Columbus Day Dbq

Every year kids around our nation take off from school on October 10th, Columbus Day. In parallel with this annual vacation day for most in the United States, children are also taught about a heroic explorer, who courageously stood up for his belief, that the world was round, rather than flat, by asking many monarchs for the opportunity to prove his belief by finding a shortcut to the Indies, and then proceeded to discover the Americas. Yes, children nationwide are captivated by the story of this brave explorer, Christopher Columbus, who was responsible for finding their continent, and for giving them a day off. However, one key part of the voyage and adventures of Christopher Columbus is left out when children learn about him, namely that …show more content…
Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy and showed an early interest in seafaring (Document A). Being that he was religious, Columbus believed himself “destined to advance the coming of the new millennium,” a belief which he held until his death (Document A). One trait Columbus exhibited was perseverance, which he showed by not allowing the rejection of his proposal from the Portuguese, and then proceeding to ask the Spaniards for their support, which he did eventually get. When Columbus set sail in 1492, he did not know if he would ever return to Spain, demonstrating extreme bravery and a true sense of …show more content…
However, what these people fail to realise is that he may have had an impact on where people sailed in the fifteen hundreds, he was about 500 years late to being the first sailor to come across it, not even taking into consideration the “some 145 million people” who already inhabited the hemisphere in 1492 (Document B). Columbus's influence on future sea voyages may have been great, but it merely led more explorers to conquer lands of Natives and then enslaving them, showing that any impact he had was certainly not positive. Another argument which some use to support the continuation of Columbus Day is that “it is necessary to pay a price for progress,” and that just like “Hiroshima and Vietnam,” we must do anything for the preservation and expansion of Western society and ideology (Document H). This argument is misguided as the slaughter of thousands of innocent Natives through slavery and barbaric ruling cannot be compared to dropping a bomb which will end a war, that would have kill millions of soldiers. It also does not compared to a war launched in order to protect the freedom of other people from the oppression communism. In fact, by today's standards Columbus would be undergoing a trial for genocide and slavery, and would most certainly be