Columbus Essay:
Everybody has an opinion for Christopher Columbus. Most people think he’s a hero for finding the United States of America. Well I’m going to talk about why he’s not. Sure, he may have found our country which lead to what it is today, but there are reasons about why I think about the opposite. I mean there’s got to be a reason why we don't really celebrate Columbus Day anymore. There are pros and cons to everything so there are always going to be mixed opinions. Now let’s get on with why I am against Columbus’ discovery of the United States of America.
The first reason why I am against his discovery is that it was ACCIDENTAL. He never meant to ,intentionally, find America in the first place. His original plan was to make the travel from Europe all the way around to Asia, which was so much farther than what they thought. Instead, he landed on an island in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492 on the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria ships. Although he wasn’t intended to discover the New World, Christopher Columbus still took the credit on finding the land and the Europeans started moving into the New World. The Europeans started settling in the New World with company in the form of Native Americans/Arawaks. The Native Americans started to get used to living with them so they let them stay. And guess what, this all happened on “accident”.
My next reason is that Christopher Columbus played a big role in slave trading. When the Europeans first landed on shore, the Native Americans showed them what they had on their land, gold, cotton, etc. Columbus thought they would make good servants to get things for Columbus, his colleagues, and his people back home. So after a while, Columbus took some of the Native Americans from the tribe and sailed back to Europe. In this period, many Native Americans died on this journey due to starvation, dehydration, and other causes. When they got to Europe, the Europeans used them to work in the mines, construct buildings, farm, etc. Then, the Europeans back in the New World used some Native Americans as slaves as well. Nobody likes the sound of slavery so Christopher Columbus will be taking the “L” on this one.
My next reason is that Christopher Columbus caused many deaths to the Native Americans. The Europeans moving to the Americas caused a lot of thing to happen to the Native Americans. One would be that the Europeans brought over diseases that caused the majority of the deaths of Native Americans. Another would be , like I said earlier, the Native Americans going to Europe. During the trip a lot of Native Americans died on the ships due to many reasons. May Native Americans also died while doing their duties in the plantations, mining, etc.
Death is a horrible thing in this world and the Europeans caused most of it to the Native Americans, which is bad.
My next reason is that the Europeans kicked the Native Americans out of their homes. When Christopher Columbus brought the Europeans over to North America, they needed a place to stay while they were building their settlements. So that meant the Native Americans had to move out of their homes to let the Europeans settle. This is never a good thing to do because Native Americans are humans too, so that means that they would need to stay somewhere as well. So they rebuilt in another area. Soon after, the Europeans