Go South young man ...

Although Genoese, Colombo (Columbus is an English name) sailed for Spain at the end of the 15th century (In 1492, he sailed the ocean blue ..) On his fourth voyage to the Americas he, and his crew, sailed a little further and encountered the Cuna Indians. Most of the Cunas live on a narrow strip of land on the San Blas Archipelago, a group of 365 small islands on the northeastern Atlantic coast of the modern Republic of Panama. Nowadays they are known for their reverse appliqué, called Molas, but in those times the Spanish were looking for gold and Silver and were desperate to obtain it. Some of the Cuna women wore gold amulets and when asked, they would point to the South and indicate that's where obtained it.

The Spanish later went South spreading their language and with the Treaty of Tordesillas, Portuguese became the second major spoken language of South America.

I wonder how history would have evolved if instead the Cunas pointed North.