Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain

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massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls."[1] It is also important to note that for some reason western thought, philosophy and accomplishments have become a taboo to praise. From Columbus to our celebration of thanksgiving there seems to be a common theme, these people were evil and destroyed the civilization that had been there previously. Historians are waging battle over who's Columbus will reign supreme and sadly the truth may be lost in the middle. Today many people now think Columbus was a barbaric man that had no morals or values. This seems interesting that western historians and people are attacking the very fabric of history that allows them to exist. They give many the feeling of "quick give your house to the first ...

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and expanded their holdings all the way to the Italian port of Otranto in 1480. This caused the Genoa's merchants to reevaluate their mercantile plans and slowly began to change how they traded and how they were going to use their seafaring merchants. Markets that were once the bread and butter of the Genoas merchants where no longer available to them. With the fall of the holy lands and with the Turks moving into Europe, Genoas very existence was in peril. "Historians suggest that the Ottoman Empire's threat to Genoese autonomy was so great that only the internal power struggle within the empire in 1481 prevented it from having an even greater effect on Renaissance Italy."[1] It ...

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