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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The problem with most of the comments here is they come from comfortable 21st century minds.
In the the 9th century your only right to land was your ability to defend it. And this was true all across the face of the globe. Even the native Americans were at it.
We live in a comfy cozy age now where everyone is apparently very moralistic, or at-least say they are in online discussion. But not capable of really understanding why we are where we are.
@Morvoren no one will argue about that. When people got together in a group, their first act was to prevent others from joining them. When they needed more land, the attacked a neighboring group, and on and on. Then religion came along and ears were fought for religion, not just land.
@Morvoren there are a few counter exceptions, but I will not try to convince any Americans that war isn't the only eternally natural state, or that anything else should be permitted!
@Roundandroundwego what are you trying to say? Are you implying that only Americans have ever declared war to gain land? If so, i suggest you look at European history.
@samueltyler2 Or any history. Is fashionable to say Europeans are the bringers of war, but the history says it’s a much more racially collaborative effort.
@Roundandroundwego again, what are you saying, maybe it is my age, but, I can't figure out what you are saying. The change in emphasis based on what happened because Columbus went back to Europe with word of riches here which brought settlers and, over time, genocide.
@Morvoren whatever You really can just say Polynesian people don't count, or do not exist. It's because I lied. There's no pre Edo Japan. I salute war eternal. Nobody must know anything. I am never believed. So whatever.
@Morvoren nope. Telling can't work. Nobody had ever believed a single true thing I write or say. Ever. No exceptions existed that you want to know of! Ever. Nobody.
@Morvoren I gave no examples. War is what you saw in every part of the world in all the past. That's about you. I'm aware of counterexamples. You can't be-. Because I'm not going to educated anyone -. Nobody ever believes the truth. Politics erases pre contact equatorial Africa.
@Roundandroundwego Basically all she said was the obvious. The nature of humans and history is that “ownership” of the land goes as far as one’s ability to defend it. Or take it. That’s not an ethical statement.
@CopperCicada it's not how everyone always lived. Other systems have existed You prefer to call all history your past. My knowledge of others doesn't count. Nobody counts if you don't see war and ownership there.
@Morvoren whatever. You obviously read "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe but failed to see anything about a different way of using land and labor. So it never existed. You only like to know war. Obviously,! So, you only know war.
@Roundandroundwego If you take a very broad view of history, and anthropology, sure, there were (and are) non-combative ways of living in this world. I am not sure who is suggesting that war, genocide, exploitation, is the only way to be in the world?
But when the Spanish came to America— it was. When the French, English came— it was. And when the Norse came— it was too, seemingly to a smaller extent.
Non-combative ways of being in the world lose when they encounter combative ways of being. Which isn’t a moral statement.
