Happy Birthday, America

A reassessment of the naming of the American continent. By Seymour Schwartz ’57M (Res)

NAMING CONVENTION: The first map to use the name Amerigo Vespucci to identify the Western Hemisphere was published in 1507 by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. The original map measures 34 square feet.

April 25, 2007, marked the 500th anniversary of the naming of America—an occasion that has been almost totally neglected by the United States of America, the one nation that has adopted the name as part of its formal designation.

The first time it was appreciated that the momentous naming of continental land in the Western Hemisphere had been neglected was in July 1911. Albert Lebrun, France’s minister of the colonies, and Robert Bacon, the United States ambassador to France, unveiled a plaque in the city of St. Dié in Alsace-Lorraine.

The plaque marked the “baptismal house of America.” The event took place after a journalist, Charles Heinrich, called attention to the fact that the 400th anniversary of the naming of America had been overlooked in 1907.

The date of birth of “America” was specifically imprinted as the equivalent of April 25, 2007, in the current Gregorian calendar. The printing was the result of an initiative by the reigning monarch of the Duchy of Lorraine, Duke René II, who had assembled a group of scholars and created the Gymnase Vosgiens to consider scientific matters, particularly cosmography—the term then applied to the study of the universe, including astronomy and geography.

The selection of the name “America” was related to timing of two small publications, with which the scholars at the Gymnase Vosgiens were well acquainted. The documents were ascribed to Amerigo Vespucci and offered information that was so revolutionary and chronologically specific that the group of Christian scholars selected the Christian name of the purported explorer to designate newly discovered land in the Western Hemisphere.

The first of the influential publications bears the title Mundus Novus (New World), and probably was first published in Florence in early 1503. The text defined the existence of a new “continent,” south of the equator, across the Atlantic Ocean, west of Europe. The declaration of the existence of a “New World” was truly revolutionary, and the excitement of the readers was amplified by the idyllic descriptions of the geography and the ethnographic description of the people, including their sexual activities, “driven by their excessive lust to corrupt and prostitute all their modesty.”

Although Mundus Novus introduced Vespucci’s name to the scholars at St. Dié, it was the second book ascribed to Vespucci, Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuovamente trovate in Quattro suoi viaggi (Letter of Amerigo Vespucci Concerning islands newly Discovered on his Four Voyages), that cemented his reputation for the group.

Lettera reported four voyages—two under the flag of Spain and two for the King of Portugal—Amerigo Vespucci made to the Western Hemisphere. The most critical declaration of the narrative relates to the so-called First Voyage that, according to the text, was conducted for Spain from May 10, 1497, to October 15, 1498, and was highlighted by a landing on the Paria peninsula of South America a year before Columbus landed in the same region.

In Mundus Novus the concept of a New World in the Western Hemisphere was introduced. This conclusion differed significantly from those of Columbus and Cabot, who believed that their discoveries were an extension of the Orient. In Lettera, it is specifically stated that Vespucci was the first to set foot on continental land in the New World.

As a consequence of this declaration, the scholars at St. Dié proceeded to honor Amerigo Vespucci by assigning his name to the land that he supposedly discovered.

Decades after Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were laid to rest, Vespucci emerged as the object of intense vilification. Accused of stealing the glory due Columbus, many also concluded that Vespucci intentionally falsified his report to conceal the fact that Columbus was the first to discover the mainland.

The vitriol directed at Vespucci continued into the 19th century. In English Traits, Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to Vespucci as a thief, a pickle dealer who “managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and Baptize half the earth with his dishonest name.”

Recently, the role of Amerigo Vespucci has been reassessed—particularly in light of three manuscripts discovered in the middle of the 18th and early 19th century. These letters—translations of documents that had originally been written by Vespucci himself—provide the correct date for the landing of Vespucci on South America a year after Columbus.

Professor Alberto Magnaghi, one of the foremost authorities on the life of Vespucci, has designated both Mundus Novus and Lettera as forgeries. In addition to Vespucci’s letters, he provides evidence that the Lettera could not have been the work of Vespucci—the addressee was in the political camp that opposed Vespucci’s patron. The philologist George Tyler Nothrup concludes that the descriptions were pirated from actual letters, and altered and amplified.

The naming of America was equivalent to a baptism. It was the assignment of a Christian name by the Christian world to land recently discovered by Christian explorers. The priestly finger at the baptismal ceremony was replaced by Gutenberg’s recently invented movable type, and printer’s ink substituted for holy water. “America,” the name conferred on the continent 500 years ago in Alsace-Lorraine, remains a notable name with a humble, if not inappropriate, genesis.