Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/612

 hilder] ORIGIN OF THE NAME "INDIAN" 549

" In this Espafiola and in the best district are gold mines, and on the other side, from thence to terra firma, as well as from thence to the Great Khan where everything is on a splendid scale."

The rank and titles bestowed on Columbus by his sovereigns are proofs that they shared his belief that he had reached Asia. In a letter which he wrote (before starting on his fourth and last voyage, in the spring of 1502,) to the governors of the Bank of Saint George at Genoa, which was in those days to the commer- cial world what the Bank of England is today, he signs himself, " The Great Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and Viceroy and Gov- ernor of the Islands and mainland of Asia and the Indies."

On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a bull, granting to Spain all the newly discovered lands lying south and west of a line drawn from the Arctic to the Antarctic pole, in which ap- pear the words : " containing in this donation whatsoever main- lands or islands are found or to be found toward India.*'

Another Italian sailor, a Venetian, Giovanni Caboto, or, as he was called in England, John Cabot, made a voyage in 1497 under the auspices of King Henry VII and reached the continent of North America, which he described as " the territory of the Grand Khan."

We therefore see that although the application of the name " Indians" to the native peoples of America was the outcome of an error, it was at the time one that was excusable ; but there is no reason for its continuance. It is, however, firmly intrenched in the popular mind, as if it was felt to be a point of honor to per- petuate the illusion of the great navigator, and it remains to be seen if it may be possible to supplant it by a more appropriate and scientific designation.

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