> Bad compared to who? Whatever faults you'd lay at his feet were not only de rigueur for both Europeans and Muslims of his time, but exceeded in many dimension

> Bad compared to who? Whatever faults you'd lay at his feet were not only de rigueur for both Europeans and Muslims of his time, but exceeded in many dimensions of savagery by the indigenous cultures he encountered. At any rate, disease and lack of immunity was far and away the agent of the demise of the natives, not Columbus or those who followed him over the centuries. Even if Columbus's badness was within the range of average for his time, it's still a fact that he was bad lol. I don't know why you're singling out Europeans and Muslims, btw--every society and group had (and has) its cruel bigots, its tyrants, its zealots, etc.