[Pelham]

There had to have been contact between Europeans and North American Indians for years before Columbus. First the Viking colony of ‘Vinland’ during the Medieval Warm Epoch. And then Basques who had been providing Europe with cod from sources that they kept secret, but which were surely the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

[hanamizu]

There had to have been contact between Europeans and North American Indians for years before Columbus.

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You are right, of course. But the Viking contact was pretty limited—nothing at all like what happened in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. I have no doubt that the Basques were fishing the Grand Banks and likely drying their fish ashore. But I imagine there weren’t all that many Indians on the beaches where they dried their catch. Could be wrong, of course.

There has been speculation that Columbus may have caught word of the fishing grounds when he was trying to peddle his scheme in England. In any case, the Indians were pretty much doomed when Europeans started sailing the Atlantic. They were especially doomed when fertile land for growing sugar cane and later gold was discovered by the Spanish.