Is Christopher Columbus a villain or a hero?

This is, of
course, a matter of personal opinion.  My own view is that Columbus is neither.  He was not a
hero and he was not a villain.

Columbus should not be seen as a hero because
he did not really do anything heroic.  He went looking for a new route to Asia and he thought he
had found it.  He died believing that he had made it to Asia.  His discovery of the New World
was not really something that he meant to do.  It is hard to say that someone is a hero because
he discovers something while he was looking for something else. 

On the other
hand, Columbus is not a villain who was responsible for all the bad things that happened to
Native Americans.  If Columbus had never sailed west, someone else would have.  The Europeans
would have found the New World and it is likely that the Native American population would have
been decimated by disease and by the actions of the Europeans.  It is not as if Columbus was the
one who conquered the Aztecs or the Incas.  He just happened to be the one who found the New
World and made those conquests possible.

Thus, Columbus is really an
accidental figure in history.  He is not a hero or a villain.