February 15, 2018
Volume 48 - No. 7
By Matthew Fabritius
We all learned the saying in school, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” This is the opening line that narrates Christopher Columbus’ journey to North America and discovery of the continent for the Spanish crown. But was Columbus the first person to really discover America? The The Paper Paper -- 760.747.7119 760.747.7119
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And in personal terms, was he a noble European explorer or simply a greedy, mass-murdering monster? Given the complex mythological status surrounding Columbus as a historical figure, it is no surprise that there’s a variety of controversial questions surrounding the man’s life. Should the Western World continue to erect statues in honor of this man’s
life or tear them down to besmirch his legacy? To answer these questions, we first need to know one simple thing. Who even was Christopher Columbus? Not the myth of Columbus, but the reality of the man himself. Christopher Columbus was purportedly born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy,
which at the time was a city under the jurisdiction of the independent Republic of Genoa that acted essentially as a vassal state of the larger Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was the foremost power in Europe at the time, which served the interests primarily of the Vatican and a variety of noble families. The most powerful of these
Christopher Columbus - See Page 2