Did Christopher Columbus Discover America?

In this instance, "discovered" is probably not the correct word. Certainly Columbus put America on the proverbial map. It was his journey that spurred many to follow him and eventually led to the settling of this "new world" in the early 17th century by Europeans. However, when Columbus landed, there were already natives inhabiting the land, named Indians (later Native Americans) as Columbus initially thought he had reached India. These people would certainly take exception to their land being "discovered" as they were obviously aware of it prior to Columbus' arrival.

Additionally, there were a group of Nordic explorers who attempted (but ultimately failed) to settle in Greenland during the Middle Ages long before Columbus was even born. To that end, there was also Leif Ericson, the Norse explorer who is believed to have led a settlement in what was then known as Vinland (which is now believed to be located at the northern tip ofNewfoundland, Canada) around the turn of the eleventh century.

While it is clear Columbus was not the first to inhabit the Americas, he certainly opened the door for the mass settlements that were to come. For small school children it is easy to explain that "Christopher Columbus discovered America" as this is the type of simplistic idea they can grasp, but for those capable of understanding the bigger picture, the actual truth is much more gray than black and white.

How can you discover something,that already exists.The native americans were already here.use the correct term when explaining who discovered America or who was here first.stop the lies,thats one of many reasons that some people don't take the time and search for the truth about real amerikan history.you would be surprised at the atrocities this country has committed in getting control of the so called new world.to you historians,stop confusing this generation with lies,like you confused my generation.I just happen to wake up and realized that something is wrong with american history.

No of course he did not. Christopher Columbus was among one of the LAST explorers to reach America. The vikings came approximately 400 years  before the European explorer was even born, much less before he had the dream to become a sailor. And even before the vikings came, the Native Americans had claimed their spot. When Columbus did come, he had found the Native Americans' younger relatives already there and they had formed a settlement. According to the law of Right of Conquest  not only the person, upon just grounds; but any one whatever, engaged in regular and formal war, becomes absolute they of every thing which he takes from the enemy: So that all nations respect his title, and the title of all, derive through him their claim to such possessions. In other words, if there are 2 groups, red and blue, and they go into battle because they want a certain piece of land, and lets say that the blue team wins, but then they leave for a year or so. Then the red team make a fort on the land that was won over by the blues. Anyway, they make a fort and they are able to maintain it until the blue team comes back to have their land. But, according to the Right of Conquest, they are not able to have that land because they left it alone for so long and the the opposing team had made a fort there and maintained it. So now the land rightfully belongs to the reds. This is what happened with Columbus and the Natives. A war raged between them because they were fighting for the land Columbus decided to call San Salvador. Columbus won, sadly. Then he left to go back to his precious Queen Isabella of Spain to tell her of his achievements. What was left of the Native Americans decided to rebuild their home. When Columbus came back for his land, he found a beautiful little village that was being run by the Native Americans. Now that land belonged to them, but Columbus wanted everybody to believe that he, Christopher Columbus, had discovered America, even though he himself knew he didn't. He went back to Spain in anger. When he docked, he went into the village and found himself an explorer who had previously discovered America. He questioned him about America and got just the amount of answers that he needed to convince everybody, that he dicovered America. That is the legend.There was no proof that the vikings or the older Native Americans had been there first,and of course that Columbus madeup a pack 'o lies to make everybody believe that that the other Native Americans who made the fort actually made it for him and that they were working for him so that hey became slaves and were brought back to Spain. That's it. Columbus used another explorer to convice everyone that he discovered America. Columbus was a terribly cruel man always wanting to get revenge. If you ask me, Columbus was a stinker who claimed he discovered America when he didn't. There is a page showing later proof that Native Americans had come before Columbus and his nasty crew. Check it out for yourselves at faculty.mdc.edu target="_blank" rel="external">faculty.mdc.edu  It might be long, but it's worth it if you don't believe Columbus discovered America, and you want others to listen to you who do believe that Columbus discovered America. Bub Bye for now! C you Lata!!!

If Cristopher Columbus discovered America, who were all those people living there? If that were true, then I could fill my gas tank and drive to New Jersey and discover it.

Its better to state that Christopher Columbus proved the world was round and that there were lands no one knew of out there to be visited. On August 3 1492 He sailed from Palos Spain looking for the West Indies, and arrived on Oct 12, 1492 in the Bahamas. That means it took him 70 days to make the voyage. At least he didn't sail off the Earth!
Back then it was believed that the Earth was flat, everyone knew you couldn't sail around the world, you would fall off. They had not heard of Amerigo Vespucci, or Lief or any of the others, it was all new to him.
Christopher Columbus believed the world was round. He had a reason to believe it too. He had read in the Bible where God said, He sat on the sphere, (circle) of the earth. Columbus knew the Earth was round because God has said it was a sphere, a sphere is round like a circle. I thought you might like to know that. You can read about it yourself in the book of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 21

If Chris discovered anything ?? Why is all of South America and the surrounding Islands all Spanish speaking people?   Seems a simple answer could be that Chris and his traveling crews where nothing but a bunch of whoring, murdering, rapist that took over all the spanish speaking isles and the South American and Mexico land areas and did nothing but brag about all the so called history they are given create for doing down younder while the Pilgrams ? Christian freedom looking people landed at Plymouth Rock and after the Natives in North America helped them survive and their kindness was rewarded by a bunch of SOB whose greed, selfcentered igos started another murderous, raping rampage from sea to shineing sea something to be real proud of. So I ASK ANYONE READING THIS< WHO WHERE THE CHRISTIANS??
And by the way my history tells me that the French started scalping the Native Indians for money paid to them per scalp and that pay back resulted in destroying a beautiful people.

No the indians were there first. Then some viking who has leaf in his name. Then colombus

Yes, it's pretty insulting to the native peoples.
It's as if they are saying, "Yeah, yeah, we know there were already natives living there, but we can't give THEM credit for discovering America any more than we can give the buffalo credit for discovering America. They don't count because they are not white Europeans."
Isn't it about time we moved out of the 1800s?

I don’t like Christopher Columbus, because he is an evil blood-thirsty tyrant and he butchered and murdered hundreds of thousands of people he called Indians because he thought he sailed to the East Indies. He and his men would  chop the Indian bodies up and feed them to their horses. There is even a public holiday in his honour which I want to see abolished. I wished he wasnt;t born centuries ago and  he should have hanged for his crimes. He is a genocidal mass murderer possessed by the Devil. It is a joke that we had to learn about him in history class. Columbus brought back Indians to Spain to show the queen that he had been to the Indies and really he is a liar because he didn’t reach the Far East at all. The English, French, Dutch and Swedish explorers of America were peaceful people who traded with the Indians and left them alone and they didn‘t kill the Indians and were not greedy for gold. Columbus did not discover America, the Vikings did. Leif Ericsson reached the North American continent and is the rightful discoverer of America, Columbus is a usurper.

I don't know if he 'discovered' it or not, but certainly he's a lousy captain for sure. How on earth can you possibly set sail for Asia and end up in bloody America? That's how many thousand miles apart? An error of gigantic proportions, yet he's hailed as a great sailor! Ridiculous!

Hell no

It's like saying a native person went to Europe and said he discovered Europe

Ponce de leon is credited with being the first European to set foot on what is now America(Florida)

He didn't discover it but he claimed it but really native Americans discovered it I  think of it as introducing America to the Europeans and everybody else

It is most likely that he only claimed it, but someone else had already found it.

Kinda, I know he wasn't the first 1 on america but I guess he was the first European & took over the people who already were there...yah

Christopher Columbus didn't discover America - it was there all the time.

Joking apart, he was not the first European to reach North America. There is plenty of archaeological and other evidence to support the idea that it was the Vikings that were the first Europeans to set foot on the continent of North America. The mythical Vineland of the Norse sagas is now accepted to mean North America.

However, there is another theory that it was a Welsh saint that first made landfall more by accident than design. This explains why early settlers bumped into Native Americans who could speak Welsh!

Paleontologists, meanwhile, assert that the original Americans came from the East, crossing a land bridge that once existed in what is now the Bering Strait. This places the original 'discoverers' of the North American continent several tens of thousands of years before Christopher Columbus.

Incidentally, Columbus is generally thought to have been working from a map that was brought to Genoa from the Middle East. So the short answer is that Christopher Columbus didn't discover America, but no-one is 100 per cent sure who actually did so.

In 1492 Columbus and his three ships reached an island in the Bahamas. Since he believed he was approaching India, he called the Islands he found "The Indies" and their inhabitants Indians. He then found Cuba and what (thanks to his error) are now called the West Indies. In later voyages he reached the mouth of the Orinoco River, in what is now called northern Venezuela, but still didn't realise that he was on the edge of a new continent.

By the time Columbus died in 1506, others had already started exploring the new continent, especially Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed down the eastern coast of South America in 1502, and after whom the continent was later named.

Of course, people had already been living in the Americas for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Columbus and his successors went there, so "discover" isn't exactly the road. However, they were certainly the first Europeans in that part of the world, unless you count the Nordic settlers who tried and failed to establish a colony in Greenland in the Middle Ages.

No. The Natives were there already, but they were just... There? The Italians landed in Texas before than, looking for trade routes, and so did the Mexicans, but only the Spaniards landed in Galveston, TX. Yet, as soon as the Spaniards landed there, they claimed Texas as their own territory, Mexican. So, the conclusion is people have their own thoughts in this. -Lone Wolf

Is this valid?

Christopher Columbus did not discover america the native americans did

Yes he did

No. He discovered West indies instead.

Yes

No, Columbus not discover America

I don't think so e ier

Please help=( my teacher says that CRISTOPHER COLUMBUS found america but SHE IS WRONG

Yes,he discovered America but he didn't know that that he has discovered a new land.He thought that it was subcontinent.

No, Columbus not discover America He was travel the seal America already discover at time.

Christopher Columbus did not discover America the Native Americans did I am only 11 and I know that he didn't discover America

For the Europeans he did but for the natives he definitely didn't! Apparently the Chinese weren't far off getting there first.

Yes he did.

Yes he did

Was christopher columbus the first person to discover land and if he wasnt who was

Christopher Columbus never discovered America. Not
when a people,Native Americans, where here first. Be-
sides the dude was a slave trader....lowest of all hum-
anity.

OF COURSE HE DISCOVERED AMERICA. He also discovered natives there. He didn't know he had discovered a new continent, and people. To those who say he couldn't discover it because the indians were already here, that's like saying he couldn't discover the natives. He made a new discovery for Europeans, Asians, and the then known world. If someone discoveres a new healing plant, that doesn't mean the plant wasn't there before they found it.