America
& the Story of Amerigo Vespucci
Created by Robert Martinez
Primary Content by Joy Hakim, A History of US, The First Americans
Images as cited.
http://www.theposter.com/media/B_2540_AMERIGO_VESPUCCI.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/webpics/Amerigo_Vespucci.jpg
Christopher Columbus did all the
discovering, yet it was Amerigo whose
name got put on the land. History isn’t
always fair.
http://www.education.mcgill.ca/EDEE-382B-01/mccaig/project/newworld.jpg
Now Amerigo was an adventurer just
like Columbus. He made several trips
across the ocean and went way down
the coast of South America.
http://www.oppisworld.de/philo/vespucci.html
But what made him famous was that he
wrote about his trips. His letters were so
fascinating that everyone wanted to
read them. And, thanks to Gutenberg’s
printing press, many people did.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleanandsolid/2789081514/
► Amerigo
Vespucci did something else
that was important. He understood that
there was a huge continent over here, a
continent new to Europeans, and he said
so in his writings. He called it a “New
World.” Remember, Columbus thought
he had discovered a shortcut to India.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/explorers/americus-vespucius.jpg
Vespucci was a practical businessman
whose hobbies were mathematics,
sailing, and reading. While Columbus was
dreaming of his shortcut to China,
Vespucci looked at the land of South
America with an open mind.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/eviau/edit557/vespucci/dan/V's%202&3%20voyIllustrated.gif
“In those southern parts,” he wrote, “I
have found a continent more densely
peopled and abounding in animals than
our Europe or Asia or Africa.” He could
see that it was a vast continent and that
it wasn’t China.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejourney1972/3386270644/
A man named Martin Waldseemuller
actually named America. He was a
printer and mapmaker who was
fascinated by Vespucious’s letters.
http://www.mgar.net/images2/wald.jpg
► He
said, “Americus Vespucius has first
related without exaggeration of a people
living toward the south, almost under
the antarctic pole…..”
http://www.indiana.edu/~r317doc/dr/gif/taino.jpg
► “…[They]
go around entirely naked, and
not only offer to their king the heads of
their enemies who they have killed, but
also feed eagerly on the flesh of the
conquered foes.”
http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/District75/default.htm
You can see why these reading were so
interesting to people at the time. In 1507
Waldseemuller printed a huge world
map, and on it he put a new continent.
http://www.aerenlund.dk/helte/images/waldseemuller_map.jpg
Waldseemuller used information from
the voyages of Columbus and Vespucci
to make the map. He decided to put the
name America on the southern
continent, since Amerigo had written
about it.
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2007/10/01/20071001_america_2.jpg
His map was the most up-to-date and
reliable one around. Many people bought
it. Six years later Waldseemuller made a
new map. This time he didn’t think it was
such a good idea to call the new land
America….He left the name off….
http://www.waidev2.com/php/IMAGES/HC_TV_Program_Info/2065---Image.jpg
….but it was too late. People were
already using it, and it stuck. Amazing,
isn’t it, how fickle history can be?
http://a1259.g.akamai.net/f/1259/5586/5d/images.art.com/images/-/Americas-Map-with-Palms--C11790225.jpeg