Comparison Contrast Essay, Research Paper

Javier Arreola

As he exits the large pyramid built to the god of the sun, a young Mayan boy watches the sun rise over what is now known as the Gulf of Mexico. Mayan’s, Aztec’s, Inca’s, and a whole legion of different peoples lived, cultivated, and died in what is now known as America. These peoples did not have to be told that their land “America”, existed. Year after year people innocently, and ignorantly celebrate the idea that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Convincing Evidence shall be presented that will demonstrate that Murder, manipulation, and malice, were just three things that Columbus believed in and practiced when he arrived in America. After reading this paper, I challenge you, if you can, to celebrate in all joy the day of Christopher Colombus.

According to Richards topical encyclopedia, volume 14 (pg.441), Christopher Columbus and most of his contemporaries believed he was the first discoverer of the new continent, but they were all wrong. It has been proven that the Scandinavian Leif Eriksson breifly colonized what is now called NewFoundland in A.D. 1011. Interestingly enough, the world renowned historian David Beers Quinn, suggests that Englishmen arrived in 1481, a few years before Colombus. Not only was Colombus not the first to discover the new world, he did not even land on the new world. Colombus actually landed on an Island near the virgin Islands, 1200 miles south east of the new world which is in Atlantic waters.

In light of the fact that all this information is widely known, people continue to celebrate Columbus as a hero who deserves to be celebrated for all the good things which he did. Good things? On his return to Spain from the new world, Colombus took several of the Native prisoners with him as evidence of his discovery. However only seven survived the trip. Colombus reported in his journals to the King of Spain that he would repeatedly killed natives in order to show the rest of them that he had power over them. One of the native tribes of the new world which Colombus met was the Arawak, numbering two to three million. Within a hundred years they were all extinct. Warfare, alcoholism, and disease, were three plagues that Colombus introduced to these people, in order to better manipulate them, or in Colombus’ words, “As a necessary means to tame the people of this land.”

Explorers, seek to, search for, and quest after. Columbus hunted down, sought after, and drove out. Honoring those who have done things worthy of honor is noble, but praising those who have manipulated and destroyed is foolish. Celebrating Columbus day was and is a harmful holiday that disgraces the memory of people who lived in America before the arrival of Colombus and gives praise to a man who did nothing short of the extermination of a native people from their land.