Columbus Day As A Holiday?
by Amelia Last
Intro
Columbus Day is a holiday in which we celebrate the landing of Christopher Columbus in the "New World"(NW). He also proved that the world was round.
Well, that's what most people think. He was not the first man in America, that's for sure. Who was there first. . . that's up for debate. Plus, most people knew that the world was round.
Columbus Day As A Whole
Columbus Day is a very controversial holiday. Some people don't know that much about Columbus, so they think that he was a nice person(but he really wasn't-I'll explain later), and that Columbus Day should be a holiday. Okay, that made me sound terrible, but I'm not implying that those people are idiotic. Many experts also believe that he was a good hard-working man, and that he deserves a holiday. I have to admit- I personally thought that he was an idiot, until I saw what he had gone through.
Getting To America
Columbus was the second European man AND the third man in the NW, and it was not easy getting there. The voyage was long and hard, and they were low on food and water. The crew got so tired of not seeing land that they threatened to chuck him off the ship.
Columbus and his crew agreed on a deal: If they did not find land the next day, the crew would chuck him off the ship.
Well, guess what? They found land the next day (India, as Columbus thought, although they were half a world away), and they were not accepting of the people there.
Journals
Whoa, back it up(BEEP BEEP). I didn't talk much about the two journals he had yet, right?(No, I did not. That's right: Columbus did have two journals.) He had two journals: one with the truth on where they were located, and another with the slightly tweaked truth (aka: LIES). He showed the tweaked journal to his crew so that he wouldn't be thrown off the ship, and kept the real one hidden.
The Native Americans
*Fast forwarding to where we were before the latest paragraph-REEEEEEEEER* Okay, that's better. Keep in mind that when they got off of the ship, they were not very accepting of the Natives there. I will state what they did in bullet form below:
- He took their land
- He enslaved them
- He killed them
My Personal Opinion
I personally think that Columbus does not deserve a holiday. I have found in my research that he was not a complete ignoramus, but that he worked hard to find land, and calculated slightly wrong and ended up half a world away from where he thought he was. BUT, nonetheless, he lied to his crew, was not accepting of the Native Americans, and he was not the first in America. BOOM.
Columbus Day: Christopher Columbus Sets Sail
Sources:
- http://www.jongleurs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Thank-You-message2_edited-1.png
- http://www.happy-wallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Columbus_day_coloring_pages.png
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Columbus-day.jpg
- http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-day
- http://www.sorrentoliving.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Sorrento-Living-My-Opinion.png
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Columbus_first_voyage.jpg
- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0903_030903_bajaskull.html
- My Knowledge