European's didn't discover chile peppers. Wild chile peppers are native to large parts of the Americans and were domesticated by Native American ancestors in Central America (and again independently in South America) where they were first encountered by Europeans. Europeans were then responsible for spreading them globally, but they didn't have any role in their discovery or initial domestication.

The earliest domesticated chile dates back to about 4100 BC from central Mexico (McClung de Tapia 1992), but their may have been some more recent pushing back of that date that I'm not aware of. The point being that chile plants have a long history in Mesoamerica and South America prior to European arrival.