One of his stated objectives, as set by the King & Queen of Spain, was to convert any indigenous people he found to Catholicism. Or maybe take them as slaves. Or maybe kill them if they proved too troublesome. But it'd be nice if he tried converting first, though they weren't extremely firm on this point.
The others were to claim land for Spain, plunder anything that has value, but most of all....bring back a shit ton of gold!
Columbus was pretty much 0-4 with respect to the objectives given him. His annual review must have been brutal.
Oh, but he did discover a new world that nobody really knew existied, under extremely harrowing and life threatening conditions, so there's that.