Christopher Columbus was indeed a great sailer who skillfully acquired funds and motivation for a journey to the new world. However, he was also an inhumane conqueror who brutally enslaved indians and caused the deaths of over half a million indians. Due to these acts I believe that he was both a great explorer and a greedy, inhumane murderer, however he was an inhumane murderer to a greater extent.
An act of untrustworthyness and greed occured when a reward of 10,000 marvellos would be awawrded to the first person to see land. A crew member named Rodrigo saw land first but columbus assuaded this and took the reward for himself. After he actually landed on this land the first thing he saw were Indians, kind and excited, running to meet him. And the first thing he thought was how good of slaves they would make. This continued not only on Hispaniola but on other Caribbean islands where he ensalved the general population and created an epidemic of sickness, violence, and slavery.
This was all driven by his greed and desire for gold. His homeland desired a certain quota of gold to be met and so he recquired the Indians to look for gold. If they didn't meet their quota, which they often did not, he cut off their hands and let them bleed. Also if Colombus didn't get the recquired amount of gold, then he would enslave the Indians in order to make up for it. If Indians didn't give him a certain amount of bows and arrows that he wanted he would stab them and let them bleed to death.
This genocide continued throughout numerous islands like Cuba, with the complete decimation of the Native Races. Numbers widely range of the amount of Natives he killed from 250,000 to 8 million! Even the smallest possible figures still portray a mass genocide that would appal almost all people if they knew the truth about the "great" Christopher Colombus. Therefore due to his greed, bloodlust, and lack of ethics I believe that columbus was more "evil" than a "hero".
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