# Discovering the 'New World'
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 10, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227 "2011-10-10T21:56:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/1 "2011-10-10T21:56:28Z")
Most of us were taught in primary school that Columbus and his men were the first Europeans to step foot in the ‘new world’ in 1492. We were also taught that he was trying to find a short cut to the Far East and wasn’t expecting to run into the North American continent along the way. And that after his visits other European explorers followed in search of both spices and treasure.
A few question:
1. At what point, if ever, did Columbus realize that he had discovered a new world that wasn’t part of Asia?
2. Was Columbus expecting/hoping to find gold or silver in his first voyage to the ‘Far East’?
3. Did Columbus intend to bring back slaves from any of his voyages? Did he ever actually do that?
4. Did Columbus actually bring back gold and silver from his voyages to North America, and if not, why did the other explorers assumed there was gold there?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/2 "2011-10-10T21:59:12Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> Most of us were taught in primary school that Columbus and his men were the first Europeans to step foot in the ‘new world’ in 1492. We were also taught that he was trying to find a short cut to the Far East and wasn’t expecting to run into the North American continent along the way. And that after his visits other European explorers followed in search of both spices and treasure.
I’m in my 50s, and we learned about the Vikings landing before Columbus.
> [@](#):
>
> A few question:
>
> 1. At what point, if ever, did Columbus realize that he had discovered a new world that wasn’t part of Asia?
Never.
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/3 "2011-10-10T22:05:42Z")
I’m in my mid-50’s and teachers hinted that the Vikings may have skirted Canada well before Columbus got there, but it was downplayed as inconsequential (not meaning to offend any Vikings on the board).
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/4 "2011-10-10T22:14:24Z")
[Lans aux Meadows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lans_aux_meadows) was discovered in 1960. I’m thinking of the history/geography class I had in 5th grade, about 1966.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/5 "2011-10-10T22:16:34Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> 1. At what point, if ever, did Columbus realize that he had discovered a new world that wasn’t part of Asia?
Despite mounting evidence that he had discovered a new continent, Columbus resolutely refused to admit he hadn’t actually been in Asia until his dying day. His disastrous fourth voyage was an attempt to finally reach Japan.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Was Columbus expecting/hoping to find gold or silver in his first voyage to the ‘Far East’?
Among other things. His primary objective at least at first was probably spices, however.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Did Columbus intend to bring back slaves from any of his voyages? Did he ever actually do that?
He probably didn’t intend to do so as a main objective at first. When yields of gold from the colony of Hispaniola were disappointing, he attempted to make profits by taking Indian captives and exporting them to Spain as slaves, even though the Spanish crown had prohibited it.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Did Columbus actually bring back gold and silver from his voyages to North America, and if not, why did the other explorers assumed there was gold there?
Columbus found gold in Hispaniola and later in Panama, but not in the amounts that he hoped for.
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### Author:  [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/6 "2011-10-10T22:21:36Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> 1. At what point, if ever, did Columbus realize that he had discovered a new world that wasn’t part of Asia?
>
> 2. Was Columbus expecting/hoping to find gold or silver in his first voyage to the ‘Far East’?
>
> 3. Did Columbus intend to bring back slaves from any of his voyages? Did he ever actually do that?
>
> 4. Did Columbus actually bring back gold and silver from his voyages to North America, and if not, why did the other explorers assumed there was gold there?
1. I don’t know. But given that he was Governor of the Indies for a while, I presume he knew before that.
2. No. The purpose of the trip was to find a trade route to Asia that avoided going west. And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling continents.
3. I doubt it, but I am not sure. I say this because I do not believe there were many Asians in Europe at the time, and so I’m guessing that it would not have occurred to him to bring any back.
4. Columbus never really went to North America, although he did go to Central America. But I believe he found gold in Hispaniola. I presume he brought it back. It stands to reason that he would have to, or his trip was going to be a dud, financially speaking.
I am of course very willing to be corrected on any of this.
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/7 "2011-10-10T22:23:15Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> I’m in my mid-50’s and teachers hinted that the Vikings may have skirted Canada well before Columbus got there, but it was downplayed as inconsequential (not meaning to offend any Vikings on the board).
I’m of half-Norwegian descent and you’re not offending me. Leif Ericson and the Norse discovered the “New World” about 492 years before Columbus but in terms of historical impact, it was a dead end.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/8 "2011-10-10T22:23:47Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#):
>
> 1. I don’t know. But given that he was Governor of the Indies for a while, I presume he knew before that.
No, he didn’t.
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/9 "2011-10-10T22:24:09Z")
[quote=“Colibri, post:5, topic:599227”]
He probably didn’t intend to do so as a main objective at first. When yields of gold from the colony of Hispaniola were disappointing, he attempted to make profits by taking Indian captives and exporting them to Spain as slaves, even though the Spanish crown had prohibited it. QUOTE]
So he just grabbed some people and forced them on his ship? Wouldn’t they have fought back? I realize he had superior weapons, but he was greatly outnumbered by the locals I would think…
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/10 "2011-10-10T22:33:31Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> > [@Colibri](#):
> >
> > He probably didn’t intend to do so as a main objective at first. When yields of gold from the colony of Hispaniola were disappointing, he attempted to make profits by taking Indian captives and exporting them to Spain as slaves, even though the Spanish crown had prohibited it.
>
> So he just grabbed some people and forced them on his ship? Wouldn’t they have fought back? I realize he had superior weapons, but he was greatly outnumbered by the locals I would think…
This was after his second voyage, when Spain initiated its colonization of Hispaniola. There were hundreds (later thousands) of colonists, many of them armed. They forced the locals to work for them, and mine gold. When some rebelled, Columbus used that as a pretext to enslave them after they were captured.
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### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/11 "2011-10-10T22:34:48Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#):
>
> 1. No. The purpose of the trip was to find a trade route to Asia that avoided going west. And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling continents.
And the extra 6000 miles of pacific ocean.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/12 "2011-10-10T22:37:45Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#):
>
> 1. I don’t know. But given that he was Governor of the Indies for a while, I presume he knew before that.
Then why, exactly, did he mount an expedition to find Japan _after_ he was deposed as governor?
> [@](#):
>
> 1. No. The purpose of the trip was to find a trade route to Asia that avoided going west. And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling continents.
True, but one of the trade items sought was gold.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. I doubt it, but I am not sure. I say this because I do not believe there were many Asians in Europe at the time, and so I’m guessing that it would not have occurred to him to bring any back.
It’s well documented that Columbus initiated European slaving in the New World.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/13 "2011-10-10T23:58:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> [Lans aux Meadows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lans_aux_meadows) was discovered in 1960. I’m thinking of the history/geography class I had in 5th grade, about 1966.
properly L’Anse, I believe. I know the dig was going on in my high school years (62-65) and the _proof_ of Vinland was revolutionizing thought about the discovery of America then.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/14 "2011-10-11T00:00:33Z")
Columbus convinced himself that the earth was smaller and the land mass of Europe/Asia was larger than anyone else had calculated. Actually the first calculations of the earth’s circumstance by Eratosthenes of Cyrene were within 2% of it’s actual size, done in the 2nd century BC. As others have said, he died believing that he discovered islands near Japan and China. Sailing several years later, Amerigo Vespucci was smart enough to realize that it was a “New world” and inadvertently got the continent named after him.
Columbus’s good points were that he was a superb navigator on the ocean and he was one of these people who was always able to find higher ups to believe in his ideas and finance them. But he did a lot of nasty things to the inhabitants of the islands once he found that he hadn’t discovered oodles and oodles of riches.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/15 "2011-10-11T00:04:55Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> properly L’Anse, I believe.
I thought that spelling looked odd…
> [@](#):
>
> I know the dig was going on in my high school years (62-65) and the _proof_ of Vinland was revolutionizing thought about the discovery of America then.
I actually remember the day in school when we learned this. I was astonished that I hadn’t heard it before, but being only in the 5th grade, and being that the evidence was pretty new to be put into elementary school books, it makes sense to me now.
The minor point I was trying to make is that most posters here are younger than me, and most of them should have learned about the Vikings in school.
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/16 "2011-10-11T00:19:28Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#):
>
> Columbus’s good points were that he was a superb navigator on the ocean and he was one of these people who was always able to find higher ups to believe in his ideas and finance them. But he did a lot of nasty things to the inhabitants of the islands once he found that he hadn’t discovered oodles and oodles of riches.
Why did Columbus (or the other explorers) believe there were oodles and oodles of riches to be found? Was this based on anything other than wishful thinking?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/17 "2011-10-11T00:31:58Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> Why did Columbus (or the other explorers) believe there were oodles and oodles of riches to be found? Was this based on anything other than wishful thinking?
As already noted, his primary goal was to a better route in the spice trade. He didn’t find any spices. That was the riches he sought, plus whatever other trade would be available from Asia, which had a much more advanced civilization than anything in the areas of the Americas that Columbus explored.
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/18 "2011-10-11T00:33:20Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> Why did Columbus (or the other explorers) believe there were oodles and oodles of riches to be found? Was this based on anything other than wishful thinking?
The spice trade from the East Indies was insanely profitable. Portugal had spent decades sending one expedition after another down the west coast of Africa trying to find a sea route that would break the Arab monopoly on the overland spice caravans. Columbus’s pitch was that by sailing west he could leapfrog past the Portuguese, opening up the spice trade for Spain instead. Everyone knew there were buckets of money to be made if you could find a way to sail to Asia. The only question was how to do it.
As it happened, Vasco da Gama DID make it to India by rounding Africa five years after Columbus discovered the New World. And his expedition did return to Portugal laden with riches from the east.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/19 "2011-10-11T00:37:42Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#):
>
> As it happened, Vasco da Gama DID make it to India by rounding Africa five years after Columbus discovered the New World. And his expedition did return to Portugal laden with riches from the east.
I would take that story with a grain of salt.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discovering-the-new-world/599227/20 "2011-10-11T00:39:45Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> 1. Did Columbus intend to bring back slaves from any of his voyages? Did he ever actually do that?
As a further comment on this, Columbus’s original plan was to find and trade with the advanced civilizations of China, Japan, and the Indies. Of course trying to enslave the subjects of any of these places would have been bad for business, even if Columbus had had enough muscle. Enslaving the locals only became a real option when they turned out to be much less technologically or politically advanced than expected.
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