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THE NAMING OF AMERICA: FRAGMENTSWE'VE SHORED AGAINST OURSELVES

BY JONATHAN COHEN

The name America (applied to present-day Brazil) appeared forwhat is believed the first time on Martin Waldseemüller's 1507world map, known as the Baptismal Certificate of the New World,and also America's Birth Certificate. More »

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América, no invoco tu nombre en vano[America, I don't invoke your name in vain] Pablo Neruda, Canto General

AMERICA, we learn as schoolchildren, was named in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, forhis discovery of the mainland of the New World. We tend not to question this lessonabout the naming of America. By the time we are adults it lingers vaguely in most of us,along with images of wave-tossed caravels and forests peopled with naked cannibals.

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Not surprisingly, the notion that America was named for Vespucci has long beenuniversally accepted, so much so that a lineal descendant, America Vespucci, came toNew Orleans in 1839 and asked for a land grant "in recognition of her name andparentage." Since the late 19th century, however, conflicting ideas about the truth of thederivation have been set forth with profound cultural and political implications. Toquestion the origin of America's name is to question the nature of not only our historylessons but our very identity as Americans.

Traditional history lessons about the discovery of America also raise questions about themeaning of discovery itself. It is now universally recognized that neither Vespucci norColumbus "discovered" America. They were of course preceded by the pre-historicAsian forebears of Native Americans, who migrated across some ice-bridge in theBering Straits or over the stepping stones of the Aleutian Islands. A black Africandiscovery of America, it has been argued, took place around 3,000 years ago, andinfluenced the development of Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations. The records ofScandinavian expeditions to America are found in sagas — their historic cores encrustedwith additions made by every storyteller who had ever repeated them. The IcelandicSaga of Eric the Red, the settler of Greenland, which tells how Eric's son Leif came toVinland, was first written down in the second half of the 13th century, 250 years afterLeif found a western land full of "wheatfields and vines"; from this history emerged afanciful theory in 1930 that the origin of "America" is Scandinavian: Amt meaning"district" plus Eric, to form Amteric, or the Land of (Leif) Eric.

Other Norsemen went out to the land Leif had discovered; in fact, contemporaryadvocates of the Norse connection claim that from around the beginning of the 11thcentury, North Atlantic sailors called this place Ommerike (oh-MEH-ric-eh), an OldNorse word meaning "farthest outland." (This theory is currently being promoted bywhite supremacists of the so-called Christian Party, who are intent on preserving thenation's Nordic character, and who argue that the Norse Ommerike derives from theGothic Amalric, which, according to them, means "Kingdom of Heaven.") But mostnon-Scandinavians were ignorant of these sailors' bold exploits until the 17th century,and what they actually found was not seriously discussed by European geographers untilthe 18th century. Further, other discoveries of America have been credited to the Irishwho had sailed to a land they called Iargalon, the land beyond the sunset, and to thePhoenicians who purportedly came here before the Norse. The 1497 voyage by JohnCabot to the Labrador coast of Newfoundland constitutes yet another discovery of theAmerican mainland, which led to an early 20th-century account of the naming ofAmerica, recently revived, that claims the New World was named after an Englishman(Welshman, actually) called Richard Amerike.

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And yet, despite the issue of whodiscovered America, we are stillconfronted with the awesome fact thatit was the voyages of Columbus, andnot earlier ones, that changed thecourse of world history. Indeed, asTzvetan Todorov, author of TheConquest of America (1984; tr.Richard Howard), has argued, "Theconquest of America … heralds andestablishes our present identity; even ifevery date that permits us to separate

any two periods is arbitrary, none is more suitable, in order to mark the beginning of themodern era, than the year 1492, the year Columbus crosses the Atlantic Ocean."Columbus clearly made a monumental discovery in showing Europe how to sail acrossthe Atlantic; Vespucci's great contribution was to tell Europe that the land Columbushad found was not Asia but a New World (and that a western route to Asia involved yetanother ocean beyond it). The naming of America, then, becomes essential to a fullunderstanding of our history and cultural values — ourselves — especially whenconsidered in terms of the range of theories about the origin of the name.

The Maya Connection

The most explosive, haunting, almost credible etymology — the so-called Amerriquetheory which was first advanced in 1875 — reappeared in the late 1970s in an essay byGuyanan novelist Jan Carew, titled "The Caribbean Writer and Exile." Here Carewfocuses on the identity struggle of Caribbeans who are "subject to successive waves ofcultural alienation from birth — a process that has its origins embedded in a mosaic ofcultural fragments — Amerindian, African, European, Asian." He adds that "theEuropean fragment is brought into sharper focus than the others, but it remains afragment." It is in his discussion of this European fragment that he turns to the earlyhistorical accounts written by "European colonizers, about their apocalyptic intrusioninto the Amerindian domains" — histories which, he argues, are largely fictions"characterized, with few exceptions, by romantic evasions of truth and voluminousomissions."

Carew moves from the "fictions" of Columbus to those of Vespucci with these strikingwords: "Alberigo Vespucci, and I deliberately use his authentic Christian name, aFlorentine dilettante and rascal, corrected Columbus's error [thinking he had found theOrient] … Vespucci, having sailed to the American mainland declared that whatColumbus had indeed stumbled on was a New World." Carew then alludes to Vespucci'sfamous letters about his voyages (more later about these controversial letters), whichcaused a great stir throughout Europe when they were published in the early 1500s. Inthem Vespucci "invented a colonizer's America, and the reality that is ours neverrecovered from this literary assault and the distortions he inflicted upon it" because "thefiction of a 'virgin land' inhabited by savages, at once a racist one and a contradiction,remains with us to this day." But Carew, in developing his own fiction which deriveslargely from a fanciful 19th-century treatise, goes on to say: "Amerigo [sic] wasundoubtedly a Florentine dilettante … [and] an extraordinarily clever one. Why wouldhe otherwise have changed his Christian name after his voyages to the Americas?"

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Carew is resurrecting the ideas of Jules Marcou, a prominent French geologist whowhile studying North America argued, as did other 19th-century writers, that the nameAmerica was brought back to Europe from the New World; and that Vespucci hadchanged his name to reflect the name of his discovery. Specifically, Marcou introducedthe name of an Indian tribe and of a district in Nicaragua called Amerrique, and assertedthat this district — rich in gold — had been visited by both Columbus and Vespucci,who then made this name known in Europe (see Marcou's map). For both explorers thewords Amerrique and gold became synonymous. Subsequently, according to Marcou'saccount, Vespucci changed his Christian name from Alberico to Amerigo. Carew citesMarcou to back his claim that "in the archives of Toledo, a letter from Vespucci to theCardinal dated December 9, 1508, is signed Amerrigo with the double 'r' as in the IndianAmerrique … and between 1508 and 1512, the year in which Vespucci died, at least twoother signatures with the Christian name Amerrigo were recorded." (See Marcou's 1875article in the Atlantic Monthly and his more elaborate work published subsequently inthe Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution [1890].)

Like Marcou, Carew wants us to believe that America was notnamed after Vespucci, but vice versa; that Vespucci had, so tospeak, re-named himself after his discovery, gilding his givenname by modifying it to reflect the significance of his discovery.For Carew, however, the "truth" he found in his reading of historybecomes a source of rage: "Robbing peoples and countries of theirindigenous names was one of the cruel games that colonizersplayed with the colonized…. To rob people or countries of theirnames is to set in motion a psychic disturbance which can in turncreate a permanent crisis of identity. As if to underline this fact, thetheft of an important place-name from the heartland of theAmericas and the claim that it was a dilettante's Christian name robs the original nameof its elemental meaning."

And what of this elemental meaning? To define it Carew echoes Marcou, who quotesfrom his correspondence with Augustus Le Plongeon. An imaginative anthropologiststudying the Mayan culture in Yucatan, Le Plongeon had written to the French scholar:"The name AMERICA or AMERRIQUE in the Mayan language means, a country ofperpetually strong wind, or the Land of the Wind, and sometimes the suffix '-ique' and '-ika' can mean not only wind or air but also a spirit that breathes, life itself."

All this leads Carew to conclude that "we must, therefore, reclaim the name of ourAmerica and give it once again its primordial meaning, land of the wind, thefountainhead of life and movement." His assertions concerning the name and its origindemand closer scrutiny, for in his passion to dispel myths he has created new ones.

Vespucci's Good Name

First of all, Vespucci's name must be cleared. He has been wrongfully portrayed as acrafty opportunist ever since the mid-16th century when Bartholomew de Las Casasaccused him of being a liar and a thief who stole the glory that belonged to Columbus."The new continent," insisted Las Casas, "should have been called Columba and not asit is unjustly called, America." In his epoch-making History of the Indies, Las Casasdemeans Vespucci and his achievement, slandering his name by describing what he (afriend of Columbus and his family) considered "the long premeditated plan of Vespucci

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to have the world acknowledge him as the discoverer of the largest part of the Indies."Vespucci's unfounded bad reputation persisted here throughout the 19th century. One ofthe climaxes of vilification was attained by Emerson, who comments in English Traits(1856): "Strange … that broad America must wear the name of a thief. AmerigoVespucci, the pickledealer at Seville, who went out, in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda,and whose highest naval rank was boat-swain's mate in an expedition that never sailed,managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptize half the earth with hisown dishonest name." Vespucci was not the man described by Las Casas and Emerson,nor was he simply "an unimportant Florentine merchant," as he is described in the 1992edition of Compton's Encyclopedia "published [by a Division of EncyclopediaBritannica] with the editorial advice of the faculties of the University of Chicago."

Vespucci was born in 1454 in Florence, where he wasbaptized, according to the official record, "Amerigho" —not, as Carew asserts, Alberigo. The use of the formAmerigho for Amerigo is an instance of the orthographicanarchy that existed in the spelling of proper names. Thename Amerigo derives from an old Gothic name, Amalrich.In all its forms found in Europe (Greek "Aimulos," Latin"Aemelius") the underlying meaning was that of work.Amalrich, which literally meant work ruler, or designator oftasks, might be freely translated as master workman. OldGerman forms of the name were Amalrich, Almerich,Emmerich; the Spanish form was Almerigo; in England itwas Almerick, or Merica in old families in Yorkshire. It

appeared in feminine forms in Amelia and Emily; its masculine forms were Amery,Emeric, and Emery. But as Charlotte Mary Yonge wrote in her History of ChristianNames (1884), it was "the Italian form, Amerigo, which was destined to the most noteduse … which should hold fast that most fortuitous title, whence thousands of miles, andmillions of men, bear the appellation of the forgotten forefather of a tribe of the Goths— Amalrich, the work ruler; a curiously appropriate title for the new world of labor andof progress."

Some Hungarian scholars believe Vespucci was named after Saint Emeric (c. 1000–1031), son of the first king of Hungary. He was known in Latin as Sanctus Americus,after being canonized for his pious life and purity. As a further reflection of nationalpride, a theory native to Hungary holds that the European explorers of the New World,or their priests, named it after this popular saint, in the old tradition of bestowing placenames in honor of saints. However, no proof of this etymology exists. ConcerningVespucci, he actually was named after his grandfather, as indicated in the baptismregister of his church in Florence: "Amerigho et Matteo di ser Nastagio [his father] diser Amerigho [his grandfather] Vespucci." His grandfather's burial stone there isinscribed with the elder's name as Amerigo Vespuccio.

As was the custom of the Florentine nobility, Vespucci received an education thatfeatured special instruction in the sciences connected with navigation — naturalphilosophy, astronomy, and cosmography — in which he excelled. Around 1490 he wassent to Spain by his employers, the famous Italian family of Medici, to join theirbusiness in fitting out ships. Vespucci was probably in Seville in 1492 when Columbuswas preparing for his first historic voyage, as well as in 1493 when Columbus returned.Soon after, Vespucci was involved in fitting out the fleet for Columbus's second voyage.

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The two men eventually became friends; Columbus later wrote that he trusted Vespucciand held him in high esteem.

The period during which Vespucci made his own voyages falls between 1497(?) and1504(?). At the beginning of 1505 he was summoned to the court of Spain for a privateconsultation, and, as a man of experience, was engaged to work for the famous Casa deContratacion de las Indias (Commercial House for the West Indies), which had beenfounded two years before in Seville. In 1508 the house appointed him piloto mayor(pilot major, or chief navigator), a post of great responsibility, which included theexamination of the pilots' and ships' masters' licenses for voyages. He also had toprepare the official map of newly discovered lands and of the routes to them (for theroyal survey), interpreting and coordinating all data that the captains were obliged tofurnish. Vespucci, who obtained Spanish citizenship, held this position until his death inSeville in 1512. In the face of the spurious charges that he was an ignorant usurper ofthe merits of others, the fact that Spain entrusted him, a foreigner, with the office ofpilot major certainly bolsters his defense.

During the first half of the 20th century, scholars discovered further evidence that clearsaway the cloud of misunderstanding and ignorance by which Vespucci has long beenobscured. Frederick J. Pohl's biography, Amerigo Vespucci, Pilot Major (1966), andGermán Arciniegas's Amerigo and the New World (1955; tr. Harriet de Onís) are amongthe best efforts that dispel the shadows to which he was relegated by those whomaligned his fame. Nonetheless, both biographers disagree about the authenticity of histwo published letters, key documents in a dramatic controversy: Arciniegas acceptsthem as genuine, whereas Pohl rejects them as forgeries. Their arguments both musterconvincing evidence, suggesting an irreconcilable debate. But the question concerningthe authenticity of these historic letters remains fundamental to the evaluation ofVespucci's achievement.

Two series of documents on his voyages are extant. The first or traditional seriesconsists of the widely published letters, dated 1504, purportedly written by him.Addressed to his patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who had sent Vespucci toSpain to do business for him there, the Mundus Novus (New World) — the title alonerevolutionizing the European conception of the cosmos — was translated from theItalian into Latin, and originally printed in Vienna; the other letter, addressed to thegonfaloniere (chief magistrate) of Florence, Piero Soderini, was a more elaborate work.The second series consists of three private letters addressed to the Medici. In the firstseries of documents, four voyages by Vespucci are described; in the second, only two.Until the 1930s the documents of the first series were considered from the point of viewof the order of the four voyages. According to the conflicting theory to which Pohl andother modern scholars subscribe, these documents should be regarded as the result ofskillful, unauthorized manipulations by entrepreneurs, and the sole authentic paperswould be the private letters, so that the verified voyages would be reduced to two. Mostimportant, if the first series of documents are indeed forgeries, the "first" of the fourvoyages (dated 1497) never took place, and thus Vespucci could not be given priority ofone year over Columbus on reaching the American mainland, nor could he beconsidered the first to explore the coastline of Central America, Mexico, and thesoutheastern coast of the United States.

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The voyage completed by Vespucci between May 1499 and June1500 as navigator of an expedition of four ships sent from Spainunder the command of Alonso de Hojeda is certainly authentic.This is the second expedition of the traditional series. SinceVespucci took part as navigator, he certainly cannot have beeninexperienced; however, it seems unlikely that he had made aprevious voyage, though this matter remains unresolved. In thevoyage of 1499–1500, Vespucci would seem to have left Hojedaafter reaching the coast of what is now Guyana (Carew'shomeland). Turning south, he is believed to have discovered themouth of the Amazon River and explored the coast of present-day Brazil. On the wayback, he reached Trinidad, sighting en route the mouth of the Orinoco River, and thenmade for Haiti. Vespucci thought he had sailed along the coast of the extreme easterlypeninsula of Asia, where Ptolemy, the 2nd-century Greek geographer, believed themarket of Cattigara to be; so he looked for the tip of this peninsula, calling it CapeCattigara. He supposed that the ships, once past this point, emerged into the seas ofsouthern Asia. As soon as he was back in Spain, he equipped a fresh expedition with theaim of reaching Asia. But the Spanish government did not welcome his proposals, and atthe end of 1500 Vespucci went into the service of Portugal.

Under Portuguese auspices he completed a second expedition, which set sail fromLisbon on May 31, 1501. After a halt at the Cape Verde Islands, the expedition traveledsouthwestward, reached the coast of Brazil, and certainly sailed as far south as the Ríode la Plata, which Vespucci was the first European to discover. In all likelihood theships took a quick run still farther south, along the coast of Patagonia to the Golfo deSan Juli n or beyond. His ships returned by an unknown route, anchoring at Lisbon onJuly 12, 1502. This voyage is of fundamental importance in the history of geography inthat Vespucci himself became convinced that the lands he had explored were not part ofAsia but a New World. Unlike Columbus, who, to his death, clung to the idea that hehad found the shores of Asia, Vespucci defined what had indeed been found — and forthis he has been rightfully honored.

Naming the New World

Vespucci not only explored unknown regions but also invented a system of computingexact longitude and arrived at a figure computing the earth's equational circumferenceonly fifty miles short of the correct measurement. It was, however, not his many solidaccomplishments but an apparent error made by a group of scholars living in St. Dié,near Strasbourg, France, in the mountains of Lorraine, then part of Germany, that ledAmerica to be named (ostensibly) after him; and this is largely why his reputation hassuffered. His published letters had fallen into the hands of these German scholars,among whom was the young cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. Inspired to publish anew geography that would embrace the New World, the group collectively authored arevision of Ptolemy, which included a Latin translation of Vespucci's purported letter toSoderini, as well as a new map of the world drawn by Waldseemüller. In their resultingCosmographiae Introductio, printed on April 25, 1507, appear these famous words (astranslated from the original Latin; see below) written most likely by one of the two poet-scholars involved in the project: "But now these parts [Europe, Asia and Africa, thethree continents of the Ptolemaic geography] have been extensively explored and afourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius [a Latin form of Vespucci'sname], as will be seen in the appendix: I do not see what right any one would have to

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object to calling this part after Americus, who discovered it and who is a man ofintelligence, [and so to name it] Amerige, that is, the Land of Americus, or America:since both Europa and Asia got their names from women" (see John W. Hessler'squincentennial edition of the Cosmographiae Introductio).

The new geography included in its appendix Waldseemüller's large, stunning map of theworld, on which the New World is boldly labeled AMERICA — in the middle ofpresent-day Brazil. This map is the first known map, printed or manuscript, to use thename America, and also the first to depict clearly a separate western hemisphere, withthe Pacific as a separate ocean. The entire New World portion of the map roughlyrepresents South America, and when later mapmakers added North America, theyretained the original name; in 1538, the great geographer Gerard Mercator gave thename America to all of the Western Hemisphere on his Mapamundi. Waldseemüller's1507 map, lost to scholars until 1901 when it was found in a German castle, is nowreckoned to be the first to show the name, and the earliest record of its use. Moreover,the discoverer of the map went so far as to dub it the "Baptismal Certificate of the NewWorld." Historians today agree that Vespucci, who was completely unaware of theproject in Lorraine, had nothing to do with the so-called baptism. He clearly never triedto have the New World named after him or to belittle his friend Columbus. Nonetheless,the name America spread throughout Europe and quickly established itself throughsheer force of usage.

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The baptismal passage in the Cosmographiae Introductio has commonly been read asargument, in which the author said that he was naming the newly discovered continentin honor of Vespucci and saw no reason for objections. But, as etymologist Joy Rea hassuggested, it could also be read as explanation, in which he indicates that he has heardthe New World was called America, and the only explanation lay in Vespucci's name. Inignoring the possible intention of these words as explanation, most scholars haveignored the simple fact that place names usually originate informally in the spoken wordand first circulate that way, not in the printed word. Moreover, to read the passage in theCosmographiae Introductio as explanation lends credence to the theory, argued byCarew, Marcou, and others, that the early European explorers called the new continentAmerrique or, perhaps, another name with a similar pronunciation.

Even though the Latinization of Americus fits a pattern, why did the cosmographers notemploy Albericus (hence the assumption that "Alberigo" was Vespucci's authenticChristian name), the Latinization that had already been used for Amerigo's name as theauthor of the Mundus Novus? Their substitution of Americus for the well-knownLatinization Albericus might mean that they wanted a Latinization that would fit andexplain the name America which they had already heard applied to the New World.Why did they ignore the common law in the naming of new lands: the use of the lastnames of explorers and the first names of royalty? Their ignoring it, Rea claims, furthersupports the idea that they were trying to force an explanation and that the only one theycould think of was a Latinization of Vespucci's first name.

Another Amerindian Root

Did America get its name through oral traditionwhen those who had sailed with Columbus orVespucci circulated stories that gold was to befound in the Amerrique Mountains ofNicaragua? According to Ricardo Palma'sTradiciones Peruanas (Peruvian Traditions,1949), the ending of the word America indicates

this origin: "The ending ic (ica, ique, ico made Spanish) is found frequently in thenames of places, in the languages and native dialects of Central America and even of theAntilles. It seems to mean 'great, high, prominent' and is applied to mountains and peaksin which there are no volcanos." The Spanish Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada (1907)gives Americ or América as a mountainous region in Nicaragua, adding that Columbushad landed on the coast of Nicaragua directly east of these mountains. Columbus, whomet the Indians of this coast, presumably heard the name Amerrique from them: he waslooking for gold and the Indians gave him some, telling him he could get more to thewest in the mountains there.

The coast at the foot of the Amerrique Mountains that faces the Caribbean Sea is calledthe Mosquito Coast, named for the Mosquito Indians, who live there still. TheMosquitos are Caribs. It is almost certain that Columbus first heard the name of themountains pronounced by a Carib. Amerrique, therefore, must derive from a Carib word,possibly one of the Carib culture words — not a word in the Mayan language, whichwas not spoken in Nicaragua, though it almost resembles in sound the Quiche Mayan iq'amaq'el meaning perpetual wind. Further dispelling the idea of a Maya connection toAmerica, Robert M. Laughlin, curator of Mesoamerican Ethnology at the SmithsonianInstitution, and an eminent anthropologist with expertise in Mayan culture, points out

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that "r" is rarely in the alphabets of Mayan languages.

The Caribs, traveling far from their Carib or Cariay coast, could see the Amerriques inthe distance, and these mountains for them could have signified the mainland. TheIndians in the Caribbean did have a word for the mainland, given in the LexicografíaAntillana (Antillean Dictionary, 1931) as babeque and defined as the name thatColumbus understood the Indians to say when they were pointing to a land beyond Haitiand Cuba. Las Casas believed for a while that this must be Jamaica, but later decided itwas the name for the mainland. Other historians have considered it the name the Caribsused for the mainland. Babeque, different as it sounds from Amerrique, could possiblybe a variant of Amerrique. Very different spellings for the same Carib word reflectvariants that sound little like each other; thus, the variants of the name Carib are Canibe,Galibi, Caniba, Canibal and Caliban.

The English Connection

Equally as amazing as the Amerrique theory, the little-known theory that "America" derives from the name of aBristol-based Welshman, Richard Ameryk, emerged earlyin the 20th century. It constitutes an incredibleAnglicization of the New World — and would, for obviousreasons, infuriate Carew. The theory was developed by

Alfred E. Hudd, a member of the Clifton Antiquarian Club, which in 1910 published hiswork in its proceedings; the paper, "Richard Ameryk and the Name America," had beenread to the group two years before. Hudd opens with a reference to Bristol's 1897celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of North America by John Cabot(Giovanni Caboto), the Italian navigator and explorer who had sailed for England,laying the groundwork for the later British claim to Canada. For his achievement Cabotreceived a handsome pension conferred upon him by the King, from the hands of theCollectors of Customs of the Port of Bristol. One of these officials, the senior of the two,who was probably the person who handed over the money to the explorer, was namedRichard Ameryk (also written Ap Meryke [Welsh] on one deed, and elsewhere writtenAmerycke) who seems to have been a leading citizen of Bristol at the time. Hudd claimsthat the name given to the newly found land by the discoverer was "Amerika," in honorof the official from whom he received his pension.

On his return to England the flamboyant Cabot, who dressed in silk, was celebrated as"the Great Admiral." He had a reputation for his extravagance. He purportedly gave oneof the islands he explored to a friend, another to his barber, and also promised someItalian friars that they could be bishops. Hudd reasons that if Cabot were so free with hisgifts to his poorer friends, it is easy to understand his wish to show gratitude to theKing's official, and that he may well have done so by conferring his name on "the newIsle" which, it was thought, lay off the coast of China — Cabot never realized that hehad found a continent.

To back his claim that the name America was known in Bristol in the years just before1500, and well before Waldseemüller's map, Hudd presents the often quoted words of alost manuscript, one of the "Calendars" in which local events were recorded: "This year[1497], on St. John the Baptist's day [June 24th], the land of America was found by themerchants of Bristowe, in a ship of Bristowe called the 'Mathew,' the which said shipdeparted from the port Bristowe the 2nd of May and came home again the 6th August

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following." If Hudd's suggestion is correct, the original manuscript documents the factthat the newly discovered land was already called America in Bristol before that namebecame known in Europe.

"Amerika," Hudd says, "seems much more like the name of the Bristol Customs official,than that of the Italian [Amerigo] … and having been invented in Bristol, by Cabot, andhaving been the only name for 'the new island' for more than ten years after itsdiscovery, the resemblance of the name to that of Vespucci struck [the authors of theCosmosgraphiae Introductio] … (to whom the English 'Richard Ameryk' was quiteunknown), and thus through an error of his editor[s], to Vespucci was transferred thehonour that the discoverer of North America, John Cabot, had intended to confer on theBristolian 'Ameryk.'" Hudd fears that his main evidence, the original manuscript ofBristol's calendar, was lost in a fire and acknowledges that this important piece of thepuzzle is missing. However, even if the name America were known in Bristol in 1497,Hudd has taken a majestic leap to suggest Ameryk's name as its origin. No proof existsto substantiate his claim that Cabot actually honored the Welshman by naming Americaafter him. But if the name were indeed known in Bristol then, how was that possible?

More recently, two Englishman have championed the Amerike theory. PeterMacDonald, author of Cabot & the Naming of America: A Revelation (1997), assertsthat Cabot named his discovery after Amerike because "[Richard] Amerike soughtreward for his patronage by asking that any new-found lands should be named afterhim." MacDonald doesn't stop there. He also maintains that "since the flag of the UnitedStates of America is based on the design of Amerike's coat of arms, it is more thanprobable that its origins lie with Amerike and not with George Washington, whosefamily also bore arms of the Stars and Stripes" (see BBC British History).

Like MacDonald's book, Rodney Broome's Terra Incognita: The True Story of HowAmerica Got Its Name (2001) is a good read, but ultimately lacks the hard evidence tosupport the author’s claim. He presents a compelling inference at best. A longtime U.S.resident, Broome is originally from Bristol. He summarizes his argument this way in theBristol Times: "Bristol merchants bought salt cod in Iceland until the King of Denmarkstopped the trade in 1475. In 1479, four Bristol merchants received a royal charter tofind another source of fish and trade. Not until 1960 did someone find bills of tradingrecords indicating that Richard Amerike was involved in this business. Records showthat in 1481, Amerike shipped a load of salt (for salting fish) to these men inNewfoundland and I believe the Bristol sailors named the area after the Bristol merchantthey worked for."

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The current (fourth) edition of Webster's New World College Dictionary admits themystery that surrounds the origin of the name America, saying it derives (<) from"Americus Vespucius … but < ? Sp. Amerrique … used by early explorers for the newlydiscovered lands < ? AmInd." No definitive conclusions can be reached. Too manyclaims are, for lack of hard evidence, based on speculation. Theories about the trueorigin of the name are ultimately historical fictions, whose authors are inclined toimpose their own political, cultural, or national agendas on the name and its origin. Yetbehind these fictions lie compelling views of the New World. Taken together, they forma multicultural vision of its distinctive character. To hear Americus in the name; to hearthe Amerrique Mountains and their perpetual wind; to hear the African in the Mayan iq'

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amaq'el; to hear the Scandinavian Ommerike, as well as Amteric, and the AlgonquinEm-erika; to hear Saint Emeric of Hungary; to hear Amalrich, the Gothic lord of thework ethic; to hear Armorica, the ancient Gaulish name meaning place by the sea; and tohear the English official, Amerike — to hear such echoes in the name of our hemisphereis to hear ourselves.

An early version of this essay appeared in The American Voice (1988) and a section in Encounters(1991).

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ABOUT JONATHAN COHEN

JONATHAN COHEN is a poet, translator, essayist, and scholar of inter-American literature. Hepublished his first collection of poetry, Poems from the Island, in 1979 with Street Press.About this documentary poetry based on Long Island history, critic Paul Dolan said:"Jonathan Cohen has re-created a sense of place, given a 'local habitation and a name' to anisland too often seen as simply a wide shoulder for a highway on which people with nohistory hurry toward no future" (see "Paumanok"; "Ascrimshontering"; "Paradise"; "CedarHill" w/audio). A current work in progress, "Open-Heart Poetry," is a collection of personallyrics (see "Something Special"; "Rendezvous"; "Birthday Flowers"; "Footloose One").Another work in progress, "American Journeys," is a sequence of poems intermixed withverse translations and prose, all of which explore the American experience in both historical

and contemporary terms (see "Journey Through Streets"; "Niagara Falls"; "The Tishomingo (1855)"; "FootballSeason in Ohio"; "Walt Whitman" w/audio). See Cohen reading his poems.

Cohen's translations of Latin American poetry appear in Roque Dalton's Small Hours of the Night (Curbstone, 1996;see Foreword), winner of a 1997 Outstanding Translation-of-the-Year Award presented by the American LiteraryTranslators Association (see "Therapeutics"; "Tavern"; "Love"); Pedro Mir's Countersong to Walt Whitman & OtherPoems (Azul Editions, 1993; see Foreword and video), the first — and long overdue — collection in English ofpoetry by the Dominican Republic's late poet-laureate ("Pure genius." — Junot Díaz); Ernesto Cardenal's FromNicaragua, with Love: Poems 1979–1986 (City Lights, 1987), winner of the 1987 Robert Payne Award of theTranslation Center at Columbia University (see "Apparition in Hamburg"; "The Price of Bras"); Cardenal's WithWalker in Nicaragua and Other Early Poems, 1949–1954 (Wesleyan, 1985), about which critic Robert Hass said inThe Washington Post, "There could hardly be a better introduction to Cardenal than Jonathan Cohen's beautifullyedited and really brilliant translations of his early poems" (see "Raleigh"; "Star Found Dead on Park Avenue";"Squier in Nicaragua"); Cardenal's Zero Hour and Other Documentary Poems (New Directions, 1980; see "Lights")and Prayer for Marilyn Monroe and Other Poems (unpublished translation made in 1971; see "Managua 6:30P.M."); and Enrique Lihn's The Dark Room and Other Poems (New Directions, 1978; see "The Father's Monologuewith His Infant Son"; "Sea Breeze"; listen to bilingual reading with Lihn recorded at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, New York, 1978). His book, Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems (New Directions, 2009), is the mostcomprehensive collection of Cardenal's poetry in English translation, representing six decades of his work. The LosAngeles Times calls it: "Clear, impassioned, brilliant. Beautiful" (see Introduction; "Stardust"). See Cardenal andCohen reading together at the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival.

In 1987, Cohen (left) directed actor Edward Asner in a dramatic reading of his translation of Cardenal's "With Walker inNicaragua," which was recorded in Los Angeles and aired nationwide on National Public Radio (listen to program). The previousyear, Cohen successfully adapted this poem for the stage, and directed actor William Bruehl in a solo performance — as thecharacter of the poem's Clinton Rollins — at Stony Brook University's Staller Center for the Arts.

As an essayist, Cohen has explored diverse American topics ranging from natural history to cultural history — fromthe biological marvel of the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), the "marine scorpion" that's a living fossil foundalong the shores of Long Island, to the historic verse of the colonial slave, Jupiter Hammon, whose "EveningThought" composed on Christmas 1760 became the first African-American poetry publication. Cohen's interest inliterary translation led to his study, "Why Milk and Honey," which provides the first modern elucidation of thebiblical image of the Promised Land as "flowing with milk and honey," and reveals how the original image is bothsacred and profane.

Cohen's collection of essays, "Studies in Pan-American Literature," earned him a fellowshipin creative nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. For his study, "WilliamCullen Bryant: Premier Translator of Latin American Poetry," he was awarded a grant fromthe American Council of Learned Societies. His essay, "The Naming of America: FragmentsWe've Shored Against Ourselves," is widely regarded as the definitive etymology ofAmerica's name, exposing its multicultural dimensions. His "Waldeen and the Americas: TheDance Has Many Faces" is the first comprehensive study of the Pan-American pioneer ofmodern dance, Waldeen, with special focus on her influential translations of Pablo Neruda'spoetry. "Neruda in English: Establishing His Residence in U.S. Poetry" expands upon that.His study, "Toward a Common Destiny on the American Continent: The Pan Americanismof Gabriela Mistral," defines the New World of the first Latin American (and first woman) towin the Nobel Prize in Literature. His acclaimed recovery work, A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose ofMuna Lee (Wisconsin, 2004), presents his biography of Muna Lee — the first biography of this brilliant figure in themodern cultural history of the Americas — and elucidates the prominent role she played as a poetry translator in the

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development of inter-American literature (see presentation at Americas Society).

Cohen's compilation of William Carlos Williams' translations of Spanish and Latin American poetry, titled ByWord of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916–1959, was published by New Directions in 2011. Thisbilingual collection expands Williams’ established canon in a significant way, adding to it previouslyunknown work and also work that hasn’t yet been properly recognized as his. It will contribute to a fullerunderstanding of his literary achievement as a translator and poet.

Williams said: "If more of the Spanish were better tr anslated — more in the spir it of modern Amer icanletter s, using word of mouth and no literary English — most of the pr inciples which have been so hardwon, the directness, the immediacy, the r eality of our present day writing in verse and prose would bevitally str engthened." (See ND blog with poems; clip of presentation at Americas Society that features abilingual reading of Eunice Odio's homage, "To W.C.W ," translated by Williams.)

"Our notion of Williams' work in 'the American idiom' should be forever broadened and changed because of ByWord of Mouth." — Peter Schmidt, William Carlos Williams Review (read more)

Cohen's poems, translations, and essays have appeared in MultiCultural Review, The New York Times, AmericanPoetry Review, The Nation, The American Voice, The Hudson Review, New Directions in Prose and Poetry, WordsWithout Borders, Translation Review, Big Bridge, Street Magazine, and City Lights Review, among numerous otherperiodicals. He has received several awards for his writing, including grants from the New York State Council on theArts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to thosegrants/prizes mentioned above. He is a graduate of Columbia University (MFA, Creative Writing, 1976) and StonyBrook University (PhD, English, 1980). See bibliography of his selected publications.

A longtime resident of Long Island and now also of Manhattan, Cohen is the writer/editor of the surgery departmentat Stony Brook University, as well as a member of the affiliated faculty of Stony Brook's Latin American andCaribbean Studies Center.

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