Originally posted by Dralix
Amerigo Vespucci?
Thank you Dralix. This is the guy I was looking for. He did all the hard work - just didn't get any of the credit.
I found this in an on-line encyclopedia:
The successful voyages of Christopher Columbus increased Vespucci's desire to take a part in the general European movement to seek a western passage to the Indies. Having obtained three ships from Ferdinand, King of Castille, Vespucci was able to undertake his first voyage. Accordingly, he set sail from Cadiz on 10 May, 1497, sailing toward the Fortunate Islands, and then laying his course towards the west. After twenty-seven or thirty-seven days, on 6 or 10 April, he touched the mainland (Guiana or Brazil?), and was well received by the inhabitants. In this first voyage he may have entered the Gulf of Mexico and coasted along a great portion of the United States, as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then he returned to Spain, and landed at Cadiz on 15 October, 1498. There is no other relation of this first voyage than that contained in the first letter of Amerigo Vespucci concerning the islands newly found in his four voyages, addressed to Piero Soderini, Gonfaloniere of Florence.
On 16 May, 1499, Vespucci sailed from Cadiz on his second voyage, with Alonzo de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. He directed his course to Cape Verde, crossed the Equator, and saw land, on the coast of Brazil, at 4° or 5° S., possibly near Aracati. From there, he coasted along the Guianas and the continent, from the Gulf of Paria to Maracaibo and Cape de la Vela; he discovered Cape St. Augustine and the River Amazon, and made notable observations of the sea currents, of the Southern Cross and other southern constellations. He returned to Spain in September, 1500. There two expeditions were undertaken in the service of Spain; the third and the fourth, in that of Portugal. In consequence of the long fatigues of his second voyage, Vespucci was taken ill of the quartan ague. When his health was re-established, he wrote an account of his voyage to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
On 14 May, 1501, he sailed from Lisbon to Cape Verde, and thence westward, until, on 1 January, 1502, he came to a gulf at 13° S., to which he gave the name of Bahia de Todos Santos, and upon the shores of which the city of Bahia now stands. From there he coasted along South America, as far as the Plata. On his return, he discovered the island of South Georgia, at 54° S., and 1200 miles east of Tierra del Fuego. He arrived at Lisbon on 7 September, 1502. On his fourth voyage, he sailed with Gonzal Coelho from Lisbon, on 10 June, 1503, touched land at the Cape Verde Islands, and bent his course towards the Bay of All Saints. At Cape Frio, having found great quantities of brazil-wood, he established an agency, exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn. Thereafter, he coasted along the continent, nearly to the Rio de la Plata, and then returned to Lisbon, where he arrived on 18 June, 1504. Vespucci made a fifth voyage with Juan de la Cosa, between May and December, 1505; they visited the Gulf of Darien, and sailed 200 miles up the Atrato River. During that voyage, they collected gold and pearls, and received information of there being a great abundance of those substances in that region.
