Why Did Christopher Columbus Wrong

“When Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas he was excited because he found gold, land and people. He thought they could be slaves .“According to Document B, it explains how Christopher Columbus found the land with gold, metals and people. He wants to make them his slaves .“This shows that…” “Besides, this Hispana abounds in various kinds of species, gold and metals“Additionally, according to Document C, it is explaining how the spanish people from spain mistreated the navites and turned them into slaves and how they died “This shows that…” Once these were home to more than half a million souls, but they are now deserted, inhabited by not a single person.

There has been a heated discussion about changing columbus day to native peoples day. This argument for getting rid of columbus day is flawed and quite hypocritical. This group Is claiming we should get rid of columbus day due to the fact he killed and enslaved the native people of the nations he visited. Christopher columbus and his men did kill and enslave the native people but, that was normal for that time period. Also how could Christopher columbus kill so many with less than 200 men? The answer is simple, he joined the ongoing tribal warfare that was taking place at the time. The tribes there already had mass graves, slaughtered and enslaved each other. This didn’t just start when columbus came around, the aztecs were

The full measure of Columbus's failure as a colonizer was not yet apparent when he returned to Castile in 1496. Yet by the end of six or seven years of his governorship, with his own, the monarchs', and the settlers' objectives all still unachieved, and Hispaniola suffering an apparently interminable series of rebellions not only by the Indians but by the colonists too, Columbus was to be superseded and disgraced, and shipped home to Spain in chains.1 Overall, Fernandez-Armesto depicted Columbus as an annoyingly eccentric person incapable of succeeding. Although, he discovered the Americas, he failed to be a leader to his crew and the natives. Instead, he was on the lookout for ways of manipulating the motives for profit.

However towards the end of the document he starts realizing that the Indians have every right to reject Christianity and wage war against the Spanish, and at the end he even goes as far as to say that the Spanish invasion was wrong. Now when you look at how did this affect the Native Americans you see that it demolished their entire religion, it made them live by a code they didn’t believe in, and it you see Christianity basically took away their land and killed them all.

In the movie the director continued to show Columbus as a greedy perpetrator who destroyed the lives of innocent humans and took a land that wasn’t his. Columbus was not seen as a hero who discovered America, the way he was presented in the movie is totally agreeable. It was clear that Columbus thought highly of himself. In his letter addressed to the king, he explains how the Indians believe he was chosen by God. Throughout the movie and in his own written letter, it is clear that his purpose was to get recognition from the King and Queen of Spain. While also trying to get as much gold as possible for his own selfish needs. In The letter of Columbus, he describes himself as being the only one who discovered everything. Furthermore, in the movie scenes of Columbus’s arrival and conquest of the indigenous people, he forces them to convert to Catholicism. They are exploited for seditious outrage. The Indians didn’t mind giving the Spanish gold or being slaves. But when the Spanish started to kill them they had to rebel.

Spain believed native Indians were uncivilized and therefore looked down on them. As result, huge amount of native Indians were captured by Spain army as slaves and treated severely. They also torched many of Indian villages. However, Cabeza was unlike other Spain people, and wanted to deal with native Indians peacefully. I agree with this idea because native Indians were truly admired and believed in Cabeza and his members. According to page 2607, “They found themselves at the head of moving crowds that could reach as many as 3,000 or 4,000 people,” this illustrates how big their followers were. Soon, Cabeza and his member finally stepped into Spain territory in America after almost 10 years of long journey. As soon as Cabeza met captain of Spain army, he opposed the idea of enslaving native Indians. Captain and other Spain army men didn’t believe in “shamans and revered healers,” but annoyed by them since they are disturbing their duties of enslaving native Indians. Cabeza and his members along with other native Indians had to walk through depopulated area and as a result, seven men and many Indian friends died. However, Cabeza didn’t give up, and he earned a chance to go to Rio de la Plata as governor. His methods of conquest were extremely unconventional that forbade riding on horseback but barefoot. Also licensed agent must be between any trades with Indians to prevent any abuse. Although, Cabeza strongly believed in

In 1492, Italian cartographer and explorer, Christopher Columbus, set off on a mission from Spain in order to find a quicker, alternative route to Asia. With him, Columbus brought eighty-seven men and three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, to sail across the large and vast Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately for Columbus, a new route to Asia was never discovered by Spain that year because he had arrived in the Caribbean, which was found in North America. Thinking that he had just entered the Indies, he started to call the people of this land, “Indians”. These Indians were actually Native Americans who had lived on these lands for thousands of years prior. Immediately, letters from Columbus to the King and Queen of Spain were sent by boat back to Europe and soon Columbus was seen as the man who helped create a bridge of prosperous trading and riches between Europe and “Asia”.1 While this discovery proved that Columbus was a hero-like figure to Spain, it’s what he did within the new land that actually makes him one of the biggest villains to ever set foot on Earth. But what classifies this explorer as a villain? Columbus captured thousands of natives, many of which were sent back to Spain to live and work as slaves. Along with that, Columbus also forced the Christian religion onto them, spread diseases that killed thousands of lives, and used violence as a means of persuasion and control.2 Corrupted by his pursuit of riches,

Natives were humiliated and dehumanized. Spaniards did not see the huge genocide that was going on , they just saw the land they was stealing from the natives and the money they were getting out of it. Time past and more and more settled in what now is called the United States. The Englishmen have settled near the east coast when coming to the Americas. English settlements kept growing so they needed to wipe out the natives out to have the land. “Not able to enslave the Indians, and not able to live with them, the English decided to exterminate them” (page, 19). The Indians learned that Europeans were and will always be stronger than them. They learned that European weapons will always be more powerful then whatever they made. Europeans had guns, Indians had spares. Europeans were devious and trick Indians to turn to each other. Tribes were tricked by these masterminds and started conflicted with each other and battles. The Europeans had mass murdered the native Americans with no sympathy. The native Americans could not do anything about it so they had to listen to the European due to the fact they were more powerful. As for the Englishmen they used any type of excuse to get into war. Europeans called native Americans Indians because when Columbus arrived in America he believed that he was in India so he thought they were Indians, its in politically incorrect but calling them Indians is okay because they truly traveled from Asia to America

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.

Columbus never even walked on what we now call the United States of America. Where ever he did land, he was motivated only by his own greed. Columbus came for the gold, spices, and slaves. In his diary, he mentioned gold 75 times just in the first two weeks, alone (Katz 13). Indians who weren’t able to find gold, were punished by having their hands cut off. Most slaves died en route to Spain. Many Indian females were taken as sex slaves, some as young as nine and ten years old. Columbus forced cooperation from the Indians by disfiguring them and using them as examples. Even worse, he used hunting dogs to tear the Indians apart. Many natives committed suicide, and murdered their own children to save them from such a horrible life. Those who survived the voyage were worked to death. Still, another huge portion of these Indians died from disease brought over by Columbus and his

Christopher Columbus did not do a single good action in any of his four voyages in the late 1400's. Christopher Columbus was not the founder of the Americas we live in today because he did not discover it, even if he did there were already the natives who inhabited the land. It was just luck that he discovered the Americas, because he wasn’t even coming here, he got here because his ships went the wrong way and “Oh Surprise!” “We got something here to bring to Spain”

He simply took over these lands, even going so far as to rename them all. In order to let everyone know of his great discovery, he returned to Spain with many new items, including kidnapped Indians (Fernandez-Armesto 89). He was attempting to glorify Spain and its monarchs while creating fame for himself.

While trying to adapt Native Americans to European customs, Columbus and his followers took advantage of the Indians. The Spanish burned the Natives sacred objects and would not allow them to practice their own religions. They also abused the Natives, enslaving them, taking land from them, and raping their women. Because of the conquistadors quest for gold and other riches,

Meanwhile Cortes was busy killing the natives who had previously lived in the Americas. He even sent some of his highest men

The people on the island had no clue what a sword was so they would cut themselves when they would touch the blade. Christopher Columbus thought it was going to be easy if needed to fight with them. They had no way of protecting themselves. He and his men ended up killing these poor people little by little. Even when they tried to help them out by directing them to find gold or help them when they got hurt. On his trip when he arrived in Hispaniola the Taino people living on the island welcomed and were gentle with him and his men. When Columbus left the island he left forty of his men and those men raped and fought the Tainos after they helped them out.2 On his second trip Columbus set up a permanent colony and again his men raped, stole gold ornaments and food that provoked war with the Tainos. The Spanish killed tens of thousands out of population and the ones who did survive the Spanish ended up chopping off their hands if they did not provide their allotment.3 At the end the Spanish wiped out the islands either by killing the people or they left to surrounding countries.