This voyage secured Brazil for Portugal, and added greatly to the geographical knowledge of the day.
The ancients had said that no continent existed south of the equator. But the great length of coast along which Vespucci had sailed proved that the land was not an island. It was plainly a continent, and south of the equator.
Vespucci called the land he found the New World. For a time it was also called the Fourth Part of the Earth, the other three parts being Europe, Asia, and Africa. In 1507 a German writer published an account of the discovery, in which he called the new country America, in honor of Americus Vespucius,1 the discoverer.
1 Americus Vespucius is the Latin form of Amerigo Vespucci.
This land was not connected in any way with the discovery of Columbus, for he was supposed to have found Asia.
The name America was at first applied only to that part of the country which we now call Brazil, but little by little the name was extended until it included the whole of the Western Continent.
You will be glad to know that Vespucci, in the time of his success, did not forget his old friend Columbus, who was then poor and in disgrace. Vespucci visited him and did all he could to assist him.
After Vespucci had made three other voyages to the New World, he was given an important government position in Spain, which he held during the remainder of his life.