Was an Irish monk the first European to find America?

Although Columbus is often thought to be the first European in America, an Irish monk may have reached the New World in the sixth century. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the fact and fiction surrounding St. Brendan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I am editor Candice Gipson, joined as always by staff
writer Joshua M clark. Hiere, josh, what's on your mind?

(00:21):
But burning questions? Do you have for me today? Well?
You know, um, let me give a little leading. First
of all, you don't pressure me here, Sorry about that.
I'd like to get to the point. I know you do.
I know you do. I loved to meander and say
a lot. Have you noticed I don't know if you've noticed.
I like to say indeed, yes, I like to say agreed,
aren't we special? Well, anyway, as you know, I wrote

(00:44):
How Cannibalism Works recently, and one of the points in
the article was about Columbus saying that he'd, you know,
come across cannibals well, when he made a land in
in the Caribbean, um, and he met some a wax
speaking people and supposedly another tribe that may or may
not have actually existed. The Caribs were um cannibals supposedly right, um.

(01:10):
And the whole thing kind of reminded me of this.
I'm kind of irked. Let me. Just put it this way,
I'm kind of irked that we have Columbus Day, that
this one person is celebrated for discovering America when actually,
you know, Columbus may have been the first European to
come across America, but clearly there were people already living there,

(01:34):
at least the aarra Wax, if not more people, and
there were more people. Do you know about the Clovis people? Oh?
You do? Huh? I do. Supposedly they took a land
bridge and meandered all the way down from up in
the Alaska region, Is that right? Yeah, that's well, that's
one theory. They may have also come from South America
and gone north. We're not entirely certain. But we do

(01:55):
know is that you know these that humans have been
in North America at least for eleven thousand, five hundred years,
if not, if not longer. And being a very empirical people,
we expect that the scholars and scientists and anthropologists who
purport these theories of America's first discover what have you,
produce tangible evidence of their presence. And that's one of

(02:17):
the things that UM elevates. The Clovis and the fact
that they could have been the first Americans. And that's
that they left behind little arrowheads. Know that they were there.
That's how they're that's how they're known. And they can
just pop up out of nowhere and then disappear out
of nowhere. There their arrowheads turned up in the fossil
record and then disappear again. Um. And they're very mysterious.

(02:38):
But there, I guess we know that Clovis were the
first people, but which way they came from is in dispute.
So you know there were already American Indians here when
when Columbus arrived? Um? And I think the thing that
that excites my ires that you know, people say Columbus
discovered America when actually Columbus may have been the first

(03:00):
European to come across the New World, but even then
he was only the first European to go to Central America.
When you're talking North America, you have to say that
it was Cabodo, an Italian explorer, who actually was the
first European to make land in North America. Did you
know that you did? Okay, so you could say it

(03:23):
was Cabodo who was the first European to discover North America.
But that's wrong as well. Actually, the first Europeans to
discover North America were the Vikings. Did you know that?
Is that fact? That's a fact, isn't it. I don't
know that. I entirely agree with you. Oh yeah, well
who was here before the Vikings? Then? Actually, Josh, some

(03:44):
scholars believe that there was a seafaring monk from Ireland
who made it before the Vikings. I'm not sure that
your Viking theory is all that fact to all. Well, okay,
the Vikings left evidence behind um at a place in
uh in Canada, and I think Nova scotiould call what
lawnzo meadow. I think your your French accent is much

(04:06):
better than mine, right, is that right? Yeah? Okay? Good? Um?
And that was about one thousand C right. So when
would this monk have come. He supposedly came in the
sixth century, and he was a rather ambitious monk. His
name was St. Brendan, and he decided one day that
he was going to go fine the Promised Land, the

(04:28):
sort of exciting special place that monks knew existed, and
his paradise on Earth. And um, after seven years he
found it. He found this land of it was vastly
full of landforms and gems and fruits. There were rivers
and volcanoes, and it was such a massive piece of

(04:49):
land that after walking across it for forty days, they
still weren't the other end of it yet. Okay, So,
but I mean this could have been anywhere, right, Yeah,
it could have, except that marine biologist in the nineteen
eighties found petroglyphs in West Virginia. The head Oh, I'm sorry,
they're rock carvings. He found these rock carvings inscribed with

(05:12):
a type of ancient Irish writing, and when he translated it,
according to his interpretation, it was a story as an activity.
What I know, I know. So who else but a
seafaring Irish monk, deeply penitent and religious would have carved
into a rock the story of the Nativity. Okay, so
then that's it. That's the Irish monk beat the vikings

(05:35):
when it wasn't everybody know this well, because a lot
of people are unsure if the accounts are really true.
He wrote a book, He wrote a treaty about his travels.
The Irish Monk did the travels of St. Brendan. And
when people rediscovered this book and the ninth century, they
thought quite frankly, it was sort of faction. You know.
There were stuff that was pretty straightforward, like the river

(05:57):
is this long and wide according to my eyes, But
there were other more fantastical detail like, um, he delivered
communion on the back of a whale. Yeah, I guess
it could happen. Yeah, if the whale was very willing. Yeah,
the well would have had to holl Is pretty still
for communion. But because it was so deeply infused with

(06:19):
biblical references and allegories, people were less inclined to believe it,
because again, it wasn't just empirical data. It told the
story of a religious experience. But as far as the
Vikings being in America, first, apparently there were reports that
when American Indians saw the Vikings it was sort of
old hat did down. They're like, yes, you're white. We

(06:42):
have seen people if you're kind before and must have
been the Irish. Apparently these people could speak languages. It
sounded pretty similar to Irish. We would the Vikings have
recognized the Irish language? They would have. They certainly would
have because they lived in close proximity to the Irish
precisely precisely, but where a lot of people take real

(07:02):
issue with. The story is not necessarily about religion at
about technology. They asked, how could an Irish monk have
built seacraft that would have withstood the rough waters of
the seas to make it all the way to North America.
The Vikings were, you know, the earliest explorers. By all accounts,
they had like shipbuilding down and as far as I know,
nobody really had an ocean going vessel up to that

(07:26):
point before the Vikings. So, I mean, how could an
Irish monk have gotten to North America. It's a pretty
long voyage, right it is. And not to confuse the
matter too much, I was sort of reminded of an
argument and another article that I researched and wrote about
the Easter Islanders. And these were essentially Polynesians who fashioned

(07:48):
very simple, dugout wooden boats. And there are two theories
behind the Easter Islanders. Either they came from the tip
of South America or they came from Micronesia to settle
Easter Island. Either way, it's a really, really long way away.
If they came from the tip of South America, we're
talking approximately two thousand, two d ninety miles. They came

(08:09):
from Polynesia. We're talking about a thousand miles and this
was about two centuries before St. Brendan. So again I
don't know if this is a relevant point or not,
because it's not as though the Easter Islanders would have
been in touch with them. They weren't exactly pen pals,
but people were thinking up seafaring technology. What's more, when

(08:30):
they traveled, it was during the midst of what was
an Elmino like weather pattern, so they weren't, you know,
sailing the Placid seas. They were up against really rough
winds and rainstorm and St. Brendan ship would have been
a little bit more complex, supposedly was you know, it
was a wooden frame that it was covered in ox
hide and waterproofed with tar, so it would have been

(08:50):
a little bit more stable than these people sea craft.
And then there was a guy back in six to
Severn who decided he was going to try to recreate
the journey to see if a would be done in
a very primitive seacraft. Did he make it? He did?
He did. He did in the same kind of boat
that St. Brendan supposedly, so it is theoretically possible that

(09:11):
an Irish monk did make it to America. It certainly is.
That is fascinating. I know, I know, and I have
one more fascinating tidbid for you. What tell me? To
be honest? I don't know how do you see this is?
But I'm part Irish. Um, I'm no second cousin to
Roma Downey, but my grandmother's maiden name was O'Brien, and
I have a fiery temper to prove it well. At
least do you answer whether or not it was the

(09:33):
Vikings who were the first to discover America. First European
said is so thanks for that? You are very welcome,
And if you want to clear it up even more,
you can read was an Irish monk the first European
to find America? On how stuff works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
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(09:54):
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