To the Europeans, Christopher Columber was a hero, but to Indians, Columbus was a villain. Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime. What Columbus did for Europe was great but what he did to do it was terrible and diceitful. When Columbus arrived on the island, he traded unfairly with the Indians and took many into slavery to take back home since he wasn't able to bring back gold. When he came back, he reported that there were mass amounts of gold but there were actually scarce amounts in rivers. The king in Europe soon grew very interested in gold in the New World and Columbus made three more voyages back to the New World. He became much more aggressive with the Indians and even killed many of them. Him and his Spaniards had taken many Arawaks into slavery and made them work in plantations and mine gold. These are not the acts of a hero, these are undoubtly the acts of a villain. To the Indians, Columbus seemes like a terrorist taking their land and killing their people. Columbus must have seemed very scary to the Indians since he had brought weapons and had killed Indians. He brought fear, not hope, to a whole continent of people.
4 comments:
"Columbus must have seemed very scary to the Indians since he had brought weapons and had killed Indians. He brought fear, not hope, to a whole continent of people."
Well, if someone showed up in my land unexpected and started killing my people, I'd be scared to death too.
So, here's something to ponder... let's say you're an Indian living back in Columbus's time, and he just shows up randomly and starts killing your people. What would you do?
I agree about Columbus being a villian. A hero does not deceive the people that he serves. And Columbus did not even "serve" the people that sent him to the New World. He was manipulative and he lied about the wealth that was in the new land. If Columbus had been a hero, he would not have done all of these things.
The theory of heroism is completely relative to what audience is being asked. EVEN if he raped and killed Indians, millions of people have considered him a hero for years because of the misconception that he valliantly introduced the New World to the old. Whether or not our AP European class considers him a hero or not is unimportant, it's a matter of opinion.
With what you said in class about it being easy to bring a hero down, i agree with what you have said. Columbus did begin his voyage in good hopes of being a hero for finding another way to the Indies for many European countries. However, when he landed, his actions were very cruel towards these natives. So the definition you've does describe Columbus's actions, it does not describe his intentions. The debate goes on.
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