He was not a "man of his time". He was investigated and arrested for his barbaric rule of Hispaniola, and shipped back to Spain for trial, where his fame and rich connections got him acquitted.

It took a LOT to get arrested for your treatment of natives in the early 1500s, and Columbus was MUCH worse than most people realize.

Using and selling 10 yr olds as sex slaves, and cutting the hands off anyone who didn't deliver a specific gold quota, WITHOUT even checking if that amount of gold existed first was never "normal for its time".

Besides all that, whenever someone calls barbarism "normal for its time", they always seem to ignore the opinions of those being oppressed... It certainly wasn't "normal" for the Taino people, who refused to grow crops and committed suicide by eating casava poison to escape Columbus' rule of terror.

It's like saying "sure, he was a serial killer, but that's pretty common, according to the authors of 'Serial Killers Monthly'."