Amerigo Vespucci is generally credited with being the first to conclude that the new continent was not, in fact Asia. He (like Colombus) was an Italian navigator employed by the Spanish crown. He went on a number of voyages (historians dispute the exact number, somewhere from 2-4) between 1497 and 1505. Until his death in 1506, Colombus continued to believe that he had reached India. However, in 1507 Martin Waldseemüller, a German cartographer, published a map clearly depicting the Americas as a seperate continent. (He is the one credited for the name 'America,' after Amerigo). Since the first permanent settlement in the new world (St. Augustine) was not founded until 1565, there was no time during which settlers would have believed that they were in India.