold half as big as a castellailo” (Halsall), about a half pound in weight. Although he was told about gold and searched for gold, he never procured any. Additionally, he had a very high opinion of himself and was not hesitant in letting others know this. In his initial Journal writing he announces himself to be “Don” (Halsall), that’s like saying ‘I’m the head man.’ Furthermore, he let the King and Queen know that his proclaimed distinction was to be passed to his oldest son, including governorship of islands and lands he finds on his journey. He appears to think that what once belonged to native islanders, will belonged to him.
Christopher Columbus is a mythical hero or in other words, not a true hero. The story of Christopher Columbus is part of the many myths of Western civilization. Also the story of Christopher Columbus represents the power of those that are privileged and in most cases white European men that have written this mythical history. Zinn (2009 exposes the truth about Columbus through eyes of the people who were there when he had arrived which were the Native Indians (p.481). Columbus had kept a personal journal for his voyage to describe the people and the journey. What was evident throughout his journal was the Native Americans were very nice, gentle and kind hearted people (Zinn, 2009, 481). As Zinn suggests Columbus spoke of the Native Americans as” they are the best people in the world and
In some respects, we can attribute the founding of America and all its subsequent impacts to Christopher Columbus. Columbus a hero in the United States, has his own holiday and we view as the one who paved the way for America to be colonized. However, people tend to forget the other side of Columbus, the side that lusted after gold and resources that often belonged to the native inhabitants he came across in his exploration. In his insatiable greed, he and his crew committed countless atrocities, such as torture and killing of defenseless natives. Columbus’s discovery of these new lands contributes profound and negative effects as future colonists arrived. “Zinn estimates that perhaps 3 million people perished in the Caribbean alone from raids, forced labor and disease” (Zinn, 1980). Columbus was seen as a cruel man, who saw the peaceful inhabitants as right for the conquering and lead to the devastation of the native population, yet is celebrated every October.
One reason we shouldn’t celebrate Columbus Day is because he enslaved Natives to have them work. The text states,”The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean,capturing Indians,”(page 8
Other than what was taught in primary education I knew little of Christopher Columbus. I certainly did not know the truth. Educators and school board officials provided a faulty historical account of Christopher Columbus growing up. Most youth raised in America grew up with nursery rhymes and bedtime stories fictionalizing the heroic efforts and swash-buckling adventures of Columbus’ and men alike making their thievery and lack of concern for human life acceptable. All Americans including the Native and African Americans who were indirectly affected by Christopher Columbus via the slave trade and destruction of their people, observe Christopher Columbus Day. If this is so, why don’t we have a Hail Hitler Day? Hitler, though many see him as a terrible man, was simply doing what power hungry individuals have done for centuries. He simply took a page out of Christopher Columbus’ book destroying the weak and enslaving those left standing. In the case of Christopher Columbus quest for gold, he went to extreme measures to ensure he would get every last golden flake that glittered in Hai...
The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not really discover The New World millions of people already lived there his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of Atlantic conquest and colonization. However there has been some controversy whether or not Columbus is a hero or not because of some of his actions he took;” one hundred years after his landing in America, Europeans exploration, and exploitation, resulted in the deaths of 90 million indigenous peoples. His own diaries detail the horrible atrocities committed seemingly at his behest” (lecture handout). In terms of celebration I say it we should not because we are celebrating all the actions he took; The Killing of many natives, the creation of slavery, and mistreatment of his own people. Columbus is basically label as a tyrant. Instead Columbus Day should instead be celebrated as Indigenous day. A day of remembrance to all the people that suffer under Columbus
...uld not celebrate Columbus’s actions, ignoring the death of so many. Columbus is not a hero.
Everybody knows Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but does everyone know what he did after he got to America? Even though Christopher columbus was a great explorer and a brave leader to modern civilization, he did not treat everyone fairly after he got to America, especially the Native-Americans. Christopher Columbus kicked the Native-Americans out and brought european diseases, he gave Natives junky things like glass beads in return for great stuff like gold, and now the state of california is changing Columbus day to indigenous peoples day. So all in all Christopher Columbus is a bad person to celebrate after all of the horrible things he did to the Native-Americans .
In the article Goodbye, Columbus Day it says, “Columbus’s crew enslaved or killed many of the native people they encountered.” Columbus and his crew were wrongfully harming the indigenous people who did nothing wrong. They took away the way of life for many tribes. They took everything from many, many Native Americans and gave nothing in return other than mistreatment. Columbus’s exploration led to a lot of pain and suffering for the Native Americans.
Columbus Day has been changed to “Indigenous Peoples Day” . Shortly after,this change Khsama Swant a Seattle City Council member speaks about these issues on the website www.npr.org . Many other states have changed Columbus day to Indiginoeus Peoples’ Day because of the upsetting history associated with Columbus.
However, from discussion three, I have learned that Thanksgiving is from Indian. I feel so ashamed that American took not only the land but also the culture. Before the black slave came to America, the Indian used to work with the low payment and the terrible environment. During the slave trade, American begun to take black slaves from Africa. That is true slaves bring booming economic America; however, it also lowed people morally. American perused the social hierarchy. They passed the law that slaves’ children are slaves, and the owner could do whatever they want even though killed or raped the slaves (Discussion 5). “To accomplish this there was the discipline of hard labor, the breakup of the slave family, the lulling effects of religion (which sometimes led to "great mischief," as one slaveholder reported), the creation of disunity among slaves by separating them into field slaves and more privileged house slaves, and finally the power of law and the immediate power of the overseer to invoke whipping, burning, mutilation, and death”(Zinn, 31) .Through this way, slaves hurt not only for bodies but also for souls. I have learned that the violent side Americans had. Even though they gathered a lot of money, I wonder what the moral dimension is for