Was Columbus our founder of this great land a hero or a murderer? In January we celebrate Martin Luther King Day is to recognize and show our appreciation to him, his social ideas, and his fight for equal rights. On the other hand we observe Columbus Day as a holiday. What did he do to have a holiday under his name? Well look at some facts. Christopher Columbus set sail out from the Spanish port with his 3 ships the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria on Aug 3, 1492. After 38 days of long and tiresome voyage they finally spotted land. Columbus' original objective was to go to Asia in search of people to trade spices and gold with. Columbus never really reached Asia instead he stumbled on islands now known as the Bahamas. On October 13, 1492 he claimed that land for Spain. This is only the first chapter of Columbus's story. Knowing what I know I think we should not celebrate a day in commemoration of Columbus, because he was not really a hero but a null hearted murderer that had ...view middle of the document...
You can not discover a country with one to six million people already living in it. It is like going to Canada and just take it over and imperialized there, and then saying we discovered it. It just doesn't work like that. After discovering America Columbus claimed the land for Spain, inferring Spanish found the land. Columbus Day is nothing more than a holiday of Spain finding land, which has nothing to do with us.Columbus killed 125,000 Native Americans over the short course of 2 years. Innocent Native Americans were killed because they would not fulfill the Spaniards request to fill their quarantine of gold. Columbus' crew brought over diseases that the Native Americans were not immune to. These diseases include small pox, measles, influenza, typhus, malaria, and the whooping cough. Since they were not immune to the disease they suffered and eventually died from it. The Indians were sometimes forced to kill there flesh and blood in order to save them from the torture they were experiencing.At first the relationship between Columbus and the Natives was beneficial to both because they gave each other gifts. However later on Columbus imperialized the Native Americans to be slaves. These native Americans were forced out of there own free will to mine for gold. Columbus enslaved the Native's to find gold so that they could take it back to Spain to give to the queen. Though there were only flakes and dusts of the gold he still made them look for it. The consequences of not finding enough gold to fill the quarantine was getting their hands cut of. Columbus did not want to return to Spain without enough gold so he found some other kind of dividend, The Natives. He took 500 natives back to his homeland. 200 Of those 500 died on the way back, the rest of the 500 natives will soon hope they were one of the 200 because Columbus later sold them to Spain who made them slaves. They were forced to serve households, and sometimes be abused by there masters.After reading this and learning about all these facts would you still respect Columbus as a hero? I really do not know any heroes who enslave and ill people. Therefore I chose not to celebrate Columbus Day even if he is known as the founder of America. By celebrating Columbus Day it would be like celebrating genocide of Native Americans.
