Christopher Columbus was a Villain Instead of a Hero

On a Monday the 14th day in October every year, many people celebrate what is called Christopher Columbus day. Christopher Columbus, and his accomplishments have been rewritten and retold many times, in many different ways. In the school, it is presented to the students that Christopher Columbus is an awesome Italian Hero who discovered America and wanted to prove that the world was not flat, but in other cases it can also be presented that he was a sneaky, evil man.

This is leads to the argument “Hero vs. Villain,” is Christopher Columbus a Hero or a Villain? He is most definitely a Villain.

Christopher Columbus, is taught to students as the man who sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America. As stated before, we celebrate a federal holiday on the second Monday of every October, but many people do not know the backstory to him and what he did while on his voyages. As researchers have learned more and more each day, controversy has come about honoring this “hero” we call Christopher Columbus. In one of his journals it states that he had set sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain four times in: 1492, 1493, 148, and 1502. Those four times he was attempting to find a direct water route west from Europe and Asia, but never found it. He goes the last time(1502) and he stumbles across a huge amount of Americans. That shows that he was not the actual founder of America. Millions of people had lived in America prior to Christopher Columbus arriving. The actual founder of American was an explorer Amerigo Vespucci. He had come to the conclusion that what Christopher Columbus said was completely false. In this view, he is proclaimed as a Villain.

A secondary source that could be used to prove that Christopher Columbus was a Villain is a report in The American in 1992 about the “500th anniversary” and about him landing on an island in San Salvador. In the report the author, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., had noted a great quote “great hero of the nineteenth century seems well on the way to becoming the great Villain of the twenty-first.” This shows that the truths of Christopher Columbus were beginning to be revealed to the new age. In the article it mentioned that he was in fact the “pioneer of oppression, racism, slavery, rape, theft, vandalism, extermination, and ecological desolation.” All of the components that have been listed are how the new age people think he could be possibly named a Villain.

In conclusion of the argument, it is commonly known now that Christopher Columbus was a Villain instead of a Hero. He has done rather good things in life, but mainly his unacceptable things outweigh his great accomplishments. As a matter fact the primary source and the secondary source has shown his advantages as well as his disadvantages. In most opinions this holiday shouldn’t be celebrated due to the backstory of it.

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