Today, October 12, marks the 528th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas. For good and for bad, he changed the world that we live in. So today, I have compiled a special Columbus/Indigenous Day article for one of the biggest questions in history.

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You know that old saying, "In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue," from second grade? It's to tell us how in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain to the Americas to discover new lands and get rich. He discovered that the earth was round and that there was another continent out there. Well, that's not what happened.

It's true that in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain to the Americas looking for riches. But he wasn't looking to "discover" lands. Matter of fact, when he died, he had no idea he had sailed to another continent. All educated people at the time knew that the earth was round. Instead, Columbus was looking for the riches of the East Indies, now the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, and the Philippines. Some sources also include Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. The East Indies were famous for their spices. Along the way, they would go to China, where they would get some of its precious silk. So, Christopher Columbus decided that he wanted to go to the Far East. First, he went to the King of Portugal. But he didn't want to fund it. Portugal was spending a whole lot on Vasco Da Gama's trips around Africa to India. But he was able to convince the king and queen of Castille to fund the trip. Castille would take the colonies with Columbus as governor of any new lands "discovered," and 10% of all the riches found there. He knew that if he sailed across the Ocean, he would reach China. It would be better than going across the Ottoman Empire and faster than sailing around Africa. But little did he know that there was another whole continent out there.

The first proven accounts of humans arriving in the Americas was from Beringia. Today, this is water, now known as the Bering Strait. But thousands of years ago, this was ice. As hunter-gatherers followed large animals they depended on for food, some made their way into what is now Alaska and Canada. And they kept on doing that. Some settled in New York. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy was one of the most democratic tribes in the entire world. Others came to Mexico. Those became the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec. Some made their way to the Andes Mountains. The Inca were isolated from invaders until Francisco Pizarro of Spain invaded. Of course, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of native tribes. But, there is evidence that there might have been other people in the Americas that hadn’t crossed Beringia before Columbus.

Europe

It is well known that Christopher Columbus was not the first confirmed person from Europe to set foot in the Americas. The Vikings settled Greenland and Newfoundland in the tenth and eleventh centuries but left after a bad trade with the natives. However, there is some evidence that the Romans had a presence in the Americas. There have been many statues found in the Americas that look a lot like Roman statues. One of the more convincing pieces of evidence is in Brazil. In Guanabara Bay (near Rio de Janeiro), a shipwreck was found. Inside of it was an amphora, a type of jar that was used commonly by Romans and Greeks. So, how could jars of amphora get to a shipwreck in Brazil? Well, it might be that the Romans were trading with the natives. But it could also be there because of a storm that deposited a ship which docked in the Canary Islands, the farthest known place that the Romans went to.

Ogham is one of the most unique writing systems in the world. It uses lines carved into pillars that represent different words and phrases. So, what would you think if you found lines carved into a cave in Virginia? Pretty interesting, huh? Well, there is a traditional Irish story that dates back to when these lines were found in Ireland and Virginia (about 500 BCE). The patron monk of Ireland, Saint Brendan, went on a journey to “the Isle of the Blessed” to “discover new lands.” It is said that they came across darker-skinned people (an illusion to the Native Americans) and new types of food and animals. They got in a bit of trouble, so they went back home. Along the way, they passed a group of blacksmiths who tossed molten slag (the volcanoes of Iceland) and crystal pillars (glaciers of the North Atlantic). Saint Brendan eventually wrote a book about his adventures. In 1977, Tim Severin sailed across the Atlantic using a traditional Irish boat, proving that this story is plausible.

Africa

If we go back to the Americas, we can see something interesting: there are fossils of humans in Mexico and Central America, far away from where they were supposed to come from. When their fossilized heads were analyzed, it was noted how similar they looked to Native Africans. On Columbus’s third voyage to the Americas, he went to test the claims that merchants from Guinea (West Africa) were heading to the Americas with canoes full of merchandise. When he set sail, he landed in South America.

Australia & Oceania

If you know a little bit about history, you probably know that the Polynesians were master sailors. So it seems very possible that they could sail to the Americas. One of the most common vegetables is the sweet potato. It has a distinct color and taste, and originated in South America. While colonizing the Pacific, it was noted that some small, volcanic islands in Polynesia had sweet potatoes, too. Of course, the sea could’ve also deposited seeds and/or roots of the plant to Polynesia. But the Polynesian world for sweet potatoes, kumala, is very similar to the Quechua and Aymara words (k’umar and k’umara) that were common in Peru and Bolivia before Columbus.

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So, are these just coincidences? Or were the Romans, Irish, Africans, or Polynesians trading with the Native Americans? Leave a comment to let me know.

You should totally check out Atlas Pro's Video on the same topic that I took a lot of inspiration from.