Who was Amerigo Vespucci?

Question

I learnned in the late 50's and the early 60's at my elementary school that Amerigo first discovered America, but thought it was the Indies. Why was the honor not credited to him, but to Columbus?

Answer 1

Amerigo Vespucci sailed on at least two expeditions to South America, exploring much of its east coast. (Other documents claim four voyages, but these are now seriously doubted). On his voyage of 1501-2 he concluded that this was NOT (as Columbus thought until his death) part of Asia, but a NEW part of the world. He was the first to recognize this.

More important for his subsequent fame, Vespucci wrote two letters to a friend in Europe, telling of his journey and conclusions These letters, with their descriptions of the lives and believes of South American natives became very popular all across Europe (unlike Columbus's diaries).

In 1507 a German clergyman-scholar named Martin Waldseemüller was working on a contemporary world map. He had read of Vespucci's travels and knew about "the New World". In honor of Vespucci's "discovery" (recognition) of this new "fourth part" of the world, Waldseemüller printed his wood block map with the name "America" spread across the southern continent. (The extension of the name to the northern lands, not yet known, came some time later.)

http://geography.about.com/cs/historicalgeog/a/amerigo.htm
http://www.bigoid.de/conquista/biographien/vespucci.htm

Do note that the name of Columbus is not utterly forgotten. It is reflected not only in the South American country name "Columbia", but in the use of that name many times by U.S. citizens as a poetic name for their country, esp in the first century of its existence (esp. in patriotic songs, beginning with "Hail Columbia" in the 1790s.... cf. "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean").

Answer 2

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian cartographer in which America was named after by mistake in the early 16th century around 1500.

Answer 3

The ancestors of the Native Americans, were first... The Vikings came second, although they didn't know where they were, and were not all that interested... Amerigo Vespucci landed in Florida, and discovered the continent... Columbus discovered an Island in the Caribbean ...

Answer 4

Vespucci didn't make his first voyage to the new world until 1497 - 5 years after Columbus.

Vespucci was a cartographer, and maps of the new world with his name on them are the reason the new world was dubbed, "America".

Answer 5

He mapped this hemisphere. He was a cartographer who sailed over this way some 5-6 years after Columbus. He was not the Captain of a ship, or an "explorer" per se - "just" a mapmaker.

Answer 6

Interesting question. However, we are referred to as America, not Columbia, so Vespucci did in the end get much credit.

Chow!!