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Who really discovered the new world? Christopher Columbus or Leif Ericson
Results so far:
| Columbus | 20% | 220 votes | Total: 1088 votes | |
| Ericson | 80% | 868 votes |
Columbus
by Steven Koch
Created on: November 30, 2009 Last Updated: December 02, 2009
There is no real debate in this question. Historically, Leif Ericson discovered the new world before Columbus. However, the question is really about whose discovery changed the way their contemporaries thought of the world. Here it impact is also not debatable: Christopher Columbus.
While it is true that Leif Ericson did not keep this information secret, there was little interest in exploring further. There were no great riches found, aside from some grapes found in the area assumed to become known as Newfoundland. Ericson and his men found barren rock, trees and little else to boast of. The rest of Europe was disorganized, consumed with the struggle to survive and little else. There were no efforts to colonize this new world, the old world was enough for them to handle.
To add a little perspective; Marco Polo would not begin his explorations until 300 years later.
The voyages of Columbus came at a different time. Large sea going ships were the new technology. European countries were better defined. France, England, Spain and Portugal, among others had their own kings and an economic system that provided a livelihood for the well born and royal families. At that time, the Magna Carta was older than our Declaration of Independence is today. Joan of Arc helped consolidate France and was burned at the stake. The Black Death consumed 25 to 50 percent of the population and the Turks crushed the Byzantine Empire.
Many common people lived, not merely survived. They had roofs over their heads and enough food to feed themselves and their families. While it was not a paradise, there was an organization that allowed some people to prosper.
The royal powers were looking to expand their power and increase their wealth. Ships were sent out to find gold or other riches. The first attempt at to colonization the New World was almost 100 years after Columbus discovered there was a rich land beyond the sea. The first settlements that stuck and grew into something larger did not happen until 1607 and 1620 in what is now Virginia and Massachusetts respectively. This is over 100 years after the first discovery. This coincides with the religious persecution that began with the Reformation. Common people were now ready to change their lives and take a huge gamble on the unknown.
Yes Leif Ericson was the first to discover the new world, but it made little difference in the life of mankind. This was similar to finding an artifact but not understanding its impact until years later, when you are finally able to use it. At that point it changes the world. Columbus' rediscovery of the new world changed the world.
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Ericson
by Nick Ford
Created on: November 07, 2010 Last Updated: November 08, 2010
Americans who celebrate Columbus Day may be celebrating the landfall of the wrong explorer. Leif Ericson has a better claim to be the discoverer of the New World.
The discovery of American is a hotly debated topic full of mysteries. Technically neither Ericson nor Columbus discovered the New World. Over 25,000 years ago the first settlers crossed the Bering Straits and entered America from Asia. Their dispersal gave rise to the indigenous people. In 499 A.D. the Chinese explorer Hoei-Shan completed a voyage in which he describes a tree with red fruit. Scholars think that the tree was the maguey tree that grows only in Central and Southern America. From the Chinese perspective Hoei-Shan discovered America.
In Europe, St. Brendan was probably the first person to reach the American continent. He was a sixth century monk who made a voyage, according to legend, from Ireland to America, as an old man, sometime between 512 and 530 A.D. Very little is known of his voyage, except for the pains of Tim Severin. Severin studied Celtic seafaring technology and made a demonstration voyage from Ireland to America in 1976.
St. Brendan came from a tradition in which monks turned to the sea for solace. Some of his fellow monks sailed to Iceland and established retreats on the island. When Norsemen settled in Iceland in the ninth century the monks sailed west to Greenland to continue their contemplative lives.
Within a generation Iceland became heavily populated, over-grazed and riddled with land ownership disputes. In 982 AD a certain brigand, Eric the Red, was outlawed from the country for three years because of the part he played in a blood feud.
Eric the Red chose to pass his term of exile in Greenland. The Greenland saga relates how Bjarni Herjolfsson returned to Iceland from a sailing voyage only to find that his father had left for Greenland with the outlaw. When Herjolfsen set sail for Greenland to join his father storms blew his vessel further south. Herjofsen is believed to have explored but not landed on the coast of Newfoundland.
When Leif Ericson, who was the son of Eric the Red, heard of Herkofsen’s voyage he set sail from Iceland on a voyage of exploration and established a temporary settlement on Newfoundland. After a long search in 1964 the self- styled archaeological team Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad found a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows that they believe was the site of Ericson’s settlement. As definitive proof the Ingstads found part of a spinning whorl that could have only be found elsewhere in Norway.
The Leif Ericson story is told in an Icelandic saga called the Vinland saga which for a while puzzled sages. It talks of the discovery of a land where grapes grew. Newfoundland is too far north to sustain the vine, even when allowance is made for a warmer climate in the tenth century. The controversy was settled when the Ingstads found the remains of the American butternut at L’Anse aux Meadows. The butternut comes from land to the south of Newfoundland which could sustain the wild grape. The couple took the view that Ericson took livestock to pastures further south where they might have traded with local people. The Vinland settlements have never been found and were short lived like those on Newfoundland.
In time the Norse discoveries of Greenland and Iceland led to Icelandic, Irish and Welsh fishing voyages to the Grand Banks. Ultimately these voyages led to the expedition of John Cabot to America in 1497. Until the Ingastad discoveries John Cabot was considered to be the second European, after Columbus, to land in America.
The exploration of Leif Ericson was quite different from that of Christopher Columbus. Ericson conducted a voyage of discovery. Columbus undertook a deliberate voyage to discover a passage to the Orient.
Further reading
Amerike, the Briton who gave America its Name, Rodney Broome, Sutton Publishing, 2002
The Vinland Sagas, the Norse Discovery of America, translated by Magnus Magnuson and Herman Palsson, Penguin Classics
The Columbus Myth, Did Men of Bristol reach America before Columbus? Ian Wilson, Simon & Schuster ,1991
1421 The Year China discovered the World, Gavin Menzies, Bantam Press, 2002
Learn more about this author, Nick Ford.
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