Did Native Americans Discover Europe First?

[alfredo]

Run time: 01:48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lKtIDm_v10   Posted on YouTube: October 23, 2009 By YouTube Member: UCDavis Views on YouTube: 3311   Posted on DU: November 24, 2011 By DU Member: alfredo Views on DU: 2086

 

[Peregrine]

1. Technically, Homo Erectus

from Africa discovered Europe first as well as Asia.

[provis99]

9. heh. You said "homo erectus".

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I think the vikings brought them back with them from Vinland.

Skrællings and all that.

[Abin Sur]

3. Even if they did (I'm skeptical, mind you), it's not as if it *matters*.

When Europeans discovered the Americas, they were able to colonize the landmasses and impose their will upon the natives because of their technological superiority. Even if a few Native Americans somehow managed to make it to Europe before 1492, there wasn't the slightest chance that they would have the any significant influence on the European people.

[MarkCharles]

4. Technologically advanced, (as in weaponry), yes, but the first Mayflower

folks were rather ill-fortuned, and unaware of climate and food availability arriving in Provincetown, Cape Cod then on to Plymouth a few days later, they arrived late in the fall, with few provisions to withstand and Northeastern winter, and scant plants and only fish in the salt waters available to them for that winter.

Over half of the original 102 or so Mayflower passengers were dead two years later, most from starvation and poor diet.

Were it not for the Native Americans in the areas around Plymouth, perhaps all would have perished of starvation that first winter. Of course, in the years that followed, the newly arrived Europeans managed to push back, infect, shoot, or otherwise diminish the number of their native cohabitants in up and down the coast.

Various illnesses, to which the natives had no immunity probably were the most destructive force in the first 100 years, as more and more Europeans settled on the East Coast from Cape Bretton, Nova Scotia to Florida.

[Abin Sur]

5. I was actually thinking of the Spanish, not the first English settlers.

As for technology, it wasn't just weaponry; Europeans had more advanced technology in virtually every field, from transportation (which allowed them to sail there in the first place) to the blast furnace (which allowed iron to be produced in significant quantities) to the printing press, etc.

The only question by 1500 wasn't whether or not the Americas would be controlled by Europeans, but rather which Europeans.

[alfredo]

6. Where do you think Haggis came from?

As yet the Scots have not caught onto the joke.

[Mosaic]

7. Take away the weapons

And the "superior" monkey is not so superior anymore.

[Abin Sur]

8. Not just weapons. European technology ca. 1500 was superior

to that of the natives of North and South America across the board.

The printing press. Patent law. Architecture. Mining. Metallurgy. Water pumps. The astrolabe. Dry docks. Navigation sufficient to cross the Atlantic. Galleons. Steel.

Need I go on?

[L. Coyote]

10. UC Davis scholar Jack Forbes advocated for indigenous peoples

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9789

February 25, 2011
Jack Forbes, acclaimed author, activist and professor emeritus of Native American studies at the University of California, Davis, died Feb. 23 at Sutter Davis Hospital. He was 77.

.............

In 1966, Forbes wrote an article titled “An American Indian University: A Proposal for Survival,” published in the Journal of American Indian Education. Colleagues recall that the article, which set forth a proposal for an indigenous peoples university, helped ignite the tribal college movement.

From Forbes’ vision, Degoniwida-Quetzalcoatl University was founded in 1971, several miles west of UC Davis. The school, better known as D-Q University, was the first all-Native American college in California and the second tribal college in the United States. Today there are 35 tribal colleges that enroll approximately 33 percent of the nation’s Native American postsecondary population, according to Crum. D-Q University offered a two-year program until it closed in 2005. Forbes served on the board of D-Q University and taught there on a volunteer basis for more than 25 years.

In addition to his teaching, research and advocacy work, Forbes was a prolific writer. His numerous books, monographs and articles represented his path-finding scholarship and reflected the events and issues of the times in which they were written.

His book, “Columbus and Other Cannibals” (1992) .....