by R.A. Scott

Created on: October 09, 2009   Last Updated: October 13, 2009

In 1903 a Greek-American wrote a little ditty about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean. Most of us know only the first couple of lines, "In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

Columbus was of Genoese extract but sailed under the Spanish flag simply because that was the only country that would finance his voyage. Most thought it folly and simply laughed off Columbus and his thoughts of finding Cathay. Spain financed the trip across the "ocean sea", their term for the Atlantic Ocean, basically so that no other country would eventually take Columbus up on his quest.

It does need to be made clear that Christopher Columbus and his army aboard the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria we not the first people to find their way to the Americas. Columbus landed in a land he called "San Salvador". It is suspect that the San Salvador of the Columbus expedition is the San Salvador of today. We do know that he did land in the Bahamas.

The Columbus expeditions were in fact the first to put the Americas on the map. He showed the Europeans of the time that the earth was not flat and that Cathay would not be found by heading east. Columbus opened up the Americas and the inhabitants therein to slavery, murder, torture and disease. It's pretty certain that the Americans who had been directly and indirectly affected by Columbus' discovery both then and now regret he ever made the trip.

The first people to have entered the Americas were Asian hunters who crossed a land bridge approximately 25,000 years ago. They were likely following herds of animals that were migrating across the bridge between Alaska and Asia. These peoples populated the Americas by heading south from Alaska and moving into areas freed up by north-ward advancing ice.

Who else came to the Americas prior to Columbus? We know for certain that Vikings led by Leif Eirikson landed in Newfoundland, Canada at a place they referred to as Vinland. Today we know this place as L'ans aux Meadows. This discovery was made around 1001.

For just less than a decade, the Vikings tried to make a go of it at Vinland. They built a settlement and traded and fought with the natives but for reasons not known to us the Vikings finally gave it up and left the Newfoundland coast and headed back to Greenland.

Were they others who arrived in the Americas prior to Columbus? Some claim that the Chinese made a visit in 1421 but there is no archaeology to back that up but some are looking. Beyond that it is anyone's guess who may have made their accidental way to America, perhaps some fishermen who were blown off course. Time and history might tell.

Columbus did put the Americas on the map and he stayed which opened up the Americas to the world.

References:

http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Newfoundland/viking s.htm

http://www.lost-civilizations.net/vikings-isle-man-l eif-eriksson-page-3.html

http://www.viking.no/e/people/leif/e-leiv.htm

http://www.bartleby.com/43/2.html

http://red-coral.net/Columb.html

http://www.columbusnavigation.com/

Learn more about this author, R.A. Scott.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.