Chris Columbus: Hero or Villain?

Christopher Columbus  

Chris Columbus is remembered by most as a hero. He is the person who "discovered" North and South America and bought Europe and the rest of the world to this newly discovered land for colonization. But is Columbus actually a hero or was he actually the villain of this story?

On October 12th, 1492 Christopher Columbus changed the world by discovering the island of the Lucayan tribe, which changed the course of both the world and the people of this tribe. When Columbus discovered their home, the people of the Lucayan tribe were welcoming thinking that this man who came from the sea was actually sent from heaven, offering him shelter, food, and water.

Columbus, on the other hand, took this opportunity and ran with it. He took woman and children as slaves, loading them back onto his ships for the trip back to Spain and killed anyone who protested to this.

30 years later, Columbus discovered the island of Hispaniola. Hispaniola was home to the Lucayan tribe’s cousin tribe, the Taino Tribe. This was a massive tribe with estimates of their population spanning upwards of eight million people. When Columbus arrived, he built a fort on their land and continued talking women and children as slaves, again killing anyone who protested.

He again returned to Spain, and when he returned again to Hispaniola it was with 17 ships and 1200 men. This time requiring every member of the Taino Tribe over the age of 14 to produce to him a certain amount of gold quarterly, or have their hands chopped off.

Because of this, a mere fifty years after his arrival in the Caribbean, the once hulking tribe of the Taino had been reduced to a mere 200 members.

Every year we celebrate this man’s arrival into the new world instead of remembering all the people who lost their lives and their homes when Columbus pillaged and took their homes from them forcing them into slavery.

We shouldn’t let the people of these tribes that Columbus and his men forced into extension be forgotten, nor should we celebrate the things that this man has done to them.