Every year on October 12 we celebrate Columbus Day. We praise a man named Christopher Columbus because he discovered America. When reading our history books we see Columbus as one of the greatest mariners in history. He was described as “ a visionary genius, mystic, and a national hero.” The books we read only tell us about the great discovery of a world that did not need to be discovered. We never hear about what really happened on his voyages to the west. We never see the truth about Columbus and how he was a “ failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur, or a ruthless and greedy imperialist.”
In 1451, Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. His father was nothing more than a wool merchant and weaver. He moves to Spain in 1485 after the King of Portugal will not support his plan to find the New World. Here in Spain he convinces King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to help him in his “adventure.” Columbus was not just looking for adventure, as most people think, he was looking for gol
Even though Columbus did not set out to destroy the entire population of the Indians, the fact remains that he still did. To do away with an entire group of people should be considered genocide whether it is premeditated or not. How was Columbus different from Hitler? They killed a group of people because they thought that they were superior and had the right to do what they wanted. We should not try to hide the horrible acts that Christopher Columbus committed but we should try to learn from them. Howard Zinn says best, “ I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.”
d. Most people also think that Columbus proved that the world was round but most navigators all ready knew this by the end of the 15th century. However, what was not known was the size of the circumference, and Columbus underestimated that answer by one-fourth.
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