Amerigo Vespucci: Facts, Biography
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| Amerigo Vespucci |
A statue of Amerigo Vespucci stands in the Uffizi museum in Florence,
Italy.
Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci is best known for
his namesake: the continents of North and South America. But why were these
continents named after him, especially since his voyages happened after
Christopher Columbus' famed 1492 sail on the ocean blue?
Vespucci was the first person to recognize North and
South America as distinct continents that were previously unknown to Europeans,
Asians and Africans. Prior to Vespucci's discovery, explorers, including
Columbus, had assumed that the New World was part of Asia. Vespucci made his
discovery while sailing near the tip of South America in 1501.
Amerigo Vespucci was one of many European explorers
during the Age of Exploration, or Age of Discovery, which took place from the
mid-1400s to mid-1500s. "The Age of Exploration was prompted by different
motivations," said Erika Cosme, administrative coordinator of education
and digital services at The
Mariner’s Museum and Park in Newport
News, Virginia. "In the 15th century, Europe, Asia, and Africa
were at the epicenter of a global exchange of goods; also, for Europeans,
curiosities of different cultures continued to emerge. This Afro-Eurasian
economy created an interwoven connection between India, China, the Middle East,
Africa and Europe."
Spurred by curiosity and economic incentive, explorers
traveled distances that were great feats for their day. But what makes the time
period so important, said Cosme, was the role it played in "shaping the
world that we know today." Recognizing the Americas was a major part of
that understanding.
Early life
Amerigo Vespucci was born on March 9, 1454, in
Florence, Italy. As a young man, he was fascinated with books and maps. The
Vespuccis were a prominent family and friends with the powerful Medicis, who ruled
Italy for more than 300 years. After being educated by his uncle, Vespucci
himself worked for the Medicis as a banker and later supervisor of their
ship-outfitting business, which operated in Seville, Spain. He moved to Spain
in 1492.
This business allowed Vespucci to see the great
explorers' ships being prepared and to learn about the business of exploration.
Goods like salt from Mali, coffee beans from Ethiopia, spices from India and
the Molucca Islands and ginger, silk and tea from China were in high demand,
said Cosme, who works in developing The Mariners' Museum's extensive Age of Exploration area.
Countries profited off trade and hoped to find riches
like gold, silver and gems, Cosme said. "European leaders saw exploration
as a way to expand their empires and increase national glory."
At the time, explorers were searching for a northwest
route to the Indies — the lands and islands of Southeast Asia — which would
make trade easier and bring their country wealth. "It would often take
years to complete a trip," said Cosme. "By the mid-15th
century, Muslims controlled the majority of the trade routes to Asia. This
meant they could charge high prices for incoming and outgoing goods and vessels
traveling to and from Europe and Asia. The desire to find ocean routes that
were faster, safer, and cheaper stimulated a search to find a better way of
getting to these places."
Vespucci's business helped outfit one of Christopher Columbus' voyages, and in 1496 Vespucci had the opportunity to talk with the
explorer. Both men were fascinated by the works of Marco Polo, who influenced
many explorers' love of seafaring and exploration, said Cosme.
This meeting further encouraged Vespucci's interest in
travel and discovery. Like many explorers of the age, he wanted to gain new
knowledge and see the world with his own eyes. "The Age of Exploration
coincided with the Renaissance, which lasted from about 1300 to 1600," said Cosme. "Many
people were gaining genuine curiosity about the world. Sciences like astronomy
and cartography were surging. People wanted to know more about the geography,
people, and cultures outside their own."
Vespucci's business was struggling, which made his
decision to voyage even simpler. Furthermore, he possessed critical knowledge
for seafaring, like cartography and astronomy, which were essential tools for
early navigation, said Cosme. Now in his 40s, Vespucci decided to leave
business behind and embark on a journey while he still could.
First voyage
and letter controversy
"Amerigo Vespucci took at least three voyages
westward," said Cosme. There is some controversy among historians about
when Vespucci set sail on his first voyage. Many accounts place the sail date
in 1499, seven years after Columbus landed in the Bahamas. On the 1499 voyage,
Vespucci sailed to the northern part of South America and into the Amazon River. He gave
places he saw names like the "Gulf of Ganges," thinking, as his
explorer contemporaries did, that he was in Asia. He also made improvements to
celestial navigation techniques. Vespucci predicted Earth’s circumference accurately within 50 miles.
But a letter dated in 1497
suggests that the 1499 voyage may have in fact been Vespucci's second trip. The
letter is written in Vespucci's voice, though some historians dispute his
authorship and the facts of the document, claiming it a forgery. The letter,
written to the Gonfalonier of Florence (a high official on the city-state's
supreme executive council), accounts a 1497 expedition to the Bahamas and
Central America. If the accounts of this letter are true, then Vespucci reached
the mainland of the Americas a few months before John Cabot and more than
a year before Columbus.
1501 voyage and
recognition of South America
On May 14, 1501, Vespucci set sail to the New World
under the Portuguese flag on what would be his most successful voyage.
Vespucci's ships traveled along the South American
coast down to Patagonia. Along the way, he encountered the rivers Rio de
Janeiro and Rio de la Plata. During this voyage, Vespucci came to suspect that
he was looking at a continent entirely different from Asia.
"Vespucci was both familiar with and fascinated
by the accounts of Marco Polo and his time in Asia. The book by Polo gave great
detail on the geography, people, and rich opportunities of the continent. Based
on this information, Vespucci could make assumptions about the land they were
exploring," said Cosme. "For starters, Vespucci noticed that the sky
which they sailed under had different constellations that were not visible in
Europe. He also took note of the coastlines they traveled, recording their
distance and length of time traveled. Vespucci, again a very skilled
cartographer and astronomer, carefully studied and pondered over all of his
information. He found that the areas and land masses they had explored were
actually larger and different than previous accounts of Asia's descriptions.
This led him to the conclusion that what they had explored was indeed an
entirely new continent."
He verified his suspicion when sailing south to within
400 miles of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. This
confirmed that he was encountering a new continent that extended far further
south than anyone had guessed.
While on this voyage, Vespucci wrote letters to a
friend in Europe describing his travels and identifying the New World as a
separate continent from Asia. These letters also chronicle his encounters with
the indigenous people and describe their culture. Vespucci described the
natives' religious practices and beliefs, their diet, marriage habits, and,
most appealingly to readers, their sexual and childbirth practices. These
letters were published in several languages and sold well (better than
Columbus' letters) across Europe. This pleased Vespucci who, who recorded his
adventures to better leave "some fame behind me after I die."
Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 map was the first to use the word
"America." Waldseemüller had proposed naming the newly discovered
continents after the Italian explorer.
Credit: Library of Congress.
Later voyages
and other accomplishments
Vespucci's later voyages were not as successful as the
1501 expedition, and scholars are unsure of exactly how many later voyages he
embarked upon. In 1503, he sailed to Brazil, but when his fleet failed to make
any new discoveries, the ships disbanded. Vespucci pressed on, however, and
discovered the island of Bahia and South Georgia before returning to Lisbon
ahead of schedule.
Vespucci may have gone on two more voyages, in 1505
and 1507, but accounts are unclear. In 1505, he became a naturalized citizen of
Spain, and in 1508, he was named a Pilot Major of Spain. This was a prestigious
position that required him to use his considerable navigational skills.
Vespucci helped develop and standardize navigational techniques and to select
new pilots.
He worked at this post until his death on Feb. 22, 1512.
He contracted malaria and died in Spain at nearly 58 years of age. Vespucci is
buried in Florence.
The naming of
America
Vespucci's reputation has gone through periods of
ridicule, and at times he has been viewed as schemer who attempted to steal
glory from Columbus. But in reality, it wasn't Vespucci's ambition that got two
continents named after him: it was the work of a German clergyman and amateur
cartographer called Martin Waldseemüller.
In 1507, Waldseemüller and some other scholars were
working an introduction to cosmology that would contain large maps, according to the U.S. Library of
Congress. Waldseemüller proposed that a portion of Brazil that Vespucci had
explored be named "America," a feminized version of Vespucci's first
name. Waldseemüller wrote, "I see no reason why anyone should justly
object to calling this part ... America, after Amerigo [Vespucci], its
discoverer, a man of great ability."
The name stuck. Waldseemüller's maps sold thousands of
copies across Europe. Some reports suggest that Waldseemüller had second
thoughts about the name America, but it was too late. In 1538, a mapmaker named
Gerardus Mercator applied the name "America" to both the northern and
southern landmasses of the New World, and the continents have been known as
such ever since.
Regardless, there is no underestimating the value of
Vespucci's contributions to Europeans. Cosme said, "Amerigo Vespucci used
his own knowledge and skill, plus the written knowledge from scholars and
explorers before him to uncover a Mundus Novus
(Latin for "new world") to Europeans."
Who discovered America
Some people still like to debate who discovered the Americas.
Credit: Ufo13 | Dreamstime.com
We all learned that Columbus sailed the ocean blue ...
and then American history gets very murky.
Though much happened before Christopher Columbus'
famous journey (such as Leif Ericsson's landing in North America about five
centuries prior), it remains a significant event in history and is generally
deemed by historians as the start of the Colonial Period (1492-1763).
The epic journey was not exactly without its problems.
Early in the morning on Oct. 12, 1492, a sailor looked
out to the horizon from the bow of Columbus' ship, the Pinta, and saw land.
After 10 weeks at sea, from the port of Palos, Spain, Columbus and his crew had
arrived ... somewhere.
Columbus thought he'd found the East Indies. Truth
was, he was in the Bahamas. He did a little more exploring and then returned to
Spain, possibly taking syphilis with him.
By 1502, the Florentine merchant and explorer Amerigo
Vespucci had figured out that Columbus was wrong, and word of a New World had
spread throughout Europe. America was later named for Vespucci.
And, as researchers now recognize, neither man was
actually the first to discover the Americas. There were, of
course, the natives already here. There was Ericsson. And there were others.
Even the Chinese lay claim to sailing to the New
World first.
Columbus is credited with jumpstarting Spanish
colonization that preceded the broader European colonization of the New World.
In his diary, he noted that the natives "must be good servants and very
intelligent, because I see they repeat very quickly what I tell them." And
so he enslaved them to help in his quest for gold and spices. Neither venture
panned out, but in subsequent voyages thousands of natives died, and Columbus
managed to hang some of his own settlers who defied his authority.
His arrival "marked the beginning of one of the
cruelest episodes in human history," as historian Kenneth C. Davis puts
it.
More than a century would go by before colonization
got serious. The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The
Pilgrims, founders of Plymouth, Massachusetts, did not arrive until 1620.
With affection
Ruben
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