Columbus Was Not the First to Discover America! And Other Falsehoods from the Age of Exploration
Think again before giving Chris Columbus all the credit for “discovering” America! This myth-busting podcast aims to set straight the facts about globe-trotting explorers from the 15th-17th centuries making their first contact with distant lands.
In this episode, you’ll uncover why Erik the Red didn’t care about Vermont’s fall foliage, how Magellan’s crew brutally completed the first circumnavigation by ship, and why Shakespeare’s big spear-carrying brute Caliban actually came from the Caribbean...not Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Myth #1: Leif Erikson Discovered America Before Columbus
Every grade-schooler knows Christopher Columbus pioneered the Americas in 1492 forever changing global geography and migration. Yet claims remain popular that Norse Viking Leif Erikson beat Columbus by 500 years discovering North American shores around 1000 AD. Erikson’s clan even established the first European settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows village in Newfoundland Canada.
So doesn’t Erikson deserve props for making the first landfall? Maybe. But he didn’t stick around long enough to enable permanent colonization. And evidence suggests Erikson cared far more about tapping lumber resources than making history. After miners exhausted Greenland’s trees, Erikson followed migrating Inuit peoples pointing him westward where he pragmatically re-established lumber camps off Baffin Island and Newfoundland before returning home. No fanfare. No claim staking. Leif Erikson remains lost to obscurity for another 500 years. Yet the myth perpetuates each October for those arguing Columbus stole Erikson’s glory.
Myth #2: Ferdinand Magellan Circumnavigated the Globe
School texts extol Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan captaining the first oceangoing voyage to circle the entire planet after his armada departed Spain in 1519 bound for the Spice Islands. But Magellan never completed the global feat. After traversing treacherous Southern Storm seas en route to the Pacific, Magellan faced tribal warfare entering the Philippines where he died in battle before the first fleet reached home shores three years later with a paltry 18 crew out of the original 270 men.
So Magellan deserves modest credit for inaugurating global sea travel modes before perishing midway. The full round-the-world completion fell upon Basque navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano commandeered the expedition after Magellan’s death. Even then, four rival ships were lost crossing the Pacific with just Victoria limping back to claim victory for Spain...by which point its Indonesian spices had rotted away fruitlessly
Myth #3: Pocahontas Saved John Smith’s Life from Execution
Dramatic movie portrayals show Powhatan native princess Pocahontas throwing herself over colonist John Smith’s soon-to-be-bludgeoned head after he gets captured, stopping the brutal public execution just in time. Makes for great romantic tension! Too bad the past is messier...
John Smith generated captivating storybook accounts of Jamestown’s hardship including his shocking condemnation to die on tribal lands months after arriving. Yet his narrative omits trademark braggart embellishments: No daring rescue appears in the original memoir. Historians verify Smith got detained weeks after encounters with Pocahontas occurred when she was just 11 years old. And as Powhatan elite, she held little authority to intervene. Sorry Disney, but Smith’s famous rescue looks to be more fairy tale than fact.
Myth #4: Shakespeare Created Caliban in The Tempest
The deformed brutish native Caliban rankled English colonists with his primitive defiance when Shakespeare debuted the character nearly 400 years ago in The Tempest. Or did he really? Shakespeare actually cribbed consolidated accounts from explorers like Walter Raleigh who described bellicose cannibals off South American coasts as “Caribes” where Caliban’s namesake originates. Combined with similar tales of Pacific island savages from Magellan’s logs, Shakespeare fused these archetypes into the rebellious Caliban trope affirming European notions on colonized peoples as subhuman monstrosities – forever influencing cultural attitudes on indigenous rights.
Myth #5 Sir Walter Raleigh Introduced Potatoes and Tobacco to Britain from Virginia
What food comes to mind when thinking of Irish cuisine? Potatoes! Yet Ireland lacked spuds until the late 1500s when New World voyages brought back exotic crops like potatoes and tobacco to the British Isles after Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Colony exploits. Right?
True, Walter Raleigh helped popularize smoking after sailors sparked England’s first tobacco craze. But potatoes were cultivated across Europe decades earlier by Spanish conquistadors shipping Andean tubers globally following South American conquests 50 years before Raleigh’s Virginia voyages. Once again historians set the dinner record straight! Thanks for listening to Quiet Please. Remember to like and share wherever you get your podcasts.