Spanish documents suggest Irish arrived in America before Columbus

Irish Central ^ | May 13, 2014 04:12 AM | Kerry O’Shea

[Olog-hai]

While Christopher Columbus is generally credited with having discovered America in 1492, a 1521 Spanish report provides inklings of evidence that there were, in fact, Irish people settled in America prior to Columbus’ journey. […]

In 1520, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, a historian and professor, was appointed by Carlos V to be chronicler for the new Council of the Indies. Though Martyr died in 1526, his report, founded on several weeks of interviews, was published posthumously in a book named De Orbe Novo (About the New World). […]

While interviewing Spanish colonists, Martyr took note of their vicious treatment of Chicora Indians. However, he also included in his report that the Spanish colonists had a very good relationship with another nearby colony, which Martyr reported to be named Duhare.

Physically, the people of Duhare appeared to be European according to the Spanish colonists in the area. The people of Duhare had red to brown hair, tan skin and gray eyes, and were noticeably taller than the Spanish. According to Spanish accounts, the people of Duhare were Caucasian, though their houses and pottery were similar to those of American Indians. The king of Duhare was said to be named Datha and was described by the Spanish as being a giant, even when compared to his peers. He had five children and a wife as tall as him. Datha had brightly colored paint or tattoos on his skin that seemed to distinguish him from the commoners. …

[moose07]

Well St Brendan was Irish ,he is alleged to have found America in the late 5th century.
Tim Severen took a replica of his boat across the Atlantic and arrived intact.
It was a wooden frame with a leather outer skin. There were a few holes that had to be stitched up along the way.
If Tim Severen can do it, i’m sure St Brendan did. :)

[skimbell]

Eveybody knows that.

Where else would all of the beer cans on the beach have come from when Columbus landed?

[ArmyTeach]

I’m no antropolobist or historian, but I’ve always heard that the Norse were very capable seamen and explorers. From the Western tip of the Norse peninslas across to Greenland to farthest northern America. Cold that be possible?

[prof.h.mandingo]

Next census I get to be native American.

[ArmyTeach]

Deplorable speling. Poor poor proofreading. Apologies.

[Wallace T.]

If these white people were of Irish or Scandinavian origin, you would think the Spaniards would have recognized them. In the 16th Century, Gaelic predominated in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. That language, along with Norwegian and Danish, would have been heard in the Spanish ports, and Spanish sailors would have heard the languages in the various Irish, Danish, and Norwegian ports. My guess is these white people were paleo-Indians, who either migrated to North America along with the Northeast Asians who are the stereotypical American Indians or who migrated to this continent from Europe in prehistoric times.

[livius]

The Basques (from Spain) and the Irish were very good seamen and used to catch cod on the Grand Banks for centuries prior to the arrival o f Columbus. The Danes may have made it here for the same reason, possibly after having learned about it from their raids on the Irish. However, none of them appeared to want to settle - they’d catch their fish and go back home, sailing in little tiny hide boats.

It is believed that traces of these people found in North America were probably the survivors of the sinking of these little boats or simply people who had drifted here and couldn’t get back.

[Patriot Babe]

Shhhh there are alot of Mexicans with Irish ancestry.

[Rebelbase]

” they’d catch their fish and go back home, sailing in little tiny hide boats”

I guess they salted the fish? How else could they keep them in at least a month’s journey back to Europe?

[Vinylly]

They’ve actually found ancient encampments in North America which are believed to be Viking. They were fearsome marauders that decimated, murdered and pillaged the British Isles and were the greatest seamen at that time. The Irish druids did their share of pillaging as well but were not great seamen.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Olog-hai.

America B.C.
by Barry Fell
(1976)
find it in a nearby library

A fascinating letter I received from a Shoshone Indian who had been traveling in the Basque country of Spain tells of his recognition of Shoshone words over there, including his own name, whose Shoshone meaning proved to match the meaning attached to a similar word by the modern Basques. Unfortunately I mislaid this interesting letter. If the Shoshone scholar who wrote to me should chance to see these words I hope he will forgive me and contact me again. The modern Basque settlers of Idaho may perhaps bring forth a linguist to investigate matters raised in this chapter. [p 173]

There has never been any credible question about transoceanic voyages before Columbus, but there certainly has been a massive bias against the recognition of that fact. Humans, wherever they've lived, however they've looked, have always been willing and able to live somewhere else.

And duh! -- that's how they got anywhere to begin with.

[morphing libertarian]

Then were was the 16th century rail road?

[infowarrior]

I not sure Ireland had ships that could cross the Atlantic. Weren’t they Druids?

That would depend on exactly what you would classify as a "ship". Did the Irish build wooden ships, in the conventional sense? No, but they did build leather-hulled coracle over a wicker-like frame, and such are more seaworthy than many suppose.

Their own myths, and legends (which I remind you, are always founded in some truth), have them 'sailing' from one place to another, with nary a conventional sea-going vessel in sight. Ireland being an island, the inhabitants therein had to necessarily originally come by sea...

the infowarrior

[COBOL2Java]

Oh great. Another opportunity for Fauxohontas...

"See? See?! I was right all along! My ancestors were native Americans!! They came from Ireland! Faith n' Begorrah"

[Grimmy]

I tend to view the long standing bias to be a mix of the usual intellectual inbreeding of professional academia as well as a large dose of “presentism”.

The way I see it, a voyage of the sort under discussion here would be nearly impossible, as well as intolerably uncomfortable for grad students and their professors, therefore it could never have been done by anyone.

[SunkenCiv]

Plus, before the wonderful scientific Arab Moslems, no one ever had dared sail out of sight of the land. /s

[SunkenCiv]

The Petroglyph
What is 11 feet long and 4 feet wide and covered with ancient concentric circles, crosses and other patterns?
The massive petroglyph at Reinhardt University!
http://www.reinhardt.edu/funkheritage/highlights/rock.php

The mysterious Reinhardt boulder continues to baffle museum visitors
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-mysterious-reinhardt-boulder-continues-to-baffle-museum-visitors

New evidence links Early Bronze Age Ireland to the Southeastern United States
http://www.examiner.com/article/new-evidence-links-early-bronze-age-ireland-to-the-southeastern-united-states

[Claud]

L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is widely accepted by archaeologists as Norse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows

So there is not really any grounds for doubting that the Norse made it here around the Year of Our Lord 1000.

The Irish question is more complicated. To date no evidence of it has been found by modern researchers. However, the Norse sagas contain several references to the Irish or some other Europeans preceding them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvitramannaland

Who knows. I wouldn’t take the Voyage of St. Brendan as history per se, but wiser scholars than I have noticed it does betray a familiarity with the seas of the northern Atlantic.

About the supposed similarity between Basque and Shoshoni, I wouldn’t give that theory any credence unless it were backed up by not just a few shared roots but by a systematic grammatical comparison. Shoshoni is an Uto-Aztecan language with widespread roots in North America, including Aztec—its grammar is very well known.

[SunkenCiv]

The Viking settlement in Newfoundland is accepted by most, although there is plenty of hemming and hawing, such as, "they were only there a short time" and "this is the only example", or (my favorite) that after Columbus, America "stayed discovered". Columbus went to Iceland to gather more information before he started pitching the idea to crowned heads who had the financing he needed, found land, but remained sure for far too long that he was right about the much smaller than real circumference of the Earth.

I don't know what you mean about "modern researchers", all the research about PreColumbian transoceanic contact is from modern researchers.

from Iberia, Not Siberia:

Although questionable in the minds of most anthropologists, some linguistic evidence might point toward the Iberian Peninsula. In the 1960's, the Morris Swadesh in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, claimed he found a connection between the Nadene (Athasbascan) linguistic family of North America and the Basque linguistic isolate. This connection, he argued, dated back thousands of years. Basque is the only European language to have survived the influence of proto-Indo-European, which entered the Basque region more than 5,000 years ago. One can infer then that Basque language is at least 5,000 years old, and some argue it is far older. The Basque themselves contend they have survived in their homeland for tens of thousands of years. Though Swadesh has been criticized as a lumper when it comes to linguistic correlations, the claim is nonetheless intriguing under the circumstances. It should be noted that linguist Merritt Ruhlen recently reported to have located a language related to Nadene in Asia. Ket, the only remaining member of the Yeniseian family of languages, shares common words like "birch bark" with some Nadene languages. Ket is spoken by about 550 people (out of a total population of 1,100) who live along the Yenisei River in central Siberia (Lysek 2000).

[ExCTCitizen]

I believe it was discovered by the Vikings. In New England, we have places that the Vikings crested. Newport Tower for one.