For historians, it remains a mystery to determine who the true discoverer of America was. It is a fact that Christopher Columbus was not the first man to arrive in this part of the world: in fact, the history of this explorer is full of lies and myths that only create confusion and deploy stories that have nothing to do with reality.
Long before his arrival there were settlements that reflect that other women and men already knew of the existence of this portion of land. Furthermore, Columbus arrived in America due to a miscalculation, as his original project was to reach Asia to find new trade routes between that part of the world and Europe.
As we were saying, a miscalculation allowed Christopher Columbus to arrive in America when he actually wanted to arrive in the Indies. Columbus believed that the separation between Europe and Asia was 135 degrees, when the correct figure is 229 degrees, so he made his trip following a wrong route and upon touching land, he believed that he had arrived at his original goal. Amerigo Vespucci, a merchant, explorer and cosmographer, suggested in his writings that Columbus had actually arrived in a new continent.
It is believed that before Columbus arrived in America, the Viking navigator Leif Eriksson, with a previous stopover in Iceland, did so around the year 1000. This Scandinavian navigator would have first landed in the area of Greenland and then in Newfoundland, at the northernmost end of present-day Canada, judging by the Viking settlements found in that area in 1960.
It is illogical to say that Columbus was the discoverer of this continent when upon his arrival, he found human settlements that he, incidentally, wanted to take as slaves to Spain. It should be clarified that Thorvald Eriksson, Leif’s brother, was the first human to make contact with inhabitants of America: after visiting Newfoundland, he arrived in the area of present-day Massachusetts. To his misfortune, he was killed by the natives in a mortal confrontation, who inhabited that territory.
It is also believed that people from regions such as Polynesia, China, or Japan had already traveled to this part of the world, settling in it. Hence, several human sculptures from diverse American cultures present Oriental or Mongoloid features; it is also worth mentioning mythical creatures of Oriental origin, such as dragons, which could have inspired cultures such as the Maya or the Aztec in their conception of the Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl. All are theories that have not yet been confirmed.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva.