Christopher Columbus Land Analysis

Columbus viewed the culture of the native people of the islands as inferior to his own which resulted in a belief that he and his men have the right to harm and treat them harshly. ‘…On my arrival, I had taken some Indians by force from the first island that I came…’ By enslaving some of the Indians, Columbus showed that he believed that he had the right to enslave them because they were inferior to him in some way. ‘…to bear witness that he before all others took possession of that island for the King and Queen…’ With this statement, Columbus stated the belief that the Island did not even belong to the native people to begin

Columbus’s big plan for Hispaniola since the beginning was to take advantage of the natives and take their land, and the gold he believed was located there. He built the first fort in the Western Hemisphere, and left some of his men to find and store gold there. Columbus had to ask for a little more help from their majesties, he convinced them by saying he would take them “as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask” (Zinn,6 ) Columbus’s plans affected the natives, in many ways; first of all they were going to lose their land, and also they were going to be taken captive for slave labor.

The chapter, 1493 in the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” by James W. Loewen discusses how Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas led to the meeting of new cultures. Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas, but rather he was the first European to. His expedition was fueled by the desire for wealth; he wanted to exploit and conquer. He claimed the riches and land the Native Americans had as his own. His interaction with the natives of the land were abusive for he tortured and enslaved ones who did not perform his labor. Columbus almost caused the extinction of the natives through the Europeans introduction to horrible diseases and mass suicide because of their horrible conditions. In fact, textbooks do not focus on what

Columbus experienced a world filled with people who welcomed them with open arms sharing and trading all they had. Islands with beautiful mountains all green and lush. Columbus states in his letter “[islands] all beautiful with thousand different formations, all accessible and full of trees”. He saw natives with large amounts of gold and no sense of its worth. Some crew members took advantage of this misunderstanding “there was one sailor who for a needle got gold weighing two and

Moreover, Columbus was not a rich man, so he wanted to satisfy the King and queen of Spain and at the same time earn the reward. “The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.”3 This is clear proof that Columbus was just interested in making money, he did not care the life of others. He was a thief.

During Columbus’ first voyage, he sent some of his men to travel inland in Cuba to attempt to find anything valuable. Columbus recalled, “They traveled three days’ journey and found an infinity of small hamlets and people without number, but nothing of importance. I understood sufficiently from other Indians, whom I had already taken, that this land was nothing but an island” (36). It seems that Columbus did not view the native people that he encountered to be as important as himself or the other Spaniards. Christopher Columbus was not satisfied because he did not find any gold or other valuable resources, so he decided to dominate the native people. He was able to obtain power when he seized the Natives from their own land and let the other men have their way with

Christopher Columbus was an explorer that landed in the Americas in 1492. On his second voyage Columbus traveled to Haiti to colonize the area. In Haiti Columbus kidnapped 1,600 Arawak Indians the native people of Hispaniola. He brought 500 of them back to Spain and forced another 500 to work in gold mines and plantations in the colony. An updated version of the traditional verse states, "In fourteen hundred and ninety three, Columbus stole all he could see." Columbus' main motivation for exploration was gold. He ransacked the tribes in Haiti and demanded everything they had including food, gold, and cotton. If the natives resisted the Europeans they would be brutally punished. Along with stealing material things, Columbus also stole the lives of Native Americans. Due to his arrival in Hispaniola the Taino population rapidly decreased due to warfare, forced labor, starvation and disease. Most textbooks leave out Columbus' exploitation of the native people. Instead they create myths to make Columbus' story "better or more relatable" and hide the horrible truth of the past. By creating these myths authors support a Eurocentric view of the discovery of America.

According to the passages, Columbus is mainly interested in the natives themselves and their way of life. It doesn’t take long for Columbus to quickly turn his attention to finding precious metals and potential locations for new Spaniard colonies. Columbus quickly loses interest in the natives as he spends more time in America. According to Columbus, the natives first see Columbus as an ally and a source of valuable trade, almost obsessed with him and his crew when he first arrives.

“In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” If one has ever taken a US history class throughout their education, this would be a well-known beginning to a poem relating to Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World. When people think of the New World and who founded the Americas, they automatically attribute it to Christopher Columbus, which wouldn’t be incorrect. However, one does not realize the amount of factors that played in the finding and settlement of the Americas. There were a plethora of key developments that took place, whether good or bad that had influenced the success of America’s settlement. Navigation and trade, germs, European rivalries and great powers, Native people, crops, and slavery all became imperative

    In addition to being greedy towards his crew, Columbus was greedy towards to the natives. When Columbus arrived in the New World, the natives believed he came from the heavens, due to advanced technology, the reputation of curing diseases, and the Spaniards appeared foreign to the natives, implying they must be from the heavens. Overall, the natives were curious and interested in Europeans and tried to please them. The natives brought them food and clothes, bathed them, allowed them to sit in a chair similar to a throne, and gave them valuable information regarding the

Columbus felt the need to oppress indigenous peoples because they were going to ultimately lead him to the wealth. He believed that the natives were the only people that knew where the gold was. The gold was considered a sign of wealth. Columbus also wanted to find a shorter route to India. Much like finding the gold, Columbus assumed that the indigenous people could show him the way.

Content Goal Christopher Columbus is not the person most US history textbooks state. • identify cultural aspects of another culture that are unlike your own • Examine how a culture has changed • Become up-to-date on new research of a cultural aspect • Explain basic geographic principles (where and why) • Identify incorrect cultural interpretations Rationale Most people believe Christopher Columbus set sail August 3, 1492, and discovered America. In fact, millions of people were already living in America and he never made it to North America. On October 12, 1492 he reached land but the land was today’s Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, as well as the Central and South American coasts.

if he would have asked that question and treated the Native Americans differently there would not have been so much sorrow and death to his name. Christopher Columbus did not only force them to look for good out of their will but he kidnapped and made the Native Americans work under disgusting conditions in mines in the process to find gold. By this time Christopher Columbus had made his mark on the Native Americans it was too late to come back from the disturbing trauma he and his men had put on the Native Americans. He also assumed that they did not have a god they worshipped and he saw how quick the Native Americans were fast when it came to learning new things. So, in his mind he thought that the Native Americans would be good slaves and as well as good Christians. As Christopher Columbus did this he would enslave a few of Native Americans at a time and ship them back to where he belonged just to prove that he was doing something productive to the king and queen.

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That is the rhyme that many of us probably memorized when first learning about Christopher Columbus as children. Of course, as kids, we wouldn’t have understood all of the events that occurred because of Christopher Columbus, only being able to maintain the idea that he “discovered America,” later to grow up and be hit with the realization of the fact that more happened than we were initially taught. Christopher Columbus, as we later learned, did not discover America. The America’s Native people were the Native Americans, hence their name. As we grew a little older and started to reach our teen years, we would learn about how Christopher Columbus took the natives as slaves, creating a system in which gold would be collected for Columbus and Spain’s profit, and several brutalities would be committed if orders were not obeyed or

Subject: Christopher Columbus was sent by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to explore west of Europe to potentially find a new trade route to India and the Spice Islands. What he found instead were a number of islands in the Caribbean Sea, which he thought then was an undiscovered part of India. He named the largest island Hispaniola, then the next after his king, and the next after his queen. Columbus was content to find that the soil of this land was very fertile, which was good news for potential investments in colonization and plantations. Columbus gave the native people dishes, glass, pots, and other insignificant items in order to try and bribe them into being amicable with himself and the other newcomers, and so that they may convert