I remember learning in school that it was the Norse Vikings who first came to America. Thus “discovering” it, discovering a place already civilized. We learned about Christopher Columbus and other explorers. John Cabot, Ponce de León a big one in these parts. But there was no revisionism in the Norse being in North America first.
Who Columbus was is just a matter of historical record. One lie I call out is his credit for discovering North America. For his bringing God, civilization, order, whatever, to the “New World”. One, the indigenous people had civilization here. Shocking, right? And it’s also the Norse Vikings who brought European civilization hundreds of years before Columbus.
Excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland show pre-Columbian Norse, i.e. European, settlement as early as 1021 AD. We’re not talking some shipwrecked Vikings who were left to die. The L'Anse aux Meadows has remains of eight buildings, sod over wood frame. Evidence of the production of iron, bronze, stone, bone, and wooden artifacts. Hundreds and hundreds excavated at this site.
It’s thought that the Norse Vikings inhabited this site for as long as 100 years. It had the capacity to support over a hundred people, though it’s not clear how many lived there. Archaeologists believe that the site was dedicated to ship repair, which speaks to one of the remarkable things about the Norse discovery of North America as early as 1021 AD. They were traveling back and forth to Iceland all the time. Engaging in economic activity. Bringing timber, walrus ivory, various hunted bits, back to Iceland.
Men and women lived there as evidenced by the discovery of articles generally associated with women. Pins, spindles, bits of looms. Other items indicative of extended settled life like stone oil lamps. Workshops, including an iron smithy and associated slag. It’s also clear that that their departure was controlled and intentional based on what they did NOT leave behind. They took their tools. The pulled up the animal pens and took the animals. There were no dead. They were all sent off as is the tradition.
A lot of people focus on Columbus because, you know. He was famous. Had the backing of Queen Isabella. Lots of ships. Support. Money.
The settlement of the Norse Vikings wasn’t exactly a hit and run. In addition to ship repair at L'Anse aux Meadows, the site acted as a base for reconnaissance of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and other interior parts. And the settlements and explorations were not exactly without documentation. They are told in the Grœnlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða, the Greenland Saga and the Erik the Red Saga.
The sagas tell the story of early Norse founder, Leif Erikson. They describe North America’s true first European founders with indigenous Inuit people. Battles and bartering. Their explorations. Wintering the harsh winters. Making wine from local berries and grapes. And tales of filial devotion, heroism, honor.
One of my favorite stories (from Eiríks saga rauða) is of Leif Erickson’s sister, Freydís Eiríksdóttir, mocking the cowardice of the Norse men as they flee attacking indigenous people. She takes the sword of a fallen Norseman, undoes her clothing, and beats her exposed breast with it— utterly terrifying and driving off their attackers. From what more recent archeological studies show, Norse Viking women were in the shit of it, just like this.
A lot of people focus on Columbus because he brought Christianity to North America.
No. That was the newly converted Norse Vikings. Leif Erikson converted to Christianity, and while his father kept the old ways, his mother, Thjóðhildr, became a Christian, and built the first Christian Church in North America, Thjóðhild's Church. It is in the Norse settlement in far southern Greenland called Brattahlíð, now the settlement of Brattahlíð, now the settlement of Qassiarsuk. The photograph is a reconstruction based in archeological remains.
And people like to focus on Columbus because he brought European government to the Americas.
Well. Actually. The oldest parliament in Europe is the Icelandic Alþingi founded in 930 AD. This was the governance of the Norse Viking founders. How cool is that? It’s not clear exactly where and when, but it seems very early on, in Brattahlíð, a þing, or assembly, based on the Alþingi was held. The first North American parliamentary assembly. Even if it happened late in the Norse presence in North America, any governance in Spanish America was colonial under the crown.
Dream who you like as the discoverer of this place we call home. I know my choice.
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There is no question that the Vikings lived in what is now North America hundred of years before Columbus. The point you're missing is that history is not made or changed by whoever gets "first" somewhere, but by whoever makes a difference. The Vikings left such a faint mark of their life in North America that it wasn't until the 20th century that evidence of their stay came up. Like you said, they didn't even left tools. Compare that with the process started by Columbus when he reported on the lands he encountered by sailing west of Europe. It started a wave of colonization (for good or for worse, definitely worse for the natives...). It changed the demography, culture and social structures of a landmass many times bigger than Europe, changing European history in the process... That is why Columbus is in the history books, while Leif Ericson and those Vikings who lived in North America are just a footnote...
@drymer I have a pretty good idea why Columbus figures bigger in history than the Norse. I live in what was once Spanish Florida and visiting old settlements and mission sites is a thing of mine.
I do think "first" matters in discovery. And I also think "how" matters. On that ground, the Norse win the prize for me.
But as I said in the close of the post, it is really a question of how one dreams one's history. History is as much creative as it is factual. The Norse discovery is factual, historical, and also personal for me.
