Did the Chinese discover America 1,000 years before Columbus?

Christopher Columbus, posthumous portrait 1519

‘In fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue‘; so starts the famous poem about the discovery of America. Yet buried within an ancient Chinese text lies the tale of another epic voyage in the 5th century AD. Was a Buddhist missionary really the first to put America on the map?

The Legend of Fusang

For the ancient Chinese, Fusang represented a distant land of marvel and mystery in the east. These Chinese legends would later be used by European cartographers to claim that America was, in fact, discovered many centuries earlier than previously thought.

Some of the earliest accounts of Fusang can be traced back to around 210 BC, when the court sorcerer Xu Fu organised expeditions seeking an elixir of life. Yet it was the arrival of a Buddhist missionary in China from Fusang in 499 AD that convinced some historians to reimagine the exploration of the New World.

Hui Shen claimed to have travelled from a land 20,000 li (a unit of length equal to 150 zhang or 500 meters) east from Da-Han (probably Kamchatka or the Buryat region of Siberia). The country, as he described it, had a highly civilised society: they had mastered silk and paper manufacturing, had well-developed social institutions, and followed the laws of Buddha.

In fact, the religion had only been recently introduced by five Buddhist monks, possibly from Afghanistan, who had travelled there in 458 AD. Whether Hui Shen was one of this original party of monks is not clear in the original text.

The full description of Fusang and its inhabitants can be found in a 7th century text called the Book of Liang, compiled by Yao Silian in 635 AD.

The account is translated below (by Charles Leland in 1875). Click the arrow to reveal.

During the reign of the dynasty Tsi, in the first year of the year-naming, ‘ Everlasting Origin ‘ (A.D. 499), came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister-name of Hoei-schin, i.e., Universal Compassion, to the present district of Hukuang, and those surrounding it, who narrated that Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the Middle Kingdom. Many Fusang trees grow there, whose leaves resemble the Dryanda cordifolia; the sprouts, on the contrary, resemble those of the bamboo-tree, and are eaten by the inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen which they use for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff. The houses are built of wooden beams; fortified and walled places are there unknown.

They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no wars ; but in the arrangements for the kingdom they have a northern and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the southern prison, but those confined for greater offences in the northern; so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in the southern prison, and those who were not, in the northern. Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of eight years, sold as slaves; the girls not until their ninth year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly was held; it must be in an excavated place. There they strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell. If the offender was one of a lower class, he alone was punished; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it attained to the seventh generation

The name of the king is pronounced Ichi. The nobles of the first-class are termed Tuilu; of the second, Little Tuilu; and of the third, Na-to-scha, When the prince goes forth, he is accompanied by horns and trumpets. The colour of his clothes changes with the different years. In the two first of the ten-year cyclus they are blue; in the two next, red; in the two following, yellow; in the two next, red; and in the last two, black.

The horns of the oxen are so large that they hold ten bushels. They use them to contain all manner of things. Horses, oxen, and stags are harnessed to their wagons. Stags are used here as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and from the milk of the hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang-tree keep good throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds. From the latter they prepare mats. No iron is found in this land; but copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market.’

Marriage is determined upon in the following manner: The suitor builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not inclined to marry him, he departs; should she be willing, it is completed. When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five days; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourning clothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not busy himself for three years with State affairs.

In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming ‘Great Light,’ of Song (A.D. 458), five beggar-monks from the kingdom of Kipin went to this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their manners.

[Source: Fusang, or, The discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist priests in the fifth century]

News reaches the West

The connection that Fusang could represent a pre-Columbus discovery of America was first made in the West by the French historian Joseph de Guignes in 1761. De Guignes, having deduced the length of the Chinese li described by Hui Shen, concluded that Fusang could be nowhere other than the west coast of North America.

De Guignes’ ideas were incorporated into a map for the first time by fellow French cartographer Philippe Buache in 1752, which also included the route supposedly taken by the Chinese to America in 458 AD.

Carte des terres nouvellement connues au nord de la Mer du Sud, tant du Côtè de l'Asie que du Côte de l'Amerique (Philippe Buache, 1752)

Source: New York Public Library

Fousang

The debate continued through the 19th century; notable advocates included Karl Friedrich Neumann and Charles Godfrey Leland, while others were keen to dismiss their arguments. However, the controversy would soon deepen.

New maps emerge

In the 1930s, new maps were uncovered that were purportedly linked to the 13th-century travels of Marco Polo to the Far East. Their clear depiction of the Bering Strait and North American coastlines appeared to provide strong evidence that China had knowledge of America centuries before Columbus.

'Map with ship' depicting the Far East and adjacent Pacific — ‘Map with ship’ depicting the Far East and adjacent Pacific

The documents were unveiled by Marcian F. Rossi, who arrived as an immigrant to the United States in 1887. He had brought with him 14 parchments – 10 maps and 4 texts – which he claimed had been gifted to his ancestor by Marco Polo himself and were subsequently passed down through his family.

From this collection, Marcian Rossi donated ‘Map with Ship’ to the Library of Congress in 1943. Recent radiocarbon dating of the map has indicated that the sheepskin the map was drawn on dates to the 15th or 16th century. At best, the map is a copy of an original document. At worst, the map is a hoax.

Two further maps from the ‘Rossi Collection‘ – signed by Marco Polo’s daughter, Fantina, in the year 1329 – also appear to make reference to Focaa/Focan (Fousang?) to the east of China.

While the authenticity of these maps remains uncertain, others have questioned the credibility of the collection’s owner, pointing to other outlandish documents Rossi claimed to have possessed. These included an obvious hoax map of the Caribbean drawn by Pliny the Elder and another claiming to reveal the secret chemical formula of the varnish used by Antonio Stradivari on his famous violins.

The Kingdom of Women

If not America, where had Hui Shen visited? Are the accounts accurate?

Returning to the Book of Liang, Hui Shen’s account goes on to add further confusion to the story. Around 1000 li (~500 km) east of Fusang, he describes a ‘Kingdom of Women’ with ‘pretty faces and very white complexion’:

They have hair on their bodies and their hair grows long and reaches the ground. In February or March, if they go into the water, they will get pregnant. In June or July, they will give birth to children. Women have no breasts on their chests, but hair grows behind their necks. The roots are white and there is juice in the hair, which they use to breastfeed the children. They can walk in a hundred days and become adults in three or four years.
Book of Liang, Volume 54

With such absurd descriptions, it’s hard to imagine where Hui Shen had actually been. For most historians, North America remains firmly out of the question. More likely, if the legend is true, Fusang is somewhere in far east Russia, e.g., on Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka Peninsula or the Kuril Islands.

Fusang fades from maps

The appearance of Fusang on Western maps lasted less than half a century. In 1778, Captain James Cook explored the west coast of North America all the way to the Bering Strait, dispelling any notions of a Chinese colony along the coastline. Explorations inland were expanding at this time too, with the ground-breaking Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-6 reaching the Pacific Coast.

Western Hemisphere (William Faden, 1776)

Nuove Scoperte de' Russi al nord del Mare del Sud si nell' Asia (Antonio Zatta, 1776) — Western Hemisphere (William Faden, 1776)

Fusang reimagined

Despite the controversies, such expansive and early Chinese explorations remain fringe theories in the 21st century. The most recent claim came in 2006 when Liu Gang, a Chinese lawyer, unveiled a map that he had recently acquired. Supposedly drawn in 1418, the map outlines much of the known world and links these discoveries to Admiral Zheng He’s fleet.

Zheng He’s integrated map of the world, 1418

If the date is correct, it would prove the Chinese had accurately surveyed the New World before European voyages of exploration had even started. Nevertheless, the map was quickly dismissed by many historians as an outright forgery.

“The map is an 18th-century copy of a European map, as evidenced by the two hemispheres depicted, the continents shown and the nonmaritime [details] depicted,”
Geoff Wade, a researcher at the University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute.

Despite the repeated attempts to upend history – for the most part by those in the West – the Chinese most likely did not discover America before Columbus. For now, that claim belongs to Leif Erikson and the Vikings who established a colony in Newfoundland around 1000 AD. But who knows for sure? Perhaps more maps and texts are out there waiting to be unveiled.