• Princess Taiping in San Francisco

CHINESE BEAT COLUMBUS:  Researcher
Who Discovered America?
Chinese Eunuch may have arrived in 1420

A 19th-century painting portrays the discovery of America in 1492 by Christopher Columbus

A Chinese eunuch leading a gigantic fleet discovered America 72 years before Columbus, according to a former naval commander who will back up his claim with charts, ancient artifacts and anthropological research.

But a British researcher is convinced the Chinese admiral Zheng He, shown, beat Columbus by 72 years

Zheng He (1371-1435) is regarded as China's most famous navigator and is credited with travelling to the West seven times, sailing more than 50,000 kilometres and visiting more than 30 countries.

But Mr. Menzies, an amateur historian, says Zheng He played a far more important role in history than previously thought. He believes the admiral discovered most parts of the world by the mid-15th century.

Mr. Menzies credits Zheng He with the first circumnavigation of the world, beating the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan by a century.

And he says he landed in America decades before Christopher Columbus' "discovery" in 1492.

Mr. Menzies will present his findings to Britain's Royal Geographical Society on March 15 before an audience of more than 200 diplomats, academics and publishers.

While carrying out research in Venice, Mr. Menzie was shown a planisphere, dated 1459, which included southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Yet the Cape was not "discovered" as a sea route by Vasco da Gama until 1497, he says. On the planisphere was a note in mediaeval Phoenician about a voyage around the Cape to the Cape Verde Islands in 1420 -- and a picture of a Chinese sailing vessel.

Using Chinese star charts, he reconstructed what he believes is the epic voyage of Zheng He. He says his knowledge of astro- navigation helped him to work out that the Chinese, using the brilliant star Canopus to chart their course, had sailed close to the South Pole.

He determined their latitude and went on to find literary and archeological evidence to show the Chinese had effectively circumnavigated the world.

Mr. Menzies, 64, said: "When I started, I was terrified people would think I was a crank. But although my claim is complicated and stands history on its head, I am confident of my ground. What nobody has explained is why the European explorers had maps. Who drew the maps? There are millions of square miles of ocean. It required huge fleets to chart them. If you say it wasn't the Chinese, with the biggest fleets and ships in the world, then who was it?"

An article in the New York Times Magazine in 1999 described Zheng He as a Muslim from a rebel family who had been seized by the Chinese Army when he was still a boy. Like many prisoners of the time, he was castrated.

However, the article claimed he grew up to be physically imposing and was assigned to be the houseboy of a great prince, Zhu Di.

The two became friends and when the prince succeeded in carrying out a revolt against the Emperor of China, Zheng He was rewarded with a giant fleet.

The fleet of 28,000 sailors on 300 ships was not surpassed in size for five centuries until the First World War, claims the article. By comparison, Columbus in 1492 had 90 sailors on three ships.

Zheng He later wrote: "We have ... beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky-high, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapours, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds, day and night continued their course rapid like that of a star, traversing the savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare."

However, the NYT Magazine article claimed Zheng He stopped after reaching East Africa.

"The Chinese could easily have continued around the Cape of Good Hope and established direct trade with Europe. But as they saw it, Europe was a backward region and China had little interest in the wool, beads and wine Europe had to trade. Africa had what China wanted -- ivory, medicines, spices, exotic woods, even specimens of native wildlife," claimed the article.

Gillian Hutchinson, curator of the history of cartography at the National Maritime Museum, is not persuaded there is a provable link between the Chinese maps and those the Europeans used. "It is possible," she says, "that Chinese geographical knowledge had reached Europe before the Age of Discovery. But Mr. Menzies is absolutely certain of it, and that makes it difficult to separate evidence from wishful thinking."    -by Michael Higgins     National Post   5 March 2002

Copyright ©  2008
By opening this page you accept our Privacy and Terms & Conditions