A eunuch discovered America.

[the_real_eunuch (imported)]

Many of you have probably heard of the Chinese eunuch Zheng He. According to this article he may have discovered America before Columbus.

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/primen ... 36,00.html

[JesusA (imported)]

I read enough in the history of the time and place to still believe it unlikely that Zheng He made it to the New World. Circum-navigating the earth seems even more unlikely. There is very good contemporary documentation of his voyages.They were certainly spectacular enough not to need any embroidery.

Northern Australia IS very likely as one of his destinations. He is documented in the Indonesian Archipelago. There were certainly Chinese fishermen in the area at the time (well documented) and there was some Chinese trade with the Australian Aborigines in Arnhem Land by the time of Zheng He.

I won’t repeat my comments from the thread started by Xan on this same topic a couple of months ago, but I added another post to that one to bring it up closer to this thread.

[the_real_eunuch (imported)]

I was not aware that a thread had already been started on this subject. Had I known I would have posted to that thread rather than start a new one.

If Zheng He made a voyage to the Americas I doubt that it will ever be possible to prove it. Any hard evidence of such a voyage would likely be lost to time.

[Riverwind (imported)]

I remember watching a History Channel type show about anchors found on the west coast of the Americas that were typical of ancient Chinese stones. They were round with a hole drilled through the middle; they were also used as balas. So I am not so sure that the Chinese did not visit the "new world" before the Columbus or other Europeans. Comments?

[Paolo]

While I am no scholar on oceanography or sailing, given the looks of the map of the Pacific and assuming good weather, it's entirely possible. There's plent of places where they could have made pit-stops.

Remember that many of the records of the voyages of the Eunuch Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho) were destroyed by non-Eunuch officials and a huge chunk of their adventures - not only our hero's - were lost to History.

[JesusA (imported)]

I finally got some more information on Gavin Menzies, whose ideas sparked this thread. He seems to suffer more from wishful thinking than anything else. A critical part of his argument is based on a "newly discovered" map which, so far, only he has ever seen.

There is no doubt among most contemporary archaeologists and historians that people crossed over the Atlantic and the Pacific before Columbus. The questions are who, when, where, and what the consequences were. The consequences were clearly VERY small in most cases. Even the Vikings who built a settlement in Newfoundland had almost no impact on either the native Indians or on the culture back in Europe from their discoveries. The Portuguese fishermen (among others) who exploited the great cod fishery off Newfoundland for at least 50 years before Columbus, and apparently had settlements on shore as well, had a bit more impact in Europe (though none discernable in the Americas) with their cheap and plentiful dried fish.

There is better evidence of impact from an early 15th century AFRICAN (from the Songhai Empire) expedition to the New World (probably to what is now Brazil). By the time European explorers described it in 1502, maize (corn) was the principle agricultural crop in parts of west Africa, at a time when it had barely entered Europe and maize was unknown to the Portuguese botanist who described it as native to Africa.

There were clearly Japanese fishermen blown off course and ending up as slaves of the Indians of the Northwest Coast (southern Alaska and British Columbia). The first European expeditions described them. The currents made it a one-way trip!

The "Chinese boat anchors" found in San Diego harbor are disputed, but probably real. The style of anchor was used at least as late as the early 1970s when I saw them in use in a Hong Kong fishing village. Dating them is impossible. Chinese drifting across the Pacific are certainly likely, though, given the direction of the currents. Consequences of culture contact don't seem to exist, however. Given the currents, there is little likelihood that any ever returned to China.

Menzies' idea that a fleet of over 100 Chinese ships with a crew of over 20,000 men (only a few would have been eunuchs), under the command of Admiral Zheng He, circumnavigated the globe, exploring west Africa and the east and west coasts of South America before returning to China seems difficult to believe. Europeans arrived only two generations later and found NO CONSEQUENCES of the "voyage." There is no evidence of any products from South America making it to China before the time of Columbus.

Zheng He was one of the greatest explorers and navigators of human history. There is no reason to exaggerate his already great accomplishments.