The Science of Conspiracy Theories

Was America discovered before Columbus?

Was America discovered before Columbus?

There's no doubt that Christopher Columbus discovered America for the Europeans in 1492. What's not clear is how many other explorers visited the Americas before Columbus.

The problem is that there are many claims to earlier exploration. The following are the possibilities:

A recent discovery of an ancient nautical chart from 1424 indicates that a Portuguese cartographer, Armando Cortesão, knew about the New World before Columbus.

Zuan Charbotto, a Venetian navigator and explorer, claims to have done it before Columbus.

Leif Ericson, a Norse Viking, supposedly traveled to North America long before Columbus, around 1000. This is the most quoted early discovery of America. There's a Viking settlement in Newfoundland dated to 1000 AD. There is also archeological evidence of Viking origin found in Maine.

There is a story of an Irish Monk Saint Brendan, along with his monk buddies, who traveled to America in the 500's AD. There is evidence for this in Connecticut.

A Welsh prince by the name of Madoc supposedly traveled to America in 1170. This is a legend, but there was an American Indian tribe that spoke Welsh. Supposedly, Jefferson heard of Indians that spoke Welsh. Several archeologists have refuted this legend.

Abu Raihan al-Biruni, an Islamic scholar from Central Asia, using Greek sources determined the circumference of the Earth and the locations of many places on it. He even determined that the Earth orbited the Sun. Using logic and calculations, he discovered the Americas without actually going there. This guy deserves an A+.

Arab ships could have come to the Americas before Columbus. They had the technology to do this and there is some evidence to indicate that they had.

Supposedly, black explorers got to America first. Even Columbus noted this when he reached Haiti. There are also accounts of ancient Egyptians coming to the New World.

Then there is the idea that Ancient Hebrews came to the Americas as early as 600 BC and that they are the ancestors of Cherokee Indians. There are legends of the Lost Tribes of Israel roaming the deserts of North America.

Ancient Polynesians could have traveled to the Americas long before Columbus. They had great canoes and they traveled all over the Pacific Ocean island chains. That's how chickens got imported to South America in pre-Columbian times. However sweet potatoes came from South America to the Polynesian islands. It suggests that there was a lot of going back and forth before Columbus.

There is evidence (600 year old world map) that the Chinese (Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty) came to America as early as 1421. There is some evidence that Chinese came here as far back as the time of Christ based on finding stone anchors from Chinese ships off the shores of the Americas.

And, of course the first people to discover America were American Indians or what should be called Native Americans, indicating that they were indigenous to the land. Their pre-Columbian ancestors were here a long time ago, the Clovis people being here around 11,000 BC. Paleo-Indians were here about 25,000 B.C. They came over the land bridge that existed in the Bering Strait. Ancient tools and other archeological finds provide tentative dates for this migration. Native Americans are direct descendants of these early hunter-gatherer peoples from Asia.

The fact is that Europeans came to the Americas and pushed these native people back to make room for their expansion. When we Americans try to claim that we're native to this Country, we are dead wrong. We're ancestors of the invaders that came here only in the 15th and 16th centuries at the earliest.

I don't have any problem with honoring Columbus for what he did. It was bold move on his part. But, what you have to realize is that Columbus was searching for the Asian continent to establish a sea access for trade. He didn't realize that he had discovered an entirely new continent. Columbus is the reason that we call Native Americans Indians. He thought he was in India. The fact is that they're not from India and should be considered Native to the Americas.

As you know, Columbus's discovery led to the Spaniards and Portuguese coming over here to exploit these so-called 'Indians'. What they did to them is a travesty of justice. But, it wasn't the Spanish and Portuguese that did the real damage. It was British and French settlers that ultimately caused the biggest problems for the Native Americans, basically by forcing them into their wars on this continent and ultimately destroying their way of life by killing off the buffalo and forcing them onto reservations in terrible locations.

None of this is Columbus's fault. He was only looking for a new route to Asia. The rest happened after him.

Thanks for reading.