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Christopher Columbus Dbq

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Christopher Columbus, explorer for Spain, is he a hero or a villain? Columbus started a new age of exploration when he set sail in 1492. He asked many leaders if he could sail for them, but they said no and that they were happy with the way things were. He sailed west for the Indies, but found America instead. Columbus should not be judged by today’s standards, he is hero and should be treated as one.

Even though Columbus was not the first person to step foot in the America’s, he was the first person, from the Eastern Hemisphere, to discover it. For example, when we discover a new species on an island, we may not have known that it existed, but the other living creatures there knew that it did. While Rebecca Dobbs in Document B is right that the Americas were not empty by any stretch of imagination and people lived there and knew about this part of the world, others did not know about it. However, in a letter to Queen Isabelle, Columbus states that they have landed on an island and the people there …show more content…

For example, owning a slave today is appalling, and considered a horrific crime against humanity. When Columbus started the Columbian trade and started to trade slaves he did not think it was an abnormal occurrence, because the leaders he started to trade with would capture other tribesmen to trade. If there had been a major problem the leaders would have refused to enslave their people to foreign men. Columbus should not be judged by today’s standards, due to the difference in opinion. While owning someone now is considered atrocious, it was normal then. How can something be judged if the standards for when the act was committed are different to the standards to which you are comparing it? It is not possible, to judged something by a different standard would be to punish a 2 year old the same way you would a 15 year old. It does not work and the outcome will not be

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