this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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Imagine being told you "discovered" (from an Afro-Eurasian perspective) a new continent and just telling everyone you meet "No is the East Indies". Really blurs the line between stubborn and genocidal maniac.
You know, given exactly what he saw during his four voyages, I can kinda see it.
From the deck of a galleon, would you be able to tell the Caribbean islands from the Philippines if you'd never seen either one before? Maybe you'd mistake the Yucatan for Indonesia, and sail up and down the Gulf of Mexico thinking you're in the Gulf of Thailand, except for some reason you just can't find the Singapore Straight.
It's the time he found the Orinoco river delta, correctly deduced that a river that big can't flow from an island, that it has to be from a huge landmass, but...what huge landmass? They didn't know Australia was there, and if they did, he had a quadrant, he knew he was in the Northern hemisphere. Even New Guinea is a stretch given their latitude.