After gaining more knowledge about Christopher Columbus Essay and his voyage to the New World, I believe that Christopher Columbus is a Villain. Although Christopher Columbus used his courage and great navigation skills to voyage to a place unknown to the western part of the world many native people suffered from his voyages to the west. In 1492 Columbus set out to find a shorter route to Asia by sailing west to get east.
In his voyage he came upon the Caribbean Islands, and a Native American tribe called the Taino. When Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) the Taino Indians were gentle and peaceful and traded with Columbus. Christopher Columbus took the Native Americans for granted he removed them from their home land and crammed as many of the Indians as he could on his ship to show Ferdinand and Isabella his finding. In Spain, these Indians were paraded naked through the streets of Spain and sold as slaves in 1495.
This caused families to be separated chilgren from their parents husbands from their wives. Of the 550 Tanio Indians he captured only 350 survived. (Nash, Jeffery 18)Christopher Columbus had an Indian Policy; he put them to work to produce gold. This impossible demand resulted in fear, flight and retaliation. Many natives were captured and more died of hunger.
This all was a result of the Atlantic Slave trade that would adjust the history of the world (RTAP, Andrien 7, Nash, Jeffery 18)Obviously not only did Christopher Columbuss voyages impact the Native Americans; it also impacted the environment. It is possible that the plants and animals that he brings with him have caused the extinction of more species of life forms in the last four hundred years than the usual processes of evolution might kill off in a million. (RTAP Andrien 8) The European man and their technologies caused this. (RTAP Andrien 8) Christopher Columbus brought his knives and guns to the New World and killed off many valuable animals like swan and buffalo.
The Indians did not have guns, so it was not as easy to kill off these animals and allowed time for these animals to reproduce. When Christopher Columbus came he killed off these animals for him and his sailors. This created a demand for more meat. This not only impacted the animal life but the plant life also.
The New World had a wide range of plants that were unknown to the Europeans such as potatoes, corn, and chocolate, silk and many other plants, which were probably put into extinction by Christopher Columbus. (RTAP 33) The Indians treasured all of these plants and used them to the minimum. For example coco was not allowed to be used unless you had permission from the Inca or his governor. They used this plant to give them strength.
(RTAP 33)Christopher Columbus used these plants and animals as rewards to himself and would gather up as much as he could to show off what he has found. So obviously this impacted the life of these plants and animals and of course killed off some of the certain types of animal and plant life, which are unknown to us now. Christopher Columbus may have been a great navigator and explorer of his time but he also destroyed many things along the way. He was a villain to the New World and all of its surroundings. Maybe he did discover what was in the Western part of the world, but he could have been a lot more profound in his findings by admiring what he discovered and not killing it. Bibliography:Terizan, Barbara (1999).
Retrieving The American Past. Peason Publishing Company and Ohio State University. Nash, Jeffery, Howe, Frederick, Davis, Winkler . (2001).
The American People. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. www. ustrek. org/odyssey/semester/100400/basecampsearch.
html (2001) Ustrek gets mad over Christopher Columbus. .
