BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Secret of How Columbus Discovered the New World

Jeff

wrote:
DSK wrote:
Personally, I lean towards the theory that there were numerous European
voyages to America long before Columbus.
Very possible. There are extant records of Basque whaling
voyages which made temporary bases at land that sounds a lot
like Cape Cod & Nantucket. And of course there were some
records of the Viking voyages, long disbelieved.

For some reason, everybody wants to think that previous
generations had no clue.

SNIP

I don't know of any reputable historian who doesn't believe that
Columbus was not the first European to journey to the New World (L'Anse
aux Meadows (sp?), various charts, Lief Ereicsson, etc). But being
"first" isn't the point - he his importnat because his was the
expedition that "stuck" and resulted in a permanent European presence
in the Western Hemisphere

Actually, that was my point, though perhaps too subtle. There was a
permanent presence, its just that they didn't want anyone else to know
about it. The Norse exploration only lasted a few years (not counting
Greenland) and didn't amount to anything except "bragging rights."
The bigger issue is whether there were even earlier explorers, or more
lasting settlements. The Basque were supplying Europe with dried fish
for 100 years before Columbus, and all we know for sure is that it
didn't come from anywhere around Europe or Iceland. Scandinavians
would like everyone to believe that they were the only group capable
of American exploration and settlement before Columbus, but its
rather doubtful.

Certainly the Spanish explorers opened up a new era in our history.
However, its probable that English fishing boats had already learned
the Basque secret so its quite likely that there would have soon been
English fishing stations in New England even without the voyages of
Columbus. It might have taken a few years longer, but it was inevitable.

Of course, the disaster that befell the native Americans would have
happened regardless, because that was predetermined by their lack of
resistance to European diseases, but that's another discussion.