Talk:European colonization of the Americas

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Confusion about Columbus's first landfall

I'm very confused about the details of Columbus's first landfall in the Americas.

In this article we say:

• He ran aground on 5 December 1492 on Cat Island (then called Guanahani) in The Bahamas.
  • That tells me that Cat Island and Guanahani are the same place.

But Cat Island says :

• Until written accounts were found, Cat Island was thought to be Guanahani or San Salvador, the first island Christopher Columbus arrived at in the Americas.
  • That tells me that Cat Island and Guanahani are different places, although they were once thought to be the same.

And Guanahani says:

• Guanahani is an island in the Bahamas that was the first land in the New World sighted and visited by Christopher Columbus' first voyage, on October 12, 1492

and

• Cat Island was long believed to be Guanahani and identified as such on many nautical charts from the 18th century. In light of the competing new theories of Muñoz and Fernández de Navarrete, Washington Irving (1828)[35], with the assistance of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, set out the case for Cat Island, and was supported by the weight of Alexander von Humboldt (1837).[36] The hypothesis lost traction after the publication of Bartolomé de las Casas' abstract of Columbus' on-board journal (1875–1876), which argued strongly against the identification

So the following questions arise:

• What was the date of the landfall (wherever it was), October 12 or December 5?
• Do we know with certainty exactly where he landed, and if so, what is that place called?
• Was it or was it not Guanahani?
• Is Guanahani the same place as Cat Island, or not?

Over. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@JackofOz:: I tried to clarify it.--Error (talk) 03:36, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Ingólfr Arnarson, Reykjavík, 874 ?

Was Ingólfr Arnarson the first European to settle the American continent ? Arnarson and his wife, Hallveig Fróðadóttir, settled in Iceland, divided by a rift, mid-Atlantic Ridge, that splits Iceland into Europe Eastside and America Westside. Arnarson and his wife founded Reykjavík Geography of Iceland in 874, apparently the westside of Iceland, the American Continent. So Reykjavík would be the first American colony by a European. I am not sure there are sources on this, but 874 could mark the beginning of European colonization. Of course, I am not suggesting anything be put in the article, unless there are sources. Are there any sources that suggest such a thing? Cmguy777 (talk) 05:50, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Is Reykjavik located in the continent of North America? Iceland is divided by the Mid-Atlantic Rift at Þingvellir and Reykjavik is on the North American tectonic plate. Cmguy777 (talk) 06:14, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Cmguy777: see Geography of Iceland. It's considered European and in any case we'd need reliable sources, not our interpretation of the geography. Doug Weller talk 09:06, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree Iceland, the nation, is politically and culturally European. But wasn't America just an extention of European culture and political society? I only presented this question for discussion, not to be put into the article, unless sources can be found. Technically, Reykjavík is on the North American continent, and was founded by a male and female Europeans in 874. Maybe historical research of European colonization of the Americas, at this time, has not incorporated the science of platectonics, or defined where America begins and Europe ends. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:57, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Cmguy777: talk pages are to be used only to discuss the article, not subjects such as this. Doug Weller talk 18:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about the article that does mention Norse colonization starting in the 1000s. Reykjavík is a Norse colony started in 874. My question was whether Reykjavík, located on the North American plate should be considered a "North American" colony. There is no further need to continue this conversation. I am dropping the stick. I consider this conversation closed. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:41, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's one way to look at it. It may be that in some specialized context / venue (e.g. plate tectonics) that could be considered to be true. But common meanings of the term are what we communicate in, so "Americas" means the common meaning of "Americas" and so that is the defined topic of this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

American Frontier

Shouldn't the American frontier and the Far West be part of this article? 5.171.88.101 (talk) 19:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ARCN 211 Material Histories of Labor

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2023 and 15 March 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pittarchy (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Suspicious Turtle (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Present-day relevance of ongoing colonization

This page seems to treat European colonization as an exclusively historical phenomenon (as tellingly exemplified by the use of the past tense in the concluding sentence of the lead, "European contact and colonization had disastrous effects on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their societies"). I would question that approach, which implicitly seems to categorize colonization by people of European origins as a thing of the past.

Within the current editorial framework, I would struggle to know how to provide pertinent information to the page about highly relevant current effects of ongoing colonization (example) by people of European origins (in an appropriately weighted way). For this reason, I added[1] an entry linking to Mennonites to ==See also==. Not ideal, I know... and the edit was reverted by Masterhatch with the edit summary "already mentioned in the body". While that's true, the 'mention' is merely as a name on a list of religious groups (under ==Religion and migration==).

Given this situation, for the time being, I think it may be reaonable to insert under ==See also== * Mennonites#Environmental damage. (More generally, I think it would be good for the page to be less restricted to historical narrative.) 86.140.161.217 (talk) 16:40, 19 December 2023 (UTC)