In the wake of the Haitian earthquake, one of my fellow columnists wrote an excellent summary on that country's history.

Therein, he noted that Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, adding that the island was "discovered" by Columbus on his first voyage.

As I have done often in recent years, I winced at the now almost obligatory placing of the word discovered in quotation marks.

They are understood to be little red flags, indicating that the mariner did not really discover America, since that honor ought to belong to Indians or Vikings.

However, the archaic definition of discover prevailing in the late 15th century states that the word meant simply "to make known, to reveal, to disclose" without reference to other peoples (such as Indians or Vikings) having previously acquired the same knowledge.

Thus, when Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage and appeared at the royal court, he claimed to have made an authentic discovery. Queen Isabel, using the same word, acknowledged it, as did all of Europe.

In a recent column of mine, I described the contents of Baltasar de Obregón's Chronicle of 1584, in which he recounted the first three Spanish expeditions to New Mexico, beginning with Coronado in 1540.

As I was reading the English translation of the Chronicle, totaling 340 pages, I couldn't help but notice how often Obregón used in his narrative the word discover, and its derivatives discovery and discoverer.

Also, in a cover letter to King Philip II published with the book, the author used discover five times. By my rough count, that word with its variants occurs more than 250 times in the Chronicle!

In each case, when he spoke of discoveries, it was from the perspective of his time and from that of his own society and culture.

For example, in relating the initial advance of the Coronado expedition, Obregón refers to its arrival at the pueblo of Acuco (Acoma). "It was first seen and discovered by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado," he says.

Clearly, Obregón's meaning is that Acoma was unknown to Spaniards and Europeans until Coronado discovered it. And while obviously it had been seen before by other Pueblo and nomadic people, this first sighting by helmeted men on horseback was the landmark event that brought the Acomas into history's mainstream.

Later when the Franisco Chamuscado (1581) and the Antonio de Espejo (1583) expeditions visited New Mexico, they made numerous discoveries, according to Obregón's reporting. However, almost all of them had been "first discovered" by Coronado.

The point here is that the Spaniards and other colonizers employed the term discover far more loosely than we do today.

So, did Columbus really discover America, or not? Traditional Indians, including the Pueblos, usually claim that their ancestors made no such a discovery, but rather that they have always been here, since emerging from the underworld.

And, the Vikings did cross the North Atlantic to Newfoundland, possibly as early as the 10th century. But their voyages were forgotten.

Hence, it would seem that Columbus is left as legitimate holder of "the discoverer title." For undeniably, his discovery was the one that counted, inasmuch as it changed the course of world history.

Historian Marc Simmons is author of numerous books on New Mexico and the Southwest. His column appears Saturdays.