# If not Columbus, who? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 10, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484 "2017-10-10T13:48:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/1 "2017-10-10T13:48:12Z")
Ok, lets say for some reason Christopher Columbus had not “discovered” America. How long would it have been before someone else had? With all the groups who had already been here (Vikings, Welsh, Africans, Chinese, others) and the rumor that some fishermen had already been sneaking over here to fish on the outer banks, it doesn’t seem to be that it would have been long. I’m guessing maybe within 20 years? What do you all think? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/2 "2017-10-10T13:57:21Z")
The Vikings had already discovered North America long before Columbus arrived. But it’s almost certain that English fishing ships would have found it by following cod shoals within 200 years. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/3 "2017-10-10T14:09:17Z")
Somebody else from the coast of Iberia. Or Cabot, another Italian adventurer sent out that direction by Henry VII of England, a few years after Columbus hit ground. Hopefully someone not so cruel that the Spanish revoked his commission — it took quite a lot to horrify 15th century Spaniards. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/4 "2017-10-10T14:18:56Z")
There’s a theory that the Basque and English cod fishermen already knew about and exploited the Grand Bank and Newfoundland (and Labrador) as amazingly rich fishing grounds. As a result, they kept them secret to prevent competition. Cabot just spilled the beans on a fact known for a decade or two. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/5 "2017-10-10T15:09:15Z")
Spain decided to sponsor a nut like Columbus because the multiple discoveries made by the rival Portuguese frightened the pants off them. Portugal mostly sailed east along the African coast, a major reason why Spain wanted to go west for an alternate route. Columbus had to work very hard to convince anybody he was right about his notion that the Indies lay a short distance to west. Since everybody else knew better Spain might have waited a long time, 50, 100 years, for boats to get sufficiently better to be able to sail those ocean distances. Or it might have gotten so desperate that it would take the chance the next time a smooth talker came to town. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/6 "2017-10-10T15:36:25Z")
Well, that’s what makes OP interesting–representatives of _some_ major power or other would’ve set out for “this” land mass, whatever and wherever it might have been assumed to be.\* \*"…assumed to have been"…? I know other languages have a relatively normal tense for past pluperfect subjunctive. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/7 "2017-10-10T15:52:57Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, lets say for some reason Christopher Columbus had not “discovered” America. > > How long would it have been before someone else had? We know exactly how long: [Pedro Alvares Cabral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_%C3%81lvares_Cabral), sailing for Portugal en route to the Far East around Africa, accidentally discovered Brazil in 1500, probably independently of any expectation of finding land there. By the late 1400s Portuguese navigators were taking advantage of the prevailing winds by using the [volta do mar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volta_do_mar) by sailing far out to sea when rounding Africa. Given the relatively short distance between Africa and Brazil, it was only a matter of time before some ship was blown a little off course and sighted South America. It has been alleged that Cabral deliberately sailed so far west because he knew about Columbus’s discoveries, but even if so given the increasing number of ships plying the Atlantic using the volta do mar it was pretty much inevitable that one would reach South America by the early 1500s. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/8 "2017-10-10T15:56:54Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, lets say for some reason Christopher Columbus had not “discovered” America. > > How long would it have been before someone else had? Actually, you asked exactly the same question just a year ago. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > [If it wasnt for Columbus…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=806954) > > How long do you think it would have taken Europe to rediscover the Americas? Do you plan to ask this question every Columbus Day?:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/9 "2017-10-10T20:48:42Z")
Improved navigation technology would have made discovery inevitable within a few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/10 "2017-10-10T21:07:32Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > With all the groups who had already been here (Vikings, Welsh, Africans, Chinese, others) . . . The _Welsh_??? Good God, are there still people who take seriously the legend of [Madoc the Welsh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc)? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/11 "2017-10-10T21:15:56Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > With all the groups who had already been here (Vikings, Welsh, Africans, Chinese, others) Vikings, yes. The others… not generally accepted to have done so. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/12 "2017-10-10T21:25:38Z")
Here’s an excerpt from what **Malthus** posted in a similar thread over a year ago quoting the book\* Cod- The Fish That Changed The World\*: > [@](#): > > Catholicism gave the Basques their great opportunity. The medieval church imposed fast days on which sexual intercourse and the eating of flesh were forbidden, but eating “cold” foods was permitted. Because fish came from water, it was deemed cold, as were waterfowl and whale, but meat was considered hot food. The Basques were already selling whale meat to Catholics on “lean days,” which, since Friday was the day of Christ’s crucifixion, included all Fridays, the forty days of Lent, and various other days of note on the religious calendar. In total, meat was forbidden for almost half the days of the year, and those lean days eventually became salt cod days. Cod became almost a religious icon–a mythological crusader for Christian observance. > > The Basques were getting richer every Friday. But where was all this cod coming from? The Basques, who had never even said where they came from, kept their secret. By the fifteenth century, this was no longer easy to do, because cod had become widely recognized as a highly profitable commodity and commercial interests around Europe were looking for new cod grounds. There were cod off of Iceland and in the North Sea, but the Scandinavians, who had been fishing cod in those waters for thousands of years, had not seen the Basques. The British, who had been fishing for cod well offshore since Roman times, did not run across Basque fishermen even in the fourteenth century, when British fishermen began venturing up to Icelandic waters. The Bretons, who tried to follow the Basques, began talking of a land across the sea. > > In the 1480s, a conflict was brewing between Bristol merchants and the Hanseatic League. The league had been formed in thirteenth-century Lubeck to regulate trade and stand up for the interests of the merchant class in northern German towns. Hanse means “fellowship” in Middle High German. This fellowship organized town by town and spread throughout northern Europe, including London. By controlling the mouths of all the major rivers that ran north from central Europe, from the Rhine to the Vistula, the league was able to control much of European trade and especially Baltic trade. By the fourteenth century, it had chapters as far north as Iceland, as far east as Riga, south to the Ukraine, and west to Venice. > > For many years, the league was seen as a positive force in northern Europe. It stood up against the abuses of monarchs, stopped piracy, dredged channels, and built lighthouses. In England, league members were called Easterlings because they came from the east, and their good reputation is reflected in the word sterling, which comes from Easterling and means “of assured value.” > > But the league grew increasingly abusive of its power and ruthless in defense of trade monopolies. In 1381, mobs rose up in England and hunted down Hanseatics, killing anyone who could not say bread and cheese with an English accent. > > The Hanseatics monopolized the Baltic herring trade and in the fifteenth century attempted to do the same with dried cod. By then, dried cod had become an important product in Bristol. Bristol’s well-protected but difficult-to-navigate harbor had greatly expanded as a trade center because of its location between Iceland and the Mediterranean. It had become a leading port for dried cod from Iceland and wine, especially sherry, from Spain. But in 1475, the Hanseatic League cut off Bristol merchants from buying Icelandic cod. > > Thomas Croft, a wealthy Bristol customs official, trying to find a new source of cod, went into partnership with John Jay, a Bristol merchant who had what was at the time a Bristol obsession: He believed that somewhere in the Atlantic was an island called Hy-Brasil. In 1480, Jay sent his first ship in search of this island, which he hoped would offer a new fishing base for cod. In 1481, Jay and Croft outfitted two more ships, the Trinity and the George. No record exists of the result of this enterprise. Croft and Jay were as silent as the Basques. They made no announcement of the discovery of Hy-Brasil, and history has written off the voyage as a failure. But they did find enough cod so that in 1490, when the Hanseatic League offered to negotiate to reopen the Iceland trade, Croft and Jay simply weren’t interested anymore. > > Where was their cod coming from? It arrived in Bristol dried, and drying cannot be done on a ship deck. Since their ships sailed out of the Bristol Channel and traveled far west of Ireland and there was no land for drying fish west of Ireland–Jay had still not found Hy-Brasil–it was suppposed that Croft and Jay were buying the fish somewhere. Since it was illegal for a customs official to engage in foreign trade, Croft was prosecuted. Claiming that he had gotten the cod far out in the Atlantic, he was acquitted without any secrets being revealed. > > To the glee of the British press, a letter has recently been discovered. The letter had been sent to Christopher Columbus, a decade after the Croft affair in Bristol, while Columbus was taking bows for his discovery of America. The letter, from Bristol merchants, alleged that he knew perfectly well that they had been to America already. It is not known if Columbus ever replied. He didn’t need to. Fishermen were keeping their secrets, while explorers were telling the world. Columbus had claimed the entire new world for Spain. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/13 "2017-10-10T21:48:18Z")
It’s impossible to dry cod in Greenland? Or in some uninhabited part of Iceland? Seems like there are other explanations for dried cod other than “it had to have been America”. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/14 "2017-10-11T05:27:15Z")
The Russians, no question. The Bering strait is, what, four days navigation, tops? And from Alaska, to Canada, to the rest of the continent of Northern New Tartaria and Southern New Tartaria. It must have been pretty close, too. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/15 "2017-10-11T05:30:53Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s impossible to dry cod in Greenland? Or in some uninhabited part of Iceland? > > Seems like there are other explanations for dried cod other than “it had to have been America”. It’s 1600km to Iceland, 2500km to Greenland, 3500km to Newfoundland. And of course, if they’d been fishing and drying code anywhere around Iceland, they’d be noticed. I have trouble imagining the necessary raw materials or climate to dry code in Greenland. it’s not a definite smoking gun, but the Grand Banks provide plenty of cod, and the nearby land a prime location to dry cod unmolested. (I presume they mean drying over fires, not hung out in the sun to dry…) the issue was bringing items from one kingdom’s jurisdiction to another. International trade was heavily regulated and taxed in those days. The Icelanders to this day have been willing to fight over people taking “their” cod. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/16 "2017-10-11T06:37:43Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > The Russians, no question. The Bering strait is, what, four days navigation, tops? And from Alaska, to Canada, to the rest of the continent of Northern New Tartaria and Southern New Tartaria. > > It must have been pretty close, too. The Russians didn’t own the land all the way to the Pacific until something like 200 years after Columbus. Long before then, someone else from Europe would have discovered the New World, if only by accident. That is, if the Basque fishermen’s secret hadn’t been let out first. Vitus Bering’s first expedition was in 1725. One of his objectives was to discover if Asia and NA were connected or not. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/17 "2017-10-11T12:07:42Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The Russians didn’t own the land all the way to the Pacific until something like 200 years after Columbus. Long before then, someone else from Europe would have discovered the New World, if only by accident. That is, if the Basque fishermen’s secret hadn’t been let out first. > > Vitus Bering’s first expedition was in 1725. One of his objectives was to discover if Asia and NA were connected or not. [The Master speaks](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1261/how-could-the-russians-not-discover-america) (saying basically what you just said.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/18 "2017-10-11T14:50:56Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > The _Welsh_??? Good God, are there still people who take seriously the legend of [Madoc the Welsh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc)? If we’re into the unlikely, how about Prince Henry Sinclair of Orkney in 1398? > **[Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney)** > > Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, Lord of Roslin (c. 1345 – c. 1400) was a Scottish noblesse. Sinclair held the title Earl of Orkney (which refers to Norðreyjar rather than just the islands of Orkney) and was Lord High Admiral of Scotland under the King of Scotland. He was sometimes identified by another spelling of his surname, St. Clair. He was the grandfather of William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness, the builder of Rosslyn Chapel. He is best known today because of a modern legend that he ... Or Joao Vaz Coretereal in 1473 > **[João Vaz Corte-Real](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Vaz_Corte-Real)** > > João Vaz Corte-Real (c. 1420 – 1496) was a Portuguese sailor, claimed by some accounts to have been an explorer of a land called Terra Nova do Bacalhau (New Land of the Codfish), speculated to possibly have been a part of North America. These accounts assert that Corte-Real was awarded the donatário–captaincies of São Jorge and Angra for his accomplishments, but contemporary documents contradict this claim. > A member of the Corte-Real family, João Vaz was the father of Miguel and Gaspar Corte-Rea... ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-columbus-who/798484/19 "2017-10-11T15:11:34Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I have trouble imagining the necessary raw materials or climate to dry code in Greenland. I hate to break it to you, but they dry plenty of fish in Greenland. [Here’s a photo](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dried-fish-rodebay-settlement-greenland-drying-130072556). Code, I’m not too sure about. Perhaps a Greenlandic programmer will come by to tell us.