Chinese Map Claim Says Zheng He Discovered America

Chinese lawyer and art collector Liu Gang bought an 18th century map of the Americas back in 2001, which is purported to be a copy of a 1418 map. After reading Gavin Menzies’ bestseller 1421: the Year China Discovered America, he said at a news conference last week, “This map embodies information I believe will help us understand Zheng He’s seventh voyage. The map shows us the Chinese explorer has been to America years before Columbus. The map also shows us the Chinese understanding of the entire world.” Maybe, but a Chinese discovery of America? No.

Zheng was a Muslim eunuch in the service of Emperor Zhu Di, and undertook seven voyages as leader of the Star Fleet from 1405 to 1433. However, these trips were to Eastern Africa, which are still quite amazing feats of navigation. The Chinese records suggest that the Star Fleet had 300 ships under sail and 30,000 men on board. Chinese imperial politics and Mongol pressure from the north halted the treasure ships’ voyages after about 1425.

Not everyone is convinced that Mr. Liu’s map is authentic. “I’m inclined to think that it’s a fake,” Geoff Wade, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore, told Reuters. “There’s absolutely no evidence that the Zheng He voyages went anywhere past the east coast of Africa.” Mr. Liu, who says his insurance company won’t let him take the original out of the vault in which is resides, has produced only a copy of the copy – making the reed on which is argument rests ever thinner.

Nonetheless, around 1,000 AD (or CE is one is being politically correct), a young fellow named Leif Erikson left Greenland and sailed west. He and a few of his pals settled in Vinland, which has been shown to be near L'Anse aux Meadows, the northernmost point of Newfoundland, Canada. The settlement consisted of 8 buildings, including a smelter and forge. And as Ole told Sven one day as they came out to fish on a September morning in 1001, “there sure are a lot of natives around here.”

Enough. America was discovered by a nameless man or woman who walked across the Bering Strait land bridge several thousand years ago. Claiming that Zheng He, or Columbus, or Leif Erikson discovered America is a bit like saying Richard Nixon discovered China in 1972. As everyone knows, Pearl S. Buck beat him to it.


© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home