Is Christopher Columbus A Villain Essay

A Villain Disguised as a Hero

All heroes have flaws, but if those flaws include murder, rape, and kidnapping, that person is really a villain disguised as a hero. Most people look fondly on Christopher Columbus since he traveled to the unknown and started the colonization of America that lead to the countries that we know today. Columbus is not a hero, however, since he did not discover the Americas, he treated the Native Americans inhumanly, and even in his own time, Columbus was a criminal.

To determine if Christopher Columbus is a hero or a villain, one must first consider his background. He was born sometime between August 26 and October 31, 1451, in Genoa, Italy (Flint). From the age of twenty-five to his death, Columbus spent his whole

Columbus enslaved the Native Americans in two ways. The first was “[enslaving] them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead” (Kasum). The other type of enslavement was “the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men” (Kasum). If slavery was not bad enough, “In the early years of Columbus’ conquests there were butcher shops throughout the Caribbean where Indian bodies were sold as dog food. There was also a practice known as the montería infernal, the infernal chase, or manhunt, in which Indians were hunted by war-dogs” (Schilling). There is absolutely no way any person could be considered a hero after seizing, enslaving, and causing the deaths of hundreds of people, especially if these people were so innocent and friendly. Even “Bartolome De Las Casas, a former slave owner who became Bishop of Chiapas, described these exploits. ‘Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel,’ he wrote. ‘My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write’” (Schilling) Columbus must be a villain in our own

Columbus’ goal in his mission to America was somewhat heroic: “Christian missionary and anti-Islamic fervour, the power of Castile and Aragon, the fear of Portugal, the lust for gold, the desire for adventure, the hope of conquests, and Europe’s genuine need for a reliable supply of herbs and spices for cooking, preserving, and medicine all combined to produce an explosion of energy that launched the first voyage” (Flint). Although Columbus’ mission may have been heroic, what really matters is what Columbus did when he got to America, which was kidnap, enslave, and kill Native