Debunking The Myth About Christopher Columbus’ Discovery Of America

Christopher Columbus, we were once taught in school, was the first European to land on American soil. But is this actually true? Was this Italian explorer really the first person who sailed across the Atlantic from the Old World to “discover” the New World in 1492? It certainly makes for a good story, and it’s one we’ve been told again and again and again. But the historically accurate version of the events that surrounded the discovery of the Americas is one that’s well worth exploring, too.

Columbus wasn’t even looking for America

Most people already know that Columbus was actually searching for a westward passage from Europe to the Far East when he "discovered" the Americas. This project was sponsored by Spanish royalty, who were anxious to find a sea passage to the East to continue a lucrative trade.

The Spanish had previously used the Silk Road for trade, but after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople — today’s Istanbul — it became too dangerous. At that point, Spain needed another way to trade in fine goods such as silks, spices, and porcelain.

He landed by accident

So, after years of dreaming and scheming, Columbus finally set sail from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera with three vessels on August 3rd, 1492. After stopping at the Spanish-ruled Canary Islands, the small fleet set a course westwards across the Atlantic.

They sailed for five weeks before reaching land on October 12th. At that point, the explorer assumed he’d come across some islands off Asia. But the truth was that he had arrived in the Caribbean.

Columbus struck gold — literally

Columbus and his men had made land on one of the islands in what we now call the Bahamas. Although exactly which one is unclear. The Europeans then met the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, including the Arawak people.

Noting that some of them sported gold jewelry, Columbus did what any other privileged Westerner would have done at the time: he took them prisoner, naturally. And then the explorer demanded them to reveal the source of the valuable metal.

He immediately started to change the population

Of his golden discovery, Columbus wrote in his journal, “[The islanders] ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion.” He also revealed his plans to take six Arawak back to Spain “in order that they may learn our language.”

If you didn't already, you may now understand why some people choose not to celebrate Columbus Day. Why celebrate someone who forced people to change their entire identities?

"I could conquer the whole of them"

Ominously, Columbus added, “These people are very simple in war-like matters… I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased.” This did not bode well for the future of the island inhabitants. In fact, within 60 years, one of the indigenous peoples, the Tainos, was reduced from some 250,000 to just hundreds.

But Columbus seemingly didn't care which tribes he enslaved. The sailor swiftly went on to explore various other Caribbean islands, seizing prisoners as he went.

He made four voyages to the Americas

After making a final landing on Hispaniola — today an island divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic — Columbus decided it was time to return to Spain. One of his three vessels had been shipwrecked in the Caribbean, so the remaining two set sail. The journey wasn't easy: two fearful storms knocked the vessels around the sea like pinballs.

Despite the arduous journey, the explorer arrived at Palos de la Frontera on March 15, 1493. Columbus made three more expeditions across the Atlantic to the Americas, too.

The queen did not appreciate Columbus' gift

The first of those, in September 1493, saw him return to the Caribbean. On this journey, he dispatched 500 indigenous people back to Spain as slaves. They were meant as a gift for Isabella I of Castile but, appalled, she sent them back. Her thinking wasn't entirely pure, though: The monarch believed that any people from newly discovered territories were by definition Spanish subjects and not to be enslaved.

As backwards as this way of thinking seems today, this itch to colonize ran rampant during Columbus's time. Still, Isabella I and King Ferdinand II would later have Columbus arrested for his continued abuses of power.

The other side of the story

Today, of course, Columbus Day is celebrated every October 12th in parts of the U.S. and some other countries. The day celebrates the explorer’s first sighting of land and likely contributes to the myth that Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas. But if we ignore the other unsavory aspects of Columbus' legacy for a moment, was he really the first man to lead an expedition to the New World from the Old?

It’s a question that many historians now answer with a resounding “no.”

A Viking victory

In fact, many modern historians believe that it wasn’t Columbus who discovered the Americas for Europe. It was, it seems, Leif Erikson, an actual Viking. The evidence points to Erikson not just reaching North America, but setting foot on it. This is something, need we remind you, that the Italian explorer never did. Columbus only made it to South and Central America.

And, believe it or not, the Norse explorer Leif Erikson made his journey something like 500 years earlier than Columbus.

Leif the Lucky

With the passage of more than 1,000 years, many details about Leif Erikson's life are uncertain. As best we know, he was born in Iceland sometime around 970 or 980 A.D. He went by other names during his lifetime, but the one we like the most is Leif the Lucky.

The Norseman was pretty lucky at the time, because he died sometime between 1018 and 1025 A.D. at around 74 years old. That was ancient for a viking!

A history of banishment

Erikson’s father was Erik the Red, and his mother was Thjohild. Erik the Red had moved to Iceland with his father, Thorvald Asvaldsson, after Asvaldsson was exiled from Norway for killing a man. Erik the Red was then banished from Iceland as well, and so he landed in Greenland, founding a settlement there in 986.

Like his dad before him, Erik had been sent into exile because he had been behind a brutal slaying.

A legendary undertaking

Perhaps inspired by stories Erikson had heard from his father about mysterious lands to the west, Leif Erikson set sail from Greenland around the year 1,000 A.D. And we know this thanks to two Norse sagas written a few hundred years later. They are called the Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders.

They almost sound like something from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, though, the stories sometimes contradict one another.

The truth behind the myth

Both sagas record Erikson’s journey to what the Norsemen later called Vinland, and what we today know as Canada. One claims that the Viking arrived there having been blown off course returning to Norway. The other asserts that he knew exactly where he was going, having heard tales of undiscovered lands from a man called Bjarni Herjolfsson.

There had to be a reason why he was called Leif the Lucky!

“Stone Slab Land”

Whether Erikson got there by accident or design, he did something that Herjolfsson had not. He actually landed on Vinland. The Viking swiftly named the area Helluland, which translates as the distinctly unpoetic but perhaps accurate “Stone Slab Land.” Modern historians speculate that this location may have been modern-day Baffin Island.

The Vikings then traveled southwards, eventually reaching what was probably Newfoundland where they set up camp and prepared for winter.

A land of plenty

Exploring this new territory, the Norsemen were seemingly impressed by its abundance. In particular, they noticed the grapes growing there. This gave them the notion to call the place Vinland, meaning Wine Land.

There are two historical references to Vinland as well. The first came from Adam of Bremen, who noted the land after hearing about it from the king of Denmark in 1075. The second report came in The Book of the Icelanders, a history of the country, put together by Ari the Wise between 1122 and 1133.

His time was brief

Erikson did not make multiple trips to Vinland like Columbus centuries after him. It seems that he spent the winter in this new land and then set sail for him. And after returning to Greenland, Erikson never again made the journey to Vinland.

When his father, Erik the Red died, the sailor inherited to the leadership of the Greenland settlement. But although he never saw Canada again, other Norsemen traveled there over a period of ten years or so.

Others followed in his footsteps

However, although these Vikings continued to visit Vinland, they never seemed to actually move there. This is puzzling since the Canadian environment was much more inviting than the harsh, even barren, conditions that prevailed in Greenland.

Some historians have speculated that conflicts between the Norsemen and indigenous peoples, including one resulting in the death of Thorwald, Erikson’s brother, may have halted organized settlement. Norsemen referred to indigenous people as skrælingi, or "wretches."

A story with hidden depths

Much of the story of Erikson’s discovery of North America comes from Norse sagas. Those, however, were written centuries after the event and are not necessarily entirely dependable. They are supposed to be adventure stories, after all.

But even though the explorer may be an elusive figure as far as history is concerned, we do have other concrete evidence that the Vikings discovered Vinland and spent some years there.

Archaeological evidence backs it up

That evidence comes in the shape of archaeological finds on the Canadian coasts. One of the best-known sites is L’Anse aux Meadows on the shores of Newfoundland, and it holds the key to this story. Back in 1960, a Norwegian explorer called Helge Ingstad, along with his archaeologist wife, Anne, made a spectacular find there.

They uncovered a Viking settlement dating back 1,000 years — all the way to Leif Erikson.

A man ahead of his time

Of course, this site doesn’t give any direct evidence about Erikson’s exploits in Vinland. But it does prove that the Vikings set foot in Canada and even perhaps settled there for a time. It also shows that this happened some 500 years before the explorations of Christopher Columbus.

And it certainly means that the tales told in those Norse sagas were based on fact.

Leif Erikson Day

So while Columbus made some extraordinary journeys to the Americas, he was emphatically not the first European to land in North America. However, he did set the scene for the colonization of the continent, first by the Spaniards and later by other Europeans.

And just as Columbus has his day for celebration, so too does the Norse explorer. Leif Erikson Day falls on October 9 each year. But we of course know much more about Columbus than we do about Erikson.

The Columbus family history

Columbus was born in 1451 in the Republic of Genoa, today part of Italy. His father, Domenico, was an apparently prosperous fabric merchant who dealt in woven goods. He also owned a stall selling cheese where his young son is said to have helped out.

Susanna Fontanarossa was Columbus’ mother, and he had three brothers and one sister. Due to the location of the future explorer’s birth, the assumption is that his first language would have been a Genoese dialect of Ligurian.

Sailing the seven seas

Columbus first went to sea when he was just ten. Then, after a family move to Savona in 1470, he sailed on a Genoese vessel under the auspices of René of Anjou, a French prince who held various royal titles during his life. The ship’s mission was to attempt the seizure of the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1476 Columbus sailed with a trade convoy transporting goods to northern Europe and docked in England and Ireland. Other details about this part of the explorer’s life are somewhat murky, but he may also have visited Iceland.

He had exploration on the brain

Columbus continued his travels around Europe in the ensuing years, eventually landing in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in 1477. According to some accounts, he arrived there after being shipwrecked as a result of a pirate attack off Portugal’s coast.

Columbus also took the opportunity to study astronomy, math, navigation, and map-making. Those, of course, were all skills that would be invaluable to an adventurous explorer. And it seems that the idea of pursuing just such a course was already on the sailor’s mind.

The problem of the Silk Road

The problem with the old Silk Road could be bypassed by traveling on the sea. That journey, though, seemingly involved sailing right around continental Africa. But what if a route could be found that involved crossing the Atlantic to Asia instead?

Columbus, armed only with the geographical knowledge of the day, was apparently convinced that this was feasible. Like other Europeans at the time, though, he had no idea that the continent of America stood in the way of a westerly passage to China.

It wasn't looking good

Columbus needed financial backing to test the theory that the Orient could be reached by traversing the Atlantic. To this end, he approached the Portuguese king, John II, in 1485. But the King’s advisers examined the proposal and declared it impractical.

Columbus went back to King John with his proposal in 1488 but was again rejected. Shortly after this second rebuffing, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, Africa’s southernmost tip. This opened a potential new route to the Far East, and the monarch lost interest in the Atlantic scheme.

Mo' money, mo' problems

The search for funding continued with many other rejections. Then Columbus tried Spain where Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon had married and jointly ruled various parts of the country.

In fact, Columbus had initially approached the Spanish rulers as early as 1486. They didn’t discourage him then and even gave him a financial allowance. Encouraged by this, the sailor continued to promote his proposal to the royal couple. And in January 1492, he was at last successful.

“Capitulations of Santa Fe”

Eventually, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand reached an agreement with the explorer to fund the trip. And the “Capitulations of Santa Fe,” as the contract was called, pretty much gave him exactly what he wanted.

The agreement stipulated that if Columbus’ exploratory voyage was a success, he would become governor of any new territories he discovered. In addition, he would be entitled to ten percent of all income generated for the Spanish crown by those lands. And the rest was history.

A short but eventful life

Columbus made four voyages across the Atlantic. On Columbus’ third journey, in May 1498, he visited the Caribbean and also traveled to the South American mainland. Then, in 1502, the explorer set off on his fourth and final journey.

On this trip, he reached what is now Panama. Once back in Spain, though, he began suffering from ill health. The man who discovered the Americas died in 1506 at the presumed age of around 55.