Columbus claimed he had discovered America and he got the reward of a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life because he was the first man to sight land. while a sailor, Rodrigo, saw the early morning moon shining on white sands. Europeans may already have been fishing off New found land in the 1480s. In a sense Columbus's voyage was not the first, but the last “discovery” of the Americas. Both, Zinn and Loewen, agreed that Columbus were not the first explorer to land in America. According to Loewen, although he made three more voyages to America, he never knew he had discovered a New World.
