Did the Chinese discover America before Columbus?
What’s so special about the map?
History has it that on October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas. But was he the first one to do so, really? Well, according to an ancient map, a Chinese explorer named Zheng He predated Columbus by over 70 years! Just how much do we know about this map and its supposed author? And is there any historical evidence to confirm these claims? In this gallery, we delve into the theory that states China reached the Americas first.
In 2006, a Chinese lawyer and collector named Liu Gang unveiled an old map at a Shanghai bookshop. The map was supposedly an 18th-century copy of a map from 1418. Unlike other European maps back then, this one depicted North and South America, as well as Australia and Antarctica. The man behind the map was supposedly Chinese explorer Zheng He (1371-1433). The Chinese Muslim eunuch traveled across the seas for 30 years. From 1405 to 1433, Zheng He is said to have set sail on seven voyages through the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Indeed, there are historical records of his trips to Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, and the east coast of Africa, as well as evidence of his using advanced navigational techniques and ships.
But according to former British submarine lieutenant-commander and author Gavin Menzies, Zheng He went even further, and was the first one to discover America. According to Menzies, the Chinese explorer did so in 1421—that’s 71 years before Columbus! Menzies laid out his theory in his 2003 book, entitled ‘1421: The Year China Discovered America.’ Menzies has welcomed the map as evidence, despite the fact that the map of America is dated three years (1418) prior to when Zheng He supposedly discovered the New World (1421). It goes without saying that the authenticity of the map has been disputed.
Christopher Columbus
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
Christopher Columbus (/kəˈlʌmbəs/; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and European colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore a son Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand.
Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in geography, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in the Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early 1493, with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread throughout Europe.
Italian explorer: Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus, Italian Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, (born between August 26 and October 31?, 1451, Genoa [Italy]—died May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain), master navigator and admiral whose four transatlantic voyages (1492–93, 1493–96, 1498–1500, and 1502–04) opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas. He has long been called the “discoverer” of the New World, although Vikings such as Leif Eriksson had visited North America five centuries earlier. Columbus made his transatlantic voyages under the sponsorship of Ferdinand II and Isabella I, the Catholic Monarchs of Aragon, Castile, and Leon in Spain. He was at first full of hope and ambition, an ambition partly gratified by his title “Admiral of the Ocean Sea,” awarded to him in April 1492, and by the grants enrolled in the Book of Privileges (a record of his titles and claims). However, he died a disappointed man.
The period between the quatercentenary celebrations of Columbus’s achievements in 1892–93 and the quincentenary ones of 1992 saw great advances in Columbus scholarship. Numerous books about Columbus appeared in the 1990s, and the insights of archaeologists and anthropologists began to complement those of sailors and historians. This effort gave rise to considerable debate. There was also a major shift in approach and interpretation; the older pro-European understanding gave way to one shaped from the perspective of the inhabitants of the Americas themselves. According to the older understanding, the “discovery” of the Americas was a great triumph, one in which Columbus played the part of hero in accomplishing the four voyages, in being the means of bringing great material profit to Spain and to other European countries, and in opening up the Americas to European settlement. The more recent perspective, however, has concentrated on the destructive side of the European conquest, emphasizing, for example, the disastrous impact of the slave trade and the ravages of imported disease on the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean region and the American continents. The sense of triumph has diminished accordingly, and the view of Columbus as hero has now been replaced, for many, by one of a man deeply flawed. While this second perception rarely doubts Columbus’s sincerity or abilities as a navigator, it emphatically removes him from his position of honour. Political activists of all kinds have intervened in the debate, further hindering the reconciliation of these disparate views.
Little is known of Columbus’s early life. The vast majority of scholars, citing Columbus’s testament of 1498 and archival documents from Genoa and Savona, believe that he was born in Genoa to a Christian household; however, it has been claimed that he was a converted Jew or that he was born in Spain, Portugal, or elsewhere. Columbus was the eldest son of Domenico Colombo, a Genoese wool worker and merchant, and Susanna Fontanarossa, his wife. His career as a seaman began effectively in the Portuguese merchant marine. After surviving a shipwreck off Cape Saint Vincent at the southwestern point of Portugal in 1476, he based himself in Lisbon, together with his brother Bartholomew. Both were employed as chart makers, but Columbus was principally a seagoing entrepreneur. In 1477 he sailed to Iceland and Ireland with the merchant marine, and in 1478 he was buying sugar in Madeira as an agent for the Genoese firm of Centurioni. In 1479 he met and married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, a member of an impoverished noble Portuguese family. Their son, Diego, was born in 1480. Between 1482 and 1485 Columbus traded along the Guinea and Gold coasts of tropical West Africa and made at least one voyage to the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge da Mina (now Elmina, Ghana) there, gaining knowledge of Portuguese navigation and the Atlantic wind systems along the way. Felipa died in 1485, and Columbus took as his mistress Beatriz Enríquez de Harana of Córdoba, by whom he had his second son, Ferdinand (born c. 1488).
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506 CE, also known as Cristoffa Corombo in Ligurian and Cristoforo Colombo in Italian) was a Genoese explorer (identified as Italian) who became famous in his own time as the man who discovered the New World and, since the 19th century CE, is credited with the discovery of North America, specifically the region comprising the United States.
Actually, owing to the early 16th-century CE popularity of the published letters of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci (l. 1454-1512 CE), detailing his three voyages to the “New World” between 1497-1504 CE, the discovery of the Americas has been credited to him on world maps beginning in 1506 CE which is why the continents bear the feminine version of his name.
Columbus made four voyages to the area of the Caribbean, exploring Cuba, Central America, South America, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the islands of the Bahamas, and others between 1492-1504 CE:
- First Voyage: 1492-1493 CE
- Second Voyage: 1493-1496 CE
- Third Voyage: 1498-1500 CE
- Fourth Voyage: 1502-1504 CE
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who stumbled upon the Americas and whose journeys marked the beginning of centuries of transatlantic colonization.
The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not “discover” the so-called New World—millions of people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of exploration and colonization of North and South America.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “Age of Discovery,” also known as “Age of Exploration.” Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold and other goods as well as enslaved people from Asia and Africa to Europe. Other European nations, particularly Spain, were eager to share in the seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”—the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom after centuries of war—was complete, and the nation turned its attention to exploration and conquest in other areas of the world.
Zheng He 鄭 和
Statue from a modern monument to Zheng He at the Stadthuys Museum in Malacca City
Zheng He (simplified Chinese: 郑和; traditional Chinese: 鄭和; pinyin: Zhènghé; Wade–Giles: Chêng-ho; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty, and often regarded as the greatest admiral in Chinese history. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by the Yongle Emperor. Commissioned by the Yongle Emperor and later the Xuande Emperor, Zheng commanded seven expeditionary treasure voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and East Africa from 1405 to 1433. According to legend, his larger ships carried hundreds of sailors on four decks and were almost twice as long as any wooden ship ever recorded. As a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whom Zheng assisted in the overthrow of the Jianwen Emperor, he rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing.
Zheng He was born Ma He (馬和) to a Muslim family of Kunyang, Kunming, Yunnan, then under the rule of the Principality of Liang loyal to the Northern Yuan dynasty. He had an older brother and four sisters. Zheng He's religious beliefs were eclectic in his adulthood. The Liujiagang and Changle inscriptions suggest that devotion to Tianfei, the patron goddess of sailors and seafarers, was the dominant faith to which he adhered, reflecting the goddess's central role to the treasure fleet. John Guy mentions, "When Zheng He, the Muslim eunuch leader of the great expeditions to the 'Western Ocean' (Indian Ocean) in the early fifteenth century, embarked on his voyages, it was from the Divine Woman that he sought protection, as well as at the tombs of the Muslim saints on Lingshan Hill, above the city of Quanzhou."
Zheng He was a great-great-great-grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, who served in the administration of the Mongol Empire and was the governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan dynasty. His great-grandfather Bayan may have been stationed at a Mongol garrison in Yunnan.[ Zheng He's grandfather carried the title hajji and his father had the sinicized surname Ma and the title hajji, which suggests that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. In the autumn of 1381, a Ming army invaded and conquered Yunnan, which was then ruled by the Mongol prince Basalawarmi, Prince of Liang. In 1381, Ma Hajji, Zheng He's father, died in the fighting between the Ming armies and Mongol forces. Dreyer states that Zheng He's father died at 39 while he resisted the Ming conquest, while Levathes states that Zheng He's father died at 37, but it is unclear if he was helping the Mongol Army or was just caught in the onslaught of battle. Wenming, the oldest son, buried their father outside Kunming. In his capacity as Admiral, Zheng He had an epitaph engraved in honour of his father, composed by the Minister of Rites Li Zhigang on the Duanwu Festival of the third year in the Yongle era (1 June 1405).
Zheng He: Chinese admiral and diplomat
Zheng He, Wade-Giles romanization Cheng Ho, original name Ma Sanbao, later Ma He, born 1371, Kunyang, near Kunming, Yunnan province, China—died 1433, Calicut [now Kozhikode], India), admiral and diplomat who helped extend the maritime and commercial influence of China throughout the regions bordering the Indian Ocean. He commanded seven naval expeditions almost a century before the Portuguese reached India by sailing around the southern tip of Africa.
Zheng He was from a Hui (Chinese Muslim) family. His father was a hajji, a Muslim who had made the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. His family claimed descent from an early Mongol governor of Yunnan province in southwestern China as well as from King Muḥammad of Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan). The family name Ma was derived from the Chinese rendition of Muḥammad. In 1381, when he was about 10 years old, Yunnan, the last Mongol hold in China, was reconquered by Chinese forces led by generals of the Ming dynasty, which had overthrown the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty in 1368. The young Ma Sanbao (later Ma He), as he was then known, was among the boys who were captured, castrated, and sent into the army as orderlies. By 1390, when those troops were placed under the command of the prince of Yan, Ma He had distinguished himself as a junior officer, skilled in war and diplomacy. Ma also had made influential friends at court.
In 1400 the prince of Yan revolted against his nephew, the Jianwen emperor, taking the throne in 1402 as the Yongle emperor. Under the Yongle administration (1402–24), the war-devastated economy of China was soon restored. The Ming court then sought to display its naval power to bring the maritime states of South and Southeast Asia in line. The seven voyages of Zheng He:
- Zheng He first set sail in 1405, commanding 62 ships and 27,800 men.
- On his second voyage, in 1408–09, Zheng He again visited Calicut
- In October 1409 Zheng He set out on his third voyage.
- On his fourth voyage Zheng He left China in 1413.
- During Zheng He’s fifth voyage (1417–19), the Ming fleet revisited the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa.
- A sixth voyage was launched in 1421 to take home the foreign emissaries from China.
- Zheng He’s seventh and final voyage left China in the winter of 1431.
The Seven Voyages of Zheng He
A model of the mariner and explorer Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433 CE) who made seven voyages from China to India, Arabia and East Africa under the auspices of Emperor Yongle of the Ming dynasty between 1404 and 1433 CE. (Quanzhou Maritime Museum)
Admiral Zheng He (aka Cheng Ho, c. 1371-1433 CE) was a Chinese Muslim eunuch explorer who was sent by the Ming dynasty emperor Yongle (1403-1424 CE) on seven diplomatic missions to increase trade and secure tribute from foreign powers. Between 1405 and 1433 CE Zheng He commanded huge fleets loaded with trade goods and high-value gifts to such far-flung places as Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and Mogadishu in East Africa. Following established sea routes but often finding himself the first ever Chinese person to land at many of his destinations, Zheng He is widely regarded as the greatest ever Chinese explorer. His travels may not have brought much success in terms of new trade or lasting tribute to the imperial court but the knowledge, ideas, and exotic goods he brought back home - from jewels to giraffes - created an interest in foreign countries and a realisation of their wealth which contributed to China's increased role in world trade in later centuries. Even if his wake was not immediately followed, Zheng He had shown the way:
- The first three voyages of Zheng He (1404, 1408 and 1409 CE) followed more established trade routes. He went via Southeast Asia, sailing down the coast of Vietnam, stopping at Sumatra and Java and then on through the Malay Archipelago and through the Straits of Malacca, crossing the eastern Indian Ocean to reach India and Sri Lanka. Wherever he landed, Zheng He led a delegation to the local ruler to whom he presented messages of goodwill and China's peaceful intentions towards them. He then presented a large quantity of gifts and invited the ruler to either come in person or send an ambassador to the court of Emperor Yongle. Many rulers took up the offer immediately and delegates were accommodated on Zheng He's ships to be eventually taken to China on the return voyage. Some rulers were not so keen, of course, notably Alagakkonara, the king of Sri Lanka, who turned out less than welcoming to these strange visitors and tried to plunder Zheng He's ships. Undeterred, Zheng He abducted the king and brought him in person back to the Chinese imperial court, where he was later released after promising to pay regular tributes, which he did do. There were also secondary adventures besides securing new diplomatic ties. The return journey of the first expedition, for example, saw Zheng He capture the pirate Ch'en Tsu-i, who had caused havoc in the Malacca Straits and beyond, a feat which greatly enhanced the admiral's reputation in Southeast Asia. The second voyage on its return in 1408 CE successfully resolved a local dispute on Java. These and other actions only strengthened the view that China was the chief power in the region and its greatest source of stability.
- Zheng He's fourth voyage in 1413 CE saw him sail to India again, once more pushing on around the southern tip of the subcontinent and visiting again Cochin and Calicut on the west coast. This time he also found time to stop off at the Maldive Islands, before crossing the Arabian Sea and reaching Hormuz on the Persian Gulf. Sailing down the coast of Arabia, he then went on to Aden and up the Red Sea to Jeddah, from where a party travelled to Mecca. A report states that 19 foreign rulers sent tributes and diplomatic missions to the emperor as a consequence of this fourth voyage.
- Voyages five, six, and seven (1417, 1421, and 1431 CE) reached even further afield, landing at Mogadishu, Malindi, and Mombassa, all on the coast of East Africa. Zheng He is the first attested Chinese to visit the Swahili coast. The ruler of Mogadishu was responsive and did send an embassy to Yongle, and even distant Zanzibar was reached by Zheng He's fleet.
China’s greatest naval explorer sailed his treasure fleets as far as East Africa
Spreading Chinese goods and prestige, Zheng He commanded seven voyages that established China as Asia's strongest naval power in the 1400. At the Tay Kak Sie Chinese Taoist temple in Semarang on the island of Java, Indonesia, a statue of Zheng He shows how far his legacy stretches across Asia.
Perhaps it is odd that China’s greatest seafarer was raised in the mountains. The future admiral Zheng He was born around 1371 to a family of prosperous Muslims. Then known as Ma He, he spent his childhood in Mongol-controlled, landlocked Yunnan Province, located several months’ journey from the closest port. When Ma He was about 10 years old, Chinese forces invaded and overthrew the Mongols; his father was killed, and Ma He was taken prisoner. It marked the beginning of a remarkable journey of shifting identities that this remarkable man would navigate.
Many young boys taken from the province were ritually castrated and then brought to serve in the court of Zhu Di, the future Ming emperor or Yongle. Over the next decade, Ma He would distinguish himself in the prince’s service and rise to become one of his most trusted advisers. Skilled in the arts of war, strategy, and diplomacy, the young man cut an imposing figure: Some described him as seven feet tall with a deep, booming voice. Ma He burnished his reputation as a military commander with his feats at the battle of Zhenglunba, near Beijing. After Zhu Di became the Yongle emperor in 1402, Ma He was renamed Zheng He in honor of that battle. He continued to serve alongside the emperor and became the commander of China’s most important asset: its great naval fleet, which he would command seven times.
Zheng He’s voyages followed in the wake of many centuries of Chinese seamanship. Chinese ships had set sail from the ports near present-day Shanghai, crossing the East China Sea, bound for Japan. The vessels’ cargo included material goods, such as rice, tea, and bronze, as well as intellectual ones: a writing system, the art of calligraphy, Confucianism, and Buddhism. As far back as the 11th century, multi-sailed Chinese junks boasted fixed rudders and watertight compartments—an innovation that allowed partially damaged ships to be repaired at sea. Chinese sailors were using compasses to navigate their way across the South China Sea. Setting off from the coast of eastern China with colossal cargoes, they soon ventured farther afield, crossing the Strait of Malacca while seeking to rival the Arab ships that dominated the trade routes in luxury goods across the Indian Ocean—or the Western Ocean, as the Chinese called it.
The Fourth of July: Independence Day (United States)
Fireworks displays, such as these over the Washington Monument in 1986, take place across the United States on Independence Day
Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence, which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America.
The Founding Father delegates of the Second Continental Congress declared that the Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states. The Congress voted to approve independence by passing the Lee Resolution on July 2 and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4.
Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches, and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.
