Columbus Did Not Discover America And Neither Did The Other Guy!

I thought this was interesting enough to require a post of its own. I was initially going to group it under the misconceptions post, but then came to the conclusion that this one required a bit more of an explanation.

Any way, the question is this, girls and boys - who discovered America?

Now, the somewhat older and now tremendously out of fashion answer is that it was Christopher Columbus. Incidentally, it is just as well because it happens to be wrong too. He did not land in mainland North America, for one, and more importantly he wasn't the first person from Europe to get to those parts. The Vikings from the Scandinavian regions are believed to have made the journey across the Atlantic to North America many times before Columbus.

Paintings of Christopher Columbus and his ship

Now, it is not like Columbus did nothing. Certainly he did. He landed in the island of Bahamas first, then went on to visit Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti etc, before also landing in South America (Venezuela to be exact). In each of these cases he claimed the land for the monarchs of Spain. See now, this is because though Columbus was of Italian origin, being a Genoan citizen, his expeditions were funded by the monarchy of Spain.

In any case, he thus opened up the route for the European colonization of the Americas.

But he did make a small mistake. When he landed in the islands of the Caribbean, he thought he had actually found the eastern islands of Asia.

Columbus made his journey or the rather the first expedition in 1492. He was celebrated as the man who discovered the Americas or the New World as it was called then. But as centuries passed, new information came to light. And a new name popped up in the popular understanding of this historical time.

Amerigo Vespucci.

Amerigo Vespucci was another Italian explorer who made journeys to the New World almost immediately after Columbus. Vespucci's travels to the New World were in 1499 - 1502.

Amerigo Vespucci

It was kind of decided in the nineteenth and twentieth century by the historical experts that it was in fact Vespucci who discovered the mainland of the Americas and also proved that they were NOT the eastern out skirts of Asia, as Columbus had claimed to the colonial powers in Europe.

The name America, it is believed now, comes from the name Amerigo, which was Vespucci's first name.

And so till date, most of us kind of accept this as true and have not questioned this knowledge much further than that.

I am here to tell you  a THIRD name is also in the mix here.


Richard Ameryk, Richard Amerike or Richard ap Meryk.

He was a rich merchant and explorer from Britain, specifically the Bristol area. There was a proposed theory that the name America comes from his name, not Vespucci's. Here are some reasons why this is actually a reasonable claim.


1. He was also part of, or at least funded and financed expeditions to the New World during the same time period.

2. Ameryk was his LAST NAME, while it was Vespucci's first name (Amerigo or Americus). This is a very important clue. You see, the theory that it was Vespucci who was the namesake of the Americas came about mostly because of the early maps which were then found of the routes across the Atlantic and bits of the New World. Historians had assumed the newly discovered land was named America in the maps to honour Vespucci, the explorer. This sounds okay at first, until you hear the other argument. It was not acceptable then to name things after somebody's FIRST NAME. Had the land in the explorers' maps been named so for Vespucci - it should have been named VESPUCCIA. Richard Ameryk, on the other hand, financed some such expeditions. So when they landed or if they landed anywhere new, it would make sense that they would name the land (in the maps) as "Ameryk's land" or, you guessed it -  America.


So folks, while we all like to think we know to some extent this piece of historical fact, the truth is that in the end it's all just theorizing. I wonder, how different would our history be if these legends had been afforded the technology and opportunity to blog.

Hmm.. let us not make the same mistake. Signing off now. I will keep up this good fight for generations to come.