Colombian+exchange

The Colombian Exchange started when Christopher Columbus asked Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain for permission to explore westward of Europe. You could ask anyone about Columbus, and they’d almost certainly know his name-- the man who discovered America. However, sometimes we give him too much credit and try to blot out the ‘little’ mistakes that he made, like killing the natives, forcing them into slavery, destroying villages and causing foreign diseases to wipe out a few of the populations. Truth is, we barely know anything about Columbus, but we do know that he caused a lot of pain and sorrow to the natives wherever he voyaged. Columbus set sail for the first time from Palos on August 3 1492.The population had been minimized a century before by the Black Death, and it was still fresh in everyone’s memories. He landed perhaps on Watling Island on Friday October 12, 1492, and wrote back to Ferdinand and Isabella how calm the natives were and that they were unskilled in weaponry. He soon after conquered Hispaniola and turned the natives into slaves. Natives were underfed and were hung in sets of 13 “in memory of our Redeemer and his apostles." The Spaniards didn’t even believe that the natives were human. In truth, Americans size Columbus up to be adventurous, kind and a hero. And though he was ambitious and confident, he was responsible for the deaths of many Native Americans