Didrik Pining (c. 1428 – 1491) was a German sailor whom some claim discovered America in 1473, almost twenty years before Columbus.
Contents |
Biography
Didrik (also written Dietrich or Diderick) was a native of Hildesheim. Pining left his home at the age of 20 to go to sea. He first appears in history as a privateer in the service of the Free City of Hamburg, hunting down English raiders and merchant ships in the North Atlantic. Later, he was in the service of the king of Denmark. In 1471, Pining was appointed the captain of a German-led, Danish-sponsored, and Portuguese-financed expedition seeking a northwestern route to Asia. Pining sailed with three ships to Greenland, and then searched further south. He is claimed to have landed in 1473 on Newfoundland and Labrador, together with Hans Pothorst, also from Hildesheim, and the Portuguese explorers João Vaz Corte-Real and Álvaro Martins. The navigator was a possibly semi-mythical figure named John Scolvus. Pining allegedly made other visits to Greenland, and in 1476 is claimed to have explored the mouth of the St Lawrence River. Tantalizingly, Martin Behaim's Erdapfel globe of 1492 -- made before Columbus's return from America, shows islands to the south of Greenland. Had Behaim heard of these from Pining? Also, Portuguese maps from the late 15th century list Newfoundland as Terra Cortereal. Whatever the truth, Pining's expedition was mainly forgotten, while Columbus went on to gain lasting fame. In 1478 Didrik Pining became the governor of Iceland, serving for two years. He died in Vardø, Norway in 1491, at the age of 63 -- before Columbus had even set sail for the New World.
Trivia
- A school in his hometown Hildesheim is named after Didrik.
Further reading
- Klaus-Peter Kiedel, "Eine Expedition nach Grönland im Jahre 1473", Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, Vol. 3 (1980), pp.115-140
- Norman Berdichevsky, "The role of 'sibling rivalry' in the '(Re)discovery' of America controversy", Journal of Cultural Geography, 12/1, (1991), pp.59-68
- Thomas L. Hughes, "The German Discovery of America: A Review of the Controversy over Didrik Pining’s Voyage of Exploration in 1473 in the North Atlantic", in: German Historical Institute Bulletin, No. 33 (Fall 2003)
- Thomas L. Hughes, "The German discovery of America. A review of the controversy over Pining's 1473 voyage of exploration", German Studies Review, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Oct. 2004), pp.503-526 abstracts
- Paul Pini, "Der Hildesheimer Didrik Pining als Entdecker Amerikas, als Admiral und als Gouverneur von Island im Dienste der Könige von Dänemark, Norwegen und Schweden", Hildesheim 1971
- Robert McGhee, "Northern Approaches. Before Columbus: Early European Visitors to the Shores of the "New World", Beaver, Vol.72 (Jun.-Jul. 1992), pp.6-23
