I've heard a lot of people criticizing the death of Native Americans, but that happened after Columbus. Rather, his successors and other colonizers are to blame.

Yes, I know he wasn't the first human, nor European in America. But he did discover America for all intent and purposes. Yes, i know he was going for Catai and America was a mistake, but that doesn't take away the fact he connected Europe and America. Many discoveries in History (and in Science) were mistakes, but that doesn't make it less relevant. Yes, I know that he had some low points as governor, but no one is perfect. The "smallpox blankets" were decades after his last visit to the American continent.

I just feel that he is held to a level of scrutiny much more severe than anyone else (namely, the Founding Fathers or so many other in American History).