# Who if not Columbus?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 12, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397 "2008-11-12T19:16:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/1 "2008-11-12T19:16:44Z")
Christopher Columbus sailed to the discovery of the New World based on a long-shot hunch. His proposed route to the Indies was based on a bad translation of a poor estimate of the wrong distances made fifteen centuries prior by a Phoenician geographer. Every reliable mariner thought the journey west to India, the long way around the globe, would’ve been 12,000 miles — no sailor could survive a journey like that, they said. Scurvy would set in long before one sighted land, and in 1492 nobody would have the cure until 1753; and besides, there was no reliable way to determine one’s longitude until the invention of the first reliable ship’s chronometer in 1761.
Columbus thought India was 2,500 miles away: not a walk in the park, but not patently impossible. From the perspective of the common wisdom, Columbus took a horrible gamble. **So who would’ve discovered the New World — say, prior to the year 1800 — had Columbus not taken the risk first?** Most other explorers followed only when they knew land (and gold!) could be found: Magellan, Cook, Drake, etc.
I see three possibilities:
**Nobody.** That is, Europeans wouldn’t have reached the New World until well into the 1800s. The Chinese were isolationist; there was little reason to explore the far east coast of Siberia and the Bering Strait; and there might be little pressure to develop navigational technology like the ship’s chronometer to make feasible long dangerous voyages into the unknown.
**Some other crackpot.** Columbus can’t have been the only one who would’ve tried it. But who, and from where? Norway? Polynesia? Japan? Could explorers have discovered South America by following the coast of Antarctica?
**The New World would’ve discovered Europe.** The Americas were not unpopulated, they were just technologically behind the curve. There were healthy native fishing cultures in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and the Northeast.
What’s do you think?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/2 "2008-11-12T20:16:19Z")
1.) It seems to be pretty well established that Columbus thought that the route was a lot shorter than everyone else did, which is one reason he pushed for the trip. It wasn’t so much that he was courageus as that he was spectacularly wrong – his detractors were right about the size of the earth. But people didn’t expect the Americas to be in the way.
2.) Need I point out that the Vikings had already been to the Americas? There have been arguments that others went, as well, which you can believe or not as suits you. I’ve long suspected that fishermen knew about the big hidden land near the good fishing banks, but kept their mouths shut about it.
3.) But, you say, Vikings and possible Irish monks and tight-lipped fishermen didn’t change the course of European history. Who next? I say that it’s not unlikely that someone not long after Columbus would have done it. And he most likely would have come from the seafaring nations – Spain and Portugal at the time. Scurvy doesn’t take hold immediately, and Columbus’ voyage wasn’t that long – he made a stop at the Canaries to replenish. I could easily see some other explorer trying to see if he could island-hop across the (properly measured) gulf between Europe and Asia by going westward, and figuring that he’d find other island like the Canaries between that he could use for provisioning.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/3 "2008-11-12T21:13:57Z")
There is no certain answer. I am sure the time was ripe and someone would have done it pretty soon, maybe the Portuguese or the Spanish, but it is impossible to say who because that is just wild speculation without much basis.
> [@](#):
>
> [Egg of Columbus - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus)
>
> Girolamo Benzoni. In his book Story of the New World, published in 1565, wrote:
>
> “Columbus was dining with many Spanish nobles when one of them said: ‘Sir Christopher, even if your lordship had not discovered the Indies, there would have been, here in Spain which is a country abundant with great men knowledgeable in cosmography and literature, one who would have started a similar adventure with the same result.’ Columbus did not respond to these words but asked for a whole egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the table and said: ‘My lords, I will lay a wager with any of you that you are unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of help or aid.’ They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end. All those present were confounded and understood what he meant: that once the feat has been done, anyone knows how to do it.”
[Columbus Breaking the Egg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Breaking_the_Egg)
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/4 "2008-11-12T21:27:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> It wasn’t so much that he was courageus as that he was spectacularly wrong – his detractors were right about the size of the earth.
Which is why I say, _from the perspective of common wisdom, he was taking a gamble._ Few other sailors were likely to try Columbus’s approach because they “knew” they faced a journey of certain death.
> [@](#):
>
> 2.) Need I point out that the Vikings had already been to the Americas?
Need I point out that the Asian land-bridge crossers had too? As I said, the Americas were not unpopulated. The Norse had, for whatever reason, kept their secret to themselves.
My guess is that the Norse would re-discover their route, in time. Their economy thrived on fishing and they would likely search ever farther for good places to find fish.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/5 "2008-11-12T21:29:55Z")
The Portuguese, especially, had feelers out for decades before Colombus. If they hadn’t already touched the New World, and I suspect they did without being sure they had found anything more than some of the intermediary islands, it would only have been a couple more years.
To think it would take another 300 years is silly. There was far too much at stake. Spain needed a path to the Indies that bypassed the Portuguese and the Portuguese were interested in finding a shortcut while bypassing the Venetians.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/6 "2008-11-12T21:35:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Need I point out that the Asian land-bridge crossers had too? As I said, the Americas were not unpopulated. The Norse had, for whatever reason, kept their secret to themselves.
You were pretty much asking for European candidates, which is why I didn’t mention the original inhabitants (The asian possibilities, as you mention , weren’t likely). The Norse didn’t “kept their secret” – it was common knowledge among them for a couple of hundred years. Other folks didn’t believe or follow up on the Norse leads. Some people think that Columbvus might have heard or read of populated lands from Norse sources. Certainly some prospective other explorer might hear of them and figure they’d be good stepping0stones to the Far East.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/7 "2008-11-12T21:55:29Z")
At some point, one or more of the Grand Banks fishermen was going to have been blown onto the North American coast by a Nor’easter. For all we know, some had already had that experience before Columbus but kept quiet about it to avoid having to identify their fishing grounds. Eventually, word would have gotten back to Europe.
Even more likely would be a Portuguese ship driven by storms from Africa to the coast of South America. In fact, Pedro Álvares Cabral actually made it to Brazil in 1500, thus securing the title of “discoverer” of Brazil, while trying to sail past Africa to get to India. The prevailing winds at the narrows of the Atlantic are Easterly and in the 19th century over 600 ships were blown to South America when they intended to sail the coast of Africa. Given the increasing number of explorers and traders who were sailing down the coast of Africa from Portugal, European discovery of the Western Hemisphere was pretty certain to occur some time before 1520.
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/8 "2008-11-12T22:18:55Z")
The preferred Portugeuse route to India involved a WIDE swing out into the Atlantic before cutting back east. This allowed the ships to tack across the tradewinds in the middle latitudes, then run with the westerlies in the southern latitudes. It was faster than puttering along the coast of Africa.
As others have pointed out, the Portugeuse would have blundered into the new world within the decade if Columbus hadn’t beaten them to the punch.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/9 "2008-11-13T01:58:00Z")
> [@Fish](#):
>
> Scurvy would set in long before one sighted land, and in 1492 nobody would have the cure until 1753; and besides, there was no reliable way to determine one’s longitude until the invention of the first reliable ship’s chronometer in 1761.
One of the first accounts of a published work where lemon juice and other citrus products were recommended for preventing scurvy can be found in John Woodall’s _The Surgions Mate_ first published in 1617. Woodall also makes it clear that eating fresh green vegetables like scurvy grass is helpful. Of course that might not have helped Columbus all that much but James Lind wasn’t the first guy to come up with lemons as a way to prevent scurvy. I doubt Woodall was either.
Odesio
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/10 "2008-11-13T04:30:03Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Even more likely would be a Portuguese ship driven by storms from Africa to the coast of South America. In fact, Pedro Álvares Cabral actually made it to Brazil in 1500, thus securing the title of “discoverer” of Brazil, while trying to sail past Africa to get to India. The prevailing winds at the narrows of the Atlantic are Easterly and in the 19th century over 600 ships were blown to South America when they intended to sail the coast of Africa. Given the increasing number of explorers and traders who were sailing down the coast of Africa from Portugal, European discovery of the Western Hemisphere was pretty certain to occur some time before 1520.
> [@Pochacco](#):
>
> The preferred Portugeuse route to India involved a WIDE swing out into the Atlantic before cutting back east. This allowed the ships to tack across the tradewinds in the middle latitudes, then run with the westerlies in the southern latitudes. It was faster than puttering along the coast of Africa.
>
> As others have pointed out, the Portugeuse would have blundered into the new world within the decade if Columbus hadn’t beaten them to the punch.
Exactly. The Portuguese discovered the New World by accident, completely independently of Columbus, just eight years after his voyage. There were so many ships out there searching for a route, and the distance from Africa to Brazil was so short, that the discovery was inevitable within a matter of a few decades at the most from when it actually happened.
In addition to his being a crackpot, Columbus’s achievement itself is one of the most over-rated in history. If Columbus had never existed, Europeans would have discovered the Americas just the same at just about the same time. The main difference would be that the Portuguese would have had a head start on the Spanish on building a colonial empire. Also, it probably would have been realized almost immediately that the discovery represented entirely new lands, and not Asia, without Columbus’s delusions confusing the issue.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/11 "2008-11-13T14:04:00Z")
[quote]
Columbus’s achievement itself is one of the most over-rated in history
[/quoted]
By that token most achievements are overrated. Inventors and discoverers do not exist in a vacuum but are situated and the product of their age and their environment. James Watt did not singlehandedly invent the steam engine as many seem to believe. He was building on the knowledge handed down to him by many others and was in an environment which was looking for the same thing he was looking for. If it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else and very soon.
More important than the individual inventor or discoverer is the culture which supports the discovery and investigation. Spain and Portugal were at that time the places which were doing the geographic discovering and most of the credit should go to them rather than the individuals who did the particular feat. Those who insist it was an Italian who discovered America are missing the point. It is like saying a German put the first man on the moon.
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/12 "2008-11-13T17:22:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> At some point, one or more of the Grand Banks fishermen was going to have been blown onto the North American coast by a Nor’easter. For all we know, some had already had that experience before Columbus but kept quiet about it to avoid having to identify their fishing grounds. Eventually, word would have gotten back to Europe.
> **[Don't Know Much About® History](https://books.google.com/books?id=r3n0n4HblGoC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=cod+fishermen+discovered+america&source=web&ots=Q5Gs3vj6X9&sig=St518VaRlwYckvpxSu8BjBYF9ec&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result)**
>
> “Reading \[Kenneth C. Davis\] is like returning to the classroom of the best teacher you ever had.” —People Revised, updated, and expanded, the Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Kenneth C. Davis’s classic anti-textbook Don’t Know Much About History...
It’s pretty much fact that the English fishermen knew about North America from fishing the Grand Banks, and didn’t care. I believe Columbus had a West English navigator, and John Cabot was right behind Columbus. So, what, five years, max.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/13 "2008-11-13T17:48:52Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Even more likely would be a Portuguese ship driven by storms from Africa to the coast of South America. In fact, Pedro Álvares Cabral actually made it to Brazil in 1500, thus securing the title of “discoverer” of Brazil, while trying to sail past Africa to get to India. The prevailing winds at the narrows of the Atlantic are Easterly and in the 19th century over 600 ships were blown to South America when they intended to sail the coast of Africa. Given the increasing number of explorers and traders who were sailing down the coast of Africa from Portugal, European discovery of the Western Hemisphere was pretty certain to occur some time before 1520.
It has been postulated that Pedro Álvares Cabral was not off course at all. wiki _It is uncertain[citation needed] if Pedro Álvares Cabral was blown westwards to the Brazilian coast while navigating to the Cape of Good Hope, or the whole expedition was a secret mission to find new lands in the Atlantic as a response to the Spanish claims that Amerigo Vespucci had visited the Brazilian north coast in July 1499 and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in November 1499. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain could not claim the lands.[citation needed]_
It also seems that Cabot had heard of Columbus’s trip, which is why he tried his.
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### Author:  [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/14 "2008-11-13T18:36:47Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#):
>
> It’s pretty much fact that the English fishermen knew about North America from fishing the Grand Banks, and didn’t care.
I don’t know — they probably knew there was **a** land mass out there, but they probably had no idea of its true scope. Fisherman always keep their fishin’ holes secret. I bet the English and the Vikings lied to the game warden, too. 🙂
That said, it was probably Spanish gold from that really got the age of exploration moving. You can’t really take a fishing spot home with you.
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/15 "2008-11-13T19:19:24Z")
Oh, aye, exactly, Fish. And you’d know, wouldn’t you? But the point is as much about Cabot coming in, just a few years later.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/16 "2008-11-13T20:47:39Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#):
>
> Oh, aye, exactly, Fish. And you’d know, wouldn’t you? But the point is as much about Cabot coming in, just a few years later.
Except Cabot had apparently heard about Columbus’s voyage. It’s easy to do a voyage of discovery after you already know something is there to discover. True, Cabot took a risk by trying Northern Latitudes, but I doubt if he would have got backing without CC doing it 1st.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/17 "2008-11-13T21:28:59Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#):
>
> It’s pretty much fact that the English fishermen knew about North America from fishing the Grand Banks,
I have never heard that. Basques fishing the Grand Banks yes. English, no. Some cites would be interesting.
> [@](#):
>
> I believe Columbus had a West English navigator
What?! How did we miss that fact?
> [@](#):
>
> and John Cabot was right behind Columbus.
Of course once Columbus showed the way there were thousands right behind him but that does not mean they would have sailed that way had Columbus not sailed first.
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-if-not-columbus/472397/18 "2008-11-13T21:56:59Z")
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?\_ob=ArticleURL&\_udi=B6VRT-4KTNH9W-3&\_user=10&\_rdoc=1&\_fmt=&\_orig=search&\_sort=d&view=c&\_acct=C000050221&\_version=1&\_urlVersion=0&\_userid=10&md5=68d90066cbe50cdd7f47cca1fb9b80fc](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VRT-4KTNH9W-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=68d90066cbe50cdd7f47cca1fb9b80fc)
I’m trying to find cites for memories of articles I read several years ago. It is _quite_ possible that I have mistaken the ‘two merchants’ who traveled with Cabot for a navigator for Columbus. Working on it. Columbus’ navigator was Martín Pinzón, so… probably thinking of someone else. (Why would it be a surprise if Columbus had a navigator? It’s a standard position on any ship.) Almost certainly thinking of Cabot.
[http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-4-520.pdf](http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-4-520.pdf)
Norman. Breton and Normans and the Basques.
Aha! Searching for John Cabot gives me half a leg.
> **[John Cabot](https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/john-cabot.php)**
>
> A biography of the explorer, John Cabot.
> [@](#):
>
> In England, Cabot received the backing he had been refused in Spain and Portugal. First, the merchants of Bristol agreed to support his scheme. They had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic from the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities. Some historians think that Bristol mariners might even have reached Newfoundland and Labrador even before Cabot arrived on the scene.
Bristol was the word I was looking for.
Aaand here we go.
> **[Salazar's c.1476 account of Bristol's discovery of Brasil, 1476](https://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm)**
>
> Maritime History course in Departmen of History, University of Bristol (UK).
> A second year seminar-led course studying the development of trade, shipping and politics in Bristol, 1453-1640.
> [@](#):
>
> Since the publication of the John Day letter in 1956, Bristol’s voyages in search of Brasil have received greater attention. This was because, in his letter to Christopher Columbus in the winter of 1497/8, Day suggested of Cabot’s 1497 expedition that ‘It is considered certain that the cape of the said land was found and discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found ‘Brasil’ as your Lordship well knows. It was called the Island of Brasil, and it is assumed and believed to be the mainland that the men from Bristol found.’[5] These comments have often been interpreted as evidence that Bristol mariners had discovered America prior to 1497.[6] Some historians, such as Dr Alwyn Ruddock, have argued that such a discovery occurred but that Bristol’s mariners were subsequently unable to find their way back to America.[7] By contrast, Prof David Beers Quinn posited that the 1480/81 expeditions were successful with Bristol men discovering North America at or around this time.[8] Quinn argued that this discovery was not publicised because Bristol’s merchants wished to keep secret the rich cod fisheries they had found off the north east coast of America.
> **[North America](https://books.google.com/books?id=8NS0OTXRlTMC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=breton+discovered+america+cod&source=web&ots=-iK2LUwoTS&sig=0jEVD9Vr3EvxvopRkmwFyVZSuls&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result)**
>
> This classic text retains the superb scholarship of the first edition in a thoroughly revised and accessibly written new edition. With both new and updated essays by distinguished American and Canadian authors, the book provides a comprehensive...
I didn’t think it was any great surprise or shock to know that the fishing grounds might have been known (and kept secret) for perhaps a hundred years before 1492.