Christopher Columbus Was a Murderer Essay -- Expository Exemplificatio

Christopher Columbus Was a Murderer The second Monday in October is celebrated across America as Columbus Day. It is a celebration of the man who discovered America. In school, children are taught that Christopher Columbus was a national hero. In actuality, the man was a murderer. It is true that he found a land that was unknown to the "civilized" world, yet in this discovery, he erased the natives inhabiting the land. With slavery, warfare, and inhumane acts, Christopher Columbus and the men who accompanied him completely destroyed a people, a culture, and a land. These are not actions that should be heralded as heroic. When his thoughts and actions throughout his voyages are considered, one can see that Columbus was never respectful of the rights of the natives he encountered. His first sight of what he termed "Indians" was of a group of attractive, unclothed people. Speculation is that, to him, their nakedness represented a lack of culture, customs, and religion (Wilford 159). Columbus saw this as an opportunity to spread the word of God, while at the same considering how they could possibly be exploited. He believed that they would be easy to conquer because they appeared defenseless, easy to trick because they lacked experience in trade, and an easy source of profit because they could be enslaved (Fernandez-Armesto 83). It obviously did not occur to Columbus to consider these people in any terms aside from that of master and slave. These thoughts were merely a foreshadowing of what was to come. Even in Columbus's own letters one can see the arrogance he possessed in claiming the islands he found. In a letter describing his findings to his friend Luis de Santangel, he wrote, "And there I found very many islands fil... ...a by traversing the western oceans. He died feeling a failure because of this, not because of the tragedy he had brought to the Indians. His great accomplishment was the destruction of an entire population. How is that heroic? Works Cited Casas, Bartolome de las. "From the Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 5th ed. Vol. 1 New York: Norton, 1998. 16-18. Columbus, Christopher. "From Letter to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 5th ed. Vol. 1 New York: Norton, 1998. 11-13. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. Columbus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Wilford, John Noble. The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1991. Christopher Columbus Was a Murderer Essay -- Expository Exemplificatio Christopher Columbus Was a Murderer The second Monday in October is celebrated across America as Columbus Day. It is a celebration of the man who discovered America. In school, children are taught that Christopher Columbus was a national hero. In actuality, the man was a murderer. It is true that he found a land that was unknown to the "civilized" world, yet in this discovery, he erased the natives inhabiting the land. With slavery, warfare, and inhumane acts, Christopher Columbus and the men who accompanied him completely destroyed a people, a culture, and a land. These are not actions that should be heralded as heroic. When his thoughts and actions throughout his voyages are considered, one can see that Columbus was never respectful of the rights of the natives he encountered. His first sight of what he termed "Indians" was of a group of attractive, unclothed people. Speculation is that, to him, their nakedness represented a lack of culture, customs, and religion (Wilford 159). Columbus saw this as an opportunity to spread the word of God, while at the same considering how they could possibly be exploited. He believed that they would be easy to conquer because they appeared defenseless, easy to trick because they lacked experience in trade, and an easy source of profit because they could be enslaved (Fernandez-Armesto 83). It obviously did not occur to Columbus to consider these people in any terms aside from that of master and slave. These thoughts were merely a foreshadowing of what was to come. Even in Columbus's own letters one can see the arrogance he possessed in claiming the islands he found. In a letter describing his findings to his friend Luis de Santangel, he wrote, "And there I found very many islands fil... ...a by traversing the western oceans. He died feeling a failure because of this, not because of the tragedy he had brought to the Indians. His great accomplishment was the destruction of an entire population. How is that heroic? Works Cited Casas, Bartolome de las. "From the Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 5th ed. Vol. 1 New York: Norton, 1998. 16-18. Columbus, Christopher. "From Letter to Luis de Santangel Regarding the First Voyage." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 5th ed. Vol. 1 New York: Norton, 1998. 11-13. Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. Columbus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Wilford, John Noble. The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1991.