The Native-American couple who discovered Europe

When Columbus arrived in Galway, in the West of Ireland,  he saw a shipwrecked couple who had recently arrived from beyond the ocean.  

The pair did not speak any European languages and were described as flat faced, very different in physiognomy from common Europeans. 

Columbus thought that the strange seafarers were Chinese who had managed to cross the Ocean. In a way he was right. With the benefit of hindsight we can safely assume that they were Native Americans who had drifted into Ireland from the American lands beyond the sea.

It is important to note that the distance between Galway and the nearest American shore in the coast of Newfoundland is approximately 3,000 kilometers.

Many authors have commented briefly on this testimony, relegating it to a mere footnote. Some thought that the couple had probably come from the Scandinavian peninsula or other nearby regions. None believed that there was any remote possibility that they could have been Native Americans.

An entrenched form of racism is implicit in this reasoning. For most authors it is impossible to imagine that “primitive” Native Americans would attempt to cross the Ocean. This underestimation of aboriginal American abilities remains to this day a serious handicap in conducting historical research.