What Makes Christopher Columbus A Hero

The Renaissance was a period full of violence, controversy, and new discoveries. The discovery of the New World happened to involve all of those things. Christopher Columbus did discover the New World but he also was very brutal in doing it and lied about it. He fooled everybody until the King and Queen found out while he was on his third voyage, they sent him back to Spain and he was thrown in jail. When the King and Queen heard of what really went on during his voyages and how many were stripped of food and enslaved they knew the letters were lies and exaggerations. For instance he made the land sound better than it actually was to make his discoveries seem even better, in his letters he said “The harbours are incredibly fine and there are …show more content…
He not only went and discovered the New World but he also brought back riches, spices, and goods back to Spain which also helped boost the Spanish economy. Among these great things he did, he also asserted unnecessary violence to get these things. He forced most to convert to Christianity “I gave them a thousand pretty things that I had bought, in order to gain their love and incline them to become Christians” (Christopher Columbus, Letter on his first voyage. Pg. 118) and give him their riches, spices, and goods. To the Spanish people he looked like a hero. He would enslave and steal everything from the inhabitants of the New World. This discovery was big enough to recognize him but his name seems to be a little tarnished because of how he went about discovering the New World. It was seen as the darker side of the Renaissance because of the enslaving and stealing of goods from these lands and people. From the letters he was sending he made it sound like they did all these things when in fact they were forced by Columbus in his crew to do so. He treats them like savages and talks about them as if they are