Was He, Or Not Was He?

It is not clear to me that Christopher Columbus should not and can not be considered a "hero" of America.  The question of, "Is Christopher Columbus a hero?" would not have even occurred to me to ask as of about two weeks ago, but since then studying his tales of adventure and conquest, have made it obvious of what he really is: a corrupt settler.  Sure, Christopher Columbus was the first Spaniard to sail across what we now consider the Atlantic Ocean, and set foot onto these islands, but let him not be confused as the "discoverer" of America.  He was not the first one to set foot onto America, or the islands he first landed upon.  

There were native peoples on these islands which he named "Indians" because he mistook America for India, and originally thought that these were the peoples of India.  These people lived as a mostly peaceful civilization and were more than excited and curious when Columbus and his fleet of 90 men came upon these islands.  They thought he was a god, and had come upon this land for them and their benefit and started to shower these men in gifts and food.  Columbus used this as an opportunity to find out where the gold could be located on these islands.  After Columbus found out just how amazing his "discoveries" of these islands were, he began to abuse the peoples of the islands since he had no further need for them.  From a report by Bartolome de Las Casas on Columbus and his men, "And the Christians attacked [the natives] with buffets and beatings, until finally they laid hands on the nobles of the villages. Then they behaved with such temerity and shamelessness that the most powerful ruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer."  The way the Christian sailors and Columbus treated these natives was unspeakable.  If it were not for the journals kept and other ways of keeping track of what exactly happened in these unforgivable years, the American people would not have been able to look upon Christopher as anything but a savior that was willing to sail at a time when no one else was.  

Up until this class, I was still living under the impression that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 and that was that.  As a little kid in Kindergarten up until even high school, people are told nothing about the massacres and bloodbaths that Columbus and his men were capable and at guilty of.  After reading about all of the thousands of people that he almost single-handedly killed in order to get his hands upon this rich land, it makes me feel sick about how America came to be.  

From a patriot's standpoint, America is a powerful and prosperous country, no matter how it came to be.  Since Columbus helped create it into what it is today, then we should be celebrating him and his find 500 years ago.  I find it hard to agree with this however.  I now feel that Columbus was one of the worst things to happen when it comes to colonization.  Yes, it's true that Columbus made America what it is today, but I do not, and will never consider him a hero.  Columbus was a gold-hungry Spaniard that seemed to not have any morals or guilt when it came to killing thousands and thousands of innocent people in order to conquer the American Islands.  

According to the dictionary, honor is this:

a man of honor: integrity, honesty, uprightness, ethics, morals, morality, high principles, righteousness,high-mindedness; virtue, goodness, decency, probity, good character, scrupulousness, worth, fairness, justness, trustworthiness, reliability,dependability.  When I think of a hero, I think of Superman and The Incredibles, and even Rosie the Riveter, since heroes all have honor.  I do not think of Christopher Columbus or his fleet of men as having honor or any of the synonyms of honor.  Therefore I do not consider Christopher Columbus a hero in any way, shape, or form.