Excerpt from The American Discovery of Europe by Jack Forbes
Pages 5-6, (© 2007, University of Illinois Press)
Sometime during the 1470s a group of Native Americans followed the Gulf Stream from the Americas to Ireland. We don't know if they were from the Caribbean region or from North America. We don't know if their journey was intentional or if they were driven eastward by a storm. What we do know is that two or more Americans, at least a man and a woman, reached Galway Bay, Ireland, and were there seen by Christoforo Colomb (Columbus) long prior to his famous voyage of 1492.
This momentous event, largely ignored by white historians, marks a beginning of the modern age, since it is precisely because of this experience that Columbus possessed the absolute certainty that he could sail westward to Cathay (Katayo or China) and India.
It is true, of course, that Columbus later learned of many arguments favoring the possibility of being able to sail directly westward from Europe to Asia. Most of these arguments were based upon logic, though, and not upon actual, concrete evidence. They were arguments derived from books that Columbus studied and annotated or from conversations and correspondence.
It is significant that all of the "hard" evidence Columbus had learned about originated with the actions of Americans or of the American environment itself. That is, the most concrete evidence that a land lay directly to the west of Europe and the offshore islands (such as the Azores) was derived from the drifting of American seacraft to the Azores, from the discovery of American bodies washed ashore, and from the arrival of carved wood and natural objects (driftwood, logs, seeds, reeds, and debris) driven by currents and winds from the west. Columbus learned of them second hand. He did not see them himself, but learned of them from other persons.