The Arrival of Columbus

The moral question of whether Columbus’s arrival in the New World was a great advance in civilization or a failure because of the destruction of a thriving Native American population is very difficult to answer. I believe that in the short term, the colonizing of the Americas by Europeans created terrible consequences. The amount of Native Americans killed by plague or homicide by the hands of the Europeans can in no way be looked on as an advance in civilization. The Europeans were subjugating people who already had an advanced culture, although they did not have the technology of the Europeans.
In the long term, the arrival of Columbus in the Americas did help a great advance in civilization. It has created the freedom that most of us experience today and a country that continues to be a leader in creating new technology. Without the arrival of the Europeans, it probably would have taken thousands of years for the Native Americans to create an “i-Pod” because of the environment they had to deal with just to survive. I think it is terrible that the Native Americans were almost exterminated, but that it was good that Columbus arrived in America, because I would not be where I am today if he didn’t.