Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 / Various

Project Gutenberg's Great Epochs in American History, Volume I., by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Great Epochs in American History, Volume I.
       Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682

Author: Various

Editor: Francis W. Halsey

Release Date: June 11, 2005 [EBook #16037]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EPOCHS, AMERICAN ***




Produced by Carel Lyn Miske and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






GREAT EPOCHS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

DESCRIBED BY FAMOUS WRITERS
FROM COLUMBUS TO WILSON


Edited, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes

By FRANCIS W. HALSEY

_Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations"; Associate Editor
of "The Best of the World's Classics"; author of "The Old New York
Frontier"; Editor of "Seeing Europe With Famous Authors"_


IN TEN VOLUMES

ILLUSTRATED


VOL. I

VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATIONS: 1000 A.D.-1682


COPYRIGHT, 1912 AND 1916, by

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

[_Printed in the United States of America_]




    [Transcriber's Note: This text retains original spellings.]



PREFACE


In these ten volumes the aim has been to present striking accounts of
ten great epochs in the history of the United States, from the landing
of Columbus to the building of the Panama Canal. In large part, events
composing each epoch are described by men who participated in them, or
were personal eye-witnesses of them.

Columbus, for example, described his own first voyage; Washington, the
defeat of Braddock; Gen. "Sam" Houston the battle of San Jacinto;
General Robert E. Lee, the capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry;
Murat Halstead, the nomination of Lincoln; Jefferson Davis, the
evacuation of Richmond, and his own arrest in Georgia by Federal
troops; Mrs. James Chesnut, wife of the Confederate general, the
firing on Fort Sumter; Edmund Clarence Stedman, the retreat from Bull
Run; Gen. James Longstreet, Pickett's charge at Gettysburg; General
Sheridan, Sheridan's ride to Winchester; James G. Blaine, the funeral
of Lincoln; Cyrus W. Field, the laying of the Atlantic cable; Horace
White, the great Chicago fire; William Jennings Bryan, the first Bryan
campaign; Admiral Dewey, the battle of Manila Bay, and Admiral Peary,
the finding of the North Pole.

These accounts are often supplemented by passages from the writings of
historians and biographers, including George Bancroft, Washington
Irving, Francis Parkman, Richard Hildreth, William E.H. Lecky, James
Schouler, and John Fiske; or from those of statesmen, journalists and
publicists, among them, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas H.
Benton, Robert Toombs, Horace Greeley, "Bull Run" Russell, Carl
Schurz, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The tables of contents prefixt to the several volumes, or the index
appended to the last, will show how wide is the range of topics. The
events described have been of vital, and often of transcendant,
importance to this country and Europe. The writers will be found
interesting as authorities, and are often supremely competent, alike
as authorities and writers. The work is believed to present American
history in a form that will appeal to readers for its authenticity and
its novelty.

Francis W. Halsey.




INTRODUCTION

(_Voyages of Discovery and Early Explorations._)


Schoolboys have been taught from their earliest years that Columbus
discovered America. Few events in prehistoric times seem more probable
now than that Columbus was not the first to discover it. The importance
of his achievement over that of others lay in his own faith in his
success, in his definiteness of purpose, and in the fact that he
awakened in Europe an interest in the discovery that led to further
explorations, disclosing a new continent and ending in permanent
settlements.

The earliest voyages to America, made probably from Asia, led to
settlements, but they remained unknown ever afterward to all save the
settlers themselves, while those from Europe led to settlements that
were either soon abandoned or otherwise came to nought. Wandering
Tatar, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, or Polynesian sailors who drifted,
intentionally or accidentally, to the Pacific coast in some unrecorded
and prehistoric past, and from whom the men we call our aborigines
probably are descended, sent back to Asia no tidings of what they had
found. Their discovery, in so far as it concerned the people of the
Old World, remained as if it had never been.

The hardy Northmen of the Viking age, who, like John Smith, six
hundred years afterward, found in Vinland "a pleasant land to see,"
understood so little of the importance of what they had found, that,
by the next century, their discovery had virtually been forgotten in
all Scandinavia. It seems never to have become known anywhere else in
Europe. Indeed, had the Northmen made it known to other Europeans, it
is quite unlikely that any active interest would have been taken in
it. Europe in the year 1000 was self-centered. She had troubles enough
to absorb all her energies. Ambition for the expansion of her
territory, for trade with peoples beyond the great waters, nowhere
existed. Most European states were engaged in a grim struggle to hold
what they had--to hold it from the aggressions of their neighbors, to
hold it against the rising power of Islam.

Columbus did not know he had discovered the continent we call America.
He died in the belief that he had found unknown parts of Asia; that he
had discovered a shorter and safer route for trade with the East, and
that he had given new proof of the assertions made by astronomers that
the earth is round. The men who immediately followed him--Vespucius
and the Cabots--believed only that they had confirmed and extended his
discovery. Cabot first found the mainland of North America, Vespucius
the mainland of South America, but neither knew he had found a new
continent. Each saw only coast lines; made landings, it is true; saw
and conversed with natives, and Vespucius fought with natives; but of
the existence of a new world, having continents comparable to Europe,
Asia, or Africa, with an ocean on both sides of them, neither ever so
much as dreamed.

Under the splendid inspiration of Prince Henry the Navigator, an
inspiration that remained potent throughout Portugal long after his
death, Bartholomew Dias, five years before Columbus made his voyage to
America, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, actually sailed into the
Indian Ocean, and was pressing on toward India when his crew, from
exhaustion, refused to go farther, and he was forced to return home.
Vasco da Gama, ten years later (1497), following the route of Dias,
actually reached India and thus demonstrated that, instead of going
overland by caravan, India could be reached by sailing around
two-thirds of Africa.

Spanish and Portuguese navigators--Columbus, Da Gama, Dias--alike
sought a new and shorter route for trade with the Far East--one,
moreover, that would not be molested by the advancing and aggressive
Turks. Columbus believed, and so believed Spain and Portugal, that
he had found a shorter route than the one Diaz and Da Gama found.
Disputes arose between the rival powers as to titles and benefits from
the discoveries, and it was because of these that Pope Alexander VI
issued his famous Bull, dividing between the two all lands discovered
by the navigators, an act which, in our time, has become a curious
anomaly, since later proof of the existence of continents between the
Atlantic and Pacific made the Pope's decree virtually a partitioning
of all America between two favored countries as sole beneficiaries.

Da Gama returned from India laden with Eastern treasure. Columbus
returned from America poorer than when he sailed from the port of
Palos. Columbus was believed to have found Asia, but he brought home,
after several voyages, none of the wealth of Asia. Hence those fierce
storms that beat about his head, leading to his imprisonment and to
his death in Valladolid, a broken-hearted man.

The Spanish explorers who in the next century followed Columbus, came
to America in pursuit of silver and gold. Rich stores had already been
found by their countrymen in Mexico and the Peruvian Andes. In
meetings with Indians farther north wearing ornaments of gold, the new
explorers became convinced that mineral wealth also existed in the
lands now called the United States, and especially in the fabled
"Seven Cities of Cibola," in the Southwest. Out of this belief came
the bold enterprises of Ponce de Leon, De Vaca, Coronado and De Soto,
while out of the Spanish successes in finding gold in America came the
first known voyage into New York Harbor, that of Verazzano, the
Italian in French service, who was seeking Spanish vessels returning
richly laden.

Of the French and English explorers of later years--Cartier, Champlain,
Marquette, Hudson, Drake--who came to Cape Breton, the St. Lawrence,
Hudson, and Mississippi valleys, the California coast--the motives
were different. These came to fish for cod, to explore the country, to
plant the banners of the Sun King and Queen Bess over new territories,
to convert the Indians, to find a northwest passage--that problem of
the navigators which baffled them all until 1854--362 years after the
landing of Columbus--when an English ship, under Sir Robert McClure,
sailed from Bering Sea to Davis Strait, and thus proved that America,
North and South, was an island.

Spaniards, however, had dreamed of a northwest passage before any of
these. When Magellan passed through the strait that bears his name,
and his ship completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, men
began first to see that America was no part of Asia. In further proof
they sought to find a passage into the Pacific from the north, as a
complement to Magellan's passage from the south. Such an attempt was
first made by the Spaniards under Vasquez d'Ayllon, four years after
the voyage of Magellan; that is, in 1524. Ayllon was hoping to find
this passage when he put in at Hampton Roads, just as Hudson hoped to
find it, eighty-five years afterward, when he entered the harbor of
New York--Hudson, who in a later voyage, sought it once more in Hudson
Bay, and perished miserably there, set adrift in an open boat and
abandoned by his own mutinous sailors.

F.W.H.




CONTENTS

VOL. I--VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATIONS


PREFACE

INTRODUCTION. By the Editor

DISCOVERIES BEFORE COLUMBUS

    I. Men from Asia and from Norway. By Justin Winsor
   II. How the Norwegians Came to Vinland
  III. The First European Child
   IV. Other Pre-Columbian Voyages. By Henry Wheaton

THE DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS:

    I. As Described by Washington Irving
   II. As Described by Columbus Himself

THE BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI PARTITIONING AMERICA

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MAINLAND BY THE CABOTS:

    I. The Account Given by John A. Doyle
   II. Peter Martyr's Account

THE VOYAGES OF VESPUCIUS. Vespucius' Own Account

A BATTLE WITH THE INDIANS. As Described by Vespucius

THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF AMERICA PRINTED IN ENGLISH

THE DISCOVERY OF FLORIDA BY PONCE DE LEON. Parkman's Account

THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC BY BALBOA. By Manuel Jose Quintana

THE VOYAGE OF MAGELLAN TO THE PACIFIC. By John Fiske

THE DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK HARBOR BY VERAZZANO. Verazzano's Own Account

CARTIER'S EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE:

    I. The Account Given by John A. Doyle
   II. Cartier's Own Account

SEARCHES FOR THE "SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA." By Reuben Gold Thwaites

CABEZA DE VACA'S JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH-WEST. De Vaca's Own Account

THE EXPEDITION OF CORONADO TO THE SOUTH-WEST. Coronado's Own Account

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY DE SOTO. Parkman's Account

THE DEATH OF DE SOTO. By One of De Soto's Companions

DRAKE'S VISIT TO CALIFORNIA. By One of Drake's Companions

HUDSON'S DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. By Robert Juet, Hudson's Secretary

CHAMPLAIN'S BATTLE WITH THE IROQUOIS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN. By Champlain
Himself

MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Marquette's Own Account

THE DEATH OF MARQUETTE. By Father Claude Dablon

THE DISCOVERY OF NIAGARA FALLS. By Father Louis Hennepin

LA SALLE'S VOYAGE TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI. By Francis Parkman





VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATIONS

1000 A.D.--1682


DISCOVERIES BEFORE COLUMBUS

I

THE MEN FROM ASIA AND FROM NORWAY[1]

BY JUSTIN WINSOR


There is not a race of eastern Asia--Siberian, Tatar, Chinese,
Japanese, Malay, with the Polynesians--which has not been claimed as
discoverers, intending or accidental, of American shores, or as
progenitors, more or less perfect or remote, of American peoples; and
there is no good reason why any one of them may not have done all that
is claimed. The historical evidence, however, is not such as is based
on documentary proofs of indisputable character, and the recitals
advanced are often far from precise enough to be convincing in
details, if their general authenticity is allowed.

Nevertheless, it is much more than barely probable that the ice of
Bering Straits or the line of the Aleutian Islands was the pathway of
successive immigrations, on occasions perhaps far apart, or maybe near
together; and there is hardly a stronger demonstration of such a
connection between the two continents than the physical resemblances
of the peoples now living on the opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean
in these upper latitudes, with the similarity of the flora which
environs them on either shore.

It is quite as conceivable that the great northern current, setting
east athwart the Pacific, should from time to time have carried along
disabled vessels, and stranded them on the shores of California and
farther north leading to the infusion of Asiatic blood among whatever
there may have been antecedent or autochthonous in the coast peoples.
It is certainly in this way possible that the Chinese or Japanese may
have helped populate the western slopes of the American continent.
There is no improbability even of the Malays of southeastern Asia
extending step by step to the Polynesian Islands, and among them and
beyond them, till the shores of a new world finally received the
impress of their footsteps and of their ethnic characteristics. We may
very likely recognize not proofs, but indications, along the shores of
South America, that its original people constituted such a stock or
were increased by it.

As respects the possible early connections of America on the side of
Europe, there is an equally extensive array of claims, and they have
been set forth, first and last, with more persistency than effect....

Leaving the old world by the northern passage, Iceland lies at the
threshold of America. It is nearer to Greenland than to Norway, and
Greenland is but one of the large islands into which the arctic
currents divide the North American continent. Thither, to Iceland, if
we identify the localities in Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur sailed
as early as the beginning of the sixth century, and overcame whatever
inhabitants he may have found there. Here, too, an occasional
wandering pirate or adventurous Dane had glimpsed the coast. Thither,
among others, came the Irish, and in the ninth century we find Irish
monks and a small colony of their countrymen in possession. Thither
the Gulf Stream carries the southern driftwood, suggesting sunnier
lands to whatever race had been allured or driven to its shelter. Here
Columbus, when, as he tells us, he visited the island in 1477, found
no ice. So that, if we may place reliance on the appreciable change of
climate by the precession of the equinoxes, a thousand years ago and
more, when the Norwegians crossed from Scandinavia and found these
Christian Irish there, the island was not the forbidding spot that it
seems with the lapse of centuries to be becoming.

It was in A.D. 875 that Ingolf, a jarl of Norway, came to Iceland with
Norse settlers. They built their habitation at first where a pleasant
headland seemed attractive, the present Ingolfshofdi, and later
founded Reikjavik, where the signs directed them; for certain carved
posts, which they had thrown overboard as they approached the island,
were found to have drifted to that spot. The Christian Irish preferred
to leave their asylum rather than consort with the newcomers, and so
the island was left to be occupied by successive immigrations of the
Norse, which their king could not prevent. In the end, and within half
a century, a hardy little republic--as for a while it was--of near
70,000 inhabitants, was established almost under the arctic circle.

The very next year (A.D. 876) after Ingolf had come to Iceland, a
sea-rover, Gunnbiorn, driven in his ship westerly, sighted a strange
land, and the report that he made was not forgotten. Fifty years
later, more or less, for we must treat the dates of the Icelandic
sagas with some reservation, we learn that a wind-tossed vessel was
thrown upon a coast far away, which was called Iceland the Great.
Then, again, we read of a young Norwegian, Eric the Red, not
apparently averse to a brawl, who killed his man in Norway and fled to
Iceland, where he kept his dubious character; and again outraging the
laws, he was sent into temporary banishment--this time in a ship which
he fitted out for discovery; and so he sailed away in the direction of
Gunnbiorn's land, and found it. He whiled away three years on its
coast, and as soon as he was allowed, ventured back with the tidings.
While, to propitiate intending settlers, he said he had been to
Greenland, and so the land got a sunny name.

The next year, which seems to have been A.D. 985, he started on his
return with 35 ships, but only fourteen of them reached the land.
Whenever there was a habitable fiord, a settlement grew up, and the
stream of immigrants was for a while constant and considerable. Just
at the end of the century (A.D. 999) Lief, a son of Eric, sailed back
to Norway, and found the country in the early fervor of a new
religion; for King Olaf Tryggvesson had embraced Christianity, and was
imposing it on his people. Leif accepted the new faith, and a priest
was assigned to him to take back to Greenland; and thus Christianity
was introduced into arctic America. So they began to build churches in
Greenland, the considerable ruins of one of which stands to this day.
The winning of Iceland to the Church was accomplished at the same
time....

In the next year after the second voyage of Eric the Red, one of the
ships which were sailing from Iceland to the new settlement, was
driven far off her course, according to the sagas, and Bjarni
Herjulfson, who commanded the vessel, reported that he had come upon a
land, away to the southwest, where the coast country was level; and he
added that when he turned north it took him nine days to reach
Greenland. Fourteen years later than this voyage of Bjarni, which was
said to have been in A.D. 986--that is, in the year 1000 or
thereabouts--Lief, the same who had brought the Christian priest to
Greenland, taking with him 35 companions, sailed from Greenland in
quest of the land seen by Bjarni, which Lief first found, where a
barren shore stretched back to ice-covered mountains, and, because of
the stones there, he called the region Helluland. Proceeding farther
south, he found a sandy shore, with a level forest country back of it,
and because of the woods it was named Markland. Two days later they
came upon other land, and tasting the dew upon the grass they found it
sweet. Farther south and westerly they went, and going up a river,
came into an expanse of water, where on the shores they built huts to
lodge in for the winter, and sent out exploring parties. In one of
these Tyrker, a native of a part of Europe where grapes grew, found
vines hung with their fruit, which induced Lief to call the country
Vinland.

Attempts have been made to identify these various regions by the
inexact accounts of the direction of their sailing, by the very
general descriptions of the country, by the number of days occupied in
going from one point to another, with the uncertainty if the ship
sailed at night, and by the length of the shortest day in Vinland--the
last a statement that might help us, if it could be interpreted with a
reasonable concurrence of opinion, and if it were not confused with
other inexplicable statements. The next year Lief's brother, Thorwald,
went to Vinland with a single ship, and passed three winters there,
making explorations meanwhile, south and north. Thorfinn Karlsefne,
arriving in Greenland in A.D. 1006, married a courageous widow named
Gudrid, who induced him to sail with his ships to Vinland and make
there a permanent settlement, taking with him livestock and other
necessaries for colonization. Their first winter in the place was a
severe one; but Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorre, from whom it is
claimed Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor, was descended. The next
season they removed to the spot where Leif had wintered, and called
the bay Hop. Having spent a third winter in the country, Karlsefne,
with a part of the colony, returned to Greenland.

The saga then goes on to say that trading voyages to the settlement
which had been formed by Karlsefne now became frequent, and that the
chief lading of the return voyages was timber, which was much needed
in Greenland. A bishop of Greenland, Eric Upsi, is also said to have
gone to Vinland in A.D. 1121. In 1347 the last ship of which we have
any record in these sagas went to Vinland after timber. After this all
is oblivion.

There are in all these narratives many details beyond this outline,
and those who have sought to identify localities have made the most
they could of the mention of a rock here or a bluff there, of an
island where they killed a bear, of others where they found eggs, of a
headland where they buried a leader who had been killed, of a cape
shaped like a keel, of broadfaced natives who offered furs for red
cloths, of beaches where they hauled up their ships, and of tides that
were strong; but the more these details are scanned in the different
sagas, the more they confuse the investigator, and the more successive
relators try to enlighten us the more our doubts are strengthened,
till we end with the conviction that all attempts at consistent
unravelment leave nothing but a vague sense of something somewhere
done.

    [1] From an article by Mr. Winsor in "The Narrative and Critical
    History of America," of which he was editor. By arrangement with
    the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co., Copyright 1889. For a long
    period Mr. Winsor was librarian of Harvard University. He wrote
    "From Cartier to Frontenac," "Christopher Columbus," "The Mississippi
    Basin," and made other important contributions to American history.




II

HOW THE NORWEGIANS CAME TO VINLAND[1]

(1000 A.D.)


Lief invited his father, Eric, to become the leader of the expedition,
but Eric declined, saying that he was then stricken in years, and
adding that he was less able to endure the exposure of sea life than
he had been. Lief replied that he would, nevertheless, be the one who
would be most apt to bring good luck, and Eric yielded to Lief's
solicitation, and rode from home when they were ready to sail.

They put the ship in order; and, when they were ready, they sailed out
to sea, and found first that land which Bjarni and his shipmates found
last. They sailed up to the land and cast anchor, and launched a boat
and went ashore, and saw no grass there. Great ice mountains lay
inland back from the sea, and it was as a [table-land of] flat rock
all the way from the sea to the ice mountains; and the country seemed
to them to be entirely devoid of good qualities. Then said Lief, "It
has not come to pass with us in regard to this land as with Biarni,
that we have not gone upon it. To this country I will now give a name,
and call it Helluland," They returned to the ship, put out to sea, and
found a second land.

They sailed again to the land, and came to anchor, and launched the
boat, and went ashore. This was a level wooded land; and there were
broad stretches of white sand where they went, and the land was level
by the sea. Then said Lief, "This land shall have a name after its
nature; and we will call it Markland." They returned to the ship
forthwith, and sailed away upon the main with northeast winds, and
were out two "doegr" before they sighted land. They sailed toward this
land, and came to an island which lay to the northward off the land.
There they went ashore and looked about them, the weather being fine,
and they observed that there was dew upon the grass, and it so
happened that they touched the dew with their hands, and touched their
hands to their mouths, and it seemed to them that they had never
before tasted anything so sweet as this....

A cargo sufficient for the ship was cut, and when the spring came they
made their ship ready, and sailed away; and from its products Lief
gave the land a name, and called it Wineland. They sailed out to sea,
and had fair winds until they sighted Greenland and the fells below
the glaciers. Then one of the men spoke up and said, "Why do you steer
the ship so much into the wind?" Lief answers: "I have my mind upon my
steering, but on other matters as well. Do ye not see anything out of
the common?" They replied that they saw nothing strange. "I do not
know," says Lief, "whether it is a ship or a skerry that I see." Now
they saw it, and said that it must be a skerry; but he was so much
keener of sight than they that he was able to discern men upon the
skerry. "I think it best to tack," says Lief, "so that we may draw
near to them, that we may be able to render them assistance if they
should stand in need of it; and, if they should not be peaceable
disposed, we shall still have better command of the situation than
they."

They approached the skerry, and, lowering their sail, cast anchor, and
launched a second small boat, which they had brought with them. Tyrker
inquired who was the leader of the party. He replied that his name was
Thori, and that he was a Norseman; "but what is thy name?" Lief gave
his name. "Art thou a son of Eric the Red of Brattahlid?" says he.
Lief responded that he was. "It is now my wish," says Lief, "to take
you all into my ship, and likewise so much of your possessions as the
ship will hold." This offer was accepted, and [with their ship] thus
laden they held away to Ericsfirth, and sailed until they arrived at
Brattahlid. Having discharged the cargo, Lief invited Thori, with his
wife, Gudrid, and three others, to make their home with him, and
procured quarters for the other members of the crew, both for his own
and Thori's men. Lief rescued fifteen persons from the skerry. He was
afterward called Lief the Lucky. Lief had now a goodly store both of
property and honor. There was serious illness that winter in Thori's
party, and Thori and a great number of his people died. Eric the Red
also died that winter. There was now much talk about Lief's Wineland
journey; and his brother, Thorvald, held that the country had not been
sufficiently explored. Thereupon Lief said to Thorvald, "If it be thy
will, brother, thou mayest go to Wineland with my ship; but I wish the
ship first to fetch the wood which Thori had upon the skerry." And so
it was done.

Now Thorvald, with the advice of his brother, Lief, prepared to make
this voyage with thirty men. They put their ship in order, and sailed
out to sea; and there is no account of their voyage before their
arrival at Liefs-booths in Wineland. They laid up their ship there,
and remained there quietly during the winter, supplying themselves
with food by fishing. In the spring, however, Thorvald said that
they should put their ship in order, and that a few men should take
the after-boat, and proceed along the western coast, and explore
[the region] thereabouts during the summer. They found it a fair,
well-wooded country. It was but a short distance from the woods to
the sea, and [there were] white sands, as well as great numbers of
islands and shallows. They found neither dwelling of man nor lair
of beast; but in one of the westerly islands they found a wooden
building for the shelter of grain. They found no other trace of human
handiwork; and they turned back, and arrived at Liefs-booths in the
autumn.

The following summer Thorvald set out toward the east with the ship,
and along the northern coast. They were met by a high wind off a
certain promontory, and were driven ashore there, and damaged the keel
of their ship, and were compelled to remain there for a long time and
repair the injury to their vessel. Then said Thorvald to his
companions, "I propose that we raise the keel upon this cape, and call
it Keelness"; and so they did. Then they sailed away to the eastward
off the land and into the mouth of the adjoining firth and to a
headland, which projected into the sea there, and which was entirely
covered with woods. They found an anchorage for their ship, and put
out the gangway to the land; and Thorvald and all of his companions
went ashore. "It is a fair region here," said he; "and here I should
like to make my home."

They then returned to the ship, and discovered on the sands, in beyond
the headland, three mounds: they went up to these, and saw that they
were three skin canoes with three men under each. They thereupon
divided their party, and succeeded in seizing all the men but one, who
escaped with his canoe. They killed the eight men, and then ascended
the headland again, and looked about them, and discovered within the
firth certain hillocks, which they concluded must be habitations. They
were then so overpowered with sleep that they could not keep awake,
and all fell into a [heavy] slumber from which they were awakened by
the sound of a cry uttered above them; and the words of the cry were
these: "Awake, Thorvald, thou and all thy company, if thou wouldst
save thy life; and board thy ship with all thy men, and sail with all
speed from the land!" A countless number of skin canoes then advanced
toward them from the inner part of the firth, whereupon Thorvald
ex-claimed, "We must put out the war-boards on both sides of the ship,
and defend ourselves to the best of our ability, but offer little
attack." This they did; and the Skrellings, after they had shot at
them for a time, fled precipitately, each as best he could. Thorvald
then inquired of his men whether any of them had been wounded, and
they informed him that no one of them had received a wound. "I have
been wounded in my arm-pit," says he. "An arrow flew in between the
gunwale and the shield, below my arm. Here is the shaft, and it will
bring me to my end. I counsel you now to retrace your way with the
utmost speed. But me ye shall convey to that headland which seemed to
me to offer so pleasant a dwelling-place: thus it may be fulfilled
that the truth sprang to my lips when I exprest the wish to abide
there for a time. Ye shall bury me there, and place a cross at my
head, and another at my feet, and call it Crossness forever after." At
that time Christianity had obtained in Greenland: Eric the Red died,
however, before [the introduction of] Christianity.

Thorvald died; and, when they had carried out his injunctions, they
took their departure, and rejoined their companions, and they told
each other of the experiences which had befallen them. They remained
there during the winter, and gathered grapes and wood with which to
freight the ship. In the following spring they returned to Greenland,
and arrived with their ship in Ericsfirth, where they were able to
recount great tidings to Lief....

There was now much talk anew about a Wineland voyage, for this was
reckoned both a profitable and an honorable enterprise. The same
summer that Karlsefni arrived from Wineland a ship from Norway arrived
in Greenland. This ship was commanded by two brothers, Helgi and
Finnbogi, who passed the winter in Greenland. They were descended from
an Icelandic family of the East-firths. It is now to be added that
Freydis, Eric's daughter, set out from her home at Gardar, and waited
upon the brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and invited them to sail with
their vessel to Wineland, and to share with her equally all of the
good things which they might succeed in obtaining there. To this they
agreed, and she departed thence to visit her brother Lief, and ask him
to give her the house which he had caused to be erected in Wineland;
but he made her the same answer [as that which he had given
Karlsefni], saying that he would lend the house, but not give it. It
was stipulated between Karlsefni and Freydis that each should have on
shipboard thirty able-bodied men, besides the women; but Freydis
immediately violated this compact by concealing five men more [than
this number], and this the brothers did not discover before they
arrived in Wineland. They now put out to sea, having agreed beforehand
that they would sail in company, if possible, and, altho they were not
far apart from each other, the brothers arrived somewhat in advance,
and carried their belongings up to Lief's house.

    [1] From "The Saga of Eric the Red," as given in the "Old South
    Leaflets." Two different versions of this saga exist, the first
    written by Hauk Erlendsson between 1305 and 1334; the second by
    Jon Thordharson, about 1387. Both are believed to have been based
    on writings that had come down from the time of the explorations.

    Confirmation of the truth of the Norwegian discovery is given in
    a book by Adam of Bremen, who visited Denmark between 1047 and
    1073, and makes reference to Norwegian colonies founded in
    Iceland and Greenland and in another country which was "called
    Vinland on account of the wild grapes that grow there." Mention
    is also made by this writer of corn as growing in Vinland without
    cultivation. He declares his statements to be based on "trustworthy
    reports of the Danes." John Fiske thought Vinland lay somewhere
    between Point Judith and Cape Breton.




III

THE FIRST CHILD OF EUROPEAN RACE BORN IN AMERICA[1]

(About 1000 A.D.)


One summer a ship came from Norway to Greenland. The skipper's name
was Thorfinn Karlsefni, and he was the son of Thord, called
"Horsehead," and a grandson of Snorri. Thorfinn Karlsefni, who was a
very wealthy man, passed the winter there in Greenland, with Lief
Ericsson. He very soon set his heart upon a maiden called Gudrid, and
sought her hand in marriage.

That same winter a new discussion arose concerning a Wineland voyage.
The people urged Rarlsefni to make the bold venture, so he determined
to undertake the voyage, and gathered a company of sixty men and five
women. He entered into an agreement with his shipmates that they
should each share equally in all the spoils. They took with them all
kinds of cattle, as they intended to settle the country if they could.
Karlsefni asked Lief for his house in Wineland. Lief replied that he
would lend it but not give it.

They sailed out to sea with the ship, and arrived safe and sound at
Lief's booths, and carried their hammocks ashore there. They were soon
provided with an abundant supply of food, for a whale of good size and
quality was driven ashore, and they secured it. Their cattle were
turned out upon the land. Karlsefni ordered trees to be felled; for he
needed timber wherewith to load his ships. They gathered some of all
the products of the land--grapes, all kinds of game, fish, and other
good things.

In the summer after the first winter the Skrellings[2] were
discovered. A great throng of men came forth from the woods; the
cattle were close by and the bull began to bellow and roar with a
great noise. At this the Skrellings were frightened and ran away with
their packs, wherein were gray furs, sables, and all kinds of skins.
They fled toward Karlsefni's dwelling and tried to get into the house,
but Karlsefni caused the doors to be defended. Neither people could
understand the other's language. The Skrellings put down their packs,
then opened them and offered their wares in exchange for weapons, but
Karlsefni forbade his men to sell their weapons. He bade the women to
carry out milk to the Skrellings; as soon as these people had tasted
the milk, they wanted to buy it and nothing else.

Now it is to be told that Karlsefni caused a strong wooden palisade to
be constructed and set up around the house. It was at this time that a
baby boy was born to Gudrid and Karlsefni, and he was called Snorri.
In the early part of the second winter the Skrellings came to them
again in greater numbers than before, and brought with them the same
kind of wares to exchange. Then said Karlsefni to the women, "Do ye
carry out now the same thing which proved so profitable before, and
nothing else." The Skrellings seemed contented at first, but soon
after, while Gudrid was sitting in the doorway beside the cradle of
her infant son, Snorri, she heard a great crash made by one of the
Skrellings who had tried to seize a man's weapons. One of Karlsefni's
followers killed him for it. "Now we must needs take counsel
together," said Karlsefni, "for I believe they will visit us a third
time in greater numbers. Let us now adopt this plan: when the tribe
approaches from the forest, ten of our number shall go out upon the
cape in front of our houses and show themselves there, while the
remainder of our company shall go into the woods back of our houses
and hew a clearing for our cattle. Then we will take our bull and let
him go in advance of us to meet the enemy." The next time the
Skrellings came they found Karlsefni's men ready and fled
helter-skelter into the woods. Karlsefni and his party remained there
throughout the winter, but in the spring Karlsefni announced that he
did not intend to remain there longer, for he wished to return with
his wife and son to Greenland. They now made ready for the voyage and
carried away with them much in vines and grapes and skins.

    [1] From the "Saga"' of Hauk Erlendsson. Except for the Norse
    discovery, the honor of being the first child of Anglo-Saxon race
    born in America would belong to Virginia Dare. Virginia Dare was
    born in Virginia during one of the attempted settlements under
    Sir Walter Raleigh. An account of her is given in Volume II of
    this work. Children of Spanish and French parents had, of course,
    been born in America before the date of Virginia Dare's birth.

    [2] By Skrellings the author means natives.




IV

OTHER PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES[1]

BY HENRY WHEATON


No subsequent traces of the Norman colony in America are to be found
until the year 1059, when it is said that an Irish or Saxon priest,
named Jon or John, who had preached for some time as a missionary in
Iceland, went to Vinland, for the purpose of converting the colonists
to Christianity, where he was murdered by the heathens. A bishop of
Greenland, named Erik, afterward (A.D. 1121) undertook the same
voyage, for the same purpose, but with what success is uncertain. The
authenticity of the Icelandic accounts of the discovery and settlement
of Vinland were recognized in Denmark shortly after this period by
King Svend Estrithson, or Sweno II, in a conversation which Adam of
Bremen had with this monarch. But no further mention is made of them
in the national annals, and it may appear doubtful what degree of
credit is due to the relations of the Venetian navigators, the two
brothers Zeni, who are said to have sailed in the latter part of the
fourteenth century, in the service of a Norman prince of the Orcades,
to the coasts of New England, Carolina, and even Mexico, or at least
to have collected authentic accounts of voyages as far west and south
as these countries. The land diseovered and peopled by the Norwegians
is called by Antonio Zeni, Estotoland, and he states, among other
particulars, that the princes of the country still had in their
possession Latin books, which they did not understand, and which were
probably those left by the bishop Erik during his mission.

Supposing these latter discoveries to be authentic, they could hardly
have escaped the attention of Columbus, who had himself navigated in
the arctic seas, but whose mind dwelt with such intense fondness upon
his favorite idea of finding a passage to the East Indies, across the
western ocean, that he might have neglected these indications of the
existence of another continent in the direction pursued by the
Venetian adventurers.

At all events, there is not the silghtest reason to believe that the
illustrious Genoese was acquainted with the discovery of North America
by the Normans five centuries before his time, however well
authenticated that fact now appears to be by the Icelandic records to
which we have referred. The colony established by them probably
perished in the same manner with the ancient establishments in
Greenland. Some faint traces of its existence may, perhaps, be found
in the relations of the Jesuit missionaries respecting a native tribe
in the district of Gaspe, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, who are
said to have attained a certain degree of civilization, to have
worshiped the sun, and observed the position of the stars. Others
revered the symbol of the cross before the arrival of the French
missionaries, which, according to their tradition, had been taught
them by a venerable person who cured, by this means, a terrible
epidemic which raged among them.

    [1] From Mr. Wheaton's "History of the Northmen," published in
    1831. Mr. Wheaton was a native of Providence, R.I., and died in
    Roxbury, Mass., in 1848, at the age of 63. He was an eminent
    lawyer and publicist and author of "Elements of International
    Law," a legal classic.




THE DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS

(1492)

I

AS DESCRIBED BY WASHINGTON IRVING[1]


It was early in the morning of Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, that
Columbus set sail from the bar of Saltes, a small island formed by the
rivers Odiel and Tinto, in front of Palos, steering for the Canary
Islands, from whence he intended to strike due west. As a guide by
which to sail, he had the conjectural map or chart sent him by Paolo
Toscanelli, of Florence. In this it is supposed the coasts of Europe
and Africa, from the south of Ireland to the end of Guinea, were
delineated as immediately opposite to the extremity of Asia, while the
great island of Cipango, described by Marco Polo, lay between them,
1,500 miles from the Asiatic coast. At this island Columbus expected
first to arrive....

On losing sight of this last trace of land, the hearts of the crews
failed them, for they seemed to have taken leave of the world. Behind
them was everything dear to the heart of man--country, family,
friends, life itself; before them everything was chaos, mystery, and
peril. In the perturbation of the moment they despaired of ever more
seeing their homes. Many of the rugged seamen shed tears, and some
broke into loud lamentations. Columbus tried in every way to soothe
their distress, describing the splendid countries to which he expected
to conduct them, promising them land, riches, and everything that
could arouse their cupidity or inflame their imaginations; nor were
these promises made for purposes of deception, for he certainly
believed he should realize them all.

He now gave orders to the commanders of the other vessels, in case
they should be separated by any accident, to continue directly
westward; but that, after sailing 700 leagues, they should lay by from
midnight until daylight, as at about that distance he confidently
expected to find land. Foreseeing that the vague terrors already
awakened among the seamen would increase with the space which
intervened between them and their homes, he commenced a stratagem
which he continued throughout the voyage. This was to keep two
reckonings, one private, in which the true way of the ship was noted,
and which he retained in secret for his own government; the other
public, for general inspection, in which a number of leagues was daily
subtracted from the sailing of the ships so as to keep the crews in
ignorance of the real distance they had advanced....

On the 13th of September, in the evening, Columbus, for the first
time, noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had
never before been remarked. He at first made no mention of it, lest
his people should be alarmed; but it soon attracted the attention of
the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the
very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were
entering another world, subject to unknown influences. They
apprehended that the compass was about to lose its mysterious virtues,
and, without this guide, what was to become of them in a vast and
trackless ocean? Columbus tasked his science and ingenuity for reasons
with which to allay their terrors. He told them that the direction of
the needle was not to the polar star, but to some fixt and invisible
point. The variation, therefore, was not caused by any fallacy in the
compass, but by the movement of the north star itself, which, like the
other heavenly bodies, had its changes and revolutions, and every day
described a circle round the pole. The high opinion they entertained
of Columbus as a profound astronomer gave weight to his theory, and
their alarm subsided.

They had now arrived within the influence of the trade-wind, which,
following the sun, blows steadily from east to west between the
tropics, and sweeps over a few adjoining degrees of the ocean. With
this propitious breeze directly aft, they were wafted gently but
speedily over a tranquil sea, so that for many days they did not shift
a sail. Columbus in his journal perpetually recurs to the bland and
temperate serenity of the weather, and compares the pure and balmy
mornings to those of April in Andalusia, observing that the song of
the nightingale was alone wanting to complete the illusion....

They now began to see large patches of herbs and weeds, all drifting
from the west. Some were such as grow about rocks or in rivers, and as
green as if recently washed from the land. On one of the patches was a
live crab. They saw also a white tropical bird, of a kind which never
sleeps upon the sea; and tunny-fish played about the ships. Columbus
now supposed himself arrived in the weedy sea described by Aristotle,
into which certain ships of Cadiz had been driven by an impetuous east
wind.

As he advanced, there were various other signs that gave great
animation to the crews; many birds were seen flying from the west;
there was a cloudiness in the north, such as often hangs over land;
and at sunset the imagination of the seamen, aided by their desires,
would shape those clouds into distant islands. Every one was eager to
be the first to behold and announce the wished-for shore; for the
sovereigns had promised a pension of thirty crowns to whomsoever
should first discover land. Columbus sounded occasionally with a line
of 200 fathoms, but found no bottom. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, as well as
others of his officers and many of the seamen, were often solicitous
for Columbus to alter his course and steer in the direction of these
favorable signs; but he persevered in steering to the westward,
trusting that by keeping in one steady direction, he should reach the
coast of India, even if he should miss the intervening islands, and
might then seek them on his return....

The situation of Columbus was daily becoming more and more critical.
The impatience of the seamen arose to absolute mutiny. They gathered
together in the retired parts of the ships, at first in little knots
of two and three, which gradually increased and became formidable,
joining in murmurs and menaces against the admiral. They exclaimed
against him as an ambitious desperado who, in a mad fantasy, had
determined to do something extravagant to render himself notorious.
What obligation bound them to persist, or when were the terms of their
agreement to be considered as fulfilled? They had already penetrated
into seas untraversed by a sail, and where man had never before
adventured. Were they to sail on until they perished, or until all
return with their frail ships became impossible? Who would blame them
should they consult their safety and return? The admiral was a
foreigner, a man without friends or influence. His scheme had been
condemned by the learned as idle and visionary, and discountenanced by
people of all ranks. There was, therefore, no party on his side, but
rather a large number who would be gratified by his failure.

Such are some of the reasonings by which these men prepared themselves
for open rebellion. Some even proposed, as an effectual mode of
silencing all after complaints of the admiral, that they should throw
him into the sea, and give out that he had fallen overboard while
contemplating the stars and signs of the heavens, with his
astronomical instruments.

Columbus was not ignorant of these secret cabals, but he kept a serene
and steady countenance, soothing some with gentle words, stimulating
the pride or the avarice of others, and openly menacing the most
refractory with punishment. New hopes diverted them for a time. On the
25th of September Martin Pinzon mounted on the stern of his vessel and
shouted, "Land! land! Senor, I claim the reward!" There was, indeed,
such an appearance of land in the southwest that Columbus threw
himself upon his knees and returned thanks to God, and all the crews
joined in chanting Gloria in Excelsis. The ships altered their course
and stood all night to the southwest, but the morning light put an end
to all their hopes as to a dream; the fancied land proved to be
nothing but an evening cloud, and had vanished in the night....

He was now at open defiance with his crew, and his situation would
have been desperate, but, fortunately, the manifestations of land on
the following day were such as no longer to admit of doubt. A green
fish, such as keeps about rocks, swam by the ships; and a branch of
thorn, with berries on it, floated by; they picked up, also, a reed, a
small board, and, above all, a staff artificially carved. All gloom
and murmuring was now at an end, and throughout the day each one was
on the watch for the long-sought land. They continued on their course
until two in the morning, when a gun from the Pinto gave the joyful
signal of land. It was first discovered by a mariner named Rodriguez
Bermejo, resident of Triana, a suburb of Seville, but native of Alcala
de la Guadaira; but the reward was afterward adjudged to the admiral,
for having previously perceived the light. The land was now clearly
seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took in sail, and laid
to, waiting impatiently for the dawn. .

When the day dawned, Columbus saw before him a level and beautiful
island, several leagues in extent, of great freshness and verdure, and
covered with trees like a continual orchard. Tho everything appeared
in the wild luxuriance of untamed nature, yet the island was evidently
populous, for the inhabitants were seen issuing from the woods, and
running from all parts to the shore. They were all perfectly naked,
and, from their attitudes and gestures, appeared lost in astonishment
at the sight of the ships. Columbus made signal to cast anchor, and to
man the boats. He entered his own boat richly attired in scarlet, and
bearing the royal standard. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vicente Yanez,
the brother, likewise put off in their boats, each bearing the banner
of the enterprise, emblazoned with a green cross, having on each side
the letters F and Y, surmounted by crowns, the Spanish initials of the
Castilian monarchs, Fernando and Ysabel.

As they approached the shores they were delighted by the beauty and
grandeur of the forests; the variety of unknown fruits on the trees
which overhung the shores; the purity and suavity of the atmosphere,
and the crystal transparency of the seas which bathe these islands. On
landing, Columbus threw himself upon his knees, kissed the earth, and
returned thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by
his companions, whose breasts, indeed, were full to overflowing.
Columbus, then rising, drew his sword, displayed the royal standard,
and took possession, in the names of the Castilian sovereigns, giving
the island the name of San Salvador. He then called upon all present
to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy, and
representative of the sovereigns.

His followers now burst forth into the most extravagant transports.
They thronged around him, some embracing him, others kissing his
hands. Those who had been most mutinous and turbulent during the
voyage were now most devoted and enthusiastic. Some begged favors of
him, as of a man who had already wealth and honors in his gift. Many
abject spirits, who had outraged him by their insolence, now crouched
at his feet, begging his forgiveness, and offering, for the future,
the blindest obedience to his commands.

    [1] From Irving's "Life of Columbus." By permission of the
    publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons.




II

AS DESCRIBED BY COLUMBUS HIMSELF[1]


As I know that it will afford you pleasure that I have brought my
undertaking to a successful result, I have determined to write to you
this letter to inform you of everything that has been done and
discovered in this voyage of mine....

On the thirty-third day after leaving Cadiz I came into the Indian
Sea, where I discovered many islands inhabited by numerous people. I
took possession of all of them for our most fortunate King by making
public proclamation and unfurling his standard, no one making any
resistance. To the first of them I have given the name of our blest
Savior, trusting in whose aid I had reached this and all the rest; but
the Indians call it Guanahani[2]. To each of the others also I gave a
new name, ordering one to be called Sancta Maria de Concepcion,
another Fernandina, another Hysabella, another Johana; and so with all
the rest.

As soon as we reached the island which I have just said was called
Johana, I sailed along its coast some considerable distance toward the
west, and found it to be so large, without any apparent end, that I
believed it was not an island, but a continent, a province of Cathay.
But I saw neither towns nor cities lying on the seaboard, only some
villages and country farms with whose inhabitants I could not get
speech, because they fled as soon as they beheld us. I continued on,
supposing I should come to city or country houses. At last, finding
that no further discoveries rewarded our progress, and that this
course was leading us toward the north, which I was desirous of
avoiding, as it was now winter in these regions, and it had always
been my intention to proceed southward, and the winds also were
favorable to such desires, I concluded not to attempt any other
adventures, so, turning back, I came again to a certain harbor, which
I had remarked. From there I sent two of our men into the country to
learn whether there was any king or cities in that land. They
journeyed for three days, and found innumerable people and
habitations, but small and having no fixt government, on which account
they returned. Meanwhile I had learned from some Indians whom I had
seized at this place, that this country was really an island.
Consequently, I continued along toward the east, as much as 322 miles,
always hugging the shore, where was the very extremity of the island.
From there I saw another island to the eastwards, distant 54 miles
from this Johana, which I named Hispana, and proceeded to it, and
directed my course for 564 miles east by north as it were, just as I
had done at Johana.

The island called Johana, as well as the others in its neighborhood,
is exceedingly fertile. It has numerous harbors on all sides, very
safe and wide, above comparison with any I have ever seen. Through it
flow many very broad and health-giving rivers; and there are in it
numerous very lofty mountains. All these islands are very beautiful,
and of quite different shapes, easy to be traversed, and full of the
greatest variety of trees reaching to the stars. I think these never
lose their leaves, as I saw them looking as green and lovely as they
are wont to be in the month of May in Spain. Some of them were in
leaf, and some in fruit; each flourishing in the condition its nature
required. The nightingale was singing and various other little birds,
when I was rambling among them in the month of November. There are
also in the island called Johana seven or eight kinds of palms, which
as readily surpass ours in height and beauty as do all the other
trees, herbs, and fruits. There are also wonderful pine-woods, fields,
and extensive meadows, birds of various kinds, and honey, and all the
different metals except iron.

In the island, which I have said before was called Hispana, there are
very lofty and beautiful mountains, great farms, groves and fields,
most fertile both for cultivation and for pasturage, and well adapted
for constructing buildings. The convenience of the harbors in this
island, and the excellence of the rivers, in volume and salubrity,
surpass human belief, unless one should see them. In it the trees,
pasture-lands, and fruits differ much from those of Johana. Besides,
this Hispana abounds in various kinds of spices, gold, and metals.

The inhabitants of both sexes of this and of all the other islands I
have seen, or of which I have any knowledge, always go as naked as
they came into the world, except that some of the women cover parts of
their bodies with leaves or branches, or a veil of cotton, which they
prepare themselves for this purpose. They are all, as I said before,
unprovided with any sort of iron, and they are destitute of arms,
which are entirely unknown to them, and for which they are not
adapted; not on account of any bodily deformity, for they are well
made, but because they are timid and full of terror. They carry,
however, canes dried in the sun in place of weapons, upon whose roots
they fix a wooden shaft, dried and sharpened to a point. But they
never dare to make use of these, for it has often happened, when I
have sent two or three of my men to some of their villages to speak
with the inhabitants, that a crowd of Indians has sallied forth; but,
when they saw our men approaching, they speedily took to flight,
parents abandoning their children, and children their parents.

This happened not because any loss or injury had been inflicted upon
any of them. On the contrary, I gave whatever I had, cloth and many
other things, to whomsoever I approached, or with whom I could get
speech, without any return being made to me; but they are by nature
fearful and timid. But, when they see that they are safe, and all fear
is banished, they are very guileless and honest, and very liberal of
all they have. No one refuses the asker anything that he possesses; on
the contrary, they themselves invite us to ask for it. They manifest
the greatest affection toward all of us, exchanging valuable things
for trifles, content with the very least thing or nothing at all. But
I forbade giving them a very trifling thing and of no value, such as
bits of plates, dishes, or glass, also nails and straps; altho it
seemed to them, if they could get such, that they had acquired the
most beautiful jewels in the world.

For it chanced that a sailor received for a single strap as much
weight of gold as three gold solidi; and so others for other things of
less price, especially for new blancas, and for some gold coins, for
which they gave whatever the seller asked; for instance, an ounce and
a half or two ounces of gold, or thirty or forty pounds of cotton,
with which they were already familiar. So, too, for pieces of hoops,
jugs, jars, and pots they bartered cotton and gold like beasts. This I
forbade, because it was plainly unjust; and I gave them many beautiful
and pleasing things, which I had brought with me, for no return
whatever, in order to win their affection, and that they might become
Christians and inclined to love our king and queen and princes and all
the people of Spain, and that they might be eager to search for and
gather and give to us what they abound in and we greatly need.

They do not practise idolatry; on the contrary, they believe that all
strength, all power, in short, all blessings, are from heaven, and
that I have come down from there with these ships and sailors; and in
this spirit was I received everywhere, after they had got over their
fear They are neither lazy nor awkward, but, on the contrary, are of
an excellent and acute understanding. Those who have sailed these seas
give excellent accounts of everything; but they have never seen men
wearing clothes, or ships like ours....

As soon as I had come into this sea, I took by force some Indians from
the first island, in order that they might learn from us, and at the
same time tell us what they knew about affairs in these regions. This
succeeded admirably; for in a short time we understood them and they
us, both by gesture and signs and words, and they were of great
service to us. They are coming now with me, and have always believed
that I have come from heaven, notwithstanding the long time they have
been, and still remain, with us. They were the first who told this
wherever we went, one calling to another, with a loud voice, "Come,
come, you will see men from heaven." Whereupon both women and men,
children and adults, young and old, laying aside the fear they had
felt a little before, flocked eagerly to see us, a great crowd
thronging about our steps, some bringing food, and others drink, with
greatest love and incredible good will....

I have told already how I sailed in a straight course along the island
of Johana from west to east 322 miles. From this voyage and the extent
of my journeyings I can say that this Johana is larger than England
and Scotland together. For beyond the aforesaid 322 miles, in that
portion which looks toward the west, there are two more provinces,
which I did not visit. One of them the Indians called Anan, and its
inhabitants are born with tails. These provinces extend 180 miles, as
I learned from the Indians, whom I am bringing with me, and who are
well acquainted with all these islands....

Altho these matters are very wonderful and unheard of, they would have
been much more so if the ships to a reasonable amount had been
furnished me. But what has been accomplished is great and wonderful,
and not at all proportionate to my deserts, but to the sacred
Christian faith, and to the piety and religion of our sovereigns. For
what the mind of man could not compass, the spirit of God has granted
to mortals. For God is wont to listen to his servants who love his
precepts, even in impossibilities, as has happened to me in the
present instance, who have accomplished what human strength has
hitherto never attained. For, if any one has written or told anything
about these islands, all have done so either obscurely or by
guesswork, so that it has almost seemed to be fabulous.

Therefore let king and queen and princes, and their most fortunate
realms, and all other Christian provinces, let us all return thanks to
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has bestowed so great a victory
and reward upon us; let there be processions and solemn sacrifices
prepared; let the churches be decked with festal boughs; let Christ
rejoice upon earth as he rejoices in heaven, as He foresees that so
many souls of so many people heretofore lost are to be saved; and let
us be glad not only for the exaltation of our faith, but also for the
increase of temporal prosperity, in which not only Spain, but all
Christendom is about to share.

As these things have been accomplished, so have they been briefly
narrated. Farewell.

    [1] The first letter of Columbus, descriptive of his first
    voyage, was written in February, 1498, when he was off the
    Azores, on his return home. It was addrest to Louis de Santangel,
    the treasurer of King Ferdinand of Spain. Altho addrest to the
    treasurer, it was intended for the eyes of the King himself, and
    for those of his queen, Isabella. The letter was first printed in
    Barcelona, soon after the arrival of Columbus. Another account,
    substantially the same, was written by Columbus in Lisbon in
    March of the same year, an--at once translated into Latin and
    published in Rome in several editions, one being that of Stephen
    Plannck, of which five copies only are now known to be extant. Of
    this Plannck edition a translation from the Latin into English
    made by Henry W. Haynes has been published by the New York Public
    Library. From this translation the passage here given is taken.

    [2] The identity of the island on which Columbus made his first
    landing was formerly much in controversy. The best opinion now
    inclines to accept the conclusions reached by Captain Beecher of
    the British Navy some fifty years ago, that the landing was made
    on what is known as Watling's Island, one of the Bahamas. This
    island is about thirteen miles long, north and south, and six
    wide, and is made up of coral, shell and other marine debris. A
    monument was erected on it by a Chicago newspaper in 1892, with
    this inscription: "On this spot Christopher Columbus first set
    foot on the soil of the New World." The monument is said already
    to be in a state of decay, having been poorly constructed.
    Watling's Island lies about 200 miles southeast of Nassau, and is
    nearly on a parallel with Havana, but lies 400 miles east of it.
    Its inhabitants number about 700, who are dispersed among fifteen
    hamlets. The horses on the island scarcely number 50. There are a
    few cows and several flocks of sheep. The people are all poor.
    Little is grown on the island, droughts occur, and starvation has
    in some years been prevented only by help from outside.




THE BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI. PARTITIONING AMERICA[1]

(1493)


The copy of the bull, or donation, by the authority whereof Pope
Alexander, the sixth of that name, gave and granted to the kings of
Castile and their successors the regions and lands found in the west
ocean sea by the navigations of the Spanish.

Alexander, bishop, the servant of the servants of God: To our most
dearly beloved son in Christ, King Ferdinand, and to our dearly
beloved daughter in Christ, Elizabeth, Queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon,
Sicily, and Granada, most noble princes, greeting and apostolic
benediction.

Among other works acceptable to the divine majesty and according to
our hearts' desire, this certainly is the chief, that the Catholic
faith and Christian religion, especially in this our time, may in all
places be exalted, amplified, and enlarged, whereby the health of
souls may be procured and the barbarous nations subdued and brought to
the faith. And therefore, whereas by the favor of God's clemency
(altho not without equal deserts), we are called to this holy seat of
Peter, and understanding you to be true Catholic Princes as we have
ever known you, and as your noble and worthy acts have declared in
manner to the whole world, in that, with all your study, diligence,
and industry, you have spared no travels, charges or perils,
adventuring even the shedding of your own blood, with applying your
whole minds and endeavors hereunto, as your noble expeditions achieved
in recovering the kingdom of Granada from the tyranny of the Saracens
in these our days, do plainly declare your acts with so great glory of
the divine name. For the which, as we think you worthy, so ought we of
our own free will favorably to grant you all things whereby you may
daily, with more fervent minds to the honor of God and enlarging the
Christian empire, prosecute your devout and laudable purpose most
acceptable to the immortal God.

We are credibly informed that, whereas of late you were determined to
seek and find certain islands and firm lands far remote and unknown
(and not heretofore found by any other), to the intent to bring the
inhabitants of the same to honor our Redeemer and to profess the
Catholic faith, you have hitherto been much occupied in the
expugnation and recovery of the kingdom of Granada, by reason whereof
you could not bring your said laudable purpose to the end desired.
Nevertheless, as it hath pleased Almighty God, the aforesaid kingdom
being recovered, willing to accomplish your said desire, you have, not
without great labor, perils, and charges, appointed our well-beloved
son Christopher Columbus (a man very well commended as most worthy and
apt for so great a matter), well furnished with men and ships and
other necessaries, to seek (by the sea where hitherto no man bath
sailed), such firm lands and islands far remote and hitherto unknown.

Who (by God's help), making diligent search in the ocean sea, have
found certain remote islands and firm lands which were not heretofore
found by any other. In the which (as is said), many nations inhabit,
living peacefully and going naked, not accustomed to eat flesh. And as
far as your messengers can conjecture, the nations inhabiting the
aforesaid lands and islands believe that there is one God creature in
heaven: and seem apt to be brought to the embracing of the Catholic
faith and to be imbued with good manners: by reason whereof, we may
hope that, if they be well instructed, they may easily be induced to
receive the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ. We are further
advertised that the aforenamed Christopher hath now builded and
erected a fortress with good ammunition in one of the aforesaid
principal islands, in the which he hath placed a garrison of certain
of the Christian men that went thither with him: as well to the intent
to defend the same, as also to search other islands and firm lands far
remote and yet unknown. We also understand, that in these lands and
islands lately found, is great plenty of gold and spices, with divers
and many other precious things of sundry kinds and qualities.

Therefore all things diligently considered (especially the amplifying
and enlarging of the Catholic faith, as it behooveth Catholic Princes
following the examples of your noble progenitors of famous memory),
whereas you are determined by the favor of Almighty God, to subdue and
bring to the Catholic faith the inhabitants of the aforesaid lands and
islands, we greatly commending this, your godly and laudable purpose
in our Lord, and desirous to have the same brought to a due end, and
the name of our Saviour to be known in those parts, do exhort you in
our Lord and by the receiving of your holy baptism whereby you are
bound to the Apostolic obedience, and earnestly require you by the
bowels of mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, when you intend for
the zeal of the Catholic faith to prosecute the said expedition to
reduce the people of the aforesaid lands and islands to the Christian
religion, you shall spare no labors at any time, or be deterred with
any perils conceiving from hope and confidence that the omnipotent God
will give good success to your godly attempts.

And that being authorized by the privilege of the Apostolic grace, you
may the more freely and boldly take upon you the enterprise of so
great a matter, we of our own motion, and not either at your request
nor at the instant petition of any other person, but of our own mere
liberality and certain science, and by the fulness of Apostolic power,
do give, grant, and assign to you, your heirs and successors, all the
firm lands and islands found or to be found, discovered or to be
discovered toward the west and south, drawing a line from the pole
Arctic to the pole Antarctic (that is) from the north to the south:
containing in this donation, whatsoever firm lands or islands are
found or to be found toward India or toward any other part whatsoever
it be, being distant from, or without the aforesaid line drawn a
hundred leagues toward the west and south from any of the islands
which are commonly called De Los Azores and Cabo Verde. All the
islands, therefore, and firm lands, found and to be found, discovered
and to be discovered, from the said line toward the west and south,
such as have not actually been heretofore possest by any other
Christian king or prince until the day of the nativity of our Lord
Jesus Christ last passed, from the which beginneth this present year.

We, by the authority of almighty God granted unto us in Saint Peter,
and by the office which we bear on the earth in the stead of Jesus
Christ, do forever, by the tenure of these presents, give, grant,
assign, unto you, your heirs, and successors (the kings of Castile and
Leon), all those lands and islands, with their dominions, territories,
cities, castles, towers, places, and villages, with all the right and
jurisdictions thereunto pertaining: constituting, assigning, and
deputing, you, your heirs, and successors the lords thereof, with full
and free power, authority, and jurisdiction. Decreeing nevertheless by
this, our donation, grant, and assignation, that from no Christian
Prince which actually hath possest the aforesaid islands and firm
lands unto the day of the nativity of our Lord beforesaid, their right
obtained to be understood hereby to be taken away, or that it ought to
be taken away.

Furthermore, we command you in the virtue of holy obedience (as you
have promised, and we doubt not you will do upon mere devotion and
princely magnanimity), to send to the said firm lands and islands
honest, virtuous, and learned men, such as fear God, and are able to
instruct the inhabitants in the Catholic faith and good manners,
applying all their possible diligence in the premises.

We furthermore straightly inhibit all manner of persons, of what
state, degree, order, or condition, soever they be, altho of Imperial
and regal dignity, under the pain of the sentence of excommunication
which they shall incur if they do to the contrary, that they in no
case presume special license of you, your heirs, and successors, to
travel for merchandise or for any other cause, to the said lands or
islands, found or to be found, discovered or to be discovered, toward
the west and south, drawing a line from the pole Arctic to the pole
Antarctic, whether the firm lands and islands found and to be found,
be situated toward India or toward any other part being distant from
the line drawn a hundred leagues toward the west from any of the
islands commonly called De Los Azores and Cabo Verde: Notwithstanding
constitutions, decrees, and apostolic ordinances, whatsoever they are
to the contrary:

In him from whom empires, dominions, and all good things do procede:
Trusting that almighty God directing your enterprises, if you follow
your godly and laudable attempts, your labors and travels herein,
shall in short time obtain a happy end, with felicity and glory of all
Christian people. But forasmuch as it should be a thing of great
difficulty, these letters to be carried to all such places as should
be expedient, we will, and of like motion and knowledge do decree that
whithersoever the same shall be sent, or where soever they shall be
received with the subscription of a common notary thereunto required,
with the seal of any person constituted in ecelesiastical court, or
such as are authorized by the ecclesiastical court, the same faith and
credit to be given thereunto in judgment or elsewhere, as should be
exhibited to these presents.

It shall therefore be lawful for no man to infringe or rashly to
contradict this letter of our commendation, exhortation, request,
donation, grant, assignation, constitution, deputation, decree,
commandment, inhibition, and determination. And if any shall presume
to attempt the same, he ought to know that he shall thereby incur the
indignation of Almighty God and his holy Apostles, Peter and Paul.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's: In the year of the incarnation of our
Lord M.CCCC lxx.xxiii. The fourth day of the month of May; the first
year of our seat.

    [1] Dated at Rome, May 4th, 1498. It was translated into English
    by Richard Eden in 1555, and is printed in Old English and from
    black-letter type, by Hart in his "American History Told by
    Contemporaries." For the present work the English has been
    modernized.

    This famous bull was the result of rival claims, made by Spain
    and Portugal, to lands discovered beyond the Atlantic. More than
    half a century before Columbus found America, the Portuguese had
    secured from Pope Eugenius IV a grant in perpetuity of all
    heathen lands that might be discovered by them in further
    voyages. The grant went so far as to include "the Indies," and
    was confirmed by succeeding popes.

    When Alexander VI issued his bull the America which Columbus had
    found was believed to be not a new continent, but the Indies, and
    the Portuguese, who had reached India by way of the Cape of Good
    Hope, were threatening to send an expedition across the Atlantic
    to take possession and dispute the Spanish claims. It was in
    these circumstances, and for the purpose of reconciling the rival
    states that Alexander issued the bull, John Fiske has said that,
    "As between the two rival powers the Pontiff's arrangement was
    made in a spirit of even-handed justice." The bull conferred on
    the Spanish sovereigns all the lands already discovered, or
    thereafter to be discovered in the western ocean, with
    jurisdiction and privileges In all respects similar to those
    formerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal.

    Alexander VI, the famous Borgia Pope, who was the father of
    Caesar Borgia and Lucretia Borgia, has been accused, somewhat
    loosely, of committing an act of foolish audacity in making this
    grant. He has been represented as having partitioned the whole
    American continent between Spain and Portugal. The accusation is
    quite unjust. The bull merely granted such lands as had been
    discovered, or might yet be discovered, and these lands were not
    understood to be those of a new continent, but parts of India not
    heretofore explored. As for any rights possest by other European
    countries, including England and France, those countries at that
    time had little, if any, interest in the discovery made by
    Columbus or, in fact, any actual knowledge of it.




THE DISCOVERY OF THE MAINLAND BY THE CABOTS

(1497)

I

THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY JOHN A. DOYLE[1]


As early as the reign of Edward III, sailors from Genoa and other
foreign ports had served in the English navy. The increasing
confusions of Italy after the French invasion naturally tempted her
seamen to transfer their skill to the rising powers of western Europe.
Among such emigrants was John Cabot, a Venetian, who settled in
Bristol, and then, after a return to his own country, again revisited
his adopted city. Of his earlier history and personal character we
know nothing. Our own records furnish nothing but the scanty outlines
of his career, and the one glimpse of light which is thrown upon the
living man is due to a lately discovered letter from his countryman,
the Venetian ambassador. Of his son, Sebastian, we know more. He was
born in Bristol, returned with his parents to Venice when three years
old, and revisited England as a boy or very young man. His features,
marked with the lines of thought and hardship, still live on the
canvas of Holbein; and one at least of the naval chroniclers of the
day writes of him in the language of warm personal affection.

In 1496 a patent was granted to John Cabot and his sons, Lewis,
Sebastian, and Sancius. This patent is interesting as the earliest
surviving document which connects England with the New World. It gave
the patentees full authority to sail with five ships under the royal
ensign, and to set up the royal banner on any newly found land, as the
vassals and lieutenants of the king. They were bound on their return
to sail to Bristol and to pay a royalty of one-fifth upon all clear
gain. The direction of the voyage, the cargo and size of the ships,
and the mode of dealing with the natives, are all left to the
discretion of the commander.

Of the details of the voyage itself, so full of interest for every
Englishman, we have but the scantiest knowledge. In this respect the
fame of Sebastian Cabot has fared far worse than that of the great
discoverer with whom alone he may be compared. We can trace Columbus
through every stage of his enterprise. We seem to stand by the side of
the great admiral in his difficulties, his fears, his hopes, his
victory. We can almost fancy that we are sharing in his triumph when
at last he sails on that mission whose end he saw but in a glass
darkly, victorious over the intrigues of courtiers, the avarice of
princes, and the blindness of mere worldly wisdom. Our hearts once
more sink as the cowardice of his followers threatens to undo all, and
the prize that had seemed won is again in danger. We feel all the
intensity of suspense as night after night land is promised and the
morning brings it not. When at length the goal is reached, we can
almost trick ourselves with the belief that we have a part in that
glory, and are of that generation by whom and for whom that mighty
work was wrought.

No such halo of romantic splendor surrounds the first voyage of
Sebastian Cabot. A meager extract from an old Bristol record: "In the
year 1497, June 24, on St. John's Day, was Newfoundland found by
Bristol men in a ship called the _Matthew_"--a few dry statements
such as might be found in the note-book of any intelligent sea
captain--these are all the traces of the first English voyage which
reached the New World. We read in an account, probably published under
the eye of Cabot himself, that on June 24, at five o'clock in the
morning, he discovered that land which no man before that time had
attempted, and named it Prima Vista. An adjacent island was called St.
John, in commemoration of the day. A few statements about the habits
of the natives and the character of the soil and the fisheries make up
the whole story. We may, perhaps, infer that Cabot meant this as a
report on the fitness of the place for trade and fishing, knowing that
these were the points which would excite most interest in England. One
entry from the privy purse expenses of Henry VII, "10L to hym that
found the new isle," is the only other record that remains to us.
Columbus was received in solemn state by the sovereigns of Aragon and
Castile, and was welcomed by a crowd greater than the streets of
Barcelona could hold. Cabot was paid L10. The dramatic splendor of the
one reception, the prosaic mercantile character of the other,
represent the different tempers in which Spain and England approached
the task of American discovery.

But tho our own annals give us so scanty an account of the reception
of the two Cabots, the want is to some extent supplied from a foreign
source. Letters are extant from the Venetian ambassador, in which he
describes with just pride the enthusiasm with which his countryman was
received by the people when he walked along the streets.

The next year saw Cabot again sailing with a fresh patent. Several
points in it are worthy of notice. John Cabot is alone mentioned by
name. From this it might be, and, indeed, has been inferred that the
part played by Sebastian Cabot in the first voyage was merely
secondary, and that John was the principal conductor of the first
voyage, as he was by the patent designed to be of the second. He is
authorized in person or by deputy to take six English ships of not
more than 200 tons burden each, and to lead them to the land which he
had lately discovered. There is no limitation, either of departure or
return, to Bristol, and no mention is made of royalties. Probably the
original provisions were still regarded as binding, except so far as
rescinded or modified by the second patent.

In 1498 Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol with one vessel manned and
victualed at the king's expense, accompanied by three ships of London,
and probably some of Bristol itself. His cargo consisted of "grosse
and sleighte wares," for trafficking with the natives. So scanty are
the records of Cabot's two expeditions, that altho we know the
geographical extent of his discoveries, yet it is impossible to assign
to each voyage its proper share. We know that in one or other of them
he reached 67-1/2 degrees of north latitude, and persuaded himself
that he had found the passage to Cathay. The fears, however, of his
sailors, justified, perhaps, by the dangers of the north seas,
withheld him from following up the enterprise. He then turned
southward and coasted till he came into the latitude of 38. Of the
result of the second voyage and of Sebastian Cabot's reception in
England we hear nothing. He disappears for a while from English
history, carrying with him the unfulfilled hope of a northwest
passage, destined to revive at a later day, and then to give birth to
some of the most daring exploits that have ever ennobled the names of
Englishmen.

    [1] From Doyle's "English Colonies in America." Published by
    Henry Holt & Co. The Cabots in 1497 discovered what came to be
    known afterward as the continent of North America, Columbus in
    1492 having discovered only islands in the West Indies. The work
    of the Cabots in after years was a basis of English claims to the
    continent because of priority of discovery. It was not until his
    third expedition, fourteen months after the discovery made by the
    Cabots, that Columbus first saw the North American mainland.




II

PETER MARTYR'S ACCOUNT[1]


These northe seas haue byn [have been] searched by one Sebastian
Cabot, a Venetian borne [born], whom beinge yet but in maner an
infante, his parentes caryed [carried] with them into Englande hauying
[having] occasion to resorte thether [thither] for trade of
marchandies [merchandise], as is the maner of the Venetians to leaue
[leave] no parte of the worlde vnsearched to obteyne [obtain] richesse
[riches]. He therfore furnisshed two shippes in England at his owne
charges: And fyrst [first] with three hundreth men, directed his
course so farre toward the northe pole, that euen [even] in the
mooneth [month] of Iuly he founde monstrous heapes of Ise [ice]
swimming on the sea, and in maner continuall day lyght. Yet sawe he
the lande in that tracte, free from Ise, whiche had byn [been] molten
by heate of the sunne.

Thus seyng [seeing] suche heapes of Ise before hym he was enforced to
tourne [turn] his sayles and folowe the weste, so coastynge styll by
the shore, that he was thereby broughte so farre into the southe by
reason of the lande bendynge so much southward that it was there
almoste equall in latitude with the sea cauled [called] Fretum
Herculeum, hauynge the north pole eleuate in maner in the same degree.
He sayled lykewise in this tracte so farre towarde the weste, that he
had the Ilande of Cuba [on] his lefte hande in maner in the same
degree of langitude. As he traueyled [traveled] by the coastes of this
greate lande (whiche he named Baccallaos) he sayth that he found the
like course of the waters toward the west, but the same to runne more
softely and gentelly [gently] then [than] the swifte waters whiche the
Spanyardes found in their nauigations southeward.

Wherefore, it is not onely [only] more lyke to bee trewe [true], but
ought also of necessitie to be concluded that betwene both the landes
hetherto vnknowen, there shulde bee certeyne great open places wherby
the waters shulde thus continually passe from the East into the weste:
which waters I suppose to bee dryuen [driven] about the globe of the
earth by the vncessaunt mouynge [moving] and impulsion of the heauens:
and not to be swalowed vp [up] and cast owt [out] ageyne [again] by
the breathynge of Demogorgon as sume [some] haue imagined bycause they
see the seas by increase and decrease, to flowe and reflowe. Sebastian
Cabot him selfe, named those landes Baccallaos, bycause that in the
seas therabout he founde so great multitudes of certeyne [certain]
bigge fysshes [fishes] much lyke vnto tunies [tunnies] (which th[e]
inhabitantes caule [call] Baccallaos) that they sumtymes stayed his
shippes. He founde also the people of those regions couered with
beastes skynnes: yet not without th[e] use of reason.

He saythe [saith] also that there is greate plentie of beares in those
regions, whiche vse to eate fysshe. For plungeinge thym selues
[themselves] into the water where they perceue [perceive] a multitude
of these fysshes to lye, they fasten theyr [their] clawes in theyr
scales, and so drawe them to lande and eate them. So that (as he
saith) the beares beinge thus satisfied with fysshe, are not noysom to
men. He declareth further, that in many places of these regions, he
sawe great plentie of laton amonge th[e] inhabitantes. Cabot is my
very frende, whom I vse famylierly, and delyte [delight] to haue hym
sumtymes keepe mee company in myne owne house. For beinge cauled owte
[out] of England by the commaundement of the catholyke kynge of
Castile after the deathe of Henry kynge of Englande the seuenth of
that name, he was made one of owre [our] counsayle and assystance as
touchynge the affayres [affairs] of the newe Indies, lookynge dayely
for shippes to bee furnysshed for hym to discouer this hyd secreate of
nature. This vyage is appoynted to bee begunne in March in the yeare
next folowynge, beinge the yeare of Chryst M.D.XVI. What shall
succeade, yowre [your] holynes shalbe aduertised by my letters if god
graunte me lyfe [life]. Sume of the Spanyardes denye that Cabot was
the fyrst fynder of the lande of Baccallaos: And afflrme that he went
not so farre westewarde. But it shall suffice to haue sayde thus much
of the goulfes [gulfs] & strayghtes [straits], and of Cebastian
Cabot..

    [1] Peter Martyr, a native of Milan, resided for some years at the
    Spanish court. The account he gives in this article of the voyage
    of the Cabots is based on information received by him directly
    from Sabastian Cabot, when Cabot was employed as pilot in the
    service of Spain. Martyr's account is the earliest complete
    narrative of this voyage now extant. It therefore takes high
    rank--in fact, is the corner-stone--among documents pertaining to
    steps by which English civilization became supreme in North
    America. The translation here given, made by Richard Eden, was
    published in London in 1555.




THE VOYAGES OF AMERICUS VESPUCIUS

(1497)

VESPUCIUS' OWN ACCOUNT[1]


We left the port of Cadiz four consort ships: and began our voyage in
direct course to the Fortunate Isles, which are called to-day la gran
Canaria, which are situated in the Ocean-sea at the extremity of the
inhabited west, (and) set in the third climate: over which the North
Pole has an elevation of 27 and a half degrees beyond their horizon:
and they are 280 leagues distant from this city of Lisbon, by the wind
between mezzo di and libeccio: where we remained eight days, taking in
provision of water, and wood and other necessary things: and from
here, having said our Pier prayers, we weighed anchor, and gave the
sails to the wind, beginning our course to westward, taking
one-quarter by southwest: and so we sailed on till at the end of 37
days we reached a land which we deemed to be a continent: which is
distant westwardly from the isles of Canary about a thousand leagues
beyond the inhabited region within the torrid zone: for we found the
North Pole at an elevation of 16 degrees above its horizon, and (it
was) westward, according to the shewing of our instruments, 75 degrees
from the isles of Canary: whereat we anchored with our ships a league
and a half from land: and we put out our boats freighted with men and
arms.

We made toward the land, and before we reached it, had sight of a
great number of people who were going along the shore: by which we
were much rejoiced: and we observed that they were a naked race: they
shewed themselves to stand in fear of us: I believe (it was) because
they saw us clothed and of other appearance (than their own): they all
withdrew to a hill, and for whatsoever signals we made to them of
peace and of friendliness, they would not come to parley with us: so
that, as the night was now coming on, and as the ships were anchored
in a dangerous place, being on a rough and shelterless coast, we
decided to remove from there the next day, and to go in search of some
harbour or bay, where we might place our ships in safety: and we
sailed with the maestrale wind, thus running along the coast with the
land ever in sight, continually in our course observing people along
the shore: till after having navigated for two days, we found a place
sufficiently secure for the ships, and anchored half a league from
land, on which we saw a very great number of people.

This same day we put to land with the boats, and sprang on shore full
40 men in good trim: and still the land's people appeared shy of
converse with us, and we were unable to encourage them so much as to
make them come to speak with us: and this day we laboured so greatly
in giving them of our wares, such as rattles and mirrors, beads,
spalline, and other trifles, that some of them took confidence and
came to discourse with us: and after having made good friends with
them, the night coming on, we took our leave of them and returned to
the ships: and the next day when the dawn appeared we saw that there
were infinite numbers of people upon the beach, and they had their
women and children with them: we went ashore, and found that they were
all laden with their worldly goods which are suchlike as, in its
(proper) place, shall be related: and before we reached the land, many
of them jumped into the sea and came swimming to receive us at a
bowshot's length (from the shore), for they are very great swimmers,
with as much confidence as if they had for a long time been acquainted
with us: and we were pleased with this, their confidence.

For so much as we learned of their manner of life and customs, it was
that they go entirely naked, as well the men as the women. They are of
medium stature, very well proportioned: their flesh is of a colour
that verges into red like a lion's mane: and I believe that if they
went clothed, they would be as white as we: they have not any hair
upon the body, except the hair of the head, which is long and black,
and especially in the women, whom it renders handsome. In aspect they
are not very good-looking, because they have broad faces, so that they
would seem Tartar-like: they let no hair grow on their eyebrows, nor
on their eyelids, nor elsewhere, except the hair of the head: for they
hold hairiness to be a filthy thing: they are very light footed in
walking and in running, as well the men as the women: so that a woman
reeks nothing of running a league or two, as many times we saw them
do: and herein they have a very great advantage over us Christians:
they swim (with an expertness) beyond all belief, and the women better
than the men: for we have many times found and seen them swimming two
leagues out at sea without anything to rest upon. Their arms are bows
and arrows very well made, save that (the arrows) are not (tipped)
with iron nor any other kind of hard metal: and instead of iron they
put animals' or fishes' teeth, or a spike of tough wood, with the
point hardened by fire: they are sure marksmen, for they hit whatever
they aim at: and in some places the women use these bows: they have
other weapons, such as fire-hardened spears, and also clubs with
knobs, beautifully carved.... Warfare is used amongst them, which they
carry on against people not of their own language, very cruelly,
without granting life to any one, except (to reserve him) for greater
suffering.

Their dwellings are in common: and their houses (are) made in the
style of huts, but strongly made, and constructed with very large
trees, and covered over with palm-leaves, secure against storms and
winds: and in some places (they are) of so great breadth and length,
that in one single house we found there were 600 souls: and we saw a
village of only thirteen houses where there were four thousand souls:
every eight or ten years they change their habitations: and when asked
why they did so: (they said it was) because of the soil, which, from
its filthiness, was already unhealthy and corrupted, and that it bred
aches in their bodies, which seemed to us a good reason: their riches
consist of birds' plumes in many colours, or of rosaries which they
make from fishbones, or of white or green stones which they put in
their cheeks and in their lips and ears, and of many other things
which we in no wise value: they use no trade, they neither buy nor
sell. In fine, they live and are contented with that which nature
gives them. The wealth that we enjoy in this our Europe and elsewhere,
such as gold, jewels, pearls, and other riches, they hold as nothing:
and altho they have them in their own lands, they do not labour to
obtain them, nor do they value them. They are liberal in giving, for
it is rarely they deny you anything, and on the other hand, liberal in
asking, when they shew themselves your friends.

We decided to leave that place, and to go further on, continuously
coasting the shore: upon which we made frequent descents, and held
converse with a great number of people: and at the end of some days we
went into a harbour where we underwent very great danger: and it
pleased the Holy Ghost to save us: and it was in this wise. We landed
in a harbour, where we found a village built like Venice upon the
water: there were about 44 large dwellings in the form of huts erected
upon very thick piles, and they had their doors or entrances in the
style of drawbridges: and from each house one could pass through all,
by means of the drawbridges, which stretched from house to house: and
when the people thereof had seen us, they appeared to be afraid of us,
and immediately drew up all the bridges: and while we were looking at
this strange action, we saw coming across the sea about 22 canoes,
which are a kind of boats of theirs, constructed from a single tree:
which came toward our boats, as they had been surprized by our
appearance and clothes, and kept wide of us: and thus remaining, we
made signals to them that they should approach us, encouraging them
with every token of friendliness: and seeing that they did not come,
we went to them, and they did not stay for us, but made to the land,
and, by signs, told us to wait, and that they should soon return: and
they went to a bill in the background, and did not delay long: when
they returned, they led with them 16 of their girls, and entered with
these into their canoes, and came to the boats: and in each boat they
put four of the girls.

That we marveled at this behavior your Magnificence can imagine how
much, and they placed themselves with their canoes among our boats,
coming to speak with us: insomuch that we deemed it a mark of
friendliness: and while thus engaged we beheld a great number of
people advance swimming toward us across the sea, who came from the
houses: and as they were drawing near to us without any apprehension:
just then there appeared at the doors of the houses certain old women,
uttering very loud cries and tearing their hair to exhibit grief:
whereby they made us suspicious, and we each betook ourselves to arms:
and instantly the girls whom we had in the boats, threw themselves
into the sea, and the men of the canoes drew away from us, and began
with their bows to shoot arrows at us: and those who were swimming
each carried a lance held, as covertly as they could, beneath the
water: so that, recognizing the treachery, we engaged with them, not
merely to defend ourselves, but to attack them vigorously, and we
overturned with our boats any of their almadie or canoes, for so they
call them, we made a slaughter (of them), and they all flung
themselves into the water to swim, leaving their canoes abandoned,
with considerable loss on their side, they went swimming away to the
shore: there died of them about 15 or 20, and many were left wounded:
and of ours 5 were wounded, and all, by the grace of God, escaped
(death): we captured two of the girls and two men: and we proceeded to
their houses, and entered therein, and in them all we found nothing
else than two old women and a sick man: we took away from them many
things, but of small value: and we would not burn their houses,
because it seemed to us (as tho that would be) a burden upon our
conscience: and we returned to our boats with five prisoners: and
betook ourselves to the ships, and put a pair of irons on the feet of
each of the captives, except the little girls: and when the night came
on, the two girls and one of the men fled away in the most subtle
manner possible: and the next day we decided to quit that harbour and
go further onwards.

We proceeded continuously skirting the coast, (until) we had sight of
another tribe distant perhaps some 80 leagues from the former tribe:
and we found them very different in speech and customs: we resolved to
cast anchor, and went ashore with the boats, and we saw on the beach a
great number of people amounting probably to 4,000 souls: and when we
had reached the shore, they did not stay for us, but betook themselves
to flight through the forests, abandoning their things: we jumped on
land, and took a pathway that led to the forest: and at the distance
of a bow-shot we found their tents, where they had made very large
fires, and two (of them) were cooking their victuals, and roasting
several animals, and fish of many kinds: where we saw that they were
roasting a certain animal which seemed to be a serpent, save that it
had no wings, and was in its appearance so loathsome that we marveled
much at its savageness:

Thus went we on through their houses, or rather tents, and found many
of those serpents alive, and they were tied by the feet and had a cord
around their snouts, so that they could not open their mouths, as is
done (in Europe) with mastiff-dogs so that they may not bite: they
were of such savage aspect that none of us dared to take one away,
thinking that they were poisonous: they are of the bigness of a kid,
and in length an ell and a half: their feet are long and thick, and
armed with big claws: they have a hard skin, and are of various
colors: they have the muzzle and face of a serpent: and from their
snouts there rises a crest like a saw which extends along the middle
of the back as far as the tip of the tail: in fine we deemed them to
be serpents and venomous, and (nevertheless, those people) ate them.

This land is very populous, and full of inhabitants, and of numberless
rivers, (and) animals: few (of which) resemble ours, excepting lions,
panthers, stags, pigs, goats, and deer: and even these have some
dissimilarities of form: they have no horses nor mules, nor, saving
your reverence, asses nor dogs, nor any kind of sheep or oxen: but so
numerous are the other animals which they have, and all are savage,
and of none do they make use for their service, that they could not he
counted. What shall we say of others (such as) birds? which are so
numerous, and of so many kinds, and of such various-coloured plumages,
that it is a marvel to behold them. The soil is very pleasant and
fruitful, full of immense woods and forests: and it is always green,
for the foliage never drops off. The fruits are so many that they are
numberless and entirely different from ours. This land is within the
torrid zone, close to or just under the parallel described by the
Tropic of Cancer: where the pole of the horizon has an elevation of 23
degrees, at the extremity of the second climate. Many tribes came to
see us, and wondered at our faces and our whiteness: and they asked us
whence we came: and we gave them to understand that we had come from
heaven, and that we were going to see the world, and they believed it.
In this land we placed baptismal fonts, and an infinite (number of)
people were baptized, and they called us in their language Carabi,
which means men of great wisdom.

    [1] Americus Vespucius was born in Florence in 1452 and died in
    Seville in 1512. He was the son of a notary in Florence, was
    educated by a Dominican friar and became a clerk in one of the
    commercial houses of the Medici. By this house he was sent to
    Spain in 1490. He remained some years in Seville, where he became
    connected with the house which fitted out the second expedition of
    Columbus.

    Vespucius claimed to have been four times in America, first in
    May, 1497; second, in May, 1499; third, in May, 1501; fourth, in
    June, 1503. In writing of the first expedition he says his ship
    reached a coast "which we thought to be that of the continent,"
    giving date. If this assumption be correct, and the dates correct,
    they would show that he reached the continent of North America a
    week or two before the Cabots made their discovery farther north,
    but this contention has never been satisfactorily supported.

    The letters of Vespucius describing his four voyages were
    published originally in Italian in Florence in 1505-6. The letter
    here in part given was addrest by Vespucius to Soderini, the
    Gonfalonier of Florence. The translation, by one "M.K.," was
    published by Mr. Quaritch, the London bookseller, in 1885, and has
    been printed as one of the "Old South Leaflets!" The letter is
    believed to have been composed by Vespucius within a month after
    his return from his second voyage.

    Vespucius was a naval astronomer. He has been unjustly accused of
    appropriating to himself an honor which belonged to Columbus,--that
    of giving a name to the new continent. This injustice, however,
    was not due to Vespucius, but to a German schoolmaster named
    Hylacomylus, or "Miller of the Wood-pond," who published a book in
    1507. The passage in Millers book in which he made a suggestion
    which the world has adopted is as follows:

      "And the fourth part of the world having been discovered by
      Americus, it may be called Amerige; that is, the land of Americus,
      or America. Now, truly sience these regions are more widely
      explored, and another fourth part is discovered by Americus
      Vespucius, I do not see why any one may justly forbid it to be
      named Amerige; that is, Americ's Land, after Americus, the
      discoverer, who is a man of sagacious mind; or call it America,
      since both Europe and Asia derived their names from women."

    Vespucius, in spite of several voyages, discovered very little in
    America. The continent ought not to have been named alter him.




A BATTLE WITH THE INDIANS

(1497)

AS DESCRIBED BY AMERICUS VESPUCIUS[1]


Desiring to depart upon our voyage natives made complaint to us how at
certain times of the year there came from over the sea to this their
land, a race of people very cruel, and enemies of theirs: and (who) by
means of treachery or of violence slew many of them, and ate them: and
some they made captives, and carried them away to their houses, or
country: and how they could scarcely contrive to defend themselves
from them, making signs to us that (those) were an island-people and
lived out in the sea about a hundred leagues away: and so piteously
did they tell us this that we believed them: and we promised to avenge
them of so much wrong: and they remained overjoyed herewith: and many
of them offered to come along with us, but we did not wish to take
them for many reasons, save that we took seven of them, on condition
that they should come (_i.e._, return home) afterward in (their own)
canoes because we did not desire to be obliged to take them back to
their country: and they were contented: and so we departed from those
people, leaving them very friendly toward us: and having repaired our
ships, and sailing for seven days out to sea between northeast and
east: and at the end of the seven days we came upon the islands, which
were many, some (of them) inhabited, and others deserted: and we
anchored at one of them: where we saw a numerous people who called it
Iti: and having manned our boats with strong crews, and (taken
ammunition for) three cannon shots in each, we made for land: where we
found (assembled) about 400 men, and many women, and all naked like
the former (peoples).

They were of good bodily presence, and seemed right warlike men: for
they were armed with their weapons, which are bows, arrows, and
lances: and most of them had square wooden targets: and bore them in
such wise that they did not impede the drawing of the bow: and when we
had come with our boats to about a bowshot of the land, they all
sprang into the water to shoot their arrows at us, and to prevent us
from leap-lug upon shore: and they all had their bodies painted of
various colours, and (were) plumed with feathers: and the interpreters
who were with us told us that when (those) displayed themselves so
painted and plumed, it was to be-token that they wanted to fight: and
so much did they persist in preventing us from landing, that we were
compelled to play with our artillery: and when they heard the
explosion, and saw one of them fall dead, they all drew back to the
land: wherefore, forming our council, we resolved that 42 of our men
should spring on shore, and, if they waited for us, fight them: thus
having leaped to land with our weapons, they advanced toward us, and
we fought for about an hour, for we had but little advantage of them,
except that our arbalasters and gunners killed some of them, and they
wounded certain of our men. This was because they did not stand to
receive us within reach of lance-thrust or sword-blow: and so much
vigor did we put forth at last, that we came to sword-play, and when
they tasted our weapons, they betook themselves to flight through the
mountains and the forests, and left us conquerors of the field with
many of them dead and a good number wounded.

We took no other pains to pursue them, because we were very weary, and
we returned to our ships, with so much gladness on the part of the
seven men who had come with us that they could not contain themselves
(for joy): and when the next day arrived, we beheld coming across the
land a great number of people, with signals of battle, continually
sounding horns, and various other instruments which they use in their
wars: and all (of them) painted and feathered, so that it was a very
strange sight to behold them: wherefore all the ships held council,
and it was resolved that since this people desired hostility with us,
we should proceed to encounter them and try by every means to make
them friends: in case they would not have our friendship, that we
should treat them as foes, and so many of them as we might be able to
capture should all be our slaves: and having armed ourselves as best
we could, we advanced toward the shore, and they sought not to hinder
us from landing, I believe, from fear of the cannons: and we jumped on
land, 57 men in four squadrons, each one (consisting of) a captain and
his company: and we came to blows with them.

After a long battle many of them (were) slain, we put them to flight,
and pursued them to a village, having made about 250 of them captives,
and we burnt the village, and returned to our ships with victory and
250 prisoners, leaving many of them dead and wounded, and of ours
there were no more than one killed, and 22 wounded, who all escaped
(_i.e._, recovered), God be thanked. We arranged our departure, and
seven men, of whom five were wounded, took an island-canoe, and with
seven prisoners that we gave them, four women and three men, returned
to their (own) country full of gladness, wondering at our strength:
and we thereon made sail for Spain with 222 captive slaves: and
reached the port of Calis (Cadiz) on the 15th day of October, 1498,
where we were well received and sold our slaves. Such is what befell
me, most noteworthy, in this my first voyage.

    [1] From a letter addrest by Vespucius to Pier Soderini, Gonfalonier
    of Florence. A translation is printed in the "Old South Leaflets."
    Vespucius, during one of his voyages, is believed to have
    discovered the coast of South America--perhaps as far down as the
    mouth of La Plata. His letters, however, give slight clue to
    localities. Few of the places described by him have ever been
    identified with anything like precision.




THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF AMERICA PRINTED IN ENGLISH[1]

(1511)


Of the newe landes and of ye people founde by the messengers of the
kynge of Portyugale named Emanuel. of the R. [5] Dyners Nacyons
crystened. Of Pope John and his landes and of the costely keyes and
wonders molo dyes that in that lande is.

Here aforetymes [formerly] in the yere of our Lorde god. M.CCCC.xcvi.
[1496] and so be we with shyppes of Lusseboene [Lisbon] sayled oute of
Portyugale thorough the commaundement of the Kynge Emanuel. So haue we
had our vyage. For by fortune ylandes ouer the great see with great
charge and daunger so haue we at the laste founde oon lordshyp where
we sayled well. ix.C. [900] mylee [mile] by the cooste of Selandes
there we at ye laste went a lande but that lande is not nowe knowen
for there haue no masters wryten thereof nor it knowethe and it is
named Armenica [America] there we sawe meny wonders of beestes and
fowles yat [that] we haue neuer seen before the people of this lande
haue no kynge nor lorde nor theyr god But all thinges is comune....
the men and women haue on theyr heed necke Armes Knees and fete all
with feders [feathers] bounden for their bewtynes [beauty] and
fayrenes.

These folke lyuen [live] lyke bestes without any resenablenes.... And
they etc [eat] also on[e] a nother. The man etethe [eateth] his wyfe,
his chylderne as we also haue seen, and they hange also the bodyes or
persons fleeshe in the smoke as men do with vs swynes fleshe. And that
lande is ryght full of folke for they lyue commonly. iii.C. [300] yere
and more as with sykenesse they dye nat they take much fysshe for they
can goen vnder the water and fe[t]che so the fysshes out of the water.
and they werre [war] also on[e] vpon a nother for the olde men brynge
the yonge men thereto that they gather a great company thereto of towe
[two] partyes and come the on[e] ayene [against] the other to the
felde or bateyll [battle] and slee [slay] on[e] the other with great
hepes [heaps]. And nowe holdeth the fylde [field] they take the other
prysoners And they brynge them to deth and ete them and as the deed
[dead] is eten then fley [flay] they the rest. And they been [are] than
[then] eten also or otherwyse lyue they longer tymes and many yeres
more than other people for they haue costely spyces and rotes [roots]
where they them selfe recouer with and hele [heal] them as they be
seke [sick].

    [1] The volume from which this passage is taken was first printed
    in Antwerp as a compilation with additions based on the letters of
    Americus Vespucius. It is included by Edward Arber in his "First
    Three English Books on America." The author's name is unknown.




THE DISCOVERY OF FLORIDA BY PONCE DE LEON

(1512)

PARKMAN'S ACCOUNT[1]


Toward the close of the fifteenth century Spain achieved her final
triumph over the infidels of Granada, and made her name glorious
through all generations by the discovery of America. The religious zea
and romantic daring which a long course of Moorish wars had called
forth were now exalted to redoubled fervor. Every ship from the New
World came freighted with marvels which put the fictions of chivalry
to shame; and to the Spaniard of that day America was a region of
wonder and mystery, of vague and magnificent promise. Thither
adventurers hastened, thirsting for glory and for gold, and often
mingling the enthusiasm of the crusader and the valor of the
knight-errant with the bigotry of inquisitors and the rapacity of
pirates. They roamed over land and sea; they climbed unknown
mountains, surveyed unknown oceans, pierced the sultry intricacies of
tropical forests; while from year to year and from day to day new
wonders were unfolded, new islands and archipelagoes, new regions of
gold and pearl, and barbaric empires of more than Oriental wealth. The
extravagance of hope and the fever of adventure knew no bounds. Nor is
it surprizing that amid such waking marvels the imagination should run
wild in romantic dreams; that between the possible and the impossible
the line of distinction should be but faintly drawn, and that men
should be found ready to stake life and honor in pursuit of the most
insane fantasies.

Such a man was the veteran cavalier Juan Ponce de Leon. Greedy of
honors and of riches, he embarked at Porto Rico with three
brigantines, bent on schemes of discovery. But that which gave the
chief stimulus to his enterprise was a story, current among the
Indians of Cuba and Hispaniola, that on the island of Bimini, said to
be one of the Bahamas, there was a fountain of such virtue, that,
bathing in its waters, old men resumed their youth.[2] It was said,
moreover, that on a neighboring shore might be found a river gifted
with the same beneficent property, and believed by some to be no other
than the Jordan. Ponce de Leon found the island of Bimini, but not the
fountain. Farther westward, in the latitude of 30 degrees and 8
minutes, he approached an unknown land, which he named Florida, and,
steering southward, explored its coast as far as the extreme point of
the peninsula, when, after some further explorations, he retraced his
course to Porto Rico.

Ponce de Leon had not regained his youth, but his active spirit was
unsubdued. Nine years later he attempted to plant a colony in Florida;
the Indians attacked him fiercely; he was mortally wounded, and died
soon afterward in Cuba.

The voyages of Garay and Vasquez de Ayllon threw new light on the
discoveries of Ponce, and the general outline of the coasts of Florida
became known to the Spaniards. Meanwhile, Cortes had conquered Mexico,
and the fame of that iniquitous but magnificent exploit rang through
all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to achieve a kindred
fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the unknown land of
Florida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth, and Pamphilo de Narvaez
essayed to possess himself of its fancied treasures. Landing on its
shores, and proclaiming destruction to the Indians unless they
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor, he advanced
into the forests with three hundred men. Nothing could exceed their
sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came to seek. The
village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a rich booty, offered
nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses gave out, and the famished
soldiers fed upon their flesh. The men sickened, and the Indians
unceasingly harassed their march. At length, after 280 leagues of
wandering, they found themselves on the northern shore of the Gulf of
Mexico, and desperately put to sea in such crazy boats as their skill
and means could construct. Cold, disease, famine, thirst, and the fury
of the waves melted them away. Narvaez himself perished, and of his
wretched followers no more than four escaped, reaching by land, after
years of vicissitude, the Christian settlements of New Spain.

The interior of the vast country then comprehended under the name of
Florida still remained unexplored. The Spanish voyager, as his caravel
plowed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination,
and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his
horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a
second Mexico, with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another
Cuzco, with the temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold.

    [1] From Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World." By
    permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Ponce do Leon
    was born in Aragon, Spain, about 1460, and died in Cuba in 1521.
    Before making the exploration here described, he had been in
    America with Columbus in 1493; been governor of the eastern part
    of Espanola; been transferred to Porto Rico as governor, and
    empowered to conquer the Indians. He returned to Spain in 1511 and
    in February, 1512, was commissioned to discover and settle the
    island of Bimini. This island, one of the Bahamas, was in the
    region in which tradition had placed the Fountain of Youth. After
    his expedition to Florida here described, he was occupied with
    Indian wars in Porto Rico and Florida, and finally died from a
    wound received from an arrow shot by an Indian.

    [2] Parkman comments on this tradition of the Fountain of Youth
    as follows: "The story has an explanation, sufficiently
    characteristic, having been suggested, it is said, by the beauty
    of the native women, which none could resist and which kindled
    the fires of youth in the veins of age."




THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC BY BALBOA

(1513)

THE ACCOUNT BY MANUEL JOSE QUINTANA[1]


Careta[2] had for a neighbor a cacique called by some Comogre, by
others Panquiaco, chief of about ten thousand Indians, among whom were
3,000 warriors. Having heard of the valor and enterprise of the
Castilians, this chief desired to enter into treaty and friendship
with them; and a principal Indian, a dependent of Careta, having
presented himself as the agent in this friendly overture, Vasco Nunez,
anxious to profit by the opportunity of securing such an ally, went
with his followers to visit Comogre....

Balboa was transported by the prospect of glory and fortune which
opened before him; he believed himself already at the gates of the
East Indies, which was the desired object of the government and the
discoverers of that period; he resolved to return in the first place
to the Darien to raise the spirits of his companions with these
brilliant hopes, and to make all possible preparations for realizing
them. He remained, nevertheless, yet a few days with the caciques; and
so strict was the friendship he had contracted with them that they and
their families were baptized, Careta taking in baptism the name of
Fernando, and Comogre that of Carlos. Balboa then returned to the
Darien, rich in the spoils of Ponca, rich in the presents of his
friends, and still richer in the golden hopes which the future offered
him.

At this time, and after an absence of six months, arrived the
magistrate Valdivia, with a vessel laden with different stores; he
brought likewise great promises of abundant aid in provisions and men.
The succors, however, which Valdivia brought were speedily consumed;
their seed, destroyed in the ground by storms and floods, promised
them no resource whatever; and they returned to their usual
necessitous state. Balboa then consented to their extending their
incursions to more distant lands, as they had already wasted and
ruined the immediate environs of Antigua, and he sent Valdivia to
Spain to apprize the admiral of the clew he had gained to the South
Sea, and the reported wealth of these regions.

He discoursed with and animated his companions, selected 190 of the
best armed, and disposed, and, with a thousand Indians of labor, a few
bloodhounds, and sufficient provisions, took his way by the sierras
toward the dominion of Ponca. That chief had fled, but Balboa, who had
adopted the policy most convenient to him, desired to bring him to an
amicable agreement, and, to that end, dispatched after him some
Indians of peace, who advised him to return to his capital and to fear
nothing from the Spaniards. He was persuaded, and met with a kind
reception; he presented some gold, and received in return some glass
beads and other toys and trifles. The Spanish captains then solicited
guides and men of labor for his journey over the sierras, which the
cacique bestowed willingly, adding provisions in great abundance, and
they parted friends.

His passage into the domain of Quarequa was less pacific; whose chief,
Torecha, jealous of this invasion, and terrified by the events which
had occurred to his neighbors, was disposed and prepared to receive
the Castilians with a warlike aspect. A swarm of ferocious Indians,
armed in their usual manner, rushed into the road and began a wordy
attack upon the strangers, asking them what brought them there, what
they sought for, and threatening him with perdition if they advanced.
The Spaniards, reckless of their bravados, proceeded, nevertheless,
and then the chief placed himself in front of his tribe, drest in a
cotton mantle and followed by the principal lords, and with more
intrepidity than fortune, gave the signal for combat. The Indians
commenced the assault with loud cries and great impetuosity, but, soon
terrified by the explosions of the crossbows and muskets, they were
easily destroyed or put to flight by the men and bloodhounds who
rushed upon them. The chief and 600 men were left dead on the spot,
and the Spaniards, having smoothed away that obstacle, entered the
town, which they spoiled of all the gold and valuables it possest.
Here, also, they found a brother of the caciqu