Response to Christopher Columbus

Chinyere Evulukwu
Period Two
Ap English III
September 7,2008

Christopher Columbus was born into a family of wool workers near the Mediterranean part of Genoa. He returned to the sea as a young man. In the first paragraph, at first, Christopher Columbus is successful. Then, his career basically goes down the drain, finally, he dies. His career starts to decline when he lives Cuba and Jamaica and was forced to return to Spain to clear his name of charges made against him by other Europeans. Then, when he was returning to Hispaniola, he encountered Spanish settlers that rebelled against his authority. Christopher Columbus tells his audience about two of his voyages in which one was written to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding, which was his fourth voyage, and the second one written to Luis De Santegel, which was his first voyage.
In the first voyage, the argument was that at first things were a little difficult for Christopher Columbus. For example, before he discovered the different islands, he went through strong winds and he seldom got lost. But, At the end of his journal, he describes the islands, the most important being the island he named “ Espanola”. In the third paragraph, all Columbus talks about describes the islands. He uses great diction to describe the island Espanola. He uses words like marvelous, lofty mountains, beautiful, thousands kinds and tall, e.t.c. Christopher Columbus is describing how gorgeous or beautiful or extravagant the island is. His tone in this third paragraph is peaceful, and happy. He is very excited that he discovered this island. His last words are “Espanola is a marvel”.
In the next Journal, which was Columbus’s fourth voyage, Columbus writes to the Ferdinand and Isabella regarding the times he faced during the fourth voyage, that caused him to be sick and unfortunately die. In this journal, this is the down fall of Columbus. He and his two brother gets captured as prisoners and are greatly treated as slaves . He also uses great diction to describe how it felt to be captured. He states “Whatever remained to me from those years of service has been spent and taken away and sold from my brothers, down to my very coat, without my being heard or seen to my dishonor.” He also states that they were stripped to the skin, they were very ill-treated without being tried or condemned. In this Journal, he also uses pathos to plead with the king to have mercy on him and let him go to Rome and to other places to pilgrimage if he gets out of prison.
To conclude, in these two Journals, the main argument was that Christopher Columbus had his ups and downs. At first he was succeeding. He even discovered a great island called “Espanola”, and other great islands. He had great victory till his fourth voyage in which him and his brothers were captured as prisoners without being tried or condemned. He was indeed rescued from the prison. After prison, he returned to Europe, which means the king permitted him to return there. He died in Europe shortly after that.