This reading assignment for me personally was very tough to stomach. I knew that Columbus was not the person who founded the Americas but rather it was Native Americans who lived there way before he discovered it. However, I was not aware of the sequence of events that took place after he landed in the Americas. Columbus was directed by his government to find Asia and bring back gold from there. He, however, landed in the Americas and came upon Native Americans. Within his time traveling back and forth between Spain and the America’s he enslaved thousands of Native Americans for Spanish use,  allowed his soldiers to torture, mutilate, and kill hundreds of thousands of Native Americans resulting in over 250,000 of their deaths (a genocide) completely decimating their population. The part that truly disgusted me was they enslaved these Native Americans to find gold on their own island and if they reached their quota they were given a ring to place around their neck. However, if they didn’t reach their quota their hands were chopped off and they bled to death.

I feel as though our education system has failed not only myself but millions of other students who were made unaware of Columbus’s acts of genocide. In elementary school, we were taught that Columbus was this happy go lucky guy who founded the Americas. We were only taught his accomplishments and were never presented all of the horrific things he and his soldiers did to the Native Americans. I feel as though this is a re-occurring theme such as our founding fathers who again were presented to us as the men who made America into the great country it is today and because of them we are a free nation able to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, what we again were not taught is that these men did not believe these rights belonged to African Americans and they bought as well as traded slaves. Another example are pilgrims who are shown to us in school peacefully and pleasantly having Thanksgiving dinner with the Native Americans. Where in actuality they too committed acts of genocide against Native Americans and brought disease to them killing thousands. Their peace was purely from a political standpoint.