Nov 19, 2002 4 min read

If I say yes she says no. Kennie Sue, our 10-year-old friend, was impressing me with her knowledge of history and past events, informing me that a fellow by the name of Amerigo Vespucci discovered America.

“No he didn’t,’ I replied. “It was Leif Erickson. But it was named after Vespucci. That’s because he had a better publicist than Erickson.’

Did that end the discussion? Did she bow before my superior age, wisdom and intellect?

What do you think?

“Un un. That’s not true. That’s not what my social studies book says. That’s not what my teacher says,’ Kennie Sue, defiant, replied.

“Well, they’re wrong,’ I said. “There’s too much evidence that the Vikings under Leif Erickson landed in New England about 900. He got here first as far as recorded history is concerned.’

“Then why is America named after Amerigo Vespucci,’ she asked.

“I don’t know. I agree that’s where North and South America got their names. But he did not discover them before Erickson,’ I said.

Then we got into a round of “did’ and “did not’ until my lovely wife entered the room and told the “children’ to cut it out.

Well, not being one to be told he is wrong when he knows he is right I decided to do a little research to support my statements (and to make sure I was correct).

I visited a couple of Web sites and learned a few more things.

For example, the German clergyman-scholar Martin Waldseem?ller liked to make up names. He created his own last name by combining words for “wood,” “lake,” and “mill,” according to the “About’ Web site.

Waldseem?ller was working on a contemporary world map in the early 1500s, based on the Greek geography of Ptolmey, and he had read of Vespucci’s travels and knew that the New World was indeed two continents. In honor of Vespucci’s discovery of that new portion of the world, Waldseem?ller printed a wood block map (called “Carta Mariana”) with the name “America” spread across the southern continent of the New World. Waldseem?ller printed and sold a thousand copies of the map across Europe.

Within a few years, Waldseem?ller changed his mind about the name for the New World but it was too late. The name America had stuck.

As for Vespucci, he, according to several Web sites, never set foot on North America, but he did make several voyages exploring parts of the Caribbean and South America. That was in the late 1400s, a good 500 years after Erickson and some of his people had already attempted colonizing what they were calling “Wineland,’ because of its natural grapevines.

Apparently Erickson, leaving from Greenland, another Viking discovery, got knocked off course and accidentally discovered North America. He is said to have traveled the coast in subsequent voyages of exploration, hugging the shoreline, almost as far south as present-day New York City.

Archaeologists have dug up evidence of the Vikings on North America. Who knows why they stopped coming here in later years. Maybe it was a bad experience with the natives? Or maybe they decided the adventure of discovery was enough.

Anyway, my research confirmed that nearly all historians agree that Erickson was the first European to step onto North American land.

Where does this leave Vespucci?

In the same boat as the other imposter, Christopher Columbus.

Yet things just aren’t very fair, are they?

Vespucci has a couple of continents named after him and Columbus has his own national holiday (by a nation on a continent he never set foot upon) named after him.

Frankly, I think they both had pretty good publicists.

After all, someone had to come up with that historic slogan, “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492,’ to help mislead generations of school children into thinking he had discovered this country.

But the acid test is going to come later. Will Kennie Sue really accept this information?

I doubt it. I have a feeling we are due for another round of “did’ and “did not.’

Have a good day.

Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.