The Anabaptist Reformation

The Anabaptists were separatists who rejected infant baptism and believed that the church should consist only of saved and baptized believers. The word Anabaptist translates into baptised again. The Anabaptists were the most persecuted of all of the groups of the early reformation. They were often accused of denying the incarnation of christ. The Anabaptists demanded a strict separation of church and state, for the purity of the church and for the protection of the church from persecution by the state. The Anabaptists were not easy to classify into one group. Some were fanatics and heretics, but others were not nearly so extreme and fanatical. There are different sects: the mennonites, amish and hutterites for example. The mennonites follow the teachings of Menno Simmons. He taught that Jesus did not take the flesh from his mother, but either brought his body from heaven or had one made for him by the word. Thomas muntzer was one of the founders of the anabaptist reformation. He turned against Luther with several anti-Lutheran writings, and became a rebel leader during the Peasants' War. He was captured, tortured and decapitated after the loss of a battle in the war.

Columbus is a villain

Christopher Columbus was a villain.His motives for the voyages that made him the famous person that he is today weren't as pure as we originally thought. He only started exploring because he wanted to be the governor of what he discovered and he wanted one tenth of everything of value that he found on his explorations. Even before they reached the islands Columbus was treating his crew members badly. A reward of 10,000 maravedis was to go to the person who saw land first, at that time an able sailor could make about 12,000 maravedis a year. A lookout on the Pinta saw land first but Columbus being the cruel person that he was, pocketed the money himself, claiming that he had seen several lights the night before. The local Taino Indians were the first people that Columbus met when he arrived on the island of Hispanola. They helped him find enough gold and prosperity to save him from ridicule when he returned to Spain. On his subsequent trips to the new world Columbus and his men captured some of the people who had helped him on his first voyage and sold them into slavery. A mass decline in the native population occurred after Columbus and his followers arrived in the new world. Some of the natives were murdered directly. Some died indirectly as a result of contact with diseases for which they had no natural immunity for. On his second trip to the New World after it was learned that La Navidad(his first settlement) had been destroyed, Columbus enslaved many indigenous people to help with the construction of the new colony. After his second voyage many settlers became discontented and complained to the king and queen. The monarchs weren't as enthusiastic about his second voyage and waited almost and entire year before authorizing his third voyage. After being cleared of any wrongdoing, Columbus embarked on his third voyage from Seville on May 30, 1498. He was becoming more adventurous and his settlements were still deteriorating. When the monarchs learned of this, they sent a judge to govern and stripped Columbus of his ranking. Columbus eventually received the wealth that he felt was due to him but he never received the titles that were stripped from him on that third voyage.