Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress

The first thing that caught my attention was in the very first few paragraphs. I find it fascinating to read about the early attempts at consumerism. Columbus explains how the Arawak men and women brought him and his sailors “gifts” of parrots and cotton balls in exchange for glass beads and bells. These early trades were the very beginning of consumerism in America and have established the process of exchanging goods for money that we currently use today.

Another remark that caught my attention was the sentence, “like other informed people of his time, he knew that the world was round and that he could sail west in order to get to the Far East”. Today we would take information such as the world being round for granted because we tend to consider it such common knowledge; While hundreds of years ago it was a fascinating discovery that was known by only a few.

While early on in the reading it gives glimpses of Columbus’ character being rather selfish the reading really emphasis this when they talk about how he claimed to have seen land first and took the reward away from Rodrigo. I always pictured Columbus being a very kind and gentle leader and I am surprised to hear stories of his selfishness and an autocratic leadership. It further emphasis these characteristics when he took some of the Arawak prisoners on his ship so that they could lead him and his crew to the gold. I was horrified to read that he was supplied with an abundance of ships and men on his next voyage which had only one mission; “gold and slaves”. Treating the Arawak people like animals and sending them back to England is just cruel and would never be tolerated in today’s society so why was it back then? Even more disgusting was when Indians were found without a copper token around there neck and had their hands chopped off for not finding enough gold in the three month time period they were given. It’s equally as cruel to read about how after Columbus and his men began killing the Indians it was only a short amount of time before majority of their population and heritage was gone.

Prior to reading this chapter I had such high expectations about who Christopher Columbus was. I saw him as someone to be idled, some that is recognized in classrooms across the United States. When, in all actuality, he was a selfish and greedy killer. He took the lives of thousands of innocent Indians to find gold. Why is a man like this spoken so highly of in classrooms across the America? Why do we glorify a man who holds none of the values and morals that this Country was founded on?

It’s even more interesting to think about how America became such a great and independent country. Was it the same selfish greed the Columbus possessed? Did we follow in his footsteps? And if so, is it fair for us to criticize him when we all take for granted the freedoms we have without truly realizing how we got them?