How can they say Colombus discovered America when there were people already there?

Question

Were the native Americans not human beings?

Answer 1

True, Sparrow a musician from Trinidad is quite apt when he summed it up by singing in one of his famous calypsoes, Columbus Lie. Sparrow says, Columbus did not tell nobody how he had to run from Apache,....., maybe he thought the Indians were spirits, ...., the Indians who discovered the lands before... . It is better said that Columbus was the first European/ non-Indian, an outsider, some-one from outside America, who set foot into America, a land un-known to those outside the territory.

Answer 2

Columbus was a late-comer. Before him were the Vikings, and there's recent archaeological evidence been discovered of habitation by peoples from central or western Europe before the arrival of what are now known as Native Americans. In south America, a few years ago, they discovered the bones of a people that were more similar to Australian aborigines than any other ethnic group, who pre-existed the Mayans etc - which actually ties up nicely with some Aussie Aboriginal legends of their people going on a long voyage across the seas and finding a new land. Date-wise, these people were probably the first. Whoever they were.

Answer 3

Most people accept Colombus as the European discoverer of the Americas.

However, we all know that people were already living there and since Colombus thought he had arrived in India, the natives of the Americas were called 'indians'.

Man probably arrived in the Americas from two locations. The first arrivees from Asia and the second wave from South Eastern Europe.

We are not talking 'recent history' but back in the ancient past to the stone-age. The latest findings in America of stone-age tools show them to be of the same type and design as those used in South Eastern Europe.

As for time scale, we are talking about 15,000 years ago when it was possible for the first time, due to ice-melt, for people to travel by canoe from Europe to America.

More recently caves have been discovered in Mexico with carvings of fishing boats of the type used by the Portuguese as far back as the 13th century. These carvings indicate that the Portuguese were getting as far West as the Americas long berfore Colombus.

The Vikings got as far as Newfoundland in Canada, which they called 'Vineland' because grapes grew there. There is much evidence of their settlement including the foundations of Viking houses etc.

I guess we've all settled on Colombus as the 'first' because it is well documented and not for any race reason. All the other disoverers of the Americas, stone-age Asians and Europeans, Vikings etc., left no written records of their arrival.

Colombus, an Italian, was commissioned to seek out the new world by the King of Spain. It is well documented and the expedition of discovery was paid for by Spain in Spanish gold and the ship[s] crewed by Spaniards.

Answer 4

Columbus was the first person who went on a widely publicized exploration voyage specifically to find a land with the blessing of a powerful European monarch. Of course, he was trying to find China, but that's another part of the story. Yes, the Native Americans were already there, and the Scandinavians had known about Greenland and what is now Canada for decades, but it was not highly publicized. As a side note, it is now believed that Asians island-hopped across the Pacific and helped settle the Americas in addition to coming over the land bridge. Thus, they had found America before the Europeans!

Answer 5

I think the Vikings put up a settlement up in Newfoundland before Colombus came. I think Columbus was the first to boast about it. Course this is speaking about Europeans first discovering America. The native people before them came over from Siberia through Alaska

Answer 6

Well that's like saying if we later find out that if some alien intelligent life form (I think we can both agree that its only the "intelligent" part that matters) far away has already discovered everything in space that we have "discovered" over time then we should go back and get rid of anything honoring the people who made those discoveries (like stuff named after them) and take them out of history books because they didn't actually "discover" anything that wasn't already discovered.

My point is that just because the native americans knew there was land there doesn't mean their land can't be discovered (just as we could "discover" a planet with aliens on it). Christopher columbus discovered it for the people of the east.

Answer 7

Sorry to our American cousins who celebrate Columbus day but his name was Colon and he discovered the Bahamas. The only time he set foot on mainland America was in South America. And by the way if Stephen fry is to be believed then your country was named after a Welsh Map maker John Americs.

Answer 8

The people of Europe were not aware that America existed until Columbus found it. Native Americans were not aware there was any other landmass beyond theirs.

It's a matter of how we use language. Every day, people say "I've discovered a great restaurant," or "I've found a good cure for indigestion." It doesn't mean that those things did not previously exist - it means that the "discoverer" wasn't AWARE they existed.

Answer 9

I found 1 person close being right about this land that the European named america. If you look Mexican, Asian, Cherokees, and Apaches the original people have strange strong structure facial, hair, eyes, skins pigmentation, height and bone build. Compared population of these People compare to all the these other countries put together, they still outnumber everybody. By the way ,why were the people called Native American put on reservations. And their weapons were taken ,so couldn't hint for food and starve on the reservations

Answer 10

Columbus discovered America for the Europeans. This allows for the Indians and any Chinese or Vikings who may have shown up earlier.