Putting this into perspective, the history of North America that began with Columbus and Cabot, represents less than one and a half percent of our actual history; the remaining 98.5% belongs to the First Nations. This certainly disputes any European claim to land based on the "Right of Discovery", and since Cabot did not have to "subdue" any of the original inhabitants (though he supposedly captured fifty of them that he sold as slaves) the "Right of Conquest" theory is also bunk.
But did he discover Newfoundland, as some have suggested? Not even close. Archaeologists have verified that a group of people that they refer to as from Maritime Archaic Tradition, discovered the little island about 4000 years ago. Their migration into the region was slow, given the strong currents and savage winds of the Strait of Belle Isle; but the culture of the 'Red Paint People' persisted in Newfoundland until about 1200 B.C., when it suddenly disappeared.
Newfoundland was rediscovered about 800 years later, by a culture that anthropologists have identified as the Dorset Eskimo. The Dorsets migrated from Greenland and Baffin Island, following seal herds and fish stocks which were retreating southward in the advance of a mini ice-age which occurred around this time. Evidence of their occupation of the island has been well documented and we know that they stuck around until about 750 C.E., when they too disappeared.
There is also a claim that the island may have been visited by St. Brendan, during his seven year voyage to the "new world" with a small band of zealous monks, in the sixth century. Though the chronicles of St. Brendan's voyage are said to be pure myth, there is an Eskimo legend that strange men "dressed in white" were encountered by them about that time.
This brings us to the next people recorded as "discovering" and inhabiting Newfoundland. Known as the Boethuck or Boethic Indians, they thrived on the island for more than a thousand years (sadly hunted to extinction by 1829). It is believed that they were inhabiting the region in 985 C.E., when the Viking Bjarni Herjolfsson drifted off course and his tales of the "new land" inspired Leif Eiriksson, the son of Eric the Red, (a Viking outlaw who had been exiled from Iceland to Greenland for killing two men), to head up a voyage there, follwed by his stepsister Freydis. The Vikings raided the island often for timber and fish, until they were eventually driven off by the local people; who'd had enough.
As early as 1372 Spanish records show that Basque whalers were paying taxes to the Spanish crown on whales they took in Labrador and Newfoundland waters and some evidence suggests that Basque whalers had permanent fishing settlements in Newfoundland and Labrador a hundred years before Columbus or Cabot set out on their voyages of "discovery." As a matter of fact, Columbus consulted Basque captains in the Azores a year before he made his voyage, and Cabot was also well acquainted with Basque sailors.
Another pre-Cabot or Columbus expedition took place about 1460, when King Ferdinand I of Portugal petitioned Christian I, the king of Denmark-Norway, to launch a joint expedition to the north Atlantic in search of a "Northwest Passage" to "Cathay." As a result, two Portuguese noblemen, Joao Vaz Cortereal and Alvaro Martins Homen, accompanied a Danish captain and a Norwegian pilot named
John Scolvus, who had intimate knowledge of the northwestern Atlantic.
They set sail westward Iceland to Greenland, then southward along the Labrador coast. In 1476 they reached Newfoundland, which the Portuguese Joao Vaz Cortereal named "Terra do Bacalhao" or "Codfish Country." When they returned to Portugal, they gave a detailed account of their "discovery" which was widely circulated throughout the European courts.
This brings us to John Cabot and his sons, who claimed to have "discovered New Found Land"; though they were a few thousand years too late. I'd love to credit the man with something, since he has so many things named after him, but I really can't find a thing that he did first. Apparently he loved to wear silk, so maybe he was the first man to have the waves off the shores of Newfoundland wet his his silk drawers. Can we put that on a monument? At least there's a slight chance that it could be true.
