In the 1890s the City Fathers of Bristol, England,
were making preparations to commemorate the 400th
anniversary of John Cabot’s 1497 voyage from
Bristol to Newfoundland that discovered and claimed
North America for England.
Historians noticed that one of Bristol’s leading
citizens at the time had a name uncannily similar to
the name America.
America is almost certainly named
after Richard Ameryk, a wealthy aristocratic merchant
living in Bristol at the end of the 15th
century.
The word America first appeared on a
map, written across South America, in Martin
Waldseemuller’s World Map published in 1507 in
Strasbourg. This was the most authoritative world map
of the time, and the first to show the Americas as a
separate continent.
Waldseemuller speculated that "America"
was derived from the first name of Amerigo Vespucci.
We know from the tentative wording in his publication
that this was only an educated guess on his part, and
in later editions he did not use the name ever again.
Commercial fishing ships
from Bristol were making annual voyages to North
America, starting in the 1470s, after they discovered
the Grand Banks fishing grounds off of Newfoundland.
Richard Ameryk was one of the merchant traders
importing ship loads of salted cod-fish from this
source.
Ameryk may have financed John Cabot’s ship,
the Matthew, and the expedition from
Bristol to North America in 1497, which was intended
to explore a trade routes to China.
The word America was in use in Bristol in
the early 1500s, suggesting it originated there.
A book by Rodney Broome is in the works,
documenting this relatively unknown, but important,
American history.
"TERRA
INCOGNITA, the true story of howAmerica got its
name" -
- the story of the English merchant -
Richard Ameryk
