Another hopeful contender for the title of ‘First in America’ is the Chinese. This discovery is supported by a variety of evidence, including a Chinese Saga mentioning a land called Fusang, a questionable map showing the supposed coastline of California, a massive earthwork in the shape of a horse, and the an intrepid Admiral whose reputation grows everytime I look him up. Next time I Google him I bet someone claims he sailed to the moon first too.
We’ll look at each of these claims in detail, evaluating the claims. We’ll keep them all filed under the category When the Chinese Didn’t Discover America, for easy reference.
However, is there any actual evidence to suggest a Chinese discovery of America?
The short, and unfortunately the long, answer is, No.
There is currently no archaeological evidence to suggest the Chinese made it to America before Columbus or the Vikings. I know that’s a really unsatisfactory answer, but it’s all I got for you sadly. However, there is a lot of “evidence” offered up by the Cult Archaeology world, and we are going to delve into that with gusto in the upcoming weeks. Some of this evidence is just fanciful, but some of it gets close enough to fact that it can almost pass, and then some of it is just repeated over and over in the hopes someone will believe it. However, most of you have been here long enough to know how to spot red flags, and we’ll be testing those skills as we look at the fascinating stories of when the Chinese didn’t discover America.
Go to Columbus was Second-ish: Who Discovered America Anyway? or When the Chinese Didn’t Discover America for more on this series.
Archaeological Fantasies 
There is no question that Zheng He lived and that in the early 15th century he was the admiral of an
enormous Imperial Chinese fleet of ships that are indisputably recorded to have sailed form China to
the east coast of Africa and back to China. The size of that fleet would not be surpassed until the 20th
century. Although some scholars have vigorously debated whether his largest ships reached a length of 400 feet nobody questions that this was a huge armada of large ships by anyone’s definition.
The problem arises however when Zheng He’s voyages are extended beyond the accepted historical
record by author’s and others who are attempting to prove a point. That point being that Zheng He
supposedly sailed much further than is known or historically recorded. Because these efforts lacking
the support of historical documentation are so controversial and anathema to scholars many have
thrown the “baby” out with the dirty bath water. In other words many have decided because they can
not accept parts of the Zheng He story that are being told by some that it must all be false. The established Zheng He historical record speaks for itself. Anyone who seeks to expand that record faces the duty of providing the proof to support the claims made. That’s the way history works.
I believe that it’s probable that the Chinese Imperial Navy sailed the high seas for a very long time
before Zheng He so if Zheng He never made it to North America as some have reported it was because he didn’t have the desire and not because he lacked the equipment or the navigational skills.
Google: “History of the Chinese Navy”, “Ancient Chinese Navigation” and “Ancient Chinese Shipbuilding” for information on this topic. This information does not jive with the western account
of why the European Masters of the Sea were the first true sailors of the open ocean starting in the
late 15th and early 16th centuries. Google: “Inconvenient Maps at the Library of Congress” for more
information on why western and eastern accounts of open sea navigation do not match. Somebody
has bent the truth in telling their story. Perhaps it was to embellish their cultural and historical record.
Study the reported facts given by both sides and then decide for yourself who is embellishing their
story and why they might have done it at that time and since.
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I don’t think that Zeng He discovered the Americas and i went through tons of research.
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