People's Hisotry of U.S.

The authors thesis is that we should not fully judge what former "heroes" had done in the past, we should recognized what they accomplished in their lives. The authors main argument is that Christopher Columbus should not entirely be judged based on his horrifying mistreatment of the Arawak people but on the advancements he made over his life. On Columbus's fisrt voyage he was financed by spain to go find new land over an unknown ocean and he came accross amazingly friendly indians. Columbus wrote with much exageation how giving the the Indians were to convine Spain to continue financing. When Columbus returned home he promised Spain that he would bring back slaves and boat loads of gold for the population for his second voyage. When Columbus returned to the islands there were many slaves but no sign of fields of gold as he had promised. Columbus went from village to village with his seventeen ships and gathered slaves of all facets, men, women and children. When no gold was found Columbus returned to Spain with what was left of five hundred slaves he originally set sail with. With hardly any gold the slaves were sold relentlessly at auction and tormented. The male slaves were sent to work in mines where many of them died while the omen were left behind to work in the soil. The working conditions were horrible. Infants would starve because the mothers were so mal nourished they could not produce milk. Mothers started to drown their children once again to save the from a slow painful death. Columbus was so desperate to find gold he would send the Arawak's out every month with a certain amount of gold to find and if they found it they would receive silver to wear around their neck, if an Indian was found without this they would have their hands cut off and bleed to death, this was an impossible task. The author shows that even through all Columbus did one should also look at what he accomplished through life and what benefits mankind has made from this. He may have done wrong but according to the author the sins he commit ed should be ignored for what he has accomplished even though they were ill gotten
Why should his actions be ignored just because he found new land?
Was any real amounts of gold salvaged?
I knew that the Indians were always mistreated but was always kind of hinted that Columbus didn't have any part in the mistreatment.