In the spring of 1503, a Florentine merchant named Amerigo Vespucci penned a letter that would fundamentally alter humanity's understanding of its place on the planet. Writing to his former patron Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici, Vespucci declared that the lands discovered by European navigators to the west were not the eastern edges of Asia, as Christopher Columbus had insisted until his death, but rather an entirely different continent. This document, published under the title Mundus Novus, contained the first explicit articulation in print of the hypothesis that these lands constituted a New World. Vespucci's words described a continent full of animals and more populous than Europe, Asia, or Africa, and even more temperate and pleasant than any other region known to the ancients. The letter was a publishing sensation in Europe, immediately and repeatedly reprinted in several countries, spreading the idea that the world was far larger and more complex than the classical geographers had ever imagined. Vespucci's realization came after a chance meeting at Bezeguiche, present-day Dakar, Senegal, where his expedition to chart the coast of Brazil encountered the ships of the Second Portuguese India armada returning from India. The contrast between the lands he had seen in the West and the tales of the East Indies convinced him that he was standing on a new continent, not the outskirts of the known world.
The Naming Of A Continent
The term New World did not appear in print until 1507, when the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published a map that famously labeled the area now called Brazil as America. This name was derived from the feminine form of the Latinized first name of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci, marking the first time the name appeared on a map. Waldseemüller's map, which accompanied the Cosmographiae Introductio volume, came closest to modernity by placing a completely open sea between Asia on the eastern side and the New World, with no stretching land fingers connecting them. The map depicted the New World two times in the same way, with and without a sea passage in the middle of what is now named Central America. Vespucci's influence was so profound that he was appointed the first piloto mayor, the chief of the navigation of Spain, following the Toro-Burgos conferences of 1505 and 1508. These conferences, assembled by the Spanish monarchs, aimed to digest all existing information about the Indies and set out future goals for Spanish exploration. Vespucci articulated his New World thesis to his fellow navigators, leading officials to accept that the Antilles and the known stretch of Central America were not the Indies as they had hoped. The term New World was not universally accepted, entering English only relatively late, and has more recently been subject to criticism for applying a colonial perspective of discovery.
For decades after Vespucci's letter, the geographic relationship between Europe and the Americas remained unclear, with many maps depicting a large open ocean between China and the newly discovered lands. The Cantino planisphere of 1502 and the Canerio map of 1504 placed a large open ocean between China on the east side of the map and the inchoate largely water-surrounded North American and South American discoveries on the western side. Some maps, such as the 1506 Contarini, Rosselli map and the 1508 Johannes Ruysch map, bowed to Ptolemaic authority and Columbus's assertions, showing the northern Asian landmass stretching well into the western hemisphere and merging with known North America. The western coast of the New World, including the Pacific Ocean, was discovered in 1513 by Vasco Núñez de Balboa, twenty years after Columbus's initial voyage. It was a few more years before the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan between 1519 and 1522 determined that the Pacific Ocean definitely formed a single large body of water that separates Asia from the Americas. Several years later, the Pacific Coast of North America was mapped, and the discovery of the Bering Straits in the early 18th century established that Asia and North America were not connected by land. Despite these discoveries, some European maps of the 16th century, including the 1533 Johannes Schöner globe, still continued to depict North America as connected by a land bridge to Asia.
The Three Sisters And The Columbian Exchange
The term New World is often used in agriculture to describe crops that were originally domesticated in the Americas before they spread worldwide after Columbian contact. Common beans, maize, and squash, known as the three sisters, were originally domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples in Mesoamerica. Agriculturalists in the Andean region of South America brought forth the cassava, peanut, potato, quinoa, and domesticated animals like the alpaca, guinea pig, and llama. Other New World crops include the sweetpotato, cashew, cocoa, rubber, sunflower, tobacco, and vanilla, and fruits like the guava, papaya, and pineapple. These crops did not exist in the Americas until they were introduced by post-Columbian contact in the 1490s. Many common crops were originally domesticated in the Americas before they spread worldwide, and are still often referred to as New World crops. The Columbian Exchange, the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World, fundamentally changed global agriculture and diet. The introduction of New World crops to Europe, Africa, and Asia revolutionized food production and population growth, while the introduction of Old World crops and animals to the Americas transformed the landscape and economy of the New World.
The Biological Divide
In a biological context, species can be divided into those in the Old World and those in the New World, with taxonomists often attaching the New World label to groups of species found exclusively in the Americas. New World monkeys, New World vultures, and New World warblers are examples of species that are distinguished from their counterparts in the Old World. The label is also used in wine terminology, where New World wines include not only North American and South American wines, but also those from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and all other locations outside the traditional wine-growing regions of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. The usefulness of these terms for wines has been questioned as arbitrary and too generalized. The biological distinction between Old World and New World species reflects the long period of isolation that existed between the continents before the Columbian Exchange. This isolation led to the evolution of unique species in the Americas, such as the diverse array of New World monkeys and the distinctive flightless birds of South America. The study of these species provides insight into the evolutionary history of the continents and the impact of human migration and trade on global biodiversity.
The Colonial Perspective
The term New World is still commonly employed when discussing historic spaces, particularly the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the subsequent European colonization of the Americas. It has been framed as being problematic for applying a colonial perspective of discovery and not doing justice to either the historic or geographic complexity of the world. The argument is that both worlds and the age of Western colonialism rather entered a new stage, as in the modern world. The term New World was introduced in the early 16th century, during Europe's Age of Discovery, by Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who published the pamphlet Mundus Novus, presenting his conclusion that the lands discovered west of the Atlantic Ocean constituted new continents. Since the 18th century, the term has come to represent the United States, which was initially colonial British America until it established independence following the American Revolutionary War. The second sense is now primary in English, but the term is open to uncertainties and has been subject to criticism for its colonial implications. The term New World reflects the European perspective of discovery and colonization, which often ignored the existing civilizations and cultures of the Americas. The term has been used to justify the exploitation of resources and the displacement of indigenous peoples, and its continued use is a subject of debate among historians and scholars.