Detail from Mercator’s 1569 world map

Q.   Hey, we’re the biggest greatest nation in the history of the world.  We got coastal real estate all along The Gulf in Texas and Florida and some other states that I can’t remember right now.  We have oil rigs all over the place out there.  What the hell do the damn Mexicans have to do with our ocean?

A.  Well, the “Gulf of America” wouldn’t be a bad name for the large body of water lying between North and South America, if it wasn’t for dipshits like yourself constantly using the term “America” to mean only “The United States of America” – which is of course just one country among 35 sovereign states in the Americas.

But let’s set that aside for now.

The indigenous peoples of the Gulf region have had their own names for this body of water for upwards of 14,000 years.

We all know that European conquerors and colonizers often gave their own names to the places they overran.

The earliest European to set eyes on the Gulf would have been Sebastián de Ocampo, when he sailed around the western end of Cuba in 1508.

The very earliest maps referred to the Gulf as “Seno Mejicano” or “Golfo de la Nueva España“. Those names are in Spanish, by the way.

By 1569, this sea was officially being referred to as the “Golfo Mexicano” on a map made by Geert Kremer, aka Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish mapmaker and geographer.

Go look up “Flemish” yourself.  We haven’t got all day here.

If you can count, you will notice that the year 1569 was about 38 years before the founding of Jamestown, the first successful English colony in North America.

Which was nowhere near the Gulf, in case you’re wondering.

The placename “Gulf of Mexico” precedes the founding of The United States of America by 207 years.

Furthermore, the USA did not even control ANY land on the Gulf of Mexico until after the Louisiana “Purchase” of 1803 – a full 238 years AFTER it had first been called “The Gulf of Mexico”.

The United States’ length of coastline along the Gulf exceeds Mexico’s by about a third, but this situation was of course helped by the US war of aggression and annexation waged against Mexico during the 1840s.

Hope this helps.