Ideology Of Christopher Columbus

Perhaps the very beginning of a lasting ideology started with Spanish conquistadors, who aspired to do what any “noble” explore would do: establish dominance over new land, conquer natives, spread Christianity, and find gold. This “God, glory, gold” mindset progressed through the minds of many individuals throughout the Age of Exploration, and continued on with them as they sailed into the Great Unknown. One explorer pertinent to United States history is Christopher Columbus, often credited with the establishing contact between Europe and the New World, and initiating European colonization.

The primary fuel to European colonization were joint-stock companies: shareholders who invested money into the company and in turn received a portion of

the company’s profits. These companies proved to be successful in the early days of colonization. An ideology that coursed through the minds of conquistadors and settlers alike finally landed within the Puritan community of the New England colonies. Specifically, the Massachusetts Bay colony held a tightly knit, “model” community founded on the basis of serving God. This belief was reiterated
by the colony’s governor, John Winthrop, who envisioned Massachusetts Bay as a “city upon a hill” in his speech entitled A Model of Christian Charity. In his sermon, Winthrop stated, “We must delight in each other; make other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body… The eyes of the people are upon us”. This sense of “religious righteousness” displays itself as early as the colonial days, and would eventually embody itself into the ideals of manifest destiny.