Did the term "Indian" really come from a mis-label from early European settlers in America?

by SlammerEye

I was always under the impression that we used the term Indian because early Europeans were mistaken that they landed in India. However, this HuffPost article explains that it wasn't possible, that we used the term Hindustan for India during that time. And that Europeans used the term Indio early on, which then morphed into Indian.

So, does that mean there are 2 different origins of the term Indian?

DerProfessor

I agree with many of Tim Giago's (the author) main points in the essay. His overall goal is to rehabilitate the word "Indian" for Native Americans. "Native Americans" is a term which I also have always felt a bit uncomfortable with, as I know--just as Giago argues--that "Indian" is THE term used for self-identification of Native Americans in the United States. The term "Native American" is, as Giago relates, an artifact of university life... and (I further agree with him) it is not only cumbersome but "performative." (hence my own discomfort with the term, though I use it.)

However, he is dead wrong on one of his points:

I am a firm believer that most historians are wrong when they credit Christopher Columbus for coining the word “Indian” because he thought he was landing his ships in India. In 1492 there was no country known as India. Instead that country was called Hindustan.

Actually, this is easily checked, and he's incorrect. Historians are not wrong here.

Columbus' letter announcing his discoveries was originally written in Spanish, and printed in Barcelona in 1493. However, it was translated into Latin, and spread widely. Just as importantly, FAR more importantly, the Latin letter was reprinted all over Europe, in Paris, Basel, and other cities. So, it was the Latin letter of Columbus, 1493, that spread the news of the newly-discovered lands throughout Europe.

In the first few sentences, Columbus' Latin letter describes his voyage:

"On the thirty-third day after I departed from Cadiz, I came to the Indian sea ("mare Indicu"), where I found many islands inhabited by men without number, of all which I took possession for our most fortunate king, with proclaiming heralds and flying standards, no one objecting. To the first of these I gave the name of the blessed Saviour, on whose aid relying I had reached this as well as the other islands. But the Indians ("Indi") call it Guanahany. I also called each one of the others by a new name. For I ordered one island to be called Santa Maria of the Conception, another Fernandina, another Isabella, another Juana, and so on with the rest." [this is a literal translation from the University of Maine library.]

My own Latin is a bit rusty, but there are many digitized copies of the first edition of the printed Latin letter, and even I can clearly recognize "mare Indicu" and "Indi". Columbus' Latin letter names the inhabitants "Indians" not because they're from Hindustan, but because their island is in the "Indian Sea" [Indian Ocean].

Here's a link if you want to try out your Latin:

http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/omeka/lilly/items/show/74

Now, perhaps Giago is saying that the original Spanish letter (which was indeed more vague on geographical details than the Latin letter) did NOT have this appellation? That the translation from Spanish into Latin was a mistranslation? Perhaps... though if so, he needs to state that outright. I'm not familiar with the Spanish version... perhaps someone else out there is?

But does it really matter what Columbus himself thought or meant? I mean, Columbus was an ideologue and a brute... so ascribing him the smallest dash of nuance is not likely to burnish his reputation all that much.

More importantly, it was through the Latin letter that Europeans learned about the New World. And it was the Latin letter that taught Europeans to call the inhabitants of the New World "Indians," because their islands were in the Indian Ocean. So, whether Columbus personally thought he found Cathay, Hindustan, Cipangu, or some new island entirely, was really irrelevant. He was sure this was the path to the "Indies"... i.e. the riches of the east. That's what mattered. Hence the name "Indians."

EDIT: quick note: the "Indian Sea" was BIG in the Europeans' imaginations, both figuratively but also literally. Take a look at the Waldseemüller map, likely published in 1507, one of the earliest to show the "New World," and the first to label this land "America" (after Vespucci, as you all know).

https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/waldexh.html

But look at the eastern lower corners: the Oceanus Indicus is both west and east of the long, angular peninsula... which is NOT Southeast Asia, but rather the Indian subcontinent. Java is the furthest east in the south; while China (Cathay) is stuffed into the far NORTH (where we might imagine Vladivostok); while Zipangu (Japan) is further east and further north still (feeling a lot like Alaska...).

Meanwhile, the sea to the east of Java is the "Oceanus Orientalus Indicus"... the Eastern Indian Ocean. As I said, it was BIG back then! :-) And all those little islands east of Java (but still in the Indian Ocean)? One of those was where Columbus thought he landed. Just a brief hop to the India Meridonalis, i.e. Southern India, which is called Southern India because India Superior (Northern India) is... China!! (Cathay) Pretty cool, actually.

You see that "India" was a much bigger concept than just the Indian subcontinent today. Indeed, "India" as geographical concept was bigger than "Asia." (which you can also see on the map).

fartypenis

Because the main part of the question has already been answered, I'll take on the statement that India was called Hindustan back then. This isn't factually incorrect. Hindustân was and still is how the Persians refer to India, and is the word for India in many Iranic or Iranic-influenced languages. But this wasn't the word used by the Europeans.

India comes from Greek Indía, a formation from the Greek word Indós that came from Old Persian Hindush (the loss of the initial 'h' is a very well established change in Greek), which itself comes from the Sanskrit Sindhu, which is what the Indo-Aryan people living in India called the Indus. Indus itself is a Latinisation of Indós. Everything to the East of the river Indus was considered to be India. The word, and indeed, the concept of India, in Europe are at least two thousand years old, and probably more, given Herodotus' mention of India.

But India wasn't called that in English until quite recently. The word, unlike most English words that come from or through Latin, is a direct borrowing from Latin instead of through Old French. The word used for India was actually Ind, or Inde (old English spelling wasn't exactly standardized), from Old French Inde, from Latin India. This is still the French word for India. One example of Ind being used is Paradise Lost, whose second book starts

High on a throne of royal state which far

outshone the wealth of Ormus [=Hormuz] and of Ind;

It is true that a country called India didn't exist back then. India, like Europe, was home to hundreds of different kingdoms, each with their own cultures, languages, and customs. The concept of India in Europe wasn't so much that of a country or a nation, but rather a huge continent. Before the Portuguese sailed around the African coast to reach India, it was thought that Somalia and lands further South were all part of the Indian landmass. Indonesia and most of Southeast Asia were also considered to be part of this, hence why they are called the Indies (the plural of Inde; This pluralisation, although I don't remember why it is, is present in many European languages, and indeed in Columbus' letter, where he refers to las Indias). As u/derProfessor says, the concept of India and the Indies was much larger than Asia itself.

This is also why many sources are inconsistent about what Columbus actually wanted to reach - India, China, or Japan. The concept of the Indies included all these. Greater India, or India Major, extended from the Malabar coast to the Ganges. India extra Gangem referred to the lands beyond the Ganges, usually the Malay archipelago and the Southeast Asian peninsula. India Exterior referred to China and Japan, and India Minor referred to the actual Indian Subcontinent. This means that Columbus wanting to find las Indias could be interpreted as him trying to find literally anything east of the Indus, north of Southeast Africa and south of Siberia.

Columbus thought the Earth was much smaller than it actually is, and so, if he would sail west he would eventually reach the Indies, given the Earth is round. And, indeed, he thought he had, and this mistake is really the reason the native Americans were called 'Indians', or why they're called the "west Indies" - they lie west of the actual Indies. This led to the Southeast Asian archipelago being called the "East Indies" (hence the many East India companies). The premise that Hindustan was used instead of India in Europe, and that there didn't exist a concept of India during Columbus' time is undeniably false.