18. Fact or Fiction: Christopher Columbus’ Critics Doubted His Math, Not His Belief That the Earth Was Round
Fact. If you read closely in the last portion, the answer is there. Ancient Greeks knew the Earth was a globe two millennia before Christopher Columbus’ day, and educated people and sailors of his era had no illusions about the planet being flat. The issue for Columbus was not the shape of the earth, but the size of the ocean he planned on crossing. In addition to screwing up the calculations, he was unaware that an unknown continental landmass lay between Spain and Asia. Ultimately, Columbus reached the Caribbean, whose islands he believed were the western outskirts of Asia, and so named them the West Indies.
In subsequent voyages, he explored the Caribbean and South America’s northern coasts. When not exploring, he was governor and viceroy of the Caribbean. In that capacity, he brutalized, enslaved, and decimated the natives, whom he incorrectly labeled Indians. To his dying day, Columbus insisted that he had reached Asia. Ironically, the New World discovery ended up being named after another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo mapped South America’s eastern shore down to Brazil, and demonstrated conclusively that what Columbus had reached was not Asia, but a hitherto unknown world. A German mapmaker labeled the New World “America” after Amerigo. His maps were quite popular during 1500, so the name America stuck and spread.