Was Christpher Columbus a good guy or a bummer and why?!..?

Question: Was Christpher Columbus a good guy or a bummer and why!?!!.!.!?

was he a good guy or a bummer!.!.!.and some reasons why please!?!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

When the United States was breaking away from the United Kingdom, they were in search of heros!. One that they adopted was Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the latin countries!. The level of hero worship was so high that his name was a serious consideration for the name of the new country (we still call the capital the District of Columbia in his honor)!.
-------------
Britain preferred to emphasize the voyages of the Cabots (father and son) who were the first europeans of that era who landed in northern America!. Like columbus, the Cabot's were Italian, but they were initially employed by Henry VII of England!.
-------------
Columbus starting in the 1960's went through a revisitionist view in which he was seen as a despoiler, a sadistic mass murderer, and stupid man!.
-------------
I think most historians see him now with a kind of even view!. He behaved like a man of his time, and was certainly willing to kill indigenous people to secure power, but he was by no means a sadist!. He was a brilliant practical navigator, but we owe his discovery of the "new world" to his insane theories about the size of the globe!. According to his calculations he believed that the distance from the Canary Islands to Tokyo was about 2000 miles!. That would make the voyage no more distant than sailing the length of the Mediterranean sea!. He was convinced until his death that his four voyages were trips to a heretofore unknown part of Asia!.
-------------
The legend about no one financing Columbus's voyages because they believed the earth was flat was invented by Washington Irving in the 19th century!. He couldn't write a story about USA's hero being stupid!. Instead he wrote that the advisor's believed that the Earth was flat, and Columbus proved to be smarter than everyone!.
--- In fact the true size of the planet was known since antiquity!. People weren't exactly sure where Tokyo was since there was no reliable means of measuring longitiude!. However, even from the approximate position they advisors knew that it was pointless of finance Columbus since the voyage was so far to Asia that no ship could carry enough supplies to survive the voyage!. They were correct, and Christopher Columbus get very lucky by bumping into a "new world" along the way!.Www@QuestionHome@Com