As I was leaving the gym yesterday, someone left me with a thought I have not been able to put out of my mind. It was Columbus Day and I began to think about who Christopher Columbus might have been. In school all kids learn Columbus discovered America in 1492. Is that really a true statement? What about the map maker Martin Waldseemueller. Some credit him with naming America. There is another player in this story. Amerigo Vespucci who came to America in 1497. I have read many opinions and it seems hard to make a definitive choice. Columbus supposedly set sail for 3 reasons Gold, slave labor and Christianity.It is suspected some of the people he captured in1494 were take to Queen Isabella and used as slaves in Seville.
Columbus was born in 1451 in the port of Genoa. His father was a wool merchant and his mother was a wollens merchant. He had 3 younger brothers. He traveled the seas as a Pirate attacking ships belonging to the Moors. When he died he thought he was in the Indies not America.
I n recent years Columbus' character has been tarnished from his involvement with the Europeans and their in start of destructing Native American people and its cultures.
