Christopher Columbus: Evil And Cruel Man

The Renaissance, an age of time in human history that brought humanity out of the middle ages and into modern history. During this period civilizations began to venture out into the world to discover new lands and people. Thus, from the ashes of the Middle Ages, the great explorers of the renaissance period were born. Out of the many great explorers, the one who sticks out the most is Christopher Columbus. He has become the most popular renaissance explorer not only because of what he had discovered but also because of the controversy surrounding his legacy. Columbus’s discovery of the Americas brought new land and culture to his people, but it also brought death on thousands of native people as well. Therefore, it is commonly believed that Columbus was an evil and cruel man, who hated the Native peoples. This belief is false for two reasons. The first reason since during the time period of the renaissance these kinds of values and actions were widely accepted. The norm back in those days was when new land was found it was to be purged of the inhabitants. Columbus did not care who or what inhabited this land, but whatever peoples or civilization it was he would kill them or use them as slaves, and take their land for his own. These actions can be seen throughout every renaissance explorer, not because these explorers were evil men …show more content…
A murderer, a slaver, a cultural rapist, and a plethora of other horrible titles. This is because the people of the twenty-first century are incapable of understanding Columbus’s time period. Columbus was not an evil man; he did not wish death on the native people. Columbus was like any other renaissance explorer; he wanted to find undiscovered land and claim it for himself and his countrymen. It is important for current and future historians to understand that Columbus was not an evil man, but a man-shaped and formed by the renaissance time