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Pre Columbian Voyages to America: Myths and Reality
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Columbus and the Discovery of America
Gulyaev Valery Ivanovich ::: Pre Columbian voyages to America: myths and reality
(instead of an introduction)
"It was midnight on October 11, 1492.
Just two more hours — and an event will happen that is destined to change the entire course of world history.
No one on the ships was fully aware of this, but literally everyone, from the admiral to the youngest cabin boy, was in tense anticipation.
The first person to see the land was promised a reward of ten thousand maravedi, and now it was clear to everyone that the long voyage was coming to an end...
The day was running out, and in the bright starry night three small boats, driven by a fair wind, were rapidly gliding forward... "
1.
In such a solemnly elevated tone, the American historian J. Bakeless describes the exciting moment that preceded the discovery of America by Columbus.
Three small wooden ships - "Santa Maria", "Pinta" and "Ninya" set off from the port of Paloe (the Atlantic coast of Spain) on August 3, 1492.
About 100 people of the team, the minimum of food and equipment.
At the head of this expedition was an extraordinary man, obsessed with a bold dream — to cross the Atlantic Ocean from east to west and reach the fabulously rich kingdoms of India and China.
His name was Cristobal Colon (the Spanish version of the name Christopher Columbus).
He was a native of Genoa and was at that time in the Spanish service.
Two months of the hardest sailing on the ocean expanses.
The last piece of land — the Canary Islands was left astern exactly 33 days ago.
It seemed that there would be no end to the sea desert.
Food and fresh water supplies were running out.
People are tired.
The admiral, who had not left the deck for hours, increasingly heard exclamations of discontent and threats from the sailors.
But now the most difficult part is over.
All the signs spoke of the proximity of the desired land: birds, floating green tree branches and sticks, clearly cut by the hand of a man.
That night, Captain Martin Pinson on the" Pinta " went ahead of the small flotilla, and the watch on the bow of the ship was the sailor Rodrigo de Triana.
It was he who first saw the earth, or rather, the reflections of the ghostly moonlight on the white sand hills.
"Earth!
Land! "
shouted Rodrigo.
And a minute later, the thunder of a cannon shot announced that America was open.
All the ships took off their sails and began to look forward to the dawn.
At last it came, a clear and cool dawn on Friday, October 12, 1492.
The first rays of the sun illuminated the land that was mysteriously darkening ahead.
"This island," Columbus would later write in his diary, " is very large and very flat, there are a lot of green trees and water, and there is a large lake in the middle.
There are no mountains."
Boats were lowered from the ships.
Stepping ashore, the admiral hoisted the royal banner there and declared the open land the possession of Spain.
The island turned out to be inhabited.
It was inhabited by cheerful and good natured people with dark, reddish skin.
"All of them, writes Columbus — walk naked, in the buff, and women too...
And the people I saw were still young, all of them were no more than 30 years, and they were stacked well and the body and face, they were very beautiful, and the hair is coarse, like a horse, and a short...
Facial features have correct, the expression friendly...
Color these people were not black, but such as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands..."
2.
The first meeting of Europeans with American aborigines.
The first, most vivid impressions of the New World.
Everything here seemed unusual and new: nature, plants, birds, animals and even people.
The Indians themselves, if they were correctly understood, called their island Guanahani.
Columbus also christened the newly discovered land with the name San Salvador (savior).
There is no doubt that it was one of the Bahamian Islands3.
From here, it's just a stone's throw to Florida,and to the impressive land masses of the Greater Antilles.
The discovery of the" Western Indies " has begun.
And although on that momentous morning of October 12, 1492, the life of the vast American continent was apparently not disturbed by anything, the appearance of three caravels in the warm waters off the coast of Guanajani (San Salvador) meant that the history of America had entered a new era full of dramatic events.
The return of Columbus to Spain in March 1493 on two surviving, but badly battered ships turned into a true triumph of the great navigator.
He was showered with numerous honors and awards by the royal couple and received a firm promise of assistance in carrying out future expeditions in "India".
Of course, the real gains from the first voyage were small: a handful of pathetic trinkets made of low grade gold, a few half naked natives, bright feathers of strange birds.
But the main thing was done: this Genoese found new lands in the west, far across the ocean.
In anticipation of future fabulous profits, the royal court and the Spanish moneybags opened a generous loan to the admiral.
17 ships and more than 1,500 people participated in Columbus ' second voyage across the Atlantic.
New large islands were discovered Jamaica and Haiti, inhabited by numerous Indian tribes.
However, gold, spices, precious stones — everything that the participants of the expeditions and those who financed them so greedily sought - could not be obtained.
The star of Columbus rapidly rolled down.
However, he managed to organize two more trips to the Western Hemisphere, discovered a part of Central America (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama), where (mainly from the Panamanian Indians) he exchanged a significant amount of gold.
But the royal court and the arrogant Spanish nobility did not receive the main thing — the treasures of the Chinese and Indian rulers.
The great navigator died in Spain on May 20, 1506 in complete oblivion and poverty.
Contemporaries, as often happens in history, failed to appreciate the true significance of the discoveries made by him.
And he himself did not understand that he had discovered a new continent, considering the lands he had discovered to be India until the end of his life, and their inhabitants were Indians.
It was only after the expeditions of Balboa, Magellan and Vespucci that it became obvious that a completely new, unknown land lay beyond the blue expanses of the ocean.
But they will call it America (after Amerigo Vespucci), and not Colombia, as justice demanded.
Subsequent generations of compatriots turned out to be more grateful to the memory of Columbus.
The significance of his discoveries was confirmed already in the 20-30s of the XVI century, when after the conquest of the rich kingdoms of the Aztecs and Incas, a wide flow of American gold and silver poured into Europe.
What the great navigator had been striving for all his life, and what he was so persistently looking for in the "Western Indies", turned out to be not a utopia, not the delirium of a madman, but the very real reality.
His name is no less famous in Latin America, where one of the northernmost countries of the South American continent is named Colombia in his honor.
However, only in the United States, October 12 is celebrated as a national holiday — Columbus Day.
Many cities, a district, a mountain, a river, a university and countless streets, cinemas and pharmacies are named after the great Genoese here.
So, although with some delay, justice has prevailed.
Columbus received his share of fame and appreciation from a grateful humanity, and this could be put an end to.
But almost immediately after the admiral's epoch making voyages, people appeared who disputed his right to the laurel wreath of the discoverer of America.
And over the years, their number has not decreased at all, but has grown.
Who was not called the predecessors of the great navigator: the Phoenicians, the Israelites, the Greeks, the Romans, the Irish, the Arabs, and, finally, the Scandinavian Vikings.
In the United States, the clashes on this ground became particularly acute, since there were many immigrants from Italy and Scandinavia.
In the 60s, after the Norwegian X. Ingstad discovered the remains of a Norman settlement of the X XI centuries on the northern tip of Newfoundland, it is widely recognized that Europeans (in this case, Vikings) 500 years before Columbus reached the northeastern coast of America and even tried to settle there.
The arguments were weighty, and in the fall of 1964, US President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill on the recommendation of Congress on the annual celebration of Leif Eirikson Day on October 9.
Thus, Norman was officially recognized as the discoverer of the New World.
However, the former holiday — Columbus Day has also been preserved.
But it so happened that the "Norman bill" was signed on October 9, and, therefore, despite the indignation of Americans of Italian origin, the holiday of the Viking Leif was three days ahead of the holiday of the Genoese Columbus.
Passions were heated to the limit.
On October 12, 1965, violent demonstrations of Columbus ' supporters began in many places.
They were attended by Italian Americans who protested against the claims of the descendants of the Normans, who believed that America was discovered by their ancestor.
And it all started with the fact that two days before the holiday (Columbus Day), an article was published in the very influential New York Times newspaper, not without intent, about the discovery of a map of the XV century depicting a part of North America (an area called Vinland by the Normans), which excited the minds of Italian Americans who did not want to give priority to their Columbus in any way.
"Scientists at Yale University," the article said, "reported this morning (i.e., October 10, 1965 V. G.) about the most amazing cartographic discovery of the century — the discovery of the only pre Columbian geographical map of those countries of the New World that were discovered in the XI century by Leif Eirikson"4.
The map itself was placed next to the article.
In the upper left corner, the inscription "Vinland" was clearly highlighted.
Experts determined the time of creation of the map about 1440, that is, more than 50 years before Columbus ' first voyage to the shores of America.
The fact that the very eve of Columbus Day was chosen for the publication of this sensational material especially angered Italian Americans, who saw this not only as an open challenge, but also as tactlessness.
However, some time later, serious doubts appeared about the authenticity of the Vinland map.
But the deed was done, and the Norman priority in the discovery of America received solid support.
Of course, there is a lot of ridiculous and far fetched in this whole story.
The paradox is that at first, US citizens diligently memorize the postulate on the school bench: North America was discovered by Vikings 500 years before Columbus.
And then 10-15 million Americans of Italian origin seem to forget about the brave Viking campaigns in Vinland and, declaring them just legends, continue to diligently honor their great compatriot as the only discoverer of the New World.
But Columbus himself never set foot on the land of North America and did not even see it from a distance.
He discovered only the islands in the Caribbean Sea and part of the eastern coast of Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama), and even then during his last, fourth voyage in 1502.
Therefore, there is every reason to consider another European, John Cabot from England, as the discoverer of North America.
On June 24, 1497, he landed at Cape Bold of the island of Newfoundland, and then explored Cape Race of the same island.
In honor of this event, the strait between the peninsula of Nova Scotia and the island of Newfoundland is named after him.
But the Italians got the palm again: John Cabot's real name was Giovanni Caboto — he was an Italian sailor in the English service.
And yet Columbus deserved his fame.
"Although Columbus never saw the North American continent and until the end of his days believed that he had discovered India, he remains at the same time the main figure of the era of Great Geographical Discoveries.
His services to humanity are much higher than the deeds of the Vikings"5.
The great Genoese not only discovered new lands unknown to "cultural humanity" in the west, but also laid the foundation for strong and regular ties between the Old and New Worlds.
The role of the Vikings is not diminished at the same time.
"Today," writes the famous German writer K. V. Keram, " we can say only one thing: the Viking landings in America are interesting from many points of view, but they did not change either the worldview or the economic living conditions of both Europeans and native inhabitants of the American continent.
Columbus did it"6.
It seems to me that the fathers of the trustees of the ancient American city of Boston came to the wisest decision: they installed bronze monuments to both Columbus and Leif Eirikson in the last century.
It is also important to understand the correlation of all known cases of pre Columbian voyages to America with the discoveries of the great navigator.
In my opinion, the most objective statement of this most complex problem was made by the well known American historian J. Fiske is the author of a fundamental two volume work on the discovery of America.
He's writing:
"The contact between the two worlds began, in fact, only in 1492.
At the same time, I do not intend to deny at all that random visitors from the Old World could and did appear earlier than this time.
On the contrary, I am inclined to think that there were more such random visits than we generally assume"7.
Speaking about the role of the discoveries of the Vikings, who went from their colonies in Greenland and Iceland to the shores of North America, he notes:
«...All these ancient voyages before Columbus had no important historical consequences.
In the matter of colonization, they led only to the establishment of two unfortunate colonies on the Greenland coast, in other respects they did not make any real contribution to the treasury of geographical knowledge.
They did not make any impact on the minds of Europeans outside of Scandinavia...
Travel to Vinland was forgotten by the end of the XIV century...
There was no real communication between the eastern and western halves of our planet until the great voyage of Columbus in 1492"8.
In general, one could agree with this assessment.
But let's not rush it.
Let us also allow one of Fiske's opponents to speak out — the defender of the priority of Polynesian navigators in the discovery of America, F. Kuilichi.
He is of Italian origin, which means that he is a fellow countryman of the great Genoese.
"In the Mediterranean, "he writes in his book Ocean," the descendants of the proud Phoenicians sailed near the shores well known to them, and only occasionally the most daring of them crossed the entire enclosed sea, making a passage of no more than 200 miles.
However, the Phoenicians did not often dare to sail far from the shore.
Portuguese navigators have collected a lot of information about the Atlantic Ocean.
But it took as much as 600 years before the Azores and the island of Madeira, located relatively close to the shores of Europe, were discovered.
Some ships reached the African coast.
However, they did not dare to swim further — they knew that after crossing the equator they would lose sight of the North Star, and this would mean certain death: the mad travelers, according to the ideas of their contemporaries, would either be boiled alive in the boiling water of the ocean, or would fall into the abyss, falling off the edge of the Earth.
On the opposite side of the Earth, Chinese junks sailed from one island to another, but they never lost sight of the mainland coast.
Traders from Arabia and India made quite bold voyages, but they did not go far into the open sea.
Only in the north of Europe did the Vikings venture on campaigns that can be compared with the campaigns of the Polynesians...
The latter had a difficult task to enter into a one on one struggle with the Pacific Ocean and overcome it.
Without maps, without more or less perfect instruments, guided only by the stars and relying only on the mercy of the gods, they performed genuine miracles.
It took a good seven centuries before a native of Genoa, a Spanish citizen named Christopher Columbus, on three large stable ships made his famous journey, much less long and dangerous than the trips of the Polynesians on fragile canoes"9.
There are a great many examples of such a confrontation of views and opinions.
The origins of all these disputes go back to the misty haze of centuries, to the historical moment when Columbus set foot on the sandy shore of the island of Guanahani.
Both specialists and the general public have always been concerned about two questions, the solution of which in one direction or another significantly changed the view of the history of pre Columbian America: where does the culture of local Indians originate from and did Columbus have predecessors?
Some authorities vehemently denied any possibility of any transoceanic contacts of the inhabitants of the American continent with the outside world in ancient times.
Others, on the contrary, tried to prove that it was not difficult for a person to cross the ocean in past eras, and therefore all the cultural achievements of the Indians have their roots in the civilizations of the Old World.
Over the years, not only scientists, but also diplomats, officials, writers, religious figures and even entire states have become involved in this dispute.
The defense of national prestige and the inviolability of the dogmas of faith, vanity and thirst for wealth, the pursuit of sensation at times gave the polemic too sharp a character.
However, this polemical intensity, which has not weakened until today, serves, in my opinion, as an excellent proof of the great scientific and universal significance of this topic.
This is all the more appropriate to say on the eve of the approaching 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
The literature on pre Columbian relations that has accumulated over the past four centuries is huge.
The arguments of the parties are often very confusing and incomprehensible.
Often, old hypotheses that have long been exposed and rejected by science acquire new shiny clothes thanks to the efforts of interested persons and again rush to take a place in discussions.
It is far from easy to understand this sea of facts without special skills and training.10
Therefore, the author expresses the hope that this book will serve as a guide for the reader , interested in pre Columbian contacts of the Old and New World.
1bakless J.
America through the eyes of the discoverers.
- M., 1969 — - p. 17.
2 Voyages of Christopher Columbus.
Diaries.
Letters.
Documents.
- M., 1956 — - P. 89.
3 After the publication of the historian E. Morrison (USA) in the 40s of this century, most researchers believed that Guanahani on the modern map corresponds to Watling Island.
And only very recently, in 1986, a group of specialists from the National Geographic Society (USA) using a computer identified Guanahani with the island of Samana Kay.
See El Universo.
— Quito, Ecuador, 1986.
— 9 oct.
4 Citations by Skelton R. A., Marston T. E., Painter G. D.
The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation.
— New Haven and London, 1965.
— P. 17.
5Ceram S. W.
The First American.
A Story of North American Archaeology.
— N. Y., 1971.
— P. 15.
6Ceram S. W. Op. cit — - P. 28.
7Fiske J.
The discovery of America with a brief outline of ancient America and the Spanish conquest.
- M., 1892.
- p. 105.
8 Ibid.
- P. 173-174.
9 Cm.
Kuilichi F. Okean.
- M., 1976 — - p. 72.
10 The problem of pre Columbian relations between the Old and the New World is covered in various ways in countless books, pamphlets and articles of both a popular and purely scientific nature.
The most important works are considered to be the works of O. Kendall (Kendall A.
The Art and Archaeology of pre Columbian Middle America: an annotated bibliography of works in English. - Boston, 1977); S. Jetta (Jett S. Diffusion versus independent development: the bases of controversy/C. L. Riley et al. (eds.)
Man Across the Sea: Problems of pre Columbian Contacts.
— Austin, 1971. — P. 5—53); pre Columbian Transoceanic Contacts/Jessee D. Jennings (ed.).
Ancient Native Americans.
- San Francisco, 1978, - P. 593-650; as well as the Subject catalog of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, USA (27 volumes and appendices) (Memoirs of the Peabody Museum. - Cambr., 1957. - Vol. 11-12); the book of E. Fingerhut (Fingerhut E. R.
Who first discovered America?
A Critique of pre Columbian Voyages.
— Claremont, California, 1986).
The main literature on this topic was written in the 50-60s of our century, that is, at a time when the discussion about the possibility of pre Columbian connections of the population of the two hemispheres of the earth reached its apogee in scientific circles.
Of course, some important publications appeared later, but they did not contain fundamentally new facts and provisions on this problem.
In recent years, in connection with the approaching anniversary of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus, scientists have again become interested in this topic.
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