Laying the Foundations:

Pre-Columbian Exploration and Colonization of the New World

W. Robert Hagen

A special edition of Life magazine recently ranked the top one hundred people and events of the past millennia. Christopher Columbus and his faithful voyage were ranked second in both categories. This list of course is arbitrary at best, however there is no disputing the change that took place on a global scale, effecting the economies, politics and the lives of ordinary people throughout the world, as result of his efforts.

Although this Genoese sailor is given credit (or blame depending on your viewpoint) for this change, I believe that there is more than enough historical and archeological evidence to support the claim that Christopher Columbus was not the first non-native North American to land in the New World. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that people as diverse as the Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Irish, the Welsh, the Chinese, the Japanese and English fisherman were actually in the New World, in some cases, millennia before 1492.

All totaled there are at least nineteen different groups of explorers that may have arrived in the Western Hemisphere prior to Columbus (Boland, xiv). Although some of these visitations are no more than myths, this paper will focus on the archeological evidence that exists to prove the point that Columbus was not the first visitor to the shores of the New World. Further evidence will be given by presenting written accounts of historians ranging from the ancient Greeks to modern times that seems to support this claim and accounts that were written has close to the events themselves.

The reason that Columbus is given credit and the previous groups of explorers are not is mostly likely due to the fact that the communication was better in fifteenth century than it was when the others had reached the lands of the Western Hemisphere. Also the earlier visitors were not very good record keepers. Groups like the Phoenicians although they gave Western civilization the alphabet for recording purposes; they left very few written records themselves, other than a few financial transactions.

Charles Michael Boland in his book, They All Discovered America, places these early voyagers into four categories. The first category is those who settled in the Americas, those who visited the Americas, those who came to the Americas accidentally and in the case of the Chinese, and those who arrived for missionary purposes. (Boland, xv) Whatever the driving force was, they were truly in the "New World" long before Columbus.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when humans came to the New World, however some excavations site in Brazil and Canada indicated human habitation there dates back forty-seven thousand years (Begley, 1). Many theories exist on how these original inhabitants arrived in these locations including pursuing game herds from Asia across a landmass that may have, at one time, bridged the Bering Straits. Other theories purpose that man may have arrived in the Western Hemisphere by following schools of fish. (Begley, 1) This pattern of migration continued until 10,000 years ago.

The next group, chronologically, may have been another Asiatic people, the Japanese. An amateur archeologist, in 1956, found pieces of pottery in Ecuador that was dated going back 5,000 years that he thought might have been Japanese. Betty Meggers, an archeologist from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History matched 20 different patterns on the fragments in Ecuador to patterns on fragments on the Japanese the island of Kyushu from roughly from the same period. She further noted that there does not seem to be any examples of native pottery from the same period, so she concludes that Japanese visitors had to have introduced the pottery into the area. (Jackson, 78)

Another Asian visitor to the New World may have been a Buddhist monk named Heoi-Shin, who may have spent forty years in Mexico. (Jackson, 79) In the sixth century CE, Hoei-Shin and four other monks journeyed to a land that lay to the east across the "Great Eastern Sea", which he called Fusang, a mythical land that had existed in Chinese folklore for a long prior to the birth of Heoi-Shin. They're purpose was to spread Buddhism. (Boland, 70)

Some of the references Heoi-Shin makes in his account seem to suggest that he may have been in Southern Mexico. Fusang was named after the Fusang tree, which he said, grew there. The description of this plant resembles the aloe plant, although the Buddhist monk said that it grew a large reddish fruit, which it does not, the roots are extremely edible. (Boland, 75)

Heoi-Shin called these people Ichi; the tribe that had the most influence on the Mayas, in regards to art and architecture was called the Itza. Furthermore he claimed that these people had no weapons and did not wage war. The Itza were, by all accounts, a peaceful people who were more interested in building cities than they were destroying them. This trend continued almost to the time that the Spanish arrived in Mexico. (Boland, 75)

Also, Hoei-Shin's descriptions of the plant and animal life resemble the flora and fauna of Mexico. He further stated that Fusang was twenty thousand li from China, roughly seventy-five hundred miles, which is remarkably close to the distance between China and Mexico. (Jackson, 79)

There are literally dozens of parallels between the early civilizations of Mexico and the Chinese. Both cultures used the motifs involving Sky-dragons; both had complex rainmaking ceremonies, and both used jade as grave markers. (Jackson, 79)

The Asian explorers and colonist probably arrive the same way, by boat. A combination of the Kurosiwa Current, which flows eastward from Japan, and the prevailing westerly winds propelled these adventurers to North America, from there they could work their way down the west coast of the Americas. To return, the Buddhist monks, more than likely caught the North Equatorial Current, which flows westward from Central America to Asia. (Boland, 69)

While Asians were making their way to the west coasts of the continents in the Western Hemisphere, the Europeans were exploring the east coasts. There is evidence that suggests that the Phoenicians were colonizing North America as early as the fourth century BCE. There are Phoenician ruins and relics scattered from New England to Brazil.

The Phoenicians, rivals of the Greeks, explored and colonized the Mediterranean and reached the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) around twelve hundred BCE. From their colonies in Spain, about the year 1000 BCE, the Phoenicians sailed to Britain and began a very lucrative trade in amber and tin. (Boland, 24) Shortly after visiting Britain, they discovered the Canary and the Azores islands. The western most of the islands in the Azores, Corvo, is only one thousand miles from the North American mainland. (Boland, 24)

The Phoenicians also journeyed to Ultima Thule (probably, Iceland) and made contacts with the Scandinavians. The contact with the Scandinavians is interesting because, the Phoenician boat design may have influenced the boat design of the Scandinavians who would journey to North America many centuries later.

To protect their discoveries to the west, as well as their highly successful trade with Britain, the Phoenicians concocted stories of fearsome sea monsters and other hazards that lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules. These tales were so powerful that they were believed by generations of people to the time of Columbus. (Boland, 22)

In the fourth century BCE, the Phoenicians were engaged in wars with the Greeks. According to many historians, this sparked a westward migration of Phoenicians from the colonies that were scattered around the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians may have fled to their western mostly colonies in North America.

Rumors spread through the Greek speaking world of an island to the west of the Pillars of Hercules that was discovered by the Carthegians. Aristotle mentions this island in his "On Marvelous Things Heard", which contains 178 sections of what can be termed as rumors. (Boland, 28). In section 84, he says that this island has navigable rivers and a remarkable variety of fruits and is a distance of many days away. The Carthegians, he continues, being masters of the western ocean, are attracted to the "pleasant climate and fertile soil and some reside there." (Pohl, 20)

Diodorus of Sicily wrote, in the first century BCE, that the Phoenicians, while sailing along the west coast of Africa, were blown off course into the ocean by a "furious storm" and after many days being blown about, "arrived at the island and so they were the first to discover it." The only places, west of Europe that has navigable rivers are Cuba, Haiti and North and South America. (Pohl, 21). Also the early explorers tended to call even extremely large landmasses islands. (Boland, 28).

The ability of the Phoenician to make such expeditions to the lands on the other side of the ocean can be explained in several ways. First the design of their ships. They developed such innovations as the keel; they made their ships sleeker and improved the sail. Their ships, which were patterned after the Cretan model, were eighty to one hundred feet long, had a single purple sail that was use for signaling purposes. Oars powered these vessels when the winds were not favorable and they could travel up to one hundred miles a day. (Boland, 22)

Second, using the trade winds, ancient mariners could have crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Once there, they could use the Gulf Stream to go north and then catch the prevailing winds east, back to Europe. Incidentally, the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is a half of degree of latitude from Cadiz, the Phoenician colony where western excursions would have originated. (Pohl, 19)

Although Phoenician ruins and artifacts can be found in many places along the coastline of both North and South America, it is the Chesapeake that is of interest because of its close proximity. Once in the Chesapeake Bay the Phoenicians could access the rivers that flow into it. One of the rivers was the Susquehanna.

They moved up the Susquehanna to present day Harrisburg, where they encountered a great waterfall. They disembarked and went inland. More than a thousand stones with what appears to be Phoenician letters have been found in York and Cumberland counties. Several of these stone are on display at the State Museum in Harrisburg.

Boland speculates that these people were refugees fleeing from a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Greek general, Agathocles in 310 BCE. He further hypothesizes that these refugees were trying to get to the Phoenician colony located in North Salem, New Hampshire and were blown off course. (Boland, 35)

The Phoenician colonists and their descendants were most likely absorbed into the local population of Indians. In Mankind So Far, Dr. William Howells notes that "the Indians of New England are the least Mongoloid and the most European-looking of any natives in appearance. (Boland, 45)

The search for religious freedom may have spurred the next discoverers. In 1889, the graves of nine men were found in Bat Creek, Tennessee with stones that were engraved with what was thought to be Cherokee writing. On further examination by Professor Cyrus Gordon in 1970, it was determined that these stone written in Hebrew and the translation was "for the Judeans". Carbon dating suggests that these people were buried anywhere from 32 to 769 CE. Gordon theorizes that these people were Jews fleeing Roman persecution. They could have sailed to the Caribbean and up the Mississippi to Bat Creek. (Jackson, 76)

The next wave of European exploration occurred roughly at the same time as Heoi-Shin was visiting Central America, by another monk but from a different faith. The tale of St. Brendan is a curious one. All totaled St. Brendan apparently made three voyages; although it is the second of his voyages that is the one, which brought him to the New World and earned him the name St. Brendan the Navigator.

Brendan, like his Irish brethren, was compelled to take to the seas searching for desolate places in order to meditate or for punishment. Whether it was for religious purposes or for the adventure, Irish monks became notorious for this practice.

According to the legend, St. Brendan was instructed by St. Ita, to construct a larger boat made for wood instead of the water tight skins of a curragh, a distinctively Irish sea craft. She argued that Brendan would never be allowed to enter the Promised Land of the Saints in a ship covered in animal skins. Furthermore, the ship should have a rutter so it could go where he wanted it to go and not be at the total mercy of the wind and waves. (Boland, 100). The ship was well provisioned; learning from the near disastrous first voyage, which was plagued by chronic shortages of supplies.

On March 22, 551, St. Brendan set out from Aran Mor. After sailing west for forty days, they came upon an iceberg, they continued west until they made landfall. The animals that these monks encountered there were described as having "cat's heads, eyes the color of bronze cauldrons, fuzzy pelts, boars tusks and heavy spotted bellies." (Boland, 102)

Abandoning the coastline the crew sailed south and east for many days. Then they came to another island. This island was inhabitant by black, naked pygmies, who threatened them from the shore. Seven later days they sailed west and after a short distance came upon another island. On this island they found a fellow Gaelic Monk. He told Brendan that he had been a very long time and that he was the surviving member of an expedition of twelve. (Boland, 103) The old monk died while they were there and Brendan gave him last rites.

After leaving the island they sailed south and west for eight days until they made landfall. Thinking that they were at their destination, the Fortunate Isle, they dropped anchor and went ashore. Again, they found another monk, named Festivus. This encounter apparently did not startle Brendan, because he encountered other monks in the oddest of places on his journeys. (Boland, 104) After staying a period of time, probably forty days they returned to Ireland, although renaissance scholars claimed he stayed seven years.

On the surface this tale seems to be a myth, however when it is scrutinized further an interesting correlation to places in the New World appear. First the encounter with the iceberg. Sailing forty days west of Ireland may have put Brendan's party near the coast of New Foundland in May, a place that is known have many icebergs, especially that time of the year. Furthermore, the description of the beasts that they found when they made landfall sound a lot like walruses. (Boland, 102)

Next, by sailing south and east they most likely saw the natives of St. George's Island in Bermuda, The old monk would have lived on Bermuda proper. After leaving Bermuda they sailed south and west possibly making landfall in Florida. Spanish Conquistadors can fill in the remaining piece of the puzzle, the settlement on the Fortunate Isle. When they arrived at St. Augustine, they found the foundations of buildings that they apparently used when constructing their first permanent settlement in the New World. (Bolland, 105)

One last item, upon reaching Vinland (North America), the Vikings claimed that the Irish had beaten them there. This is a ringing endorsement from a people who were infamous for boasting about their own accomplishments, not of others. (Pohl, 43)

The Vikings are not the only ones who came to believe the story of Saint Brendan. A German cartographer, Martin Behaim, placed St. Brendan's Isle on a Globe in 1492 west of the Canary Islands, saying that in 565 AD St. Brendan came to this island, saw many wonders, stayed for seven years and then returned home. The Spanish and the Portuguese accepted the existence of St. Brendan's Isle to the point that when Portugal relinquished control over the Canary Islands to Castille, it included control over the Island of St. Brendan which had not yet be discovered. (Boland, 95) It is not known if Columbus believe that this place really existed.

St. Brendan, however, was not the only one of his people to make the journey to the New World, there were others. The Celi Dei, or Servants of God, were Irish Monks who fled from the approaching Vikings. They were chased from Ireland to Iceland in 735 CE, from Iceland to Greenland and from Greenland to the New World, ironically settling at the North Salem site that had been abandoned by the Phoenicians many centuries previously. (Boland, 121) Also, the settlement was mentioned in the Icelandic sagas, not Irish records, and is called Great Ireland or Albania, White Man's Land. (Pohl, 44)

The existence of an Irish settlement in the New World was further advanced by the tale of Ari Marson, a tenth century man who had a lot of influence in Iceland. The tale states in 983 CE, he was driven to lands in the west by a storm. When he landed there and was baptized by a Christian Irish Priest. (Pohl, 44)

If this tale is true than, Ari Marson himself probably holds the title of being the first Northman or Viking to have landed in the New World, although Leif Erikson actually is given credit for this accomplishment. He led a group of thirty-five followers to a place that he called Vineland the Great around one thousand CE.

The sagas tell us that Leif was sent to Greenland by King Olaf of Norway to convert the people there to Christianity. The Icelanders had voted to become Christian at the same time Olaf had all of Norway converted in one thousand CE and only his subjects in Greenland remained unconverted. (Boland, 175)

When Leif reached Greenland, he proclaimed the entire land to be Christian. His mother converted immediately and built a chapel a few yards from the house, which enraged Leigh's father. Leif was the son of no other than Erik the Red, who thought that the principle of turning the other cheek when attacked struck at the very heart of what it meant to be a Norseman. (Boland, 175)

While in Greenland, Erik heard the tale of Bjarni Herjulfsson, who had sailed past land, four days from Greenland in 986 CE. Erik longing to follow in the footsteps as his estranged father, long to make name for himself too, set sail following Herulfsson course.

He sailed to Labrador and found it barren and flat so he named it Helluland, meaning flat-rock land. He sailed south along the coast to Nova Scotia, which had dense forests so it called it Markland or woodland. He eventually followed this course to New Foundland and possibly even farther south to Massachusetts.

Excavations in L'Anse aux Meadows in New Foundland Canada have revealed a settlement that may have housed as many as seventy-five inhabitants. Very few historians now dispute the fact that this is indeed a Viking settlement, what is in dispute, however, is whether or not this was Vineland or Vinland. The site at L'Anse aux Meadows, may have been a staging point for expeditions South. If it was merely a staging point the site at L'Anse aux Meadows holds the distinction of being the only known Viking site in the New World. (Alden, 6)

What is known about the site is that it contains implements that show this was not temporary settlement, but a permanent one. The discovery of a spindle and a soapstone tool used to twist wool indicates that there were woman and livestock as well. (Alden, 4)

The sagas also suggest that there were women in the colony in New Foundland or least one woman, Erik's sister Freydis. She was described as "arrogant and overbearing" marrying her husband mostly for his money. Her deeds included the murders of her other brothers and their followers when her attempted expulsion of them from Vineland failed. The survivors of the massacre, five women, she dispatched herself. (Alden, 6)

Another accounts tells that once when the settlement was under attack by the native of the areas, who were called Skrealings by the Greenlanders, the Greenlanders turned and fled. According this account the pregnant Freydis, in disgust at the retreat of countrymen, picked up a sword from a fallen comrade, pulling out one of breast she slapped with a sword. This act apparently terrified the attackers so much they fled. (Alden, 6)

As the saga points out the Greenlanders we not welcome by the people that they called the Skrealings. The constant warfare between the two eventually forced the Vikings to leave and they returned to Greenland. The sagas say, "although the land was excellent, they could not live here in safety or freedom from fear, because of the natives. So they made ready to leave the place and returned home." Their leaving marked the end of the Viking era in the New World. (Alden, 6)

The next incursion into the New World, by Europeans, was the Welsh under the leadership of Prince Madoc ap Owain Gwynned in 1170 CE. Prince Madoc or Madog was a younger son of Owain, Prince of Gwynned, who had nineteen children. When Owain died in 1169, a fight arose among his sons. Madoc, apparently disgusted by the action of his siblings, departed Abergwili, Carmarthen in1170. (Pohl, 171)

This account comes from Sir Thomas Herbert's Relation of Some Years Traivaile, published in 1626. Upon reaching the distant shores to the west, Madoc established a settlement and fortified it. After some time he left 120 men and returned to Wales. When he returned to his settlement in 1190, leading a second wave of followers in seven ships, he found that most of the men were gone. He never returned to Wales. (Pohl, 172)

Madoc and his followers seem to leave the pages of history at this point, but do they? Many Europeans who came in contact in the mid sixteenth century through the eighteenth century report that they met Native Americans that had Welsh names and used Welsh words to describe various items, in areas from Florida and Mississippi to Missouri. (Pohl, 172)

In 1660 Morgan Jones from Basaleg near Newport, Wales, was traveling through a land west of Virginia and was captured by the natives of the area. Fearing that he made killed he began to pray in Welsh. The Indians heard him recite the prayers in their own tongue, let him go. Over a century later, William Owen, in 1791, said the Welsh speaking Indians in the Louisiana territory were known as the Manocantes, but to the Creeks they were known as Madawgwys or the people of Madawg. (Pohl, 173)

The reports of Welsh-speaking Indians were so numerous that President Thomas Jefferson ordered Lewis and Clark to "keep an eye open for them" while they were making their way up the Missouri. They found no evidence of these people. That does not necessarily mean they never existed, They may have been wiped out by disease or war by that time.

There also may proof behind Oscar Wilde's statement that America was discovered by many people prior to Columbus, "but it was hushed up". He very well may have been correct. In 1960, historian David Quinn unlocked a possible conspiracy. A letter was written by an anonymous English author makes reference to the fact a group of fisherman from Bristol may have discovered New Foundland earlier than John Cabot's 1497 landing. The actual year that these fishermen probably landed in New Foundland was calculated to be between 1481 and 1491. What makes this story more fascinating is that the letter is was found in a Spanish archive and was addressed to Alimirante Mayor, a title that is associated with none other than Christopher Columbus. (Jackson, 81)

There is much speculation that these fishermen keep their discovery a secret in order to protect their livelihood because the George's Bank is one of the Worlds richest fishing areas, was a prize that they did not wish to share with others. There is further evidence that the Portuguese knew of the existence of the New World as well. If they were indeed the leading seamen of the fifteenth century, they must have known of the existence of the New World and may have tried to keep it a secret too. Jackson, 81)

In recent years, no man has come under attack for accomplishments mote than Christopher Columbus and the intent of this paper is not to milign him further. However, with all the evidence, both in the historical and archaeological records, Columbus does appear at best to be opportunistic: building on the foundations of the many people that came before him.

Studying the successive waves of explorers and colonists that came to the shores of the New World, certain patterns develop. It is not hard to imagine that people, using ocean currents and the prevailing winds, would not have had a hard time making it to the Western Hemisphere. After all, these are the same basic forces that propelled Columbus to the New World.

Another pattern emerges. The Phoenicians interacted with the people of the British Isles and Scandinavia. Viking ship design bears a striking resemblance to Phoenician ships. It is possible that each new visitor, to the New World, used information gathered by the ones who proceeded them.

It is impossible to ever know conclusively whether or not Columbus knew of the existence of the lands that lay at western edge of the Ocean Sea, or that knew of the possibility of other Europeans who might have visited them long before he did. Although he made landfall in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, it is becoming ever clearer that he certainly wasn't the first European or even the first non-Native American to do so.

Works Cited

Alden, Jan. January-February 1996. "Sagas on the Trial of the Vikings" Americas

(English Edition), Volume 48 #1. On-Line Infotrac.

http://web7.searchbank.com/infotrac/session/592/66723766510w3/60!xrn_4

September 26, 1998

Begley, Sharon. (Special Issue) Fall-Winter 1991. "The First Americans" Newsweek

http://marauder.millersville.edu/~columbus/data/art/BEGLEY01.ART

September 27, 1998

Boland, Charles Micheal. They All Discovered America. Doubleday and Company,

Garden City, New York, 1961

Friedman, Robert, ed. The Life Millenium, The 100 Most Important Events and People

Of the Past 1,000 Years. Life Books, Time, Inc. New York,1998

Jackson, Donald Dale. "Who the heck did discover the New World". Smithsonian.

February, 1991 pp.77-85

Pohl, Frederick J. Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus. W. W. Norton &Company, Inc.

New York, 1961