Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?

 Columbus doesn't deserve a picture, so here's Leif Erikson balling out of control.

In my opinion, there is simply no way in which Christopher Columbus could be considered a hero, or anything but a villain. His sparse and over-exaggerated accomplishments pale in comparison to the atrocities committed by him and his men while he held governorship in the West Indies. Columbus' "accomplishments" are few and far between; he is often credited with being the "discoverer of America," despite many reasons this is untrue. For one, there were indigenous people living on the continent for thousands of years prior to this discovery. It wasn't a new, never-before-seen land mass that he had found. Not only that, Columbus was not even the first person from the outside world to discover the continent, preceded by the Vikings led by Leif Erikson nearly 500 years prior. Lastly, Columbus did not even accomplish his original goal of discovering the Northwest Passage, which he was paid by the Spanish to do. Accidentally running into a continent and claiming you discovered it is not an accomplishment, it's just dumb luck. Columbus's tyranny while he was in control of the area negates and outweighs any prior accomplishments he might have had. He infamously enslaved, raped, tortured, and murdered countless natives as a characteristic of his government. This is well documented fact which has even been confirmed by those closest to Columbus, and descriptive accounts can be found in the notes of his successor, after the explorer was removed from rule by the Spanish when they heard about the atrocities he had committed. Even viewing the matter from an antiquated lens doesn't make it better; while slavery was commonly accepted in those times, the abuse of power through violence and countless human rights violations was not. As a typically open-minded person, it's impossible for me to see how anyone could consider Christopher Columbus a hero.