Amerigo Vespucci

Hello my name is Amerigo Vespucci. I was born March 18, 1454 in Florence, Italy. When I was a boy I was interested in astronomy and the study of the universe. In 1492, I was sent to Seville, Spain to help Spanish ships get what they needed for their journeys. I supplied Columbus' ships with tools and food on his third and fourth expeditions to the New World

In 1499 I sailed from Spain with 4 ships commanded by Alonso de Ojeda who had sailed with Columbus on his second voyage. After 24 days we reached the Northern coast of South America. Ojeda and I went our separate ways. I headed south and became the first European to see Brazil and to explore the mouth of the Amazon River. During the return to Spain I stopped at the Bahamas and took 200 Native Americans back to be slaves.

Convinced there might be a passage through the New World to Asia, I sailed again in May 1501, this time in the service of Portugal. On my second trip we reached land near the eastern tip of Brazil. We went as far south as Argentina. At the time there were no accurate maps of the world so nobody knew how big around the world was, but I estimated its size within 50 miles of its actual size!

I returned to Portugal in June 1502. Although my fleet had not explored the islands off the coast of Asia, we had discovered a continent between Europe and Asia previously unknown to Europeans. My name was given to North America and South America because I was the first to recognize that it wasn't a part of Asia. I claimed to have explored these continents in 1497, and it led the mapmaker, Martin Waldseemuller, to consider me, instead of Columbus, as the man who discovered North and South America. He suggested naming these continents after me to honor my expeditions.