Explorers
Christopher Columbus
“Oh Captain, liars out there call you cruel and greedy,
You ‘chop hands off when natives don’t give gold up freely.’
Truth is you helped Tainos beat those cannibals
And rightly sent some back to Spain as criminals.
You’ve always been a man of God and great conviction—
No lasting hatred, creeping vice, nor strong addiction.
The Spaniards who abused the natives felt your wrath,
For they were merely men not on your godlike path,
Which took you through the brewing storm of mutiny
Then through unjust imprisonment’s deep misery,
And sailed you to the farthest reaches of the oceans
Beyond what’s deemed impossible by modern notions—”
“Enough,” he breaks in, “save your praises for the Queen—
Raise sail! The dawn arrives; this day is yet unseen.”
By Evan Mantyk
This poem puts light on Columbus’s mistakes and what he’s truly done. They talked about how he thought he was god and how he abused the natives he took what he wanted, as many explorers did, without thinking about the people who had to suffer from it. It was not just Christopher Columbus, many others such as Bartolome De Las Casas and Ferdinand Magellan did the same things as him. Therefore explorers like them should not be celebrated.
Christopher Columbus
Explorers shouldn’t be celebrated, especially Christopher Columbus. Columbus owned slaves, killed people, kidnapped many first nations, sold young girls into human trafficking, committed sexual assaults on multiple accounts, and invaded America. Even though the Europeans were told about the climate and geographical features, which are nothing like America’s features, he still proceeded to call America’s India. He called them this due to the color of the skin of the first nation, so add racist to the list. Due to his poor decisions, he caused many First Nations family trees to be affected now and then, therefore he should not be celebrated.
Bartolome De Las Casas.
Christopher Columbus is not the only bad explorer, there are many out there but a great example of one is Bartolome De Las Casas. Las Casas was part of an invasion of a foreign land that was already populated by first nations. He also owned slaves but once he felt bad, a while later, he talked everyone out of it and into the African slave market. His actions led to present-day racism. Due to his actions then, black people still face racism due to the color of their skin. It’s clear that in modern-day societal norms this is unacceptable.
Ferdinand Magellan
Power is usually thought to lead to success in your goal, it can be a great thing but sometimes it’s not. All the bad people known today, were always motivated because they were given too much power, such as Ferdinand Magellan. He was given so much power that he would do mean and despicable things, such as killing people that didn’t want to convert to Christianity as one king Lapu-Lapu refused so he burned down the king’s village. Ferdinand was promised his only island from the next invasion if he did all these horrible things to the people of the new land. All people are equal and power should not cover that, so today we should look at what he did and recognize him and his actions as disgraceful and not like he did something great.
Christopher Columbus, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Ferdinand Magellan are just three examples of why explorers shouldn’t be celebrated. Columbus was a racist, like most of the explorers, he also was a slave owner, a murderer, and a kidnapper. De las Casas led the world into discriminating against people from Africa due to their skin color. Ferdinand Magellan killed people because they didn’t want to convert to Christianity. Therefore explorers such as these three should not be celebrated. Before you celebrate someone do your research on them: were they phonies or should you celebrate them?
By Jaida
