Note 73 — Chapter I

The question of the priority of Columbus’ discovery of the mainland over Vespucius is discussed in the following chapter. M. Herrera is said to have brought forward, at the Congrès des Américanistes held at Copenhagen in 1883, new evidence of Columbus’s landing on the mainland. Father Manoel de la Vega, in his Historia del descobrimiento de la America septentrional, first published in Mexico in 1826 by Bustamante, alleges that Columbus in this southern course was intending to test the theory of King John of Portugal, that land blocked a westerly passage in that direction.