Here is one example:
King Joao II of Portugal was a statesman that supported the exploration and exploitation of the undiscovered world. Arguably the first nation to discover America, under Joao's reign Portugal made several other important discoveries while also advancing the field of nautical navigation.
The problem with this narrative is that it implicitly divorces the indigenous inhabitants from the rest of humanity’s history, as if nothing that they ever did ‘counted’ as history. If it had said, ‘the first European nation to find America,’ then that would have been acceptable, but suggesting that any Europeans ‘discovered’ America arrogantly dismisses the indigenous presence as somehow irrelevant or unimportant.
When we talk about Turtle Island’s history (like so), we never say, ‘The Native Americans discovered Europeans.’ Hell, I never see anybody say that the Romans ‘discovered’ Germania — or anywhere else, for that matter, and I think that that is because Germanic history is as much a part of human history as Turtle Islander history is (or should be, at least).
I know that I am really late to this party and that this narrative has been becoming less popular in recent years, but I have never seen anyone quite articulate the issue with it like this either, so I needed to rant.
Tbf people still call indigenous picts, germanics and illyrians "barbarians" and whine endless about how great rome was. Another related anecdote is that in english they translated medieval german polities as "stem duchies" -> while the original word means just tribal duchies and is the same word used as to describe native polities (tribes). Because they couldnt fathom calling white people tribal.
But yeah, the erasure of indigenous people is very real. I too often see people in the wild talking as if native americans died out and dont exist anymore or that they arent relevant in the us because its "only" 4 milion people.
Romans copied the Greeks, and for the most part of human history the latter was not considered European and was effectively part of West Asia, especially when you consider they got their education from North Africa. Consider how Greeks weren't even considered "White" to Western Europeans / the US till relatively recently (look up Operation Gladio for more cut throat dynamics as a microcosm of this). It's more galling when we consider that Ancient Greek philosophy and culture was introduced to Europe via Islam (which modern europe has decided it will separate itself from with "Judeo-Christian values") through the Iberian Peninsula of Spain.
The above is ignoring all the looting and pillaging both of culture and more tangible wealth from the Global South that makes up modern European cultures and ethnicities. All older European culturea have either become extinct or subsumed by the past couple of centuries of Western imperialism - they are essentially cosplaying older cultures at this stage (at best) when harking "authenticity".