How could Christopher Columbus "discover" America when they were already millions of inhabitants living here?

Question

I think the native Americans beat him to it.

Answer 1

i think that the more time that passes the more that history has deminished his role in "discovering" america. columbus actions did eventually lead to the settling of the america's by europeans, and the near decimation of native american's.

Answer 2

I think you answered your own question there. But yes, native Americans were already here in the millions. Columbus only explored the caribbean, never even touching what later became the mainland United States (he did go to Puerto Rico though), the Vikings were Europeans who beat him too it (no longer any uncertainty on that front following the discovery of a settlement in what is now Canada), and there are even theories that other Europeans or Asians came before them too.

However, Columbus can be credited with sparking the first sustained long-term exchange of people, products and ideas between the 'Old World' and 'New World': we have him to thank for the so-called Columbian exchange - bringing products like tomatos, squashes, potatoes and tobacco to the Old World and eventually introducing stuff like bananas and horses to the New World.

Answer 3

He discovered America for the Europeans. Most people in Europe did not know that there's was a land barrier between the Western World and the Orient on the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus was looking for a more secure route for traders to bring the exotic products from the Orient to the Europeans.

Answer 4

Of course you're right. And the Vikings and others got there before Columbus. But the fact remains that before Columbus almost everyone in Europe or elsewhere outside of the Americas was completely unaware of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. For better or worse, the contact between the two was due to Columbus.

Answer 5

WoW, a bunch of incorrect leftist answering this question.

The reason that Christopher Columbus is correctly attributed as having "Discovered" the new world is that no one knew that there was a new world before he showed up on hispaniola.

Whether Vikings or Polynesians or Chinese had traveled to the new world before 1492 is irrelevant, that knowledge had been forgotten or it had never been disseminated throughout the world.

As to the indians, they did not know about the rest of the world either and the inhabitants of a land can not by definition discover it anew.

whale

Answer 6

He discovered it for Europe--who had no clue that there was a land over there--yes, you're right the Native Americans beat him to it, but because of his "discovery", Europe then sent more explorers and eventually settlers. By the way, Columbus died thinking that he had just discovered another way to the Indies and didn't realize that it was an entire new land to Europe.

Answer 7

Only a fool believes he actually "discovered" it. The term is used to describe the Europeans "discovery" of new continents. Not that they were the first to inhabit it. Evidence lately is also suggesting that it may have been "discovered" much early than Columbus by other seafarers.

Answer 8

Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. The people that we're here were of ASIAN decent. E.G. Indian. He discovered the new world because he built a boat and traveled here from an advanced civilization. And when he arrived it was nearly an empty continent.

Answer 9

No, Columbus did not "discover" America--nor did he make any such claim. His and the other early sea voyages were not voyages of discovery, but attempts to discover an easy route to the trading centers of east Asia after the Muslim conquest of Constantinople blocked the land route--economics, not "discovery," was the goal. And everyone who said Columbus was not even the first non-"native" to sail to the Americas is correct--the Vikings, of course, but some evidence indicates the Chinese may have come to the west coast more than 1000 years before them; and of course, the original Meso-American ancestors of the Indians were before that, but again, the motive was not "discovery" (an over-used term, that) but following the migration path of animal prey from Asia.

Answer 10

The Vikings beat him too.

The correct term should be that Columbus introduced America to Europeans.

Answer 11

This is not a new idea, genius. Most fourth graders are aware of the fact that Christopher Columbus is incorrectly credited with the discovery of the Americas.