Deadly Colonialist Fables

In the earliest years of the second millennium, Norsemen sailed from Greenland to North America in several waves. They explored the fertile coastline and some of its inland rivers, harvested lumber and grapes, and built camps. They also met, traded with, killed, were killed by, and on the whole failed spectacularly to communicate with Native Americans. We don’t know the specific identity of the native population(s) with whom the explorers made contact or the exact location of the Norse landings and settlement—including the place they named Vinland, which likely was somewhere in present-day Canada and not the United States. But one thing is certain: Christopher Columbus “discovered” nothing when he came ashore in the so-called New World, except that he was lost.