My guess is that if you ask any native in India or any other nation where the British Tea companies operated whether they achieved "useful things" you would probably not get get much agreement. You'd probably get the same answer if you asked the Native Americans of Massachusetts whether the English commercial charters that went into place after the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth achieved "useful things" other than enabling the newly arrived and supplied Englishmen to decimate their population with smallpox, steal their land, coerce conversions to Christianity and subject them to massacres and forced relocations.
Not every member of the British East India Company was corrupt and shiftless. That's my point. Yes, the BEIC ended up stealing things from India, disrespecting Indian traditions, and so on. But when the BEIC first formed (in 1600) and traded with India during the 1600s and 1700s, it was staffed by people who were - on the whole - competent and hardworking. It's only after the BEIC seized control of Indian land, and started "colonising" parts of south-east Asia and Hong Kong, that the problems started.
Not everything that the BEIC did, even in the 1600s and/or 1700s, is admirable by today's standards. For instance, the BEIC traded in slaves; but then, most Europeans (and Africans, and South Americans) did too. It's also a fallacy to judge the past by the standards of the present. The past, as L. P. Hartley justly reminds us, is "a foreign country; they do things differently there".
By the way, I've had a look at the list of the statues that were toppled as part of the "Black Lives Matter" protests. Most of them were statues to people who were either racists or slave-owners, but most of these people are much more nuanced than that. Among them were:
- Statue of Thomas Jefferson at Jefferson High School (Portland, OR)
- Statue of George Washington (Portland, OR)
- Statue of Francis Scott Key (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA)
- Bust of U. S. Grant (Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA)
- Statue of Hans Christian Heg (Madison, Wisconsin); Heg was a unionist and an abolitionist
- The Emancipation Memorial (Boston, Mass.)
- Statue of Jesus Christ (Miami, FL)
- Statue of the Virgin Mary (in front of a church in Chattanooga, TN)
- Monument to 77th New York Volunteer Infantry (Union Army unit; Saratoga Springs, NY)
- Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Davis, CA)
- Statue of Walt Whitman (Camden, NJ)
I have no idea how a statue to Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Ghandi, or Walt Whitman could offend anyone ...
And Christopher Columbus never intended to cooperate with the natives he found living in the Caribbean islands he "discovered." Almost immediately after he arrived and with every subsequent voyage he and his crew began enslaving them, raping their women, forcing them to convert to Christianity, turning rainforests into sugar plantations worked by slave labor and convincing Spain to give him and his heirs private ownership of the islands he invaded. He may not have been the worst of the conquistadors, but he was the first and set the squalid example for those who would follow in his corrupt footsteps.
And what "explorer" - Spanish or not, Columbus or not - would have done otherwise?
Columbus is probably the least objectionable of the Conquistadors. Compare him with Hernado Cortez (who basically exterminated the Aztecs), or Pizarro (who did the same to the Inca), or the execrable
Lope de Aguirre.
And why where the Aztecs not admirable? Yes, they did practice human sacrifices, but those sacrifices were usually culled from enemies they captured in their endless wars with other nations. They also built cities that were far more advanced in planning than most of those in Europe at the time. Yes, they practiced slavery, but what nation didn't back then? At least the Aztecs were able to feed and clothe their people and they had a very advanced mercantile network. This can't be said of many places in Europe, where feudal lords did nothing to keep their vassals from starving to death.
You've just proven my point. "Yes, they practiced slavery, but what nation didn't back then?" Exactly - so how was it better to be enslaved by the Aztecs than to be enslaved by the Spanish, English, French, or Dutch?
Yes, the Aztecs built very advanced cities - mortared with the blood of thousands of slaves.
Yes, feudalism was similar - and Aztec human sacrifice wasn't any better or worse than (say) hanging, drawing and quartering.
"The Aztecs had an advanced mercantile network" -- and the Europeans didn't? Even during the centuries of feudalism, the Europeans traded all over Europe and beyond. The Vikings are renowned as great traders (among other things). The Europeans had trade networks that reached as far as India and China along the Silk Road, but of course this was very slow. Hence Columbus's voyage.
Like it or not, Columbus's voyages to the American continent mark the beginning of globalisation and its demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes. His explorations resulted in permanent contact between the two hemispheres. The ensuing Columbian exchange saw the massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.
Yes, his voyages resulted in many negative effects too. The indigenous populations of the Americas were exposed to Old World diseases and collapsed. There was undoubtedly immense suffering. These populations were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans, who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.
I don't think it's possible to judge Columbus in terms of black-and-white, hero-or-villain. But his impact on the world, for better or worse, is undeniable.