Christopher Columbus has been both a positive and negative impact on the Americas with his exploration. With this given impact, Columbus should be viewed as a terrible man by today’s world. Columbus, even though he brought new things to both the Americas and Europe, he has done treacherous things to do so. Christopher Columbus was selfish as far as continuing his journey that could have brought death to his own crew. They were running out of food along with the diseases they carried from their native country. Franklin D. Roosevelt states on October 3, 1940, “Expounding the strange doctrine that beyond the ocean, stood solid, habitable earth, Columbus had first to make his views plausible to his doubting patrons.” This means that Columbus’ ship crew was not sure about Columbus’ ideas, but Columbus convinced and persuaded the crew to execute the plan. Barrack Obama states on October 9, 2009, “Today, we reflection the transformation of North America from a land of boundless opportunity to the modern communities of the 21st century. ed generations of men and women to search out the farthest reaches of the world.” This quote means that because of Columbus’s drive to explore along with persuading his crew to do so, he is credited for the inspiration of future persons who want to make a change.
Christopher Columbus has also exemplified himself as man of self involvement, he was only worried about what his goal was and it didn’t matter what he had to do to accomplish it. When Christopher Columbus was in the Havana, he forced the Native Americans to search gold for him, and if anyone of them would try to rebel or spark a revolution, their hand would be cut off. Columbus’ crew even used Native Americans as a sport and practice dummies. They would bet one who can kill a Native American in one blow of a sword. In David Stannard’s, American Holocaust in 1992, it states “In Paris and Lyon, Huguenots were killed and butchered and their various body parts were sold openly in the streets. Other eruptions of bizarre torture, murder, and ritual cannibalism were not uncommon.” This quote reveals the treatment of the Europeans, which they spread onto the Native Americans. They took what they learned in Europe and decided to treat Native Americans the same way. Rebecca Dobbs states in 1997, “Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of these lands vary widely, but numbers proposed in recent years by authorities on New World demographics…… Stannard goes to show that this 145 million figure is roughly equal to the estimated 1492 populations of Europe, Russia, and Africa put together.
Clearly, the lands visited by Columbus could not be said to be empty by any stretch of the imagination. This quote means that Columbus did not really discover the Americas, there is proof that there were millions of people on the land before Columbus. Christopher Columbus also positively changed the Americas and Europe. The journey that Columbus endured created something called the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange is the transfer of living things between the Americas and the rest of the globe. Things that were imported to the Americas were items such as: coffee beans, peaches, pears, honeybees, horses, cattle, rice, etc. Things that were exported to the rest of the globe were items such as: pumpkins, turkeys, pineapples, avocados, peppers, tobacco, tomatoes, etc. These things changed the world and exploiting new things to new nations. Barack Obama states in October 9, 2009, “Many generations later, that same spirit of exploration inspires Americans to pursue brave new frontiers in business, science, and technology. Today, we reflect the transformation of North America from a land of boundless opportunity to the modern communities of the 21st century.” This quote reveals the impact that Columbus had on the world, his brave journey inspired others to execute plans that people thought were impossible, and made it happen. In essence, Christopher Columbus impacted the world in various ways, but has done terrible things in order to get what he wanted. Even with the things he accomplished, he also has been detrimental to the world which is why he should be viewed as a terrible man.
