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diff --git a/16037-8.txt b/16037-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..535fa74 --- /dev/null +++ b/16037-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6110 @@ +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.org + + +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: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EPOCHS, AMERICAN *** + + + + +Produced by Carel Lyn Miske and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://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, "10Ł 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 Ł10. 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 Nuńez, +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 cacique and other Indians, who +were dedicated to the abominations before glanced at; fifty of these +wretches were torn to pieces by the dogs, and not without the consent +and approbation of the Indians. The district was, by these examples, +rendered so pacific and so submissive that Balboa left all his sick +there, dismissed the guides given him by Ponca, and, taking fresh +ones, pursued his road over the heights. + +The tongue of land which divides the two Americas is not, at its +utmost width, above eighteen leagues, and in some parts becomes +narrowed a little more than seven. And, altho from the port of Careta +to the point toward which the course of the Spaniards was directed was +only altogether six days' journey, yet they consumed upon it twenty; +nor is this extraordinary. The great cordillera of sierras which from +north to south crosses the new continent, a bulwark against the +impetuous assaults of the Pacific Ocean, crosses also the Isthmus of +Darien, or, as may be more properly said, composes it wholly, from the +wrecks of the rocky summits which have been detached from the adjacent +lands; and the discoverers, therefore, were obliged to open their way +through difficulties and dangers which men of iron alone could have +fronted and overcome. Sometimes they had to penetrate through thick +entangled woods, sometimes to cross lakes, where men and burdens +perished miserably; then a rugged hill presented itself before them; +and next, perhaps, a deep and yawning precipice to descend; while, at +every step, they were opposed by deep and rapid rivers, passable only +by means of frail barks, or slight and trembling bridges; from time to +time they had to make their way through opposing Indians, who, tho +always conquered, were always to be dreaded; and, above all, came the +failure of provisions--which formed an aggregate, with toil, anxiety, +and danger, such as was sufficient to break down bodily strength and +depress the mind.... + +At length the Quarequanos, who served as guides, showed them, at a +distance, the height from whose summit the desired sea might be +discovered. Balboa immediately commanded his squadron to halt, and +proceeded alone to the top of the mountain; on reaching it he cast an +anxious glance southward, and the Austral Ocean broke upon his +sight.[3] Overcome with joy and wonder, he fell on his knees, +extending his arms toward the sea, and with tears of delight, offered +thanks to heaven for having destined him to this mighty discovery. He +immediately made a sign to his companions to ascend, and, pointing to +the magnificent spectacle extended before them, again prostrated +himself in fervent thanksgiving to God. The rest followed his example, +while the astonished Indians were extremely puzzled to understand so +sudden and general an effusion of wonder and gladness. Hannibal on the +summit of the Alps, pointing out to his soldiers the delicious plains +of Italy, did not appear, according to the ingenious comparison of a +contemporary writer, either more transported or more arrogant than the +Spanish chief, when, risen from the ground, he recovered the speech of +which sudden joy had deprived him, and thus addrest his Castilians: +"You behold before you, friends, the object of all our desires and the +reward of all our labors. Before you roll the waves of the sea which +has been announced to you, and which no doubt encloses the immense +riches we have heard of. You are the first who have reached these +shores and these waves; yours are their treasures, yours alone the +glory of reducing these immense and unknown regions to the dominion of +our King and to the light of the true religion. Follow me, then, +faithful as hitherto, and I promise you that the world shall not hold +your equals in wealth and glory." + +All embraced him joyfully and all promised to follow whithersoever he +should lead. They quickly cut down a great tree, and, stripping it of +its branches, formed a cross from it, which they fixt in a heap of +stones found on the spot from whence they first descried the sea. The +names of the monarchs of Castile were engraven on the trunks of the +trees, and with shouts and acclamations they descended the sierra and +entered the plain. + +They arrived at some bohios, which formed the population of a chief, +called Chiapes, who had prepared to defend the pass with arms. The +noise of the muskets and the ferocity of the war-dogs dispersed them +in a moment, and they fled, leaving many captives; by these and by +their Quarequano guides, the Spaniards sent to offer Chiapes secure +peace and friendship if he would come to them, or otherwise the ruin +and extermination of his town and his fields. Persuaded by them, the +cacique came and placed himself in the hands of Balboa, who treated +him with much kindness. He brought and distributed gold and received +in exchange beads and toys, with which he was so diverted that he no +longer thought of anything but contenting and conciliating the +strangers. There Vasco Nuńez sent away the Quarequanos, and ordered +that the sick, who had been left in their land, should come and join +him. In the meanwhile he sent Francisco Pizarro, Juan de Ezcarag, and +Alonzo Martin to discover the shortest roads by which the sea might be +reached. It was the last of these who arrived first at the coast, and, +entering a canoe which chanced to lie there, and pushing it into the +waves, let it float a little while, and, after pleasing himself with +having been the first Spaniard who entered the South Sea, returned to +seek Balboa. + +Balboa with twenty-six men descended to the sea, and arrived at the +coast early in the evening of the 29th of that month; they all seated +themselves on the shore and awaited the tide, which was at that time +on the ebb. At length it returned in its violence to cover the spot +where they were; then Balboa, in complete armor, lifting his sword in +one hand, and in the other a banner on which was painted an image of +the Virgin Mary with the arms of Castile at her feet, raised it, and +began to march into the midst of the waves, which reached above his +knees, saying in a loud voice: "Long live the high and mighty +sovereigns of Castile! Thus in their names do I take possession of +these seas and regions; and if any other prince, whether Christian or +infidel, pretends any right to them, I am ready and resolved to oppose +him, and to assert the just claims of my sovereigns." + +The whole band replied with acclamations to the vow of their captain, +and exprest themselves determined to defend, even to death, their +acquisition against all the potentates in the world; they caused this +act to be confirmed in writing, by the notary of the expedition, +Andres de Valderrabano; the anchorage in which it was solemnized was +called the Gulf of San Miguel, the event happening on that day. + + [1] Quintand's account of this expedition is the best we have in + Spanish literature. It forms part of his "Lives of Celebrated + Spaniards" (1807-1833), a standard work of the encyclopedia class. + Vasco Nunez de Balboa was born at Xerxes, in Spain, in 1475, and + died in Panama about 1517. His first visit to America was made in + 1500. Ten years later he went to Darien, where he became alcalde + of a new settlement. In 1512 he was made governor of San Domingo. + + While Governor of San Domingo Balboa learned from the Indians that + there was a great sea lying to the south and west, and in + September, 1513, set out from Darien to discover it. After an + adventurous journey he reached, on September 25th, a mountain top + from which he first saw the Pacific. After building some ships for + use on the Pacific and transporting them with immense labor across + the Isthmus, launching two of them, Balboa was arrested by the + governor of the colony on a charge of contemplated revolt and + beheaded. + + [2] Careta was an Indian chief whose friendship Balboa secured. + + [3] The date of this view of the Pacific by Balboa was September + 25, 1513. Readers of the poems of Keats are familiar with the + error in his sonnet "On First Looking Into Chapman's 'Homer,'" + where, by a curious error, never corrected, he makes Cortez, + instead of Balboa, the Spaniard who stood "silent upon a peak in + Darien." + + + + +THE VOYAGE OF MAGELLAN TO THE PACIFIC + +(1520) + +JOHN FISKE'S ACCOUNT[1] + + +Our chief source of information for the events of the voyage is the +journal kept by a gentleman from Vicenza, the Chevalier Antonio +Pigafetta, who obtained permission to accompany the expedition, "for +to see the marvels of the ocean." After leaving the Canaries on the 3d +of October, the armada ran down toward Sierra Leone, and was becalmed, +making only three leagues in three weeks. Then "the upper air burst +into life" and the frail ships were driven along under bare poles, now +and then dipping their yard-arms. During a month of this dreadful +weather, the food and water grew scarce, and the rations were +diminished. The spirit of mutiny began to show itself. The Spanish +captains whispered among the crews that this man from Portugal had not +their interests at heart, and was not loyal to the Emperor. Toward the +captain-general their demeanor grew more and more insubordinate; and +Cartagena one day, having come on board the flag-ship, faced him with +threats and insults. To his astonishment, Magellan promptly collared +him, and sent him, a prisoner in irons, on board the _Victoria_ (whose +captain was unfortunately also one of the traitors), while the command +of the _San Antonio_ was given to another officer. This example made +things quiet for the moment. + +On the 29th of November they reached the Brazilian coast near +Pernambuco; and on the 11th of January they arrived at the mouth of La +Plata, which they investigated sufficiently to convince them that it +was a river's mouth, and not a strait. Three weeks were consumed in +this work. This course through February and March along the coast of +Patagonia was marked by incessant and violent storms; and the cold +became so intense that, finding a sheltered harbor with plenty of fish +at Port St. Julian, they chose it for winter quarters and anchored +there on the last day of March. On the next day, which was Easter +Sunday, the mutiny that so long had smoldered broke out in all its +fury. + +The hardships of the voyage had thus far been what stanch seamen +called unusually severe, and it was felt that they had done enough. No +one except Vespucius and Jaques had ever approached so near to the +South Pole; and if they had not yet found a strait, it was doubtless +because there was none to find. The rations of bread and wine were +becoming very short, and common prudence demanded that they should +return to Spain. If their voyage was practically a failure, it was not +their fault; there was ample excuse in the frightful storms they had +suffered and the dangerous strains that had been put upon their +worn-out ships. Such was the general feeling, but when exprest to +Magellan it fell upon deaf ears. No excuses, nothing but performance, +would serve his turn; for him hardships were made only to be despised, +and dangers to be laughed at: and, in short, go on they must, until a +strait was found or the end of that continent reached. Then they would +doubtless find an open way to the Moluccas; and while he held out +hopes of rich rewards for all he appealed to their pride as +Castilians. For the inflexible determination of this man was not +embittered by harshness, and he could wield as well as any one the +language that soothes and persuades. + +At length, on the 24th of August, with the earliest symptoms of spring +weather, the ships, which had been carefully overhauled and repaired, +proceeded on their way. Violent storms harassed them, and it was not +until the 21st of October (St. Ursala's day) that they reached the +headland still known as Cape Virgins. Passing beyond Dungeness, they +entered a large open bay, which some hailed as the long-sought strait, +while others averred that no passage would be found there. "It was," +says Pigafetta, "in Eden's bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght +are Magellanus, beinge in sum place C.x. leaques in length: and in +breadth sumwhere very large and in other places lyttle more than halfe +a leaque in bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght are great and +hygh mountaynes couered with snowe, beyonde the whiche is the +enteraunce into the sea of Sur.... Here one of the shyppes stole away +priuilie and returned into Spayne." More than five weeks were consumed +in passing through the strait, and among its labyrinthine twists and +half-hidden bays there was ample opportunity for desertion. As +advanced reconnoissances kept reporting the water as deep and salt, +the conviction grew that the strait was found, and then the question +once more arose whether it would not be best to go back to Spain, +satisfied with this discovery, since with all these wretched delays +the provisions were again running short. Magellan's answer, uttered in +measured and quiet tones, was simply that he would go on and do his +work "if he had to eat the leather off the ship's yards." Upon the +_San Antonio_ there had always been a large proportion of the +malcontents, and the chief pilot, Estevan Gomez, having been detailed +for duty on that ship, lent himself to their purposes. The captain, +Mesquita, was again seized and put in irons, a new captain was chosen +by the mutineers, and Gomez piloted the ship back to Spain, where they +arrived after a voyage of six months, and screened themselves for a +while by lying about Magellan. + +As for that commander, in Richard Eden's words, "when the capitayne +Magalianes was past the strayght and sawe the way open to the other +mayne sea, he was so gladde thereof that for joy the teares fell from +his eyes, and named the point of the lande from whense he fyrst sawe +that sea Capo Desiderato. Supposing that the shyp which stole away had +byn loste, they erected a crosse uppon the top of a hyghe hyll to +direct their course in the straight yf it were theyr chaunce to coome +that way." The broad expanse of waters before him seemed so pleasant +to Magellan, after the heavy storms through which he had passed, that +he called it by the name it still bears, Pacific. But the worst +hardships were still before him. Once more a sea of darkness must be +crossed by brave hearts sickening with hope deferred. If the +mid-Atlantic waters had been strange to Columbus and his men, here +before Magellan's people all was thrice unknown. + + "They were the first that ever burst + Into that silent sea"; + +and as they sailed month after month over the waste of waters, the +huge size of our planet began to make itself felt. Until after the +middle of December they kept a northward course, near the coast of the +continent, running away from the antarctic cold. Then northwesterly +and westerly courses were taken, and on the 24th of January, 1521, a +small wooded islet was found in water where the longest plummet-lines +failed to reach bottom. Already the voyage since issuing from the +strait was nearly twice as long as that of Columbus in 1492 from the +Canaries to Guanahani. From the useless island, which they called San +Pablo, a further run of eleven days brought them to another +uninhabited rock, which they called Tiburones, from the quantity of +sharks observed in the neighborhood. There was neither food, nor water +to be had there, and a voyage of unknown duration, in reality not less +than 5,000 English miles, was yet to be accomplished before a trace of +land was again to greet their yearning gaze. Their sufferings may best +be told in the quaint and touching words in which Shakespeare read +them: + +"And hauynge in this tyme consumed all theyr bysket and other +vyttayles, they fell into such necessitie that they were inforced to +eate the pouder that remayned therof beinge now full of woormes.... +Theyre freshe water was also putrifyed and become yelow. They dyd eate +skynnes and pieces of lether which were foulded abowt certeyne great +ropes of the shyps. But these skynnes being made verye harde by reason +of the soonne, rayne, and wynde, they hunge them by a corde in the sea +for the space of foure or fiue dayse to mollifie them, and sodde them, +and eate them. By reason of this famen and vnclene feedynge, summe of +theyr gummes grewe so ouer theyr teethe [a symptom of scurvy], that +they dyed miserably for hunger. And by this occasion dyed xix. men, +and ... besyde these that dyed, xxv. or xxx. were so sicke that they +were not able to doo any seruice with theyr handes or arms for +feeblenesse: So that was in maner none without sum disease. In three +monethes and xx. dayes, they sayled foure thousande leaques in one +goulfe by the sayde sea cauled Paciflcum (that is) peaceable, whiche +may well bee so cauled forasmuch as in all this tyme hauyng no syght +of any lande, they had no misfortune of wynde or any other tempest.... +So that in fine, if god of his mercy had not gyuen them good wether, +it was necessary that in this soo greate a sea they shuld all haue +dyed for hunger. Whiche neuertheless they escaped soo hardely, that it +may bee doubted whether euer the like viage may be attempted with so +goode successe." + +One would gladly know--albeit Pigafetta's journal and the still more +laconic pilot's logbook leave us in the dark on this point--how the +ignorant and suffering crews interpreted this everlasting stretch of +sea, vaster, said Maximilian Transylvanus, "than the human mind could +conceive." To them it may well have seemed that the theory of a round +and limited earth was wrong after all, and that their infatuated +commander was leading them out into the fathomless abysses of space, +with no welcoming shore beyond. But that heart of triple bronze, we +may be sure, did not flinch. The situation had got beyond the point +where mutiny could be suggested as a remedy. The very desperateness of +it was all in Magellan's favor; for so far away had they come from the +known world that retreat meant certain death. The only chance of +escape lay in pressing forward. At last, on the 6th of March, they +came upon islands inhabited by savages ignorant of the bow and arrow, +but expert in handling their peculiar light boats. Here the dreadful +sufferings were ended, for they found plenty of fruit and fresh +vegetables, besides meat. The people were such eager and pertinacious +thieves that their islands received the name by which they are still +known, the Islas de Ladrones, or isles of robbers. + +On the 16th of March the three ships arrived at the islands which some +years afterward were named Philippines, after Philip II of Spain. Tho +these were islands unvisited by Europeans, yet Asiatic traders from +Siam and Sumatra, as well as from China, were to be met there, and it +was thus not long before Magellan became aware of the greatness of his +triumph. He had passed the meridian of the Moluccas, and knew that +these islands lay to the southward within an easy sail. He had +accomplished the circumnavigation of the earth through its unknown +portion, and the remainder of his route lay through seas already +traversed. An erroneous calculation of longitudes confirmed him in the +belief that the Moluccas, as well as the Philippines, properly +belonged to Spain. Meanwhile in these Philippines of themselves he had +discovered a region of no small commercial importance. But his brief +tarry in these interesting islands had fatal results; and in the very +hour of victory the conqueror perished, slain in a fight with the +natives, the reason of which we can understand only by considering the +close complication of commercial and political interests with +religious notions so common in that age.... + +Meanwhile, on the 16th of May, the little _Victoria_, with starvation +and scurvy already thinning the ranks, with foretopmast gone by the +board and fore-yard badly sprung, cleared the Cape of Good Hope, and +thence was borne on the strong and friendly current up to the equator, +which she crossed on the 8th of June. Only fifty years since Santarem +and Escobar, first of Europeans, had crept down that coast and crossed +it. Into that glorious half-century what a world of suffering and +achievement had been crowded! Dire necessity compelled the _Victoria_ +to stop at the Cape Verde Islands. Her people sought safety in +deceiving the Portuguese with the story that they were returning from +a voyage in Atlantic waters only, and thus they succeeded in buying +food. But while this was going on, as a boat-load of thirteen men had +been sent ashore for rice, some silly tongue, loosened by wine, in the +head of a sailor who had cloves to sell, babbled the perilous secret +of Magellan and the Moluccas. The thirteen were at once arrested, and +a boat called upon the _Victoria_, with direful threats, to surrender; +but she quickly stretched every inch of her canvas and got away. This +was on the 18th of July, and eight weeks of ocean remained. At last, +on the 6th of September--the thirtieth anniversary of the day when +Columbus weighed anchor for Cipango--the _Victoria_ sailed into the +Guadalquivir, with eighteen gaunt and haggard survivors to tell the +proud story of the first circumnavigation of the earth. + +The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest feat of navigation +that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would +surpass it except a journey to some other planet. It has not the +unique historic position of the first voyage of Columbus, which +brought together two streams of human life that had been disjoined +since the glacial period. But as an achievement in ocean navigation +that voyage of Columbus sinks into insignificance by the side of it; +and when the earth was a second time encompassed by the greatest +English sailor of his age,[2] the advance in knowledge, as well as the +different route chosen, had much reduced the difficulty of the +performance. When we consider the frailness of the ships, the +immeasurable, extent of the unknown, the mutinies that were prevented +or quelled, and the hardships that were endured, we can have no +hesitation in speaking of Magellan as the prince of navigators. Nor +can we ever fail to admire the simplicity and purity of that devoted +life, in which there is nothing that seeks to be hidden or explained +away. + + [1] From Fiske's "Discovery of America." Copyright, 1892, by John + Fiske. Reprinted by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton, + Mifflin Co. Ferdinand Magellan was born at Saborosa in Portugal, + about 1480, and died in the Philippines in 1521. Before discovering + the strait that bears his name he had served with the Portuguese + in the East Indies and in Morocco. Becoming dissatisfied he had + gone to Spain, where he proposed to find a western passage to the + Moluccas, a proposal which Charles V accepted, fitting out for him + a government squadron of five ships and 265 men. Magellan sailed + from San Lucar September 20, 1519, and, after passing through the + strait as here described by Fiske, proceeded to the Philippines, + where, in an attack on unfriendly natives, he, with several of his + men, was killed. One of his ships afterward completed the voyage + by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and thus made the first + circumnavigation of the globe. + + [2] A reference to Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman who + circumnavigated the globe. + + + + +THE DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK HARBOR BY VERAZZANO + +(1524) + +VERAZZANO'S OWN ACCOUNT[1] + + +Having remained in this place[2] three days, anchored off the coast, +we decided on account of the scarcity of ports to depart, always +skirting the shore, which we baptized Arcadia on account of the beauty +of the trees. + +In Arcadia we found a man who came to the shore to see what people we +were: who stood hesitating and ready to fight. Watching us, he did not +permit himself to be approached. He was handsome, nude, with hair +fastened back in a knot, of olive color. + +We were about XX [in number], ashore, and coaxing him, he approached +to within about two fathoms, showing a burning stick as if to offer us +fire. And we made fire with powder and flint and steel, and he +trembled all over with terror, and we fired a shot. He stopt as if +astonished, and prayed, worshiping like a monk, lifting his finger +toward the sky, and pointing to the ship and the sea he appeared to +bless us. + +Toward the north and east, navigating by daylight and casting anchor +at night, we followed a coast very green with forests, but without +ports, and with some charming promontories and small rivers. We +baptized the coast "di Lorenna" on account of the Cardinal; the first +promontory "Lanzone," the second "Bonivetto," the largest river +"Vandoma" and a small mountain which stands by the sea "di S. Polo" on +account of the count. + +At the end of a hundred leagues we found a very agreeable situation +located within two small prominent hills, in the midst of which flowed +to the sea a very great river, which was deep within the mouth; and +from the sea to the hills of that [place] with the rising of the +tides, which we found eight feet, any laden ship might have passed. On +account of being anchored off the coast in good shelter, we did not +wish to adventure in without knowledge of the entrances. We were with +the small boat, entering the said river[3] to the land, which we found +much populated. The people, almost like the others, clothed with the +feathers of birds of various colors, came toward us joyfully, uttering +very great exclamations of admiration, showing us where we could land +with the boat more safely. We entered said river, within the land, +about half a league, where we saw it made a very beautiful lake with a +circuit of about three leagues; through which they [the Indians] went, +going from one and another part to the number of XXX of their little +barges, with innumerable people, who passed from one shore and the +other in order to see us. In an instant, as is wont to happen in +navigation, a gale of unfavorable wind blowing in from the sea, we +were forced to return to the ship, leaving the said land with much +regret because of its commodiousness and beauty, thinking it was not +without some properties of value, all of its hills showing indications +of minerals. We called it Angoleme from the principality which thou +attainedst in lesser fortune, and the bay which that land makes called +Santa Margarita[4] from the name of thy sister who vanquished the +other matrons of modesty and art. + +The anchor raised, sailing toward the east, as thus the land turned, +having traveled LXXX leagues always in sight of it, we discovered an +island triangular in form, distant ten leagues from the continent, in +size like the island of Rhodes, full of hills, covered with trees, +much populated [judging] by the continuous fires along all the +surrounding shore which we saw they made. We baptized it Aloysia, in +the name of your most illustrious mother;[5] not anchoring there on +account of the unfavorableness of the weather. + +We came to another land, distant from the island XV leagues, where we +found a very beautiful port,[6] and before we entered it, we saw about +XX barges of the people who came with various cries of wonder round +about the ship. Not approaching nearer than fifty paces, they halted, +looking at the edifice [_i.e._, the ship], our figures and clothes; +then all together they uttered a loud shout, signifying that they were +glad. Having reassured them somewhat, imitating their gestures, they +came so near that we threw them some little bells and mirrors and many +trinkets, having taken which, regarding them with laughter, they +entered the ship confidently. There were among them two Kings, of as +good stature and form as it would be possible to tell; the first of +about XXXX years, the other a young man of XXIIII years, the clothing +of whom was thus: the older had on his nude body a skin of a stag, +artificially adorned like a damask with various embroideries; the head +bare, the hair turned back with various bands, at the neck a broad +chain ornamented with many stones of diverse colors. The young man was +almost in the same style. + +This is the most beautiful people and the most civilized in customs +that we have found in this navigation. They excel us in size; they are +of bronze color, some inclining more to whiteness, others to tawny +color; the face sharply cut, the hair long and black, upon which they +bestow the greatest study in adorning it; the eyes black and alert, +the bearing kind and gentle, imitating much the ancient [manner]. Of +the other parts of the body I will not speak to Your Majesty, having +all the proportions which belong to every well-built man. Their women +are of the same beauty and charm; very graceful; of comely mien and +agreeable aspect; of habits and behavior as much according to womanly +custom as pertains to human nature; they go nude with only one skin of +the stag embroidered like the men, and some wear on the arms very rich +skins of the lynx; the head bare, with various arrangements of braids, +composed of their own hair, which hang on one side and the other of +the breast. Some use other hair-arrangements like the women of Egypt +and of Syria use, and these are they who are advanced in age and are +joined in wedlock. + +They have in the ears various pendant trinkets as the orientals are +accustomed to have, the men like the women, among which we saw many +plates wrought from copper, by whom it is prized more than gold; +which, on account of its color, they do not esteem; wherefore among +all it is held by them more worthless; on the other hand rating blue +and red above any other. That which they were given by us which they +most valued were little bells, blue crystals and other trinkets to +place in the ears and on the neck. They did not prize cloth of silk +and of gold, nor even of other kind, nor did they care to have them; +likewise with metals like steel and iron; for many times showing them +our arms they did not conceive admiration for them nor ask for them, +only examining the workmanship. They did the same with the mirrors; +suddenly looking at them, they refused them, laughing. They are very +liberal, so much so that all which they have they give away. We formed +a great friendship with them, and one day, before we had entered with +the ship in the port, remaining on account of the unfavorable weather +conditions anchored a league at sea, they came in great numbers in +their little barges to the ship, having painted and decked the face +with various colors, showing to us it was evidence of good feeling, +bringing to us of their food, signaling to us where for the safety of +the ship we ought to anchor in the port, continually accompanying us +until we cast anchor there. + +In which we remained XV days, supplying ourselves with many +necessities; where every day the people came to see us at the ship, +bringing their women, of whom they are very careful; because, entering +the ship themselves, remaining a long time, they made their women stay +in the barges, and however many entreaties we made them, offering to +give them various things, it was not possible that they would allow +them to enter the ship. And one of the two Kings coming many times +with the Queen and many attendants through their desire to see us, at +first always stopt on a land distant from us two hundred paces, +sending a boat to inform us of their coming, saying they wished to +come to see the ship; doing this for a kind of safety. + +And when they had the response from us, they came quickly, and having +stood awhile to look, hearing the noisy clamor of the sailor crowd, +sent the Queen with her damsels in a very light barge to stay on a +little island distant from us a quarter of a league; himself remaining +a very long time, discoursing by signs and gestures of various +fanciful ideas, examining all the equipments of the ship, asking +especially their purpose, imitating our manners, tasting our foods, +then parted from us benignantly. And one time, our people remaining +two or three days on a little island near the ship for various +necessities as is the custom of sailors, he came with seven or eight +of his attendants, watching our operations, asking many times if we +wished to remain there for a long time, offering us his every help. +Then, shooting with the bow, running, he performed with his attendants +various games to give us pleasure. + +Many times we were from five to six leagues inland, which we found as +pleasing as it can be to narrate, adapted to every kind of +cultivation--grain, wine, oil. Because in that place the fields are +from XXV to XXX leagues wide, open and devoid of every impediment of +trees, of such fertility that any seed in them would produce the best +crops. Entering then into the woods, all of which are penetrable by +any numerous army in any way whatsoever, and whose trees, oaks, +cypresses, and others are unknown in our Europe. We found Lucallian +apples, plums, and filberts, and many kinds of fruits different from +ours. Animals there are in very great number, stags, deer, lynx, and +other species, which, in the way of the others, they capture with +snares and bows, which are their principal arms. The arrows of whom +are worked with great beauty, placing at the end, instead of iron, +emery, jasper, hard marble, and other sharp stones, by which they +served themselves instead of iron in cutting trees, making their +barges from a single trunk of a tree, hollowed with wonderful skill, +in which from fourteen to XV men will go comfortably; the short oar, +broad at the end, working it solely with the strength of the arms at +sea without any peril, with as much speed as pleases them. + +Going further, we saw their habitations, circular in form, of XIIII to +XV paces compass, made from semi-circles of wood [_i.e._, arched +saplings, bent in the form of an arbor], separated one from the other, +without system of architecture, covered with mats of straw ingeniously +worked, which protect them from rain and wind. There is no doubt that +if they had the perfection of the arts we have, they would build +magnificent edifices, for all the maritime coast is full of blue +rocks, crystals and alabaster; and for such cause is full of ports and +shelters for ships. They change said houses from one place to another +according to the opulence of the site and the season in which they +live. Carrying away only the mats, immediately they have other +habitations made. There live in each a father and family to a very +large number, so that in some we saw XXV and XXX souls. Their food is +like the others: of pulse (which they produce with more system of +culture than the others, observing the full moon, the rising of the +Pleiades, and many customs derived from the ancients), also of the +chase and fish. They live a long time and rarely incur illness; if +they are opprest with wounds, without crying they cure themselves by +themselves with fire, their end being of old age. We judge they are +very compassionate and charitable toward their relatives, making them +great lamentations in their adversities, in their grief calling to +mind all their good fortunes. The relatives, one with another, at the +end of their life use the Sicilian lamentation, mingled with singing +lasting a long time. This is as much as we were able to learn about +them. + +The land is situated in the parallel of Rome, in forty and two-thirds +degrees, but somewhat colder on account of chance and not on account +of nature, as I will narrate to Your Majesty in another part, +describing at present the situation of said port. The shore of said +land runs from west to east. The mouth of the port looks toward the +south, half a league wide, after entering which between east and north +it extends XII leagues, where, widening itself, it makes an ample bay +of about XX leagues in circuit. In which are five little islands of +much fertility and beauty, full of high and spreading trees, among +which any numerous fleet, without fear of tempest or other impediment +of fortune, could rest securely. Turning thence toward the south to +the entrance of the port, on one side and the other are very charming +hills with many brooks, which from the height to the sea discharge +clear waters, which on account of its beauty we called "Refugio." + +In the midst of the mouth is found a rock of Petra Viva produced by +nature, adapted for the building of any desired engine or bulwark for +its protection, which on account of the nature of the stone and on +account of the family of a gentlewoman we called "La Petra Viva"; on +whose right side at said mouth of the port is a promontory which we +called "Jovio Promontory." + +Being supplied with our every necessity, the 6th day of May we +departed from said port, following the shore, never losing sight of +the land. We sailed one hundred and fifty leagues, within which space +we found shoals which extend from the continent into the sea 50 +leagues. Upon which there was over three feet of water; on account of +which great danger in navigating it, we survived with difficulty and +baptized it "Armellini," finding it of the same nature and somewhat +higher with some mountains, with a high promontory which we named +"Pallavisino,"[7] which all indicated minerals. We did not stop there +because the favorableness of the weather served us in sailing along +the coast: we think it must conform to the other. The shore ran to the +east. + +In the space of fifty leagues, holding more to the north, we found a +high land full of very thick forests, the trees of which were pines, +cypresses and such as grow in cold regions. The people all different +from the others, and as much as those passed were of cultivated +manners, these were full of uncouthness and vices, so barbarous that +we were never able, with howsoever many signs we made them, to have +any intercourse with them. They dress with the skins of bear, lynxes, +sea-wolves, and other animals. The food, according to that which we +were able to learn through going many times to their habitations, we +think is of the chase, fish, and some products which are of a species +of roots which the ground yields by its own self. They do not have +pulse, nor did we see any signs of cultivation, nor would the ground, +on account of its sterility, be adapted to produce fruit or any grain. +If, trading at any time with them, we desired their things, they came +to the shore of the sea upon some rock where it was very steep, +and--we remaining in the small boat--with a cord let down to us what +they wished to give, continually crying on land that we should not +approach, giving quickly the barter, not taking in exchange for it +except knives, hooks for fishing, and sharp metal. They had no regard +for courtesy, and when they had nothing more to exchange, at their +departing the men made at us all the signs of contempt and shame which +any brute creature could make. Contrary to their wish, XXV armed men +of us were inland two and three leagues, and when we descended to the +shore they shot at us with their bows, sending forth the greatest +cries, then fled into the woods. We do not know any value of any +moment in this land, except the very great forests, with some hills +which possibly have some metal, because on many [natives] we saw +"paternosters" of copper in the ears. + +We departed, skirting the coast between east and north, which we found +very beautiful, open and bare of forests, with high mountains back +inland, growing smaller toward the shore of the sea. In fifty leagues +we discovered XXXII islands, among which we called the three larger +"The Three Daughters of Navarra," all near to the continent, small and +of pleasing appearance, high, following the curving of the land, among +which were formed most beautiful ports and channels, as are formed in +the Adriatic Gulf, in the Illyrias, and Dalmatia. We had no +intercourse with the peoples and think they were, like the others, +devoid of morals and culture. + +Navigating between east-southeast and north-northeast, in the space +of CL leagues, we came near the land which the Britons found in the +past, by the Cabots,[8] which stands in fifty degrees, and having +consumed all our naval stores and victuals, having discovered six +hundred leagues and more of new land, furnishing ourselves with water +and wood, we decided to turn toward France. + + [1] From a letter addrest to Francis I, King of France, on July 8, + 1524. Three copies of Verazzano's letter exist. One was printed by + Ramusio in 1556 and translated for Hakluyt's "Voyages" in 1583. + The second was found in the Strozzi Library in Florence, and + published in 1841 by the New York Historical Society with a + translation by J.G. Cogswell. + + The third copy is the one now owned by Count Gulio Macchi di + Cellere, of Rome. It was first published in Italy in 1909, and the + first English translation of it was made by Dr. Edward Hagaman + Hall, secretary of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation + Society, and published in the report of that society for 1910. + This copy has the distinction of being contemporaneous. Dr. Hall + says its value "consists not only in confirming the voyage itself, + but also in supplying a wealth of names and details not previously + known to exist." Verazzano's account of his visit to New York + harbor here given is taken from Dr. Hall's translation. + + Giovanni de Verazzano was born in Italy about 1480, and died about + 1527. He early became a Florentine navigator and afterward a + corsair in French service. His expedition to America was of French + origin and sailed in 1523. + + [2] Off the coast of Virginia or Maryland. + + [3] This river is now known as the Hudson. + + [4] Verazzano's Bay, St. Margarita, was New York Bay. + + [5] Aloysia is now called Block Island. + + [6] Newport. + + [7] Cape Cod. + + [8] A Reference to the discovery of Newfoundland in 1497. + + + + +CARTIER'S EXPLORATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE + +(1534) + +I + +THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY JOHN A. DOYLE[1] + + +Jacques Cartier was a brave and experienced sea captain from St. Malo. +In 1534, Cartier made a preliminary voyage of exploration. Touching at +Newfoundland, he sailed through the straits of Belle Isle and explored +the east shore of the island, a region which for the barrenness of its +soil and the severity of its climate seemed the very spot whither Cain +had been banished. The coast of New Brunswick held out a more inviting +prospect. The fertility of the soil reminded the voyagers of their +native Brittany, and one field there seemed worth more than the whole +of Newfoundland. Thence Cartier sailed into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, +and would have explored the great river of Canada, but storms arose +and he deemed it prudent to return to France before bad weather set +in. His report of the country was encouraging. The soil, as we have +seen, promised well, and the voyagers had not yet learned the terrors +of a Canadian winter. The natives were rude in their habits, but they +were uniformly peaceful and ready to trade on easy terms for such +goods as they possest. There seemed good reason to hope, too, that +they might be converted to Christianity, and one of them had shown +confidence enough in the strangers to trust them with his two +children, who were easily reconciled to their captivity by the gift of +red caps and colored shirts. + +In the next year Cartier again went forth with three ships. After +confessing and taking the sacrament in the church of St. Malo, the +adventurers set sail on Whit Sunday. Among them was the cup-bearer to +the Dauphin, Claudius de Pont-Briand. As before, the strangers were +well received by the Indians, and landed safely at Quebec. There +Cartier left his sailors with instructions to make a fortified camp, +while he himself, with the greater part of his men-at-arms and his two +Indian captives of the year before, should explore the upper banks of +the St. Lawrence, and penetrate, if possible, to the great Indian city +of Hochelaga.[2] The Indians, tho outwardly friendly, seem either to +have distrusted the French, or else grudged their neighbors at +Hochelaga such valuable allies, and would have dissuaded Cartier from +his expedition. When their remonstrances proved useless, the savages +tried to work on the fears of the visitors. Three canoes came floating +down the river, each containing a fiendish figure with horns and +blackened face. The supposed demons delivered themselves of a +threatening harangue, and then paddled to the shore, and whether to +complete the performance, or through honest terror, fell fainting in +their boats. The Indians then explained to Cartier that their god had +sent a warning to the presumptuous strangers, bidding them refrain +from the intended voyage. Cartier replied that the Indian god could +have no power over those who believed in Christ. The Indians +acquiesced, and even affected to rejoice in the approaching +discomfiture of their deity. Cartier and his followers started on the +voyage. + +After a fortnight's journey they came in sight of the natural citadel +of Hochelaga, the royal mount, as they fitly called it, which has +since given its name to the stately city below. The site of that city +was then filled by a village surrounded by maize fields and strongly +fortified after the Iroquois manner. There the French were received +with hospitality and with a reverence which seemed to imply that they +were something more than mortal. The sick were laid before them to be +healed, and when Cartier read portions of the Gospel in French, the +savages listened reverently to the unknown sounds. On his return, +Cartier found his fort securely palisaded, and decided there to await +the winter. So far all had gone well, but the settlers were soon +destined to see the unfavorable side of Canadian life. The savages, +after their fickle nature, began to waver in their friendship. A worse +danger was to come. Scurvy broke out, and before long twenty-five men +had died, and not more than three or four remained well. At length the +leaf of a tree whose virtues were pointed out by the Indians restored +the sufferers to health. When winter disappeared and the river again +became navigable, Cartier determined to return. He was anxious that +the French king should learn the wonders of the country from the +mouths of its own people. Accordingly, with a characteristic mixture +of caution, subtlety, and conciliation, he allured the principal chief +Donnacona, and some of his followers into the fort. There they were +seized and carried to the ships, nominally as honored guests, like +Montezuma among the followers of Cortez. Cartier then set sail with +his captives, and in July reached St. Malo. The Indians, as was +usually the fate of such captives, pined under a strange sky, and when +Cartier sailed again not one was alive. + +Four years elapsed before another voyage was undertaken. In 1540 a +fleet of five ships was made ready at the expense of the king, who +reserved to himself a third of the profits of the voyage. Cartier was +appointed captain-general, with instructions to establish a settlement +and to labor for the conversion of the savages. With Cartier was +associated a man of high birth, the Sieur de Roberval, who was +appointed Viceroy and Lieutenant-general of Newfoundland, Labrador, +and all the territory explored by Cartier, with the title of Lord of +Norumbega. This division of command seems to have led to no good +results. Another measure which probably contributed to the failure of +the expedition was the mode employed for raising the necessary crews. +Cartier, like Frobisher, was empowered to search the prisons for +recruits. Even before the voyage began things took an unfavorable +turn. Roberval's ammunition was not ready at the stated time, and the +departure of the fleet was thereby hindered. + +At length, lest further delay should give offense at court, Cartier +sailed, leaving Roberval to follow. The first interview with the +savages was a source of some fear, as it was doubtful how they would +receive the tidings of Donnacona's death. Luckily, the chief to whom +the news was first told was Donnacona's successor, and, as might have +been expected, he showed no dissatisfaction at Cartier's story. The +French then settled themselves in their old quarters at Quebec. Two of +the four ships were sent home to France to report safe arrival of the +expedition, while Cartier himself, with two boats, set out to explore +the river above Hochelaga. After his departure the relations between +the settlers and the Indians became unfriendly, a change probably due +in part to the loss of Donnacona and his companions. Whatever the +cause, the danger seemed so serious that Cartier on his return decided +to abandon the colony and to make for France. From later events it +would seem as if Cartier had no friendly feeling toward Roberval, and +jealousy may have had some share in leading him to forsake the +enterprise for which he had endured and risked so much. On his +homeward voyage he put into the harbor of St. John, in Newfoundland. +There he met Roberval with three ships and 200 men. Their meeting +seems to have been friendly, but Cartier, instead of obeying +Roberval's orders and returning with him to Canada, quietly weighed +anchor in the night and sailed away to France. + +With this inglorious departure ends the career of the first great +French colonizer. Robervai resumed his voyage and landed above Quebec. +There he built a single abode for the whole colony on the model of a +college or monastery, with a common hail and kitchen. Of the doings of +the settlers we have but scanty accounts, but we learn enough to see +that the colony was ill-planned from the outset, and that either +Roberval was unfit for command or singularly unfortunate in his +subjects. The supplies were soon found to be inadequate, and scurvy +set in, the colonists became disorderly, and Roberval ruled them with +a rod of iron. Trifling offenses were punished with fearful severity; +men and women were flogged, and if we may believe one account, the +punishment of death was inflicted with no sparing hand. How long the +colony lingered on is unknown. Roberval himself returned to France +only, it is said, to die a violent death in the streets of Paris. +There is nothing to tell us whether his colonists returned with him or +whether, like White's unhappy followers, they were left to fall +victims to the horrors of the wilderness. Whatever was their fate, no +attempt was made to restore the colony, and the St. Lawrence was left +for more than fifty years to the savages and wild beasts. + + [1] From Doyle's "_English Colonies in America_." By permission of + the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Jacques Cartier was born at St. + Malo, France, in 1494, and died some time after 1552. He made + three voyages to Canada, the first in 1534, the second in 1535, + the third in 1541. + + [2] The site is now occupied by Montreal. + + + + +II + +CARTIER'S OWN ACCOUNT[1] + + +Vpon Thursday being the eight of the moneth, because the winde was not +good to go out with our ships, we set our boates in a readinesse to +goe to discouer the said Bay[2], and that day wee went 25 leagues +within it. The next day the wind and weather being faire, we sailed +vntil noone, in which time we had notice of a great part of the said +Bay, and how that ouer the low lands, there were other lands with high +mountaines: but seeing that there was no passage at all, wee began to +turne back againe, taking our way along the coast and sayling, we saw +certaine wilde men.... and by and by in clusters they came to the +shore where we were, with their boates, bringing with them skinnes and +other such things as they had, to haue of our wares.... til they had +nothing but their naked bodies; for they gaue vs all whatsoeuer they +had, and that was but of small value. We perceiued that this people +might very easily be conuerted to our Religion. They goe from place to +place. They liue onely with fishing. They haue an ordinarie time to +fish for their prouision. The countrey is hotter than the countrey of +Spaine, and the fairest that can possibly be found, altogether smooth, +and leuel. There is no place be it neuer so little, but it bath some +trees (yea albeit it be sandie) or else is full of wilde corne, that +hath an eare like vnto Rie: the corne is like oates, and smal peason +as thicke as if they had bene sowen and plowed, white and red Roses, +with many other flouers of very sweet and pleasant smell. There be +also many goodly medowes full of grasse, and lakes wherein great +plentie of salmons be. They call a hatchet in their tongue Cochi, and +a knife Bacon: we named it The bay of heat.... + +The Saturday following, being the first of August, by Sunne rising, +wee had certaine other landes, lying North and Northeast, that were +very high and craggie, and seemed to be mountaines: betweene which +were other low lands with woods and riuers: wee went about the sayd +lands, as well on the one side as on the other, still bending +Northwest, to see if it were either a gulfe, or a passage, vntill the +fift of the moneth. The distance from one land to the other is about +fifteene leagues. The middle between them both is 50 degrees and a +terce in latitude. We had much adoe to go fiue miles farther, the +winds were so great and the tide against vs. And at fiue miles end, we +might plainely see and perceiue land on both sides, which there +beginneth to spread it selfe. + +After we had sailed along the sayd coast, for the space of two houres, +behold, the tide began to tame against vs, with so swift and raging a +course, that it was not possible for vs with 13 oares to row or get +one stones cast farther, so that we were constrained to leaue our +boates with some of our men to guard them, and 10 or 12 men went +ashore to the sayd Cape, where we found that the land beginneth to +bend Southwest, which hauing scene, we came to our boats againe, and +so to our ships, which were stil ready vnder salle, hoping to go +forward; but for all that, they were fallen more then four leagues to +leeward from the place where we had left them, where so soone as we +came, wee assembled together all our Captaines, Masters, and Mariners, +to haue their aduice and opinion what was best to be done; and after +that euery one had said, considering that the Easterly winds began to +beare away, and blow, and that the flood was so great, that we did but +fall, and that there was nothing to be gotten, and that stormes and +tempests began to reigne in Newfoundland, and that we were so farre +from home, not knowing the perils and dangers that were behind, for +either we must agree to reture home againe, or els to stay there all +the yeere. More ouer, we did consider, that if the Northerne winds did +take vs, it were not possible for vs to depart thence. All which +opinions being heard and considered, we altogether determined to +addresse our selues homeward. Nowe because vpon Saint Peters day wee +entred into the sayd Streite, we named it Saint Peters Streite.... + +In the yeere of our Lord 1535, vpon Whitsunday, being the 16. of May, +by the commandement of our Captaine Iames Cartier, and with a common +accord, in the Cathedrall Church of S. Malo we deuoutly each one +confessed our selues, and receiued the Sacrament: and all entring into +the Quier of the sayd Church, wee presented our selues before the +Reuerend Father in Christ, the Lord Bishop of S. Malo, who blessed vs +all, being in his Bishops roabes. The Wednesday following, being the +19. of May, there arose a good gale of wind, and therefore we hoysed +seyle with three ships.... We staied and rested our selues in the sayd +hauen, vntill the seuenth of August being Sonday: on which day we +hoysed sayle, and came toward land on the South side toward Cape +Robast, distant from the sayd hauen about twentie leagues +Northnortheast, and Southsouthwest: but the next day there rose a +stormie and a contrary winde, and because we could find no hauen there +toward the South, thence we went coasting along toward the North, +beyond the abouesayd hauen about ten leagues, where we found a goodly +great gulfe, full of Islands, passages, and entrances, toward what +wind soeuer you please to bend: for the knowledge of this gulfe there +is a great Island that is like to a Cape of lande, stretching somewhat +further foorth than the others, and about two leagues within the land, +there is an hill fashioned as it were an heape of corne. We named the +sayd gulfe Saint Laurence his bay. The twelfth of the sayd moneth wee +went from the sayd Saint Laurence his Bay, or gulfe, sayling Westward, +and discouered a Cape of land toward the South, that runneth West and +by South, distant from the sayd Saint Laurence his Bay, about fiue and +twenty leagues.... + +Moreouer, I beleeue that there were neuer so many Whales seen as we +saw that day about the sayd Cape. The next day after being aur Ladie +day of August the fifteenth of the moneth, hauing passed the Straight, +we had notice of certaine lands that wee left toward the South, which +landes are full of uery great and high hilles, and this Cape wee named +The Island of the Assumption, and perceuived to be higher than the +Southerly, more then thirty leagues in length. We treaded the sayd +landes about toward the South: from the sayd day vntill Tewesday noone +following, the winde came West, and therefore wee bended toward the +North, purposing to goe and see the land that we before had spied. +Being arriued there, we found the sayd landes as it were ioyned +together, and low toward the Sea. And the Northerly mountaines that +are vpon the sayd low lands stretch East, and West, and a quarter of +the South. Our wild men told vs that there was the beginning of +Saguenay, and that it was land inhabited, and that thence commeth the +red Copper, of them named Caignetdaze. + +There is between the Southerly lands, and the Northerly about thirty +leagues distance, and more then two hundredth fadome depth. The sayd +men did moreouer certifie vnto vs, that there was the way and +beginning of the great riuer of Hochelaga and ready way to Canada, +which riuer the further it went the narrower it came, euen vnto +Canada, and that then there was fresh water, which went so famine +vpwards, that they had neuer heard of any man who had gone to the head +of it, and that there is no other passage but with small boates.... +Vpon the first of September we departed out of the said hauen, +purposing to go toward Canada; and about 15 leagues from it toward the +West, and Westsouthwest, amidst the riuer, there are three Islands, +ouer against the which there is a riuer which runneth swift, and is of +great depth, and it is that which leadeth, and runneth into the +countrey and kingdome of Saguenay, as by the two wild men of Canada it +was told vs. This riuer passeth and runneth along very high and steepe +hills of bare stone, where uery little earth is, and notwithstanding +there is a great quantity of sundry sorts of trees that grow in the +said bare stones, euen as vpon good and fertile ground, in such sort +that we haue seene some so great as wel would suffise to make a mast +for a ship of 30 tunne burden, and as greene as possibly can be, +growing in a stony rocke without any earth at all.... + +The seuenth of the moneth being our Ladies euen, after seruice we went +from that Iland to go vp higher into the riuer, and came to 14 Ilands +seuen or eight leagues from the Iland of Filberds, where the countrey +of Canada beginneth, one of which Ilands is ten leagues in length, and +fiue in bredth, greatly inhabited of such men as onely liue by fishing +of such sorts of fishes as the riuer affordeth, according to the +season of them.... The next day following, the Lord of Canada (whose +proper name was Donnacona, but by the name of Lord they call him +Agouhanna) with twelue boats came to our ships, accompanied with many +people, who causing ten of his boates to goe backe with the other two, +approched vnto vs with sixteene men ... Our Captaine then caused our +boates to be set in order, that with the next tide he might goe vp +higher into the riuer, to find some safe harborough for our ships: and +we passed vp the riuer against the streame about tenne leagues, +coasting the said Iland, at the end whereof, we found a goodly and +pleasant sound, where is a little riuer and hauen, where by reason of +the flood there is about three fadome water. This place seemed to us +very fit and commodious to harbour our ships therein, and so we did +very safely, we named it the holy Crosse, for on that day we came +thither. Neere vnto it, there is a village, whereof Donnacona is Lord, +and there he keepeth his abode: it is called Stadacona [Quebec] as +goodly a plot of ground as possibly may be seene. + +Hauing considered the place, and finding it fit for our purpose, our +Captaine withdrew himselfe on purpose to returne to our ships. After +we were come with our boats vnto our ships againe, our Captaine cause +our barks to be made readie to goe on land in the said Iland, to note +the trees that in shew seemed so faire, and to consider the nature and +qualitie of it: which things we did, and found it full of goodly trees +like to ours. Also we saw many goodly Vines, a thing not before of vs +seene in those countries, and therefore we named it Bacchus Iland. It +is in length about twelue leagues, in sight very pleasant, but full of +woods, no part of it manured, vnless it be in certaine places, where a +few cottages be for Fishers dwellings as before we haue said.... + +The next day being the 19 of September we hoysed saile, and with our +Pinnesse and two boates departed to goe vp the riuer with the flood, +where on both shores of it we beganne to see as goodly a countrey as +possibly can with eye seene, all replenished with very goodly trees, +and Vines laden as full of grapes as could be all along the riuer, +which rather seemed to haue bin planted by mans hand than otherwise. +True it is, that because they are not dressed and wrought as they +should be, their bunches of grapes are not so great nor sweete as +ours.... From the nineteenth vntill the eight and twentieth of +September, we sailed vp along the saide riuer, neuer losing one houre +of time, all which time we saw as goodly and pleasant a countrey as +possibly can be wished for.... + +The next day our Captaine seeing for that time it was not possible for +our Pinesse to goe on any further, he caused our boates to be made +readie, and as much munition and victuals to be put in them, as they +could well beare: he departed with them, accompanyed with many +Gentlemen, that is to say, Claudius of Ponte Briand, Cupbearer to the +Lorde Dolphin of France, Charles of Pommeraye, Iohn Gouion, Iohn +Powlet, with twentie and eight Mariners: and Mace Iallobert, and +William Briton, who had the charge vnder the Captaine of the other two +ships, to goe vp as farre as they could into that riuer: we sayled +with good and prosperous weather vntill the second of October, on +which day we came to the towne of Hochelaga, [Montreal] distant from +the place where we had left our Pinnesse fiue and fortie leagues. + + [1] From a letter by Cartier, of which a translation exists in + Hakluyt's "Principal Navigations," etc. Printed in Hart's "American + History Told by Contemporaries." + + [2] The Gulf of St. Lawrence. + + + + +SEARCHES FOR "THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA" + +(1530-1540) + +THE ACCOUNT BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES[1] + + +In 1513, a hundred and seven years before the landing of the Pilgrims +at Plymouth, Balboa scaled the continental backbone at Darien and +unfurled the flag of Spain by the waters of the Pacific. With wondrous +zeal did Spanish explorers beat up and down the western shore of the +Gulf of Mexico, seeking for an opening through. Cortez had no sooner +secured possession of Mexico, after his frightful slaughter of the +Aztecs, than he began pushing out to the west and northwest--along the +"upper coasts of the South Sea"--in search of the strait which +Montezuma told him existed. + +It is unlikely that Montezuma's knowledge of North American geography +was much greater than that of his conqueror. But in every age and land +aborigines have first ascertained what visiting strangers most sought, +whether it be gold or waterways, and assured them that somewhere +beyond the neighboring horizon these objects were to be found in +plenty. Spanish, French, and English have each in their turn chased +American rainbows that existed only in the brains of imaginative +tribesmen who had little other thought than a childish desire to +gratify their guests. + +Cortez undertook, at his own charge, several of these expensive +exploring expeditions to discover the strait of which Montezuma had +spoken, and one of them he conducted in person. In 1528--the year he +visited Spain to meet his accusers--we find him dispatching Maldonado +northward along the Pacific coast for three hundred miles; and five +years later Grijalva and Jimenez were claiming for Spain the southern +portion of Lower California. A full hundred years before Jean Nicolet +related to the French authorities at their feeble outpost on the rock +of Quebec the story of his daring progress into the wilds of the upper +Mississippi Valley, and the rumors he had there heard of the great +river which flowed into the South Sea, Spanish officials in the halls +of Montezuma were receiving the tales of their adventurers, who had +penetrated to strange lands laved by the waters of this selfsame +ocean. + +It was about the year 1530 when the Spaniards in Mexico first received +word, through an itinerant monk, Marcos de Niza, of certain powerful +semi-civilized tribes dwelling some six hundred miles north of the +capital of the Aztecs. These strange people were said to possess in +great store domestic utensils and ornaments made of gold and silver; +to be massed in seven large cities composed of houses built with +stone; and to be proficient in many of the arts of the Europeans. The +search for "the seven cities of Cibola," as these reputed communities +came to be called by the Spaniards, was at once begun. + +Guzman, just then at the head of affairs in New Spain, zealously set +forth at the head of four hundred Spanish soldiers, and a large +following of Indians, to search for this marvelous country. But the +farther north the army marched the more distant became Cibola in the +report of the natives whom they met on the way; until at last the +invaders became involved in the pathless deserts of New Mexico and the +intricate ravines of the foothills beyond. The soldiers grew mutinous, +and Guzman returned, crestfallen, to Mexico. + +In April, 1528, three hundred enthusiastic young nobles and gentlemen +from Spain landed at Tampa Bay, under the leadership of Narvaez, whom +Cortez supplanted in the conquest of Mexico. Narvaez had been given a +commission to hold Florida, with its supposed wealth of mines and +precious stones, and to become its governor. Led by the customary +fables of the natives, who told only such tales as they supposed their +Spanish tormentors wished most to hear, the brilliant company wandered +hither and thither through the vast swamps and forests, wasted by +fatigue, famine, disease, and frequent assaults of savages. At last, +after many distressing adventures, but four men were left--Cabeza de +Vaca, treasurer of the expedition, and three others. For eight long +years did these bruised and ragged Spaniards wearily roam across the +region now divided into Texas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, New Mexico, +and Arizona--through tangled forests, across broad rivers, morasses, +and desert stretches beset by wild beasts and men; but ever spurred on +by vague reports of a colony of their countrymen to the southwest. At +last (May, 1536), the miserable wanderers, first to make the +transcontinental trip in northern latitudes, reached the Gulf of +California, where they met some of their fellow countrymen, who bore +them in triumph to the City of Mexico, as the guests of the +province.... + +In that golden age of romance travelers were expected to gild their +tales, and in this respect seldom failed to meet the popular demand. +The Spanish conquistadores, in particular, lived in an atmosphere of +fancy. They looked at American savages and their ways through Spanish +spectacles; and knowing nothing of the modern science of ethnology, +quite misunderstood the import of what they saw. Beset by the national +vice of flowery embellishment, they were also pardonably ignorant of +savage life, and had an indiscriminating thirst for the marvelous. +Thus, we see plainly how the Cibola myth arose and grew; and why most +official Spanish reports of the conquest of the Aztecs were so +distorted by false conceptions of the conquered people as in some +particulars to be of light value as material for history. It was, +then, small wonder that Cabeza de Vaca and his fellow adventurers, in +the midst of the hero worship of which they were now recipients, +should claim themselves to have seen the mysterious seven cities, and +to have enlarged upon the previous stories. + +Coronado, governor of the northern province of New Galicia, was +accordingly sent to conquer this wonderful country, which the +adventurers had seen, but Guzman failed to find. In 1540, the years +when Cortez again returned to meet ungrateful neglect at the bands of +the Spanish court, Coronado set out with a well--equipped following of +three hundred whites and eight hundred Indians. The Cibola cities were +found to be but mud pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico, with the aspect +of which we are to--day familiar; while the mild--tempered +inhabitants, destitute of wealth, peacefully practising their crude +industries and tilling their irrigated field, were foemen hardly +worthy of Castilian steel. + + [1] From Mr. Thwaites' "Rocky Mountain Explorations." By + permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co. Copyright 1904. + Cabeza de Vaca was born at Jeraz de la Frontera, in Spain, about + 1490, and died at Seville some time after 1560. In 1528 he was + made treasurer of an expedition under Narvaez to Florida. From + Florida he sailed westward with Narvaez and off the coast of + Lousiana was shipwrecked. A combat with Indians ensued from which + De Vaca and three others escaped with their lives. After spending + six years with the Indians as captives, he reached Mexico in 1536, + meanwhile making the journey here described. He returned to Spain + in 1537, and in 1540 was made Governor of Paraguay, which he + explored in 1543. In the following year he was deposed and + imprisoned by Spanish colonists in Paraguay for alleged arbitrary + conduct and sent to Spain, where he was sentenced to be banished + to Oran in Africa, but was subsequently recalled and made judge of + the Supreme Court of Seville. + + + + +CABEZA DE VACA'S JOURNEY TO THE SOUTHWEST + +(1535-1536) + +DE VACA'S OWN ACCOUNT[1] + + +Castillo returned at the end of three days to the spot where he had +left us, and brought five or six of the people. He told us he had +found fixt dwellings of civilization, that the inhabitants lived on +beans and pumpkins, and that he had seen maize. This news the most of +anything delighted us, and for it we gave infinite thanks to our Lord. +Castillo told us the negro was coming with all the population to wait +for us in the road not far off. Accordingly we left, and, having +traveled a league and a half, we met the negro and the people coming +to receive us. They gave us beans, many pumpkins, calabashes, blankets +of cowhide and other things. As this people and those who came with us +were enemies, and spoke not each other's language, we discharged the +latter, giving them what we received, and departed with the others. +Six leagues from there, as the night set in, we arrived at the houses, +where great festivities were made over us. We remained one day, and +the next set out with these Indians. They took us to the settled +habitations of others, who lived upon the same food. From that place +onward was another usage. Those who knew of our approach did not come +out to receive us on the road as the others had done, but we found +them in their houses, and they had made others for our reception. They +were all seated with their faces turned to the wall, their heads down, +the hair brought before their eyes, and their property placed in a +heap in the middle of the house. From this place they began to give us +many blankets of skin; and they had nothing they did not bestow. They +have the finest persons of any people we saw, of the greatest activity +and strength, who best understood us and intelligently answered our +inquiries. We called them the Cow nation, because most of the +cattle[2] killed are slaughtered in their neighborhood, and along up +that river for over fifty leagues they destroy great numbers. + +They go entirely naked after the manner of the first we saw. The women +are drest with deer skin, and some few men, mostly the aged, who are +incapable of fighting. The country is very populous. We asked how it +was they did not plant maize. They answered it was that they might not +lose what they should put in the ground; that the rains had failed for +two years in succession, and the seasons were so dry the seed had +everywhere been taken by the moles, and they could not venture to +plant again until after water had fallen copiously. They begged us to +tell the sky to rain, and to pray for it, and we said we would do so. +We also desired to know whence they got the maize, and they told us +from where the sun goes down; there it grew throughout the region, and +the nearest was by that path.... + +Two days being spent while we tarried, we resolved to go in search of +the maize. We did not wish to follow the path leading to where the +cattle are, because it is toward the north, and for us very +circuitous, since we ever held it certain that going toward the sunset +we must find what we desired. + +Thus we took our way, and traversed all the country until coming out +at the South Sea. Nor was the dread we had of the sharp hunger through +which we should have to pass (as in verity we did, throughout the +seventeen days' journey of which the natives spoke) sufficient to +hinder us. During all that time, in ascending by the river, they gave +us many coverings of cowhide; but we did not eat of the fruit. Our +sustenance each day was about a handful of deer-suet, which we had a +long time been used to saving for such trials. Thus we passed the +entire journey of seventeen days. + +As the sun went down, upon some plains that lie between chains of very +great mountains, we found a people who for the third part of the year +eat nothing but the powder of straw, and, that being the season when +we passed, we also had to eat of it, until reaching permanent +habitations, where was abundance of maize brought together. They gave +us a large quantity in grain and flour, pumpkins, beans, and shawls of +cotton. With all these we loaded our guides, who went back the +happiest creatures on earth. We gave thanks to God, our Lord, for +having brought us where we had found so much food. + +Some houses are of earth, the rest all of cane mats. From this point +we marched through more than a hundred leagues of country, and +continually found settled domicils, with plenty of maize and beans. +The people gave us many deer and cotton shawls better than those of +New Spain, many beads and certain corals found on the South Sea, and +fine turquoises that come from the North. Indeed, they gave us +everything they had. To me they gave five emeralds made into arrow +heads, which they use at their singing and dancing. They appeared to +be very precious. I asked whence they got these; and they said the +stones were brought from some lofty mountains that stand toward the +north, where were populous towns and very large houses, and that they +were purchased with plumes and the feathers of parrots. + +Among this people the women are treated with more decorum than in any +part of the Indias we had visited. They wear a shirt of cotton that +falls as low as the knee, and over it half sleeves with skirts +reaching to the ground, made of drest deerskin. It opens in front, and +is brought close with straps of leather. They soap this with a certain +root that cleanses well, by which they are enabled to keep it +becomingly. Shoes are worn. The people all came to us that we should +touch and bless them, they being very urgent, which we could +accomplish only with great labor, for sick and well all wished to go +with a benediction. + +These Indians ever accompanied us until they delivered us to others; +and all held full faith in our coming from heaven. While traveling, we +went without food all day until night, and we ate so little as to +astonish them. We never felt exhaustion, neither were we in fact at +all weary, so inured were we to hardship. We possest great influence +and authority: to preserve both, we seldom talked with them. The negro +was in constant conversation; he informed himself about the ways we +wished to take, of the towns there were, and the matters we desired to +know. + +We passed through many and dissimilar tongues. Our Lord granted us +favor with the people who spoke them, for they always understood us, +and we them. We questioned them, and received their answers by signs, +just as if they spoke our language and we theirs; for, altho we knew +six languages, we could not everywhere avail ourselves of them, there +being a thousand differences. + +Throughout all these countries the people who were at war immediately +made friends, that they might come to meet us, and bring what they +possest. In this way we left all the land at peace, and we taught all +the inhabitants by signs, which they understood, that in heaven was a +Man we called God, who had created the sky and earth; Him we worshiped +and had for our Master; that we did what He commanded, and from His +hand came all good; and would they do as we did, all would be well +with them. So ready of apprehension we found them that, could we have +have the use of language by which to make ourselves perfectly +understood, we should have left them all Christians. Thus much we gave +them to understand the best we could. And afterward, when the sun +rose, they opened their hands together with loud shouting toward the +heavens, and then drew them down all over their bodies. They did the +same again when the sun went down. They are a people of good condition +and substance, capable in any pursuit. In the town where the emeralds +were presented to us the people gave Dorantes over six hundred open +hearts of deer. They ever keep a good supply of them for food, and we +called the place Pueblo de los Corazones. It is the entrance into many +provinces on the South Sea. They who go to look for them, and do not +enter there, will be lost. On the coast is no maize: the inhabitants +eat the powder of rush and of straw, and fish that is caught in the +sea from rafts, not having canoes. With grass and straw the women +cover their nudity. They are a timid and dejected people. + +We think that near the coast by way of those towns through which we +came are more than a thousand leagues of inhabited country, plentiful +of subsistence. Three times the year it is planted with maize and +beans. Deer are of three kinds; one the size of the young steer of +Spain. There are innumerable houses, such as are called bahios. They +have poison from a certain tree the size of the apple. For effect no +more is necessary than to pluck the fruit and moisten the arrow with +it, or, if there be no fruit, to break a twig and with the milk do the +like. The tree is abundant, and so deadly that, if the leaves be +bruised and steeped in some neighboring water, the deer and other +animals drinking it soon burst. + +We were in this town three days. A day's journey farther was another +town, at which the rain fell heavily while we were there, and the +river became so swollen we could not cross it, which detained us +fifteen days. In this time Castillo saw the buckle of a sword-belt on +the neck of an Indian, and stitched to it the nail of a horseshoe. He +took them, and we asked the native what they were: he answered that +they came from heaven. We questioned him further, as to who had +brought them thence: they all responded that certain men who wore +beards like us had come from heaven and arrived at that river, +bringing horses, lances, and swords, and that they had lanced two +Indians. In a manner of the utmost indifference we could feign, we +asked them what had become of those men. They answered that they had +gone to sea, putting their lances beneath the water, and going +themselves also under the water: afterward that they were seen on the +surface going toward the sunset. For this we gave many thanks to God +our Lord. We had before despaired of ever hearing more of Christians. +Even yet we were left in great doubt and anxiety, thinking those +people were merely persons who had come by sea on discoveries. +However, as we had now such exact information, we made greater speed, +and, as we advanced on our way, the news of the Christians continually +grew. We told the natives that we were going in search of that people, +to order them not to kill nor make slaves of them, nor take them from +their lands, nor do other injustice. Of this the Indians were very +glad. + +We passed through many territories and found them all vacant; their +inhabitants wandered fleeing among the mountains, without daring to +have houses or till the earth for fear of Christians. The sight was +one of infinite pain to us, a land very fertile and beautiful, +abounding in springs and streams, the hamlets deserted and burned, the +people thin and weak, all fleeing or in concealment. As they did not +plant, they appeased their keen hunger by eating roots and the bark of +trees. We bore a share in the famine along the whole way; for poorly +could these unfortunates provide for us, themselves being so reduced +they looked as tho they would willingly die. They brought shawls of +those they had concealed because of the Christians presenting them to +us; and they related how the Christians at other times had come +through the land, destroying and burning the towns, carrying away half +the men, and all the women and the boys, while those who had been able +to escape were wandering about fugitives. We found them so alarmed +they dared not remain anywhere. They would not nor could they till the +earth, but preferred to die rather than live in dread of such cruel +usage as they received. Altho these showed themselves greatly +delighted with us, we feared that on our arrival among those who held +the frontier, and fought against the Christians, they would treat us +badly, and revenge upon us the conduct of their enemies; but, when God +our Lord was pleased to bring us there, they began to dread and +respect us as the others had done, and even somewhat more, at which we +no little wondered. Thence it may at once be seen that, to bring all +these people to be Christians and to the obedience of the Imperial +Majesty, they must be won by kindness, which is a way certain, and no +other is. + +They took us to a town on the edge of a range of mountains, to which +the ascent is over difficult crags. We found many people there +collected out of fear of the Christians. They received us well, and +presented us all they had. They gave us more than two thousand +back-loads of maize, which we gave to the distrest and hungered beings +who guided us to that place. The next day we dispatched four +messengers through the country, as we were accustomed to do, that they +should call together all the rest of the Indians at a town distant +three days' march. We set out the day after with all the people. The +tracks of the Christians and marks where they slept were continually +seen. At mid-day we met our messengers, who told us they had found no +Indians, that they were roving and hiding in the forests, fleeing that +the Christians might not kill nor make them slaves; the night before +they had observed the Christians from behind trees, and discovered +what they were about, carrying away many people in chains.... + +From this spot, called the river Petutan, to the river to which Diego +de Guzman came, where we heard of Christians, may be as many as eighty +leagues; thence to the town where the rains overtook us, twelve +leagues, and that is twelve leagues from the South Sea. Throughout +this region, wheresoever the mountains extend, we saw clear traces of +gold and lead, iron, copper, and other metals. Where the settled +habitations are, the climate is hot; even in January the weather is +very warm. Thence toward the meridian, the country unoccupied to the +North Sea is unhappy and sterile. There we underwent great and +incredible hunger. Those who inhabit and wander over it are a race of +evil inclination and most cruel customs. The people of the fixt +residences and those beyond regard silver and gold with indifference, +nor can they conceive of any use for them. + +When we saw sure signs of Christians, and heard how near we were to +them, we gave thanks to God our Lord for having chosen to bring us out +of a captivity so melancholy and wretched. The delight we felt let +each one conjecture, when if he shall remember the length of time we +were in that country, the suffering and perils we underwent. That +night I entreated my companions that one of them should go back three +days' journey after the Christians who were moving about over the +country, where we had given assurance of protection. Neither of them +received this proposal well, excusing themselves because of weariness +and exhaustion; and altho either might have done better than I, being +more youthful and athletic, yet seeing their unwillingness, the next +morning I took the negro with eleven Indians, and, following the +Christians by their trail, I traveled ten leagues, passing three +villages, at which they had slept. + +The day after I overtook four of them on horseback, who were +astonished at the sight of me, so strangely habited as I was, and in +company with Indians. They stood staring at me a length of time, so +confounded that they neither hailed me nor drew near to make an +inquiry. I bade them take me to their chief: accordingly we went +together half a league to the place where was Diego de Alcaraz, their +captain. + +After we had conversed, he stated to me that he was completely undone; +he had not been able in a long time to take any Indians; he knew not +which way to turn, and his men had well begun to experience hunger and +fatigue. I told him of Castillo and Dorantes, who were behind, ten +leagues off, with a multitude that conducted us. He thereupon sent +three cavalry to them, with fifty of the Indians who accompanied him. +The negro returned to guide them, while I remained. I asked the +Christians to give me a certificate of the year, month, and day I +arrived there, and of the manner of my coming, which they accordingly +did. From this river to the town of the Christians, named San Miguel, +within the government of the province called New Galicia, are thirty +leagues. + + [1] After returning to Spain De Vaca published at Zemora, in 1542, + a "Relation" of his travels and adventures, from which the account + here given is taken. Purchase issued an early English version of + it, but a better translation, made in 1851 by Buckingham Smith, is + printed in the "Old South Leaflets." The passages here given + relate to the journey through Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and + Arizona. The exact localities, however, it has been impossible to + identify. + + [2] Not the domestic cow we know, which was brought to America + from Europe, but the cow of the bison, or buffalo. + + + + +THE EXPEDITION OF CORONADO TO THE SOUTHWEST + +(1540-1541) + +CORONADO'S OWN ACCOUNT[1] + + +At length I arriued at the valley of the people called Caracones, the +26. day of the moneth of May: and from Culiacan vntill I came thither, +I could not helpe my selfe, saue onely with a great quantitie of bread +of Maiz: for seeing the Maiz in the fieldes were not yet ripe, I was +constrained to leaue them all behind me. In this valley of the +Caracones wee found more store of people than in any other part of the +Countrey which we had passed, and great store of tillage. But I +understood that there was store thereof in another valley called The +Lords valley, which I woulde not disturbe with force, but sent thither +Melchior Diaz with wares of exchange to procure some, and to giue the +sayde Maiz to the Indians our friendes which wee brought with vs, and +to some others that had lost their cattell in the way, and were not +able to carry their victuals so farre which they brought from +Culiacan. It pleased God that wee gate some small quantitie of Maiz +with this traffique, whereby certaine Indians were relieued and some +Spanyards. + +And by that time that wee were come to this valley of the Caracones, +some tenne or twelue of our horses were dead through wearinesse: for +being ouercharged with great burdens, and hauing but little meate, +they could not endure the trauaile. Likewise some of our Negros and +some of our Indians dyed here; which was no small want vnto vs for the +performance of our enterprise. They tolde me that this valley of the +Caracones is fiue days iourney from the Westerne Sea. I sent for the +Indians of the Sea coast to vnderstand their estate, and while I +stayed for them the horses rested: and I stayed there foure days, in +which space the Indians of the Sea coast came vnto mee: which told +mee, that two dayes sayling from their coast of the Sea, there were +seuen or eight Islands right ouer against them, well inhabited with +people, but badly furnished with victuals, and were a rude people: And +they told mee, that they had seene a Shippe passe by not farre from +the shore: which I wote not what to thinke whither it were one of +those that went to discouer the Countrey, or else a Ship of the +Portugals.... + +But after wee had passed these thirtie leagues, wee found fresh +riuers, and grasse like that of Castile, and specially of that sort +which we call Scaramoio, many Nutte trees and Mulberie trees, but the +Nutte trees differ from those of Spayne in the leafe: and there was +Flaxe, but chiefly neere the bankes of a certayne riuer which +therefore wee called El Rio del Lino, that is say, the riuer of Flaxe: +we found no Indians at all for a dayes trauaile, but afterward foure +Indians came out vnto vs in peaceable maner, saying that they were +sent euen to that desert place to signifie vnto vs that wee were +welcome, and that the next day all the people would come out to meete +vs on the way with victuals: and the master of the flelde gaue them a +crosse, willing them to signifie to those of their citie that they +should not feare, and they should rather let the people stay in their +houses, because I came onely in the name of his Maiestie to defend and +ayd them. + +And this done, Fernando Aluardo returned to aduertise mee that +certaine Indians were come vnto them in peaceable maner, and that two +of them stayed for my comming with the master of the fielde. Whereupon +I went vnto them and gaue them beades and certaine short slokes, +willing them to returne vnto their citie, and bid them to stay quiet +in their houses, and feare nothing. And this done I sent the master of +the field to search whether there were any bad passage which the +Indians might keepe against vs, and that hee should take and defend it +vntill the next day that I shoulde come thither. So hee went, and +found in the way a very bad passage, where wee might haue sustayned a +very great harme: wherefore there hee seated himselfe with his company +that were with him: and that very night the Indians came to take that +passage to defend it, and finding it taken, they assaulted our men +there, and as they tell mee, they assaulted them like valiant men; +although in the ende they retired and fledde away; for the master of +the fielde was watchfull, and was in order with his company: the +Indians in token of retreate sounded on a certaine small trumpet, and +did no hurt among the Spanyards. The very same night the master of the +flelde certified mee hereof. Whereupon the next day in the best order +that I could I departed in so great want of victuall, that I thought +that if wee should stay one day longer without foode, wee should all +perish for hunger, especially the Indians, for among vs all we had not +two bushels of corne: wherefore it behooved mee to prike forward +without delay. The Indians here and their made fires, and were +answered againe afarre off as orderly as wee for our liues could haue +done, to giue their fellowes vnderstanding, how wee marched and where +we arriued.... + +As soone as I came within sight of this citie of Granada, I sent Don +Garcias Lopez Campemaster, frier Daniel, and frier Luys, and Fernando +Vermizzo somewhat before with certaine horsemen, to seeke the Indians +and aduertise them that our comming was not to hurt them, but to +defend them in the name of the Emperour our Lord, according as his +maiestie had giuen vs in charge: which message was deliuered to the +inhabitants of that countrey by an interpreter. But they like arrogant +people made small account thereof; because we seemed very few in their +eyes, and that they might destroy vs without any difficultie; and they +strooke frier Luys with an arrow on the gowne, which by the grace of +God did him no harme. + +In the meane space I arriued with all the rest of the horsemen, and +footemen, and found in the fleldes a great sort of the Indians which +beganne to shoote at vs with their arrowes: and because I would obey +your will and the commaund of the Marques, I woulde not let my people +charge them, forbidding my company, which intreated mee that they +might set vpon them, in any wise to prouoke them, saying that that +which the enemies did was nothing, and that it was not meete to set +vpon so fewe people. On the other side the Indians perceiuing that wee +stirred not, tooke great stomacke and courage vnto them: insomuch that +they came hard to our horses heeles to shoote at vs with their +arrowes. Whereupon seeing that it was now time to stay no longer, and +that the friers also were of the same opinion, I set vpon them without +any danger: for suddenly they fled part to the citie which was neere +and well fortified, and other into the field, which way they could +shift: and some of the Indians were slaine, and more had beene if I +would haue suffered them to haue bene pursued. + +But considering that hereof we might reape but small profite, because +the Indians that were without were fewe, and those which were retired +into the cities, with them which stayed within at the first were many, +where the victuals were whereof wee had so great neede, I assembled my +people, and deuided them as I thought best to assault the citie, and I +compassed it about: and because the famine which wee sustained +suffered no delay, my selfe with certaine of these gentlemen and +souldiers put our selues on foote, and commaunded that the +crosse-bowes and harquebusiers shoulde giue the assault, and shoulde +beate the enemies from the walles, that they might not hurt vs, and I +assaulted the walles on one side, where they tolde me there was a +scaling ladder set vp, and that there was one gate: but the +crossebowmen suddenly brake the strings of their bowes, and the +harquebusiers did nothing at all: for they came thither so weake and +feeble, that scarcely they coulde stand on their feete. + +And by this meanes the people that were aloft on the wals to defend +the towne were no way hindered from doing vs all the mischiefe they +could: so that twise they stroke mee to the ground with infinite +number of great stones, which they cast downe: and if I had not beene +defended with an excellent good headpiece which I ware, I thinke it +had gone hardly with me: neuerthelesse my companie tooke mee vp with +two small wounds in the face, and an arrowe sticking in my foote, and +many blowes with stones on my armes and legges, and thus I went out of +the battell very weake. I thinke that if Don Garcias Lopez de Cardenas +the second time that they strooke mee to the ground had not succoured +mee with striding ouer mee like a good knight, I had beene in farre +greater danger then I was. But it pleased God that the Indians yeelded +themselues vnto vs, and that this citie was taken: and such store of +Maiz was found therein, as our necessitie required.... + +It remaineth now to certifie your Honour of the seuen cities, and of +the kingdomes and prouinces whereof the Father prouinciall[2] made +report vnto your Lordship. And to bee briefe, I can assure your +honour, he sayd the trueth in nothing that he reported, but all was +quite contrary, sauing onely the names of the cities, and great houses +of stone: for although they bee not wrought with Turqueses, nor with +lyme, nor brickes, yet are they very excellent good houses of three or +foure or fiue lofts high, wherein are good lodgings and faire chambers +with lathers instead of staires, and certaine cellars vnder the ground +very good and paued, which are made for winter, they are in maner like +stooues: and the lathers which they haue for their houses are all in a +maner mooueable and portable, which are taken away and set downe when +they please, and they are made of two pieces of wood with their +steppes, as ours be. The seuen cities are seuen small townes, all made +with these kinde of houses that I speake of: and they stand all within +foure leagues together, and they are all called the kingdome of +Cibola, and euery one of them haue their particular name: and none of +them is called Cibola, but altogether they are called Cibola. + +And this towne which I call a citie, I haue named Granada, as well +because it is somewhat like vnto it, as also in remembrance of your +lordship. In this towne where I nowe remaine, there may be some two +hundred houses, all compassed with walles, and I thinke that with the +rest of the houses which are not so walled, they may be together fiue +hundred. There is another towne neere this, which is one of the seuen, +& it is somwhat bigger than this, and another of the same bignesse +that this is of, and the other foure are somewhat lesse: and I send +them all painted vnto your lordship with the voyage. And the parchment +wherein the picture is, was found here with other parchments. The +people of this towne seeme vnto me of a reasonable stature, and +wittie, yet they seeme not to bee such as they should bee, of that +judgement and wit to builde these houses in such sort as they are. + +For the most part they goe all naked, except their priuie partes which +are couered; and they haue painted mantles like those which I send +vnto your lordship. They haue no cotton wooll growing, because the +countrey is colde, yet they weare mantels thereof as your honour may +see by the shewe thereof: and true it is that there was found in their +houses certaine yarne made of cotton wooll. They weare their haire on +their heads like those of Mexico, and they are well nurtured and +condicioned: And they haue Turqueses I thinke good quantitie, which +with the rest of the goods which they had, except their corne, they +had conueyed away before I came thither: for I found no women there, +nor no youth vnder flfteene yeeres olde, nor no olde folkes aboue +sixtie, sauing two or three olde folkes, who stayed behinde to gouerne +all the rest of the youth and men of warre. There were found in a +certaine paper two poynts of Emralds, and certaine small stones broken +which are in colour somewhat like Granates very bad, and other stones +of Christall, which I gaue one of my seruaunts to lay vp to send them +to your lordship, and hee hath lost them as hee telleth me. We found +heere Guinie cockes, but fewe. The Indians tell mee in all these seuen +cities, that they eate them not, but that they keepe them onely for +their feathers. I beleeue them not, for they are excellent good, and +greater then those of Mexico. The season which is in this countrey, +and the temperature of the ayre is like that of Mexico: for sometime +it is hotte, and sometime it raineth: but hitherto I neuer sawe it +raine, but once there fell a little showre with winde, as they are +woont to fall in Spaine. + +The snow and cold are woont to be great, for so say the inhabitants of +the Countrey: and it is very likely so to bee, both in respect to the +maner of the Countrey, and by the fashion of their houses, and their +furres and other things which this people haue to defend them from +colde. There is no kind of fruit nor trees of fruite. The Countrey is +all plaine, and is on no side mountainous: albeit there are some +hillie and bad passages. There are small store of Foules: the cause +whereof is the colde, and because the mountaines are not neere. Here +is no great store of wood, because they haue wood for their fuell +sufficient foure leagues off from a wood of small Cedars. There is +most excellent grasse within a quarter of a league hence, for our +horses as well to feede them in pasture, as to mowe and make hay, +whereof wee stoode in great neede, because our horses came hither so +weake and feeble. The victuals which the people of this countrey haue, +is Maiz, whereof they haue great store, and also small white Pease: +and Venison, which by all likelyhood they feede vpon, (though they say +no) for wee found many skinnes of Deere, of Hares, and Conies. They +eate the best cakes that euer I sawe, and euery body generally eateth +of them. They haue the finest order and way to grinde that wee euer +sawe in any place. And one Indian woman of this countrey will grinde +as much as foure women of Mexico. They haue most excellent salte in +kernell, which they fetch from a certaine lake a dayes iourney from +hence.... + +The kingdome of Totonteac so much extolled by the Father prouinciall, +which sayde that there were such wonderfull things there, and such +great matters, and that they made cloth there, the Indians say is an +hotte lake, about which are fiue or sixe houses; and that there were +certaine other, but that they are ruinated by warre. The kingdome of +Marata is not to be found, neither haue the Indians any knowledge +thereof. The kingdome of Acus is one onely small citie, where they +gather cotton which is called Acucu. This is a town whereinto the +kingdom of Acus is conuerted. Beyond this towne they say there are +other small townes which are neere to a riuer which I haue seene and +haue had report of by the relation of the Indians. I would to God I +had better newes to write vnto your lordship: neuerthelesse, I must +say the trueth: And as I wrote to your lordship from Culiacan, I am +nowe to aduertise your honour as wel of the good as of the bad. Yet +this I would haue you bee assured, that if all the riches and the +treasures of the world were heere, I could haue done no more in the +seruice of his Maiestie and of your lordshippe, than I haue done in +comming hither whither you haue sent mee, my selfe and my companions +carrying our victuals vpon our shoulders and vpon our horses three +hundred leagues; and many dayes going on foote trauailing ouer hilles +and rough mountaines, with other troubles which I cease to mention, +neither purpose I to depart vnto the death, if it please his Maiestie +and your lordship that it shall be so. + +Three dayes after this citie was taken, certaine Indians of these +people came to offer mee peace, and brought mee certaine Turqueses, +and badde mantles, and I receiued them in his Maiesties name with all +the good speaches that I could deuise, certifying them of the purpose +of my comming into this countrey, which is in the name of his +Maiestie, and by the commaundement of your Lordship, that they and all +the rest of the people of this prouince should become Christians, and +should knowe the true God for their Lorde, and receiue his Maiestie +for their King and earthly Soueraigne: And herewithall they returned +to their houses, and suddenly the next day they set in order all their +goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hilles, +leauing their townes as it were abandoned, wherein remained very fewe +of them. When I sawe this within eight or tennes dayes after being +recouered of my woundes, I went to the citie, which I sayde to bee +greater then this where I am, and found there some fewe of them, to +whom I sayde that they should not be afrayd, and that they should call +their gouernour vnto mee: Howbeit forasmuch as I can learne or gather, +none of them hath any gouernour: for I sawe not there any chiefe +house, whereby any preeminence of one ouer another might bee gathered. + +I would haue sent your lordshippe with this dispatch many musters of +things which are in this countrey: but the way is so long and rough, +that it is hard for me to doe so; neuerthelesse I send you twelue +small mantles, such as the people of the countrey are woont to weare, +and a certaine garment also, which seemeth vnto me to bee well made: I +kept the same, because it seemed to mee to bee excellent well wrought, +because I beleeue that no man euer sawe any needle worke in these +Indies, except it were since the Spaniards inhabited the same. I send +your Lordshippe also two clothes painted with the beasts of this +countrey, although as I haue sayde, the picture bee very rudely done, +because the painter spent but one day in drawing of the same. I haue +seene other pictures on the walles of the houses of this citie with +farre better proportion, and better made. + +I send your honour one Oxe-hide, certaine Turqueses, and two earerings +of the same, and fifteene combes of the Indians, and certain tablets +set with these Turqueses, and two small baskets made of wicker, +whereof the Indians haue great store. I send your lordship also two +rolles which the women in these parts are woont to weare on their +heads when they fetch water from their welles, as wee vse to doe in +Spaine. And one of these Indian women with one of these rolles on her +head, will carie a pitcher of water without touching the same with her +hand vp a lather. I send you also a muster of the weapons wherewith +these people are woont to fight, a buckler, a mace, a bowe, and +certaine arrowes, among which are two with points of bones, the like +whereof, as these conquerours say, haue neuer beene seene. + + [1] From Coronado's letter to Mendoza, dated August 3, 1540, + Mendoza being Viceroy of Mexico, by whom Coronado had been sent + out. Coronado's expedition was a great disappointment to all + concerned in it, inasmuch as it resulted in failure to find the + fabled "seven cities of Cibola." He had 300 Spaniards with him and + 800 Indians. Instead of finding great towns, as promised by Marcos + and others, he discovered only a poor village of 200 people, + situated on a rocky eminence. The expedition, however, in spite of + this failure, remains one of the most important exploring + expeditions ever undertaken in America. Opinions differ as to how + far north Coronado went, some maintaining that he reached a point + north of the boundary line between Kansas and Nebraska. His letter + was printed by Hakluyt in Volume III of his "Voyages," and may be + found in the "Old South Leaflets." Mr. Thwaites says of the + expedition: + + "Disappointed, but still hoping to find the country of gold, + Coronado's gallant little army, frequently thinned by death and + desertion, for three years beat up and down the southwestern + wilderness: now thirsting in the deserts, now penned up in + gloomy canons, now crawling over pathless mountains, suffering + the horrors of starvation and of despair, but following this + will-o'-the-wisp with a melancholy perseverance seldom seen in + man save when searching for some mysterious treasure. Coronado + apparently twice crossed the State of Kansas. 'Through mighty + plains and sandy heaths,' says the chronicler of the expedition, + 'smooth and wearisome and bare of wood. All that way the plains + are as full of crookback oxen (buffaloes) as the mountain Serena + in Spain is of sheep. They were a great succor for the hunger + and want of bread which our people stood in. One day it rained + in that plain a great shower of hail as big as oranges, which + caused many tears, weaknesses, and vows.' The wanderer ventured + as far as the Missouri, and would have gone still farther + eastward but for his inability to cross the swollen river. + Cooperating parties explored the upper valleys of the Rio Grande + and Gila, ascended the Colorado for two hundred and forty miles + above its mouth, and visited the Grand Canon of the same river. + Coronado at last returned, satisfied that he had been victimized + by the idle tales of travelers. He was rewarded with contumely + and lost his place as governor of New Galicia; but his romantic + march stands in history as one of the most remarkable exploring + expeditions of modern times." + + Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was born at Salamanca, in Spain, + about 1500, and died in Mexico some time after 1542. He is believed + to have gone to Mexico in 1535 with Mendoza, the viceroy, who, in + 1539, made him governor of a province. + + [2] Marcos is here referred to. + + + + +THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY DE SOTO + +(1541) + +PARKMAN'S ACCOUNT[1] + + +Hernando de Soto was the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. +He had come to America a needy adventurer, with no other fortune than +his sword and target. But his exploits had given him fame and fortune, +and he appeared at court with the retinue of a nobleman. Still, his +active energies could not endure repose, and his avarice and ambition +goaded him to fresh enterprises. He asked and obtained permission to +conquer Florida. While this design was in agitation, Cabeça de Vaca, +one of those who had survived the expedition of Narvaez, appeared in +Spain, and for purposes of his own, spread abroad the mischievous +falsehood that Florida was the richest country yet discovered. De +Soto's plans were embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen +contended for the privilege of joining his standard; and, setting sail +with an ample armament, he landed at the Bay of Espiritu Santo, now +Tampa Bay, in Florida, with six hundred and twenty chosen men, a band +as gallant and well appointed, as eager in purpose and audacious in +hope, as ever trod the shores of the New World. The clangor of +trumpets, the neighing of horses, the fluttering of pennons, the +glittering of helmet and lance, startled the ancient forest with +unwonted greeting. Amid this pomp of chivalry, religion was not +forgotten. The sacred vessels and vestments with bread and wine for +the Eucharist were carefully provided; and De Soto himself declared +that the enterprise was undertaken for God alone, and seemed to be the +object of His especial care. These devout marauders could not neglect +the spiritual welfare of the Indians whom they had come to plunder; +and besides fetters to bind, and bloodhounds to hunt them, they +brought priests and monks for the saving of their souls. + +The adventurers begun their march. Their story has been often told. +For month after month and year after year, the procession of priests +and cavaliers, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden +with the baggage, still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes, +lured hither and thither by the ignis-fatuus of their hopes. They +traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, +everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their +fantom El Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journeying, +they reached the banks of the Mississippi, a hundred and thirty-two +years before its second discovery by Marquette. One of their number +describes the great river as almost half a league wide, deep, rapid, +and constantly rolling down trees and drift-wood on its turbid +current. + +The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas. +They advanced westward, but found no treasures--nothing, indeed, but +hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers, +"as mad dogs." They heard of a country toward the north where maize +could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured +it.[2] They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the +roving prairie tribes; for, one day, as they pushed their way with +difficulty across great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met +a band of savages who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together, +subsisting on game alone, and wandering perpetually from place to +place. Finding neither gold nor the South Sea, for both of which they +had hoped, they returned to the banks of the Mississippi. + +De Soto, says one of those who accompanied him, was a "stern man, and +of few words." Even in the midst of reverses, his will had been law to +his followers, and he had sustained himself through the depths of +disappointment with the energy of a stubborn pride. But his hour was +come. He fell into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and +soon after died miserably. To preserve his body from the Indians, his +followers sank it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of +the Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes. + +The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, disgusted with the +enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their +miseries. After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by Land, they again +turned back to the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources +which their desperate necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in +which they might make their way to some Christian settlement. Their +condition was most forlorn. Few of their horses remained alive; their +baggage had been destroyed at the burning of the Indian town of +Mavila, and many of the soldiers were without armor and without +weapons. In place of the gallant array which, more than three years +before, had left the harbor of Espiritu Santo, a company of sickly and +starving men were laboring among the swampy forests of the +Mississippi, some clad in skins, and some in mats woven from a kind of +wild vine. + +Seven brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their +lives on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi, +running the gantlet between hostile tribes, who fiercely attacked +them. Reaching the Gulf, tho not without the loss of eleven of their +number, they made sail for the Spanish settlement on the River Panuco, +where they arrived safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a +cordial welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life, +leaving behind them the bones of their comrades strewn broadcast +through the wilderness. + + [1] From Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World." By + permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Hernando de Soto + was born in Badaios, Spain, in 1500, and died near the Mississippi + River, probably on May 21, 1542. Before discovering the Mississippi, + he had been in Panama and Nicaragua; had been active with Pizarro + in the conquest of Peru, from which he returned very rich to + Spain, and in 1587 had been appointed Governor of Cuba and + Florida, with orders to explore and settle the country. It was + while engaged in the latter work that he discovered the + Mississippi. + + De Soto's route has been determined only approximately. He is + believed first to have made a circuit northward from Tampa, + through Florida into Georgia and perhaps into Carolina, thence + going westward to Alabama and Mobile Bay. From the latter he + turned northward again, thence going westward to the Mississippi, + which he is believed to have crossed at Chickasaw Bluffs, in May, + 1541. From this point he went northward and almost reached the + Missouri. He then turned southward, and reached the junction of + the Red River and Mississippi, where he died of malaria fever. Of + his men 250 perished from disease or in combat with the Indians. + + [2] The bison, or buffalo, is here referred to. + + + + +THE DEATH OF DE SOTO + +(1542) + +BY ONE OF DE SOTO'S COMPANIONS[1] + + +The Governor fell into great dumps to see how hard it was to get to +the sea; and worse, because his men and horses every day diminished, +being without succor to sustain themselves in the country: and with +that thought he fell sick. But before he took his bed he sent an +Indian to the Cacique of Quigalta to tell him that he was the child of +the sun, and that all the way that he came all men obeyed and served +him, that he requested him to accept of his friendship and come unto +him, for he would be very glad to see him; and in sign of love and +obedience to bring something with him of that which in his country was +most esteemed.... + +By the time the Indian returned with his answer, the Governor had +betaken himself to bed, being evil handled with fevers, and was much +aggrieved that he was in case to pass presently the river and to seek +him, to see if he could abate that pride of his, considering the river +went now very strongly in those parts; for it was near half a league +broad, and sixteen fathoms deep, and very furious, and ran with a +great current; and on both sides there were many Indians, and his +power was not now so great, but that he had need to help himself +rather by slights than by force. The Indians of Guachoya came every +day with fish in such numbers, that the town was full of them.... + +The Governor felt in himself that the hour approached wherein he was +to leave this present life, and called for the king's officers, +captains, and principal persons, to whom he made a speech. Baltasar de +Gallegos answered in the name of all the rest. And first of all +comforting him, he set before his eyes how short the life of this +world was, and with how many troubles and miseries it is accompanied, +and how God showed him a singular favor which soonest left it: telling +him many other things fit for such a time. And touching the Governor +which he commanded they should elect, he besought him, that it would +please his lordship to name him which he thought fit, and him they +would obey. And presently he named Luys de Moscoso de Alvarado, his +captain-general. And presently he was sworn by all that were present, +and elected for governor. The next day being the 21st of May, 1542, +departed out of this life the valorous, virtuous, and valiant captain, +Don Fernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba, and Adelantado of Florida: +whom fortune advanced, as it useth to do others, that he might have +the higher fall. He departed in such a place, and at such a time, as +in his sickness he had but little comfort: and the danger wherein all +his people were of perishing in that country, which appeared before +their eyes, was cause sufficient why every one of them had need of +comfort, and why they did not visit nor accompany him as they ought to +have done. Luys de Moscoso determined to conceal his death from the +Indians, because Fernando de Soto had made them believe that the +Christians were immortal; and also because they took him to be hardy, +wise, and valiant; and if they should know that he was dead, they +would be bold to set upon the Christians, tho they lived peaceably by +them. + +As soon as he was dead, Luys de Moscoso commanded to put him secretly +in the house, where he remained three days; and moving him from +thence, commanded him to be buried in the night at one of the gates of +the town within the wall. And as the Indians had seen him sick, and +missed him, so did they suspect what might be. And passing by the +place where he was buried, seeing the earth moved, they looked and +spake one to another. Luys de Moscoso, understanding of it, commanded +him to be taken up by night, and to cast a great deal of sand into the +mantles, wherein he was wound up, wherein he was carried in a canoe, +and thrown into the midst of the river. + +The Cacique of Guachoya inquired for him, demanding what was become of +his brother and lord, the Governor. Luys de Moscoso told him that he +was gone to heaven, as many other times he did: and because he was to +stay there certain days he had left him in his place. The cacique +thought with himself that he was dead; and commanded two young and +well-proportioned Indians to be brought thither; and said, that the +use of that country was, when any lord died, to kill Indians to wait +upon him, and serve him by the way, and for that purpose by his +commandment were those come thither: and prayed Luys de Moscoso to +command them to be beheaded, that they might attend and serve his lord +and brother. Luys de Moscoso told him that the Governor was not dead, +but gone to heaven, and that of his own Christian soldiers he had +taken such as he needed to serve him, and prayed him to command those +Indians to be loosed, and not to use any such bad custom from +thenceforth: straightway he commanded them to be loosed, and to get +them home to their houses. + + [1] From the "Narrative of the Gentleman of Elvas," the author's + name being unknown, but written by one of De Soto's companions, a + Spaniard, and first printed in 1557. The author has been supposed + to be Alvaro Fernandez, but this is only a matter of conjecture. + The translation here used is that made by Hakluyt, printed in + London in 1809, and included in the "Old South Leaflets." + + + + +DRAKE'S VISIT TO CALIFORNIA + +(1579) + +BY ONE OF DRAKE'S COMPANIONS[1] + + +From Guatulco we departed the day following, viz, Aprill 16, [1579] +setting our course directly into the sea, whereon we sayled 500 +leagues in longitude, to get a winde: and between that and June 3, +1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 deg. of North latitude, +where in the night following we found such alteration of heate, into +extreame and nipping cold, that our men in generall did grieuously +complaine thereof, some of them feeling their healths much impaired +thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the +day following carried with it not onely the markes, but the stings and +force of the night going before, to the great admiration of vs all; +for besides that the pinching and biting aire was nothing altered, the +very roapes of our ship were stiffe, and the raine which fell was an +unnatural congealed and frozen substance, so that we seemed rather to +be in the frozen Zone then any way so neere vnto the sun, or these +hotter climates.... + +The 3 day following, uiz., the 21, our ship hauing receiued a leake at +sea, was brought to anchor neerer the shoare, that, her goods being +landed, she might be repaired; but for that we were to preuent any +danger that might chance against our safety, our Generall first of all +landed his men, with all necessary prouision, to build tents and make +a fort for the defence of our selues and goods: and that wee might +vnder the shelter of it with more safety (what euer should befall) end +our businesse; which when the people of the countrey perceiued vs +doing, as men set on fire to war in defence of their countrie, in +great hast and companies, with such weapons as they had, they came +downe vnto vs, and yet with no hostile meaning or intent to hurt vs: +standing, when they drew neere, as men rauished in their mindes, with +the sight of such things as they neuer had seene or heard of before +that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to +worship vs as Gods, then to haue any warre with vs as with mortall +men, which thing, as it did partly shew itself at that instant, so did +it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the whole time of +our abode amongst them. At this time, being willed by signes to lay +from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were directed, and +so did all the rest, as they came more and more by companies vnto +them, growing in a little while to a great number, both of men and +women. + +To the intent, therefore, that this peace which they themselues so +willingly sought might, without any cause of the breach thereof on our +part given, be continued, and that wee might with more safety and +expedition end our businesses in quiet, our Generall, with all his +company, vsed all meanes possible gently to intreate them, bestowing +vpon each of them liberally good and necessary things to couer their +nakednesse; withall signifying vnto them we were no Gods, but men, and +had neede of such things to couer our owns shame; teaching them to vse +them to the same ends, for which cause also wee did eate and drinke in +their presence, giuing them to vnderstand that without that wee could +not liue, and therefore were but men as well as they. + +Notwithstanding nothing could perswade them, nor remoue that opinion +which they had conceiued of vs, that wee should be Gods. + +In recompence of those things which they had receiued of vs, as +shirts, linnen cloth, etc., they bestowed vpon our Generall, and +diuerse of our company, diuerse things, as feathers, cawles of +networke, the quiuers of their arrowes, made of fawne skins, and the +very skins of beasts that their women wore vpon their bodies. Hauing +thus had their fill of this times visiting and beholding of vs, they +departed with ioy to their houses, which houses are digged round +within the earth, and haue from the vppermost brimmes of the circle +clefts of wood set vp, and ioyned close together at the top, like our +spires on the steeple of a Church; which being couered with earth, +suffer no water to enter, and are very warme; the doore in the most +part of them performes the office also of a chimney to let out the +smoake: its made in bignesse and fashion like to an ordinary scuttle +in a ship, and standing slopewise: their beds are the hard ground, +onely with rushes strewed vpon it, and lying round about the house, +haue their fire in the middest, which by reason that the house is but +low vaulted, round, and close, giueth a maruelous reflexion to their +bodies to heate the same. + +Their men for the most part goe naked; the women take a kinde of +bulrushes, and kembing it after the manner of hemp, make themselues +thereof a loose garment, which being knitte about their middles, +hanges downe about their hippes, and so affordes to them a couering of +that which nature teaches should be hidden; about their shoulders they +weare also the skin of a deere, with the haire vpon it. They are very +obedient to their husbands, and exceeding ready in all seruices; yet +of themselues offring to do nothing, without the consents or being +called of the men.... + +Against the end of three daies more (the newes hauing the while spread +itselfe farther, and as it seemed a great way vp into the countrie), +were assembled the greatest number of people which wee could +reasonably imagine to dwell within any conuenient distance round +about. Amongst the rest the king himselfe, a man of a goodly stature +and comely personage, attended with his guard of about 100 tall and +warlike men, this day, viz., June 26, came downe to see vs. + +Before his comming, were sent two embassadors or messengers to our +Generall, to signifie that their Hioh, that is, their king, was +comming and at hand. They in the deliuery of their message, the one +spake with a soft and low voice, prompting his fellow; the other +pronounced the same, word by word, after him with a voice more +audible, continuing their proclamation (for such it was) about halfe +an houre. Which being ended, they by signes made request to our +Generall, to send something by their hands to their Hioh or king, as a +token that his comming might be in peace. Our Generall willingly +satisfied their desire; and they, glad men, made speedy returne to +their Hioh. Neither was it long before their king (making as princely +a shew as possibly he could) with all his traine came forward. + +In their comining forwards they cryed continually after a singing +manner, with a lustie courage. And as they drew neerer and neerer +towards vs, so did they more and more striue to behaue themselues with +a certaine comelinesse and grauity in all their actions. + +In the forefront came a man of a large body and goodly aspect, bearing +the Scepter or royall mace, made of a certaine kind of blacke wood, +and in length about a yard and a halfe, before the king. Whereupon +hanged two crownes, a bigger and a lesser, with three chaines of a +maruellous length, and often doubled, besides a bagge of the herbe +Tabáh. The crownes were made of knitworke, wrought vpon most curiously +with feathers of diners colours, very artificially placed, and of a +formall fashion. The chaines seemed of a bony substance, euery linke +or part thereof being very little, thinne, most finely burnished, with +a hole pierced through the middest. The number of linkes going to make +one chaine is in a manner infinite; but of such estimation it is +amongst them, that few be the persons that are admitted to weare the +same; and euen they to whom its lawfull to use them, yet are stinted +what number they shall vse, as some ten, some twelue, some twentie, +and as they exceed in number of chaines, so thereby are they knowne to +be the more honorable personages. + +Next vnto him that bare this Scepter was the king himselfe with his +guard about him; his attire vpon his head was a cawle of knitworke, +wrought vpon somewhat like the crownes, but differing much both in +fashion and perfectnesse of worke; vpon his shoulders he had on a +coate of the skins of conies, reaching to his wast; his guard also had +each coats of the same shape, but of other skins; some hauing cawles +likewise stucke with feathers, or couered ouer with a certaine downe, +which groweth vp in the countrey vpon an herbe much like our lectuce, +which exceeds any other downe in the world for finenesse, and being +layed vpon their cawles, by no winds can be remoued.... + +In the meane time, our Generall hauing assembled his men together (as +forecasting the danger and worst that might fall out) prepared +himselfe to stand vpon sure ground, that wee might at all times be +ready in our owne defence, if any thing should chance otherwise than +was looked for or expected. + +Wherefore euery man being in a warlike readinesse, he marched within +his fenced place, making against their approach a most warlike shew +(as he did also at all other times of their resort), whereby if they +had beene desperate enemies, they could not haue chosen but haue +conceiued terrour and fear, with discouragement to attempt anything +against vs, in beholding of the same. + +When they were come somewhat neere vnto vs, trooping together, they +gaue vs a common or generall salutation, observing in the meane time a +generall silence. Whereupon, he who bare the Scepter before the king, +being prompted by another whom the king assigned to that office, +pronounced with an audible and manly voice what the other spake to him +in secret, continuing, whether it were his oration or proclamation, at +the least halfe an houre. At the close whereof there was a common +Amen, in signe of approbation, giuen by euery person: and the king +himselfe, with the whole number of men and women (the little children +onely remaining behind) came further downe the hill, and as they came +set themselues againe in their former order. + +And beeing now come to the foot of the hill and neere our fort, the +Scepter bearer, with a composed countenance and stately carriage began +a song, and answerable thereunto obserued a kind of measures in a +dance: whom the king with his guard and euery other sort of person +following, did in like manner sing and daunce, sauing onely the women, +who danced but kept silence. As they danced they still came on: and +our Generall perceiuing their plaine and simple meaning, gaue order +that they might freely enter without interruption within our bulwarke. +Where, after they had entred, they yet continued their song and dance +a reasonable time, their women also following them with their wassaile +boales in their hands, their bodies bruised, their faces tome, their +dugges, breasts, and other parts bespotted with bloud, trickling downe +from the wounds, which with their nailes they had made before their +comming. + +After that they had satisfied, or rather tired themselues in this +manner, they made signes to our Generall to haue him sit down; unto +whom both the king and diuers others made seuerall orations, or +rather, indeed, if wee had vnderstood them, supplications, that hee +would take the Prouince and kingdome into his hand, and become their +king and patron: making signes that they would resigne vnto him their +right and title in the whole land, and become his vassals in +themselues and their posterities: which that they might make vs indeed +beleeue that it was their true meaning and intent, the king himselfe, +with all the rest, with one consent and with great reuerence, ioyfully +singing a song, set the crowne vpon his head, inriched his necke with +all their chaines, and offering vnto him many other things, honoured +him by the name of Hyoh. Adding thereunto (as it might seeme) a song +and dance of triumph; because they were not onely visited of the gods +(for so they still iudged vs to be), but the great and chiefe God was +now become their God, their king and patron, and themselues were +become the onely happie and blessed people in the world. + +These things being so freely offered, our Generall thought not meet to +reject or refuse the same, both for that he would not giue them any +cause of mistrust or disliking of him (that being the onely place, +wherein at this present, we were of necessitie inforced to seeke +reliefe of many things), and chiefely for that he knew not to what +good end God had brought this to passe, or what honour and profit it +might bring to our countrie in time to come. + +Wherefore, in the name and to the vse of her most excellent majesty, +he tooke the scepter, crowue, and dignity of the sayd countrie into +his hand; wishing nothing more than that it had layen so fitly for her +maiesty to enioy, as it was now her proper owne, and that the riches +and treasures thereof (wherewith in the vpland countries it abounds) +might with as great conueniency be transported, to the enriching of +her kingdome here at home, as it is in plenty to be attained there; +and especially that so tractable and louing a people as they shewed +themselues to be, might haue meanes to haue manifested their most +willing obedience the more vnto her, and by her meanes, as a mother +and nurse of the Church of Christ, might by the preaching of the +Gospell, be brought to the right knowledge and obedience of the true +and euerliuing God. + +The ceremonies of this resigning and receiving of the kingdome being +thus performed, the common sort, both of men and women, leauing the +king and his guard about him, with out Generall, dispersed themselues +among our people, taking a diligent view or suruey of euery man; and +finding such as pleased their fancies (which commonly were the +youngest of vs), they presently enclosing them about offred their +sacrifices vnto them, crying out with lamentable shreekes and moanes, +weeping and scratching and tearing their very flesh off their faces +with their nailes; neither were it the women alone which did this, but +euen old men, roaring and crying out, were as violent as the women +were. + +Few were the dayes, wherein they were absent from vs, during the whole +time of our abode in that place; and ordinarily euery third day they +brought their sacrifices, till such time as they certainely vnderstood +our meaning, that we tooke no pleasure, but were displeased with them; +whereupon their zeale abated, and their sacrificing, for a season, to +our good liking ceased; notwithstanding they continued still to make +their resort vnto vs in great abundance, and in such sort, that they +oft-time forgate to prouide meate for their owne sustenance.... + +This country our Generall named Albion, and that for two causes; the +one in respect of the white bancks and cliffes, which lie toward the +sea; the other, that it might haue some affinity, euen in name also, +with our own country which was sometime so called. + +Before we went from thence, our Generall caused to be set vp a +monument of our being there, as also of her maiesties and successors +right and title to that kingdome; namely, a plate of brasse, fast +nailed to a great and firme poste; whereon is engrauen her graces +name, and the day and yeare of our arriuall there, and of the free +guing vp of the prouince and kingdome, both by the king and people, +into her majesties hands: together with her highnesse picture and +armes, in a piece of sixpence currant English monie, shewing itselfe +by a hole made of purpose through the plate; vnderneath was likewise +engrauen the name of our Generall, etc. + +The Spaniards neuer had any dealing, or so much as set a foote in this +country, the vtmost of their discoueries reaching onely to many +degrees Southward of this place. + +And now, as the time of our departure was perceiued by them to draw +nigh, so did the sorrowes and miseries of this people seeme to +themselues to increase vpon them, and the more certaine they were of +our going away, the more doubtfull they shewed themselues what they +might doe; so that we might easily iudge that that ioy (being +exceeding great) wherewith they receiued vs at our first arriuall, was +cleane drowned in their excessiue sorrow for our departing. For they +did not onely loose on a sudden all mirth, ioy, glad countenance, +pleasant speeches, agility of body, familiar rejoycing one with +another, and all pleasure what euer flesh and blood might bee +delighted in, but with sighes and sorrowings, with heauy hearts and +grieued minds, they powred out wofull complaints and moanes, with +bitter teares and wringing of their hands, tormenting themselues. And +as men refusing all comfort, they onely accounted themselues as +cast-awayes, and those whom the gods were about to forsake: so that +nothing we could say or do, was able to ease them of their so heauy a +hurthen, or to deliuer them from so desperate a straite, as our +leauing of them did seeme to them that it would cast them into.... + +The 23 of July they tooke a sorrowfull farewell of vs, but being loath +to leaue vs, they presently ranne to the top of the hils to keepe vs +in their sight as long as they could, making fires before and behind, +and on each side of them, burning therein (as is to be supposed) +sacrifices at our departure. + + [1] From "The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake," the + author's name unknown. This work was prepared from notes made by + Francis Fletcher, the chaplain of Drake's ship and by "divers + others of his followers in the same," under the direction of + Drake's heir and nephew, and was published in London in 1628 "both + for the honor of the actor, but especially for the starting up of + heroic spirits to benefit their country and eternize their own + names by like noble attempts." + + It has been contended that Drake fully believed that by his + discoveries in America he had laid the foundations of an English + civilization here, as a rival to Spanish civilizations. Spain then + had a practical monopoly of settlements in America. It is to be + remembered that Drake's work was in advance of all the English + settlements and attempts at settlements on the Atlantic coast, + including those of Gosnold, Amidas and Barlow, Sir Humphrey + Gilbert and Raleigh. Drake named the country he had visited + Albion. He may have gone as far north as Vancouver. There seems to + be no doubt that he reached the Bay of San Francisco, and perhaps + repaired his ships there. + + Drake was born in Tavistock, in England, about 1540, and died off + Porto Bello in 1596. Before making his visit to the Pacific coast + he had served under Sir John Hawkins, as commander of a small + vessel, which went out against the Spanish; had visited the West + Indies and commanded a freebooting expedition in which he captured + an immense treasure, afterward abandoned; had burned a Spanish + vessel at Cartagena, and captured several ships; had crossed the + Isthmus of Panama and become the first Englishman to see the + Pacific, and had served in Ireland under the Earl of Essex. + + It was in December, 1577, that he started on the expedition during + which he visited the Pacific coast as here described. It was a + freebooting enterprise. Drake sailed through the Strait of + Magellan. After visiting California he crossed the Pacific, and, + reaching England by way of the Cape of Good Hope in 1580, Drake + became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Queen + Elizabeth on his return knighted him on board his own ship. His + after career was equally notable, including as it did an important + command under Lord Howard in the great sea fight of July, 1588, in + which the Armada of Spain was overthrown In the English Channel. + + + + +HUDSON'S DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER + +(1609) + +BY ROBERT JUET, HUDSON'S SECRETARY[1] + + +The first of September [1609], faire weather, the wind variable +betweene east and south; we steered away north northwest. At noone we +found our height to bee 39 degrees, 3 minutes. The second, in the +morning, close weather, the winde at south in the morning; from twelve +untill two of the clocke we steered north northwest, and had sounding +one and twentie fathoms: and in running one glasse we had but sixteene +fathoms, then seventeene, and so shoalder and shoalder untill it came +to twelve fathoms. We saw a great fire, but could not see the land; +then we came to ten fathoms, whereupon we brought our tackes aboord, +and stood to the eastward east south-east, foure glasses. Then the +sunne arose, and wee steered away north againe, and saw the land from +the west by north to the northwest by north, all like broken +islands,[2] and our soundings were eleven and ten fathoms. Then wee +looft in for the shoare, and faire by the shoare we had seven fathoms. +The course along the land we found to be northeast by north. From the +land which we had first sight of, untill we came to a great lake of +water, as wee could judge it to bee, being drowned land, which made it +to rise like islands, which was in length ten leagues. The mouth of +that land hath many shoalds, and the sea breaketh on them as it is +cast out of the mouth of it. And from that lake or bay the land lyeth +north by east, and wee had a great streame out of the bay; and from +thence our sounding was ten fathoms two leagues from the land. At five +of the clocke we anchored, being little winde, and rode in eight +fathoms water; the night was faire. This night I found the land to +hail the compasse 8 degrees. For to the northward off us we saw high +hils. For the day before we found not above 2 degrees of variation. +This is a very good land to fall with, and a pleasant land to see. + +The third, the morning mystie, untill ten of the clocke; then it +cleered, and the wind came to the south south-east, so wee weighed and +stood to the northward. The land[3] is very pleasant and high, and +bold to fall withall. At three of the clock in the after-noone, wee +came to three great rivers. So we stood along to the northermost, +thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoald +barre before it, for we had but ten foot water. Then we cast about to +the southward, and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a +quarter, till we came to the souther side of them; then we had five +and sixe fathoms, and anchored. + +The fourth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, wee saw +that it was good riding farther up. So we sent out boate to sound, and +found that it was a very good harbour, and foure and five fathomes, +two cables length from the shoare. Then we weighed and went in with +our ship. Then our boate went on land[4] with our net to fish, and +caught ten great mullets, of a foote and a halfe long a peese, and a +ray as great as foure men could hale into the ship. So wee trimmed our +boate and rode still all day. At night the wind blew hard at the +north-west, and our anchor came home, and we drove on shoare, but took +no hurt, thanked bee God, for the ground is soft sand and oze. This +day the people of the countrey came aboord of us, seeming very glad of +our comming, and brought greene tobacco, and gave us of it for knives +and beads. They goe in deere skins loose, well dressed. They have +yellow copper. They desire cloathes, and are very civill. They have +great store of maize, or Indian wheate, whereof they make good bread. +The countrey is full of great and tall oake. + +The fifth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, the wind +ceased and the flood came. So we heaved off our ship againe into five +fathoms water, and sent our boate to sound the bay, and we found that +there was three fathoms hard by the souther shoare. Our men went on +land there, and saw great store of men, women, and children, who gave +them tabacco at their comming on land. So they went up into the woods, +and saw great store of very goodly oakes and some currants. For one of +them came aboord and brought some dryed, and gave me some, which were +sweet and good. This day many of the people came aboard, some in +mantles of feathers, and some in skinnes of divers sorts of good +furres. Some women also came to us with hempe. They had red copper +tabacco pipes, and other things of copper they did weare about their +neckes. At night they went on land againe, so wee rode very quiet, but +durst not trust them. + +The sixth, in the morning, was faire weather, and our master sent John +Colman, with foure other men in our boate, over to the north-side to +sound the other river[5], being foure leagues from us. They found by +the day shoald water, two fathoms; but at the north of the river +eighteen, and twentie fathoms, and very good riding for ships; and a +narrow river to the westward, between two ilands. The lands, they told +us, were as pleasant with grasse and flowers and goodly trees as ever +they had seene, and very sweet smells came from them.... + +The tenth, faire weather, we rode still till twelve of the clocke. +Then we weighed and went over, and found it shoald all the middle of +the river, for wee could finde but two fathoms and a halfe and three +fathomes for the space of a league; then wee came to three fathomes +and foure fathomes, and so to seven fathomes, and anchored, and rode +all night in soft ozie ground. The banke is sand. + +The eleventh was faire and very hot weather. At one of the clocke in +the after-noone wee weighed and went into the river, the wind at south +south-west, little winde. Our soundings were seven, sixe, five, sixe, +seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve, thirteene, and fourteene fathomes. +Then it shoalded againe, and came to five fathomes. Then wee anchored, +and saw that it was a very good harbour for all windes, and rode all +night. The people of the country came aboord of us, making shew of +love, and gave us tabacco and Indian wheat, and departed for that +night, but we durst not trust them. + +The twelfth, very faire and hot. In the afternoone, at two of the +clocke, wee weighed, the winde being variable betweene the north and +the north-west. So we turned into the river two leagues and anchored. +This morning, at our first rode in the river, there came eight and +twentie canoes full of men, women and children to betray us: but we +saw their intent, and suffered none of them to come aboord of us. At +twelve of the clocke they departed. They brought with them oysters and +beanes, whereof wee bought some. They have great tabacco pipes of +yellow copper, and pots of earth to dresse their meate in. It floweth +south-east by south within. + +The thirteenth, faire weather, the wind northerly. At seven of the +clocke in the morning, as the floud came we weighed, and turned foure +miles into the river. The tide being done wee anchored. Then there +came foure canoes aboord: but we suffered none of them to come into +our ship. They brought great store of very good oysters aboord, which +we bought for trifles.[6] In the night I set the variation of the +compasse, and found it to be 13 degrees. In the after-noone we +weighed, and turned in with the floud, two leagues and a halfe +further, and anchored all night; and had five fathoms soft ozie +ground; and had an high point of land, which shewed out to us, bearing +north by east five leagues off us. + +The fourteenth, in the morning, being very faire weather, the wind +south-east, we sayled up the river twelve leagues, and had five +fathoms, and five fathoms and a quarter lesse; and came to a streight +betweene two points,[7] and had eight, nine, and ten fathoms; and it +attended north-east by north, one league: and wee had twelve, +thirteene, and fourteene fathomes. The river is a mile broad: there is +very high land on both sides. Then we went up north-west, a league and +an halfe deepe water. Then north-east by north, five miles; then +north-west by north, two leagues, and anchored. The land grew very +high and mountainous. The river is full of fish. + +The fifteenth, in the morning, was misty, untill the sunne arose: then +it cleered. So wee weighed with the wind at south, and ran up into the +river twentie leagues, passing by high mountaines.[8] Wee had a very +good depth, as sixe, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve, and thirteene +fathomes, and great store of salmons in the river. This morning our +two savages got out of a port and swam away. I After wee were under +sayle, they called to us in scorne. At night we came to other +mountaines, which lie from the rivers side. There wee found very +loving people, and very old men: where wee were well used. Our boat +went to fish, and caught great store of very good fish.... + +The seventeenth, faire sun-shining weather, and very hot. In the +morning, as soone as the sun was up, we set sayle, and ran up sixe +leagues higher, and found shoalds in the middle of the channell, and +small ilands, but seven fathoms water on both sides. Toward night we +borrowed so neere the shoare, that we grounded: so layed out our small +anchor, and heaved off againe. Then we borrowed on the banke in the +channell, and came aground againe; while the floud ran we heaved off +againe, and anchored all night.[9] + +The eighteenth, in the morning, was faire weather, and we rode still. +In the after-noone our masters mate went on land with an old savage, a +governor of the countrey; who carried him to his house, and made him +good cheere. The nineteenth, was faire and hot weather: at the floud, +being neere eleven of the clocke, wee weighed, and ran higher up two +leagues above the shoalds, and had no lesse water then five fathoms; +we anchored, and rode in eight fathomes. The people of the countrie +came flocking aboord, and brought us grapes and pompions, which wee +bought for trifles. And many brought us bevers skinnes and otters +skinnes, which wee bought for beades, knives, and hatchets. So we rode +there all night. + +The twentieth, in the morning, was faire weather. Our masters mate +with foure men more went up with our boat to sound the river, and +found two leagues above us but two fathomes water, and the channell +very narrow; and above that place, seven or eight fathomes. Toward +night they returned: and we rode still all night. The one and +twentieth was faire weather, and the wind all southerly: we determined +yet once more to go farther up into the river, to trie what depth and +breadth it did beare; but much people resorted aboord, so wee went not +this day. Our carpenter went on land, and made a fore-yard. And our +master and his mate determined to trie some of the chiefe men of the +countrey, whether they had any treaeherie in them. So they tooke them +downe into the cabin, and gave them so much wine and aqua vita, that +they were all merrie: and one of them had his wife with them, which +sate so modestly, as any of our countrey women would doe in a strange +place. In the ende one of them was drunke, which had beene aboord of +our ship all the time that we had beene there: and that was strange to +them; for they could not tell how to take it. The canoes and folke +went all on shoare: but some of them came againe, and brought stropes +of beades: some had sixe, seven, eight, nine, ten; and gave him. So he +slept all night quietly. + +The two and twentieth was faire weather: in the morning our masters +mate and foure more of the companie went up with our boat to sound the +river higher up. The people of the countrey came not aboord till +noone: but when they came, and saw the savages well, they were glad. +So at three of the clocke in the afternoone they came aboord, and +brought tabacco, and more beades, and gave them to our master, and +made an oration, and shewed him all the countrey round about. Then +they sent one of their companie on land, who presently returned, and +brought a great platter full of venison dressed by themselves; and +they caused him to eate with them: then they made him reverence and +departed, all save the old man that lay aboord. This night, at ten of +the clocke our boat returned in a showre of raine from sounding of the +river; and found it to bee at an end for shipping to goe in. For they +had beene up eight or nine leagues, and found but seven foot water, +and unconstant soundings. + +The three and twentieth, faire weather. At twelve of the clocke wee +weighed, and went downe two leagues to a shoald that had two channels, +one on the one side, and another on the other, and had little wind, +whereby the tyde layed us upon it. So there wee sate on ground the +space of an houre till the floud came. Then we had a little gale of +wind at the west. So wee got our ship into deepe water, and rode all +night very well. + +The foure and twentieth was faire weather: the winde at the +north-west, wee weighed, and went downe the river seven or eight +leagues; and at halfe ebbe wee came on ground on a banke of oze in the +middle of the river, and sate there till the floud. Then wee went on +land, and gathered, good store of chest-nuts. At ten of the clocke wee +came off into deepe water, and anchored.... + +The second, faire weather. At break of day wee weighed, the winde +being at north-west, and got downe seven leagues; then the floud was +come strong, so we anchored. Then came one of the savages that swamme +away from us at our going up the river with many other, thinking to +betray us. But we perceived their intent, and suffered none of them to +enter our ship. Whereupon two canoes full of men, with their bowes and +arrowes shot at us after our sterne: in recompence whereof we +discharged sixe muskets, and killed two or three of them. Then above +an hundred of them came to a point of land to shoot at us. There I +shot a falcon at them, and killed two of them: whereupon the rest fled +into the woods. Yet they manned off another canoe with nine or ten +men, which came to meet us. So I shot at it also a falcon, and shot it +through, and killed one of them. Then our men with their muskets +killed three or foure more of them.[10] So they went their way; within +a mile after wee got downe two leagues beyond that place, and anchored +in a bay, cleere from all danger of them on the other side of the +river, where we saw a very good piece of ground: and hard by it there +was a cliffe, that looked of the colour of a white greene, as though +it were either copper or silver myne: and I thinke it to be one of +them, by the trees that grow upon it. For they be all burned, and the +other places are greene as grasse; it is on that side of the river +that is called Mannahata. There we saw no people to trouble us: and +rode quietly all night; but had much wind and raine.... + +We continued our course toward England, without seeing any land by the +way, all the rest of this moneth of October: and on the seventh day of +November, stilo novo, being Saturday, by the grace of God we safely +arrived in the range of Dartmouth, in Devonshire, in the yeere 1609. + + [1] Juet, on a previous voyage with Hudson, had been Hudson's + mate, but on the voyage to New York Harbor he was his clerk and + kept a journal. From this document, which is included in the "Old + South Leaflets," the account here given is taken. Hudson himself + also kept a journal, but this has been lost. It is curious that + Juet, on the last voyage which Hudson made--the one to Hudson Bay, + in which he was sent adrift in a small boat and left to + perish--became the leader in the mutiny. + + Before coming to America, Henry Hudson, an Englishman in Dutch + service, had sailed to the east coast of Greenland, visited + Spitzbergen, and attempted to find a northeast passage from the + Atlantic to the Pacific. It was his attempt to find a northwest + passage which led him, in September, 1609, into the harbor of New + York and up the river named after him. In the following year he + sailed again from Holland, seeking a northwest passage and thus + entered Hudson Bay. Here he spent the winter. In the following + June, when about to return home, the crew mutinied; Hudson, and + eight others, were seized, bound and set afloat in a small boat + that was never heard from again. + + [2] Sandy Hook. + + [3] Probably Staten Island. + + [4] Coney Island. + + [5] The Narrows. + + [6] Moulton, in his "History of New York," inclines to the view + that this point was near what is now known as Manhattanville in + New York City. + + [7] This was in the neighborhood of Stony Point. + + [8] The Catskill Mountains. + + [9] The neighborhood of Albany. + + [10] Moulton's view is that this encounter took place near Fort + Washington, New York City. + + + + +CHAMPLAIN'S BATTLE WITH THE IROQUOIS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN + +(1609) + +BY CHAMPLAIN HIMSELF[1] + + +We continued our course to the entrance of Lake St. Peter, where the +country is exceedingly pleasant and level, and crossed the lake, in +two, three, and four fathoms of water, which is some eight leagues +long and four wide. On the north side, we saw a very pleasant river, +extending some twenty leagues into the interior, which I named St. +Suzanne; on the south side, there are two, one called Rivičre du Pont, +the other Rivičre de Gennes, which are very pretty, and in a fine and +fertile country. The water is almost still in the lake, which is full +of fish. On the north bank, there are seen some slight elevations at a +distance of some twelve or fifteen leagues from the lake. After +crossing the lake, we passed a large number of islands of various +sizes, containing many nut trees and vines, and fine meadows, with +quantities of game and wild animals, which go over from the main land +to these islands. Fish are here more abundant than in any other part +of the river that we have seen. From these islands, we went to the +mouth of the River of the Iroquois,[2] where we stayed two days, +refreshing ourselves with good venison, birds, and fish, which the +savages gave us. Here there sprang up among them some difference of +opinion on the subject of the war, so that a portion only determined +to go with me, while the others returned to their country with their +wives and the merchandise which they had obtained by barter. + +I set out accordingly from the fall of the Iroquois River on the 2d of +July. All the savages set to carrying their canoes, arms, and baggage +overland, some half a league, in order to pass by the violence and +strength of the fall, which was speedily accomplished.... + +We set out the next day, continuing our course in the river as far as +the entrance of the lake.[3] There are many pretty islands here, low, +and containing very fine woods and meadows, with abundance of fowl and +such animals of the chase as stags, fallow-deer, fawns, roe-bucks, +bears, and others, which go from the main land to these islands. We +captured a large number of these animals. There are also many beavers, +not only in this river, but also in numerous other little ones that +flow into it. These regions, altho they are pleasant, are not +inhabited by any savages, on account of their wars; but they withdraw +as far as possible from the rivers into the interior, in order not to +be suddenly surprised. + +The next day we entered the lake, which is of great extent, say eighty +or a hundred leagues long, where I saw four fine islands, ten, twelve, +and fifteen leagues long, which were formerly inhabited by the +savages, like the River of the Iroquois; but they have been abandoned +since the wars of the savages with one another prevail. There are also +many rivers falling into the lake, bordered by many fine trees of the +same kinds as those we have in France, with many vines finer than any +I have seen in any other place; also many chestnut-trees on the border +of this lake, which I had not seen before.... + +Continuing our course over this lake on the western side, I noticed, +while observing the country, some very high mountains on the eastern +side, on the top of which there was snow. I made inquiry of the +savages, whether these localities were inhabited, when they told me +that the Iroquois dwelt there, and that there were beautiful valleys +in these places, with plains productive in grain, such as I had eaten +in this country, together with many kinds of fruit without limit. They +said also that the lake extended near mountains, some twenty-five +leagues distant from us, as I judge. I saw, on the south, other +mountains no less high than the first, but without any snow.[4] + +When it was evening, we embarked in our canoes to continue our course; +and, as we advanced very quietly and without making any noise, we met +on the 29th of the month the Iroquois, about ten o'clock at evening, +at the extremity of a cape which extends into the lake on the western +bank. They had come to fight. We both began to utter loud cries, all +getting their arms in readiness. We withdrew out on the water, and the +Iroquois went on shore, where they drew up all their canoes close to +each other and began to fell trees with poor axes, which they acquire +in war sometimes, using also others of stone. Thus they barricaded +themselves very well. + +Our forces also passed the entire night, their canoes being drawn up +close to each other, and fastened to poles, so that they might not get +separated, and that they might be all in readiness to fight, if +occasion required.... After arming ourselves with light armor, we each +took an arquebuse, and went on shore. I saw the enemy go out of their +barricade, nearly two hundred in number, stout and rugged in +appearance. They came at a slow pace toward us, with a dignity and +assurance which greatly amused me, having three chiefs at their head. +Our men also advanced in the same order, telling me that those who had +three large plumes were the chiefs, and that they had only these +three, and that they could be distinguished by these plumes, which +were much larger than those of their companions, and that I should do +what I could to kill them. I promised to do all in my power, and said +that I was very sorry they could not understand me, so that I might +give order and shape to their mode of attacking their enemies, and +then we should, without doubt, defeat them all; but that this could +not now be obviated, and that I should be very glad to show them my +courage and good-will when we should engage in the fight. + +As soon as we had landed, they began to run for some two hundred paces +toward their enemies, who stood firmly, not having as yet noticed my +companions, who went into the woods with some savages. Our men began +to call me with loud cries; and in order to give me a passage-way, +they opened in two parts, and put me at their head, where I marched +some twenty paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about +thirty paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed +at me, as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at +us, I rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of +the three chiefs. With the same shot, two fell to the ground; and one +of their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded +my musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favorable +for them, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have +heard it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows flew on both sides. The +Iroquois were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly +killed, altho they were equipped with armor woven from cotton thread, +and with wood which was a proof against their arrows. This caused +great alarm among them. As I was loading again, one of my companions +fired a shot from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a +degree that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage, and took to +flight, abandoning their camp and fort, and fleeing into the woods, +whither I pursued them, killing still more of them. Our savages also +killed several of them, and took ten or twelve prisoners. The +remainder escaped with the wounded. Fifteen or sixteen were wounded on +our side with arrow-shots; but they were soon healed. + +After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great +quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their +armor, which they had left behind that they might run better. After +feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours +after, with the prisoners. The spot where this attack took place is in +latitude 43 degrees and some minutes, and the lake was called Lake +Champlain. + +After going some eight leagues, toward evening they took one of the +prisoners, to whom they made a harangue, enumerating the cruelties +which he and his men had already practised toward them without any +mercy, and that, in like manner, he ought to make up his mind to +receive as much. They commanded him to sing, if he had courage, which +he did; but it was a very sad song.[5] + + [1] From the "Voyages of Samuel de Champlain," as published by the + Prince Society of Boston in 1878, the translation being by Charles + Pomeroy Otis. + + Samuel de Champlain, who has been called "The Father of New + France," was born in Brouage, France, in 1567, and died in Quebec + in 1635. Parkman accepts this title as just, and adds that in + Champlain were embodied the religious zeal of New France and her + romantic spirit of adventure. Champlain's first explorations in + America were made in 1603-07. Quebec was founded by him in 1608, + and Lake Champlain discovered in 1609. + + [2] Now called the Richelieu River. + + [3] Lake Champlain. + + [4] The Adirondacks or the Green Mountains might have been here + referred to. + + [5] Parkman, in his "Pioneers of France in the New World," adds to + this narrative the following: "At night the victors led out one of + the prisoners, told him that he was to die by fire, and ordered + him to sing his death-song, if he dared. Then they began the + torture, and presently scalped their victim alive, when Champlain, + sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him. They refused, + and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called him + back and told him to do as he pleased. He turned again and a shot + from his arquebuse put the wretch out of misery. The scene filled + him with horror; but, a few months later, on the Place de la + Grave, at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally + revolting and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide + Ravaillac by the sentence of grave and learned judges. [Ravaillac + was the assassin of Henry IV.] + + "The allies made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. + Three or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu. + Here they separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the + Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share of prisoners for + future torments. At parting they invited Champlain to visit their + towns, and aid them again in their wars, an invitation which the + paladin of the woods failed not to accept. + + "The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais. In their + camp on the Richelieu, one of them dreamed that a war party of + Iroquois was close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they + left their huts, paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake + of St. Peter, and hid themselves all night in the rushes. In the + morning they took heart, emerged from their hiding-places, + descended to Quebec, and went thence to Tadousac, whither + Champlain accompanied them. Here the squaws, stark naked, swam out + to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois, and, + hanging them from their necks, danced in triumph along the shore. + One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on + Champiain,--touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he + was by no means to keep for himself, but to present to the King. + + "Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted + warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, and in some + measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous + conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn. + Champlain had invaded the tiger's den; and now, in smothered fury, + the patient savage would lie biding his day of blood." + + + + +MARQUETTE'S DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI + +(1673) + +MARQUETTE'S OWN ACCOUNT[1] + + +I embarked with M. Joliet, who had been chosen to conduct this +enterprise, on the 13th May, 1673, with five other Frenchmen, in two +bark canoes. We laid in some Indian corn and smoked beef for our +voyage. We first took care, however, to draw from the Indians all the +information we could, concerning the countries through which we +designed to travel, and drew up a map, on which we marked down the +rivers, nations, and points of the compass to guide us in our journey. +The first nation we came to was called the Folles-Avoines, or the +nation of wild oats. I entered their river to visit them, as I had +preached among them some years before. The wild oats, from which they +derive their name, grow spontaneously in their country.... + +I acquainted them with my design of discovering other nations, to +preach to them the mysteries of our holy religion, at which they were +much surprized, and said all they could to dissuade me from it. They +told me I would meet Indians who spare no strangers, and whom they +kill without any provocation or mercy; that the war they have one with +the other would expose me to be taken by their warriors, as they are +constantly on the look-out to surprize their enemies. That the Great +River[2] was exceedingly dangerous, and full of frightful monsters who +devoured men and canoes together, and that the heat was so great that +it would positively cause our death. I thanked them for their kind +advice, but told them I would not follow it, as the salvation of a +great many souls was concerned in our undertaking, for whom I should +be glad to lose my life, I added that I defied their monsters, and +their information would oblige us to keep more upon our guard to avoid +a surprize. And having prayed with them, and given them some +instructions, we set out for the Bay of Puan,[3] where our +missionaries had been successful in converting them.... The next day, +being the 10th of June, the two guides [Miamies] embarked with us in +sight of all the village, who were astonished at our attempting so +dangerous an expedition. We were informed that at three leagues from +the Maskoutens, we should find a river which runs into the +Mississippi, and that we were to go to the west-south-west to find +it, but there were so many marshes and lakes, that if it had not been +for our guides we could not have found it.... + +Before embarking we all offered up prayers to the Holy Virgin, which +we continued to do every morning, placing ourselves and the events of +the journey under her protection, and after having encouraged each +other, we got into our canoes. The river upon which we embarked is +called Mesconsin [Wisconsin]; the river is very wide, but the sand +bars make it very difficult to navigate, which is increased by +numerous islands covered with grape-vines. The country through which +it flows is beautiful; the groves are so dispersed in the prairies +that it makes a noble prospect; and the fruit of the trees shows a +fertile soil. These groves are full of walnut, oak, and other trees +unknown to us in Europe. We saw neither game nor fish, but roebuck and +buffaloes in great numbers. After having navigated thirty leagues we +discovered some iron mines, and one of our company who had seen such +mines before, said these were very rich in ore. They are covered with +about three feet of soil, and situate near a chain of rocks, whose +base is covered with fine timber. After having rowed ten leagues +farther, making forty leagues from the place where we had embarked, we +came into the Mississippi on the 17th of June [1673].[4] + +The mouth of the Mesconsin [Wisconsin] is in about 42-1/2 N. lat. +Behold us, then, upon this celebrated river, whose singularities I +have attentively studied. The Mississippi takes its rise in several +lakes in the North. Its channel is very narrow at the mouth of the +Mesconsin, and runs south until it is affected by very high hills. Its +current is slow, because of its depth. In sounding we found nineteen +fathoms of water. A little further on it widens nearly three-quarters +of a league, and the width continues to be more equal. We slowly +followed its course to the south and southeast to the 42° N. lat. Here +we perceived the country change its appearance. There were scarcely +any more woods or mountains. The islands are covered with fine trees, +but we could could not see any more roebucks, buffaloes, bustards, and +swans. We met from time to time monstrous fish, which struck so +violently against our canoes, that at first we took them to be large +trees, which threatened to upset us. We saw also a hideous monster; +his head was like that of a tiger, his nose was sharp, and somewhat +resembled a wildcat; his beard was long; his ears stood upright; the +color of his head was gray; and his neck black. He looked upon us for +some time, but as we came near him our oars frightened him away. When +we threw our nets into the water we caught an abundance of sturgeons, +and another kind of fish like our trout, except that the eyes and nose +are much smaller, and they have near the nose a bone like a woman's +busk, three inches broad and a foot and a half long, the end of which +is flat and broad, and when it leaps out of the water the weight of it +throws it on its back. + +Having descended the river as far as 41° 28', we found that turkeys +took the place of game, and the Pisikious that of other animals. We +called the Pisikious wild buffaloes, because they very much resemble +our domestic oxen; they are not so long, but twice as large. We shot +one of them, and it was as much as thirteen men could do to drag him +from the place where he fell.... + +We continued to descend the river, not knowing where we were going, +and having made an hundred leagues without seeing anything but wild +beasts and birds, and being on our guard we landed at night to make +our fire and prepare our repast, and then left the shore to anchor in +the river, while one of us watched by turns to prevent a surprize. We +went south and southwest until we found ourselves in about the +latitude of 40° and some minutes, having rowed more than sixty leagues +since we entered the river. + +We took leave of our guides about the end of June, and embarked in +presence of all the village, who admired our birch canoes, as they had +never before seen anything like them. We descended the river, looking +for another called Pekitanoni [Missouri], which runs from the +northwest into the Mississippi.... + +As we were descending the river we saw high rocks with hideous +monsters painted on them, and upon which the bravest Indians dare not +look. They are as large as a calf, with head and horns like a goat; +their eyes red; beard like a tiger's; and a face like a man's. Their +tails are so long that they pass over their beads and between their +fore legs, under their belly, and ending like a fish's tail. They are +painted red, green, and black. They are so well drawn that I cannot +believe they were drawn by the Indians. And for what purpose they were +made seems to me a great mystery. As we fell down the river, and while +we were discoursing upon these monsters, we heard a great rushing and +bubbling of waters, and small islands of floating trees coming from +the mouth of the Pekitanoni [Missouri], with such rapidity that we +could not trust ourselves to go near it. The water of this river is so +muddy that we could not drink it. It so discolors the Mississippi as +to make the navigation of it dangerous. This river comes from the +northwest, and empties into the Mississippi, and on its banks are +situated a number of Indian villages. We judged by the compass, that +the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico. It would, +however, have been more agreeable if it had discharged itself into the +South Sea or Gulf of California.... + +Having satisfied ourselves that the Gulf of Mexico was in latitude 31° +40', and that we could reach it in three or four days' journey from +the Akansea [Arkansas River], and that the Mississippi discharged +itself into it, and not to the eastward of the Cape of Florida, nor +into the California Sea, we resolved to return home. We considered +that the advantage of our travels would be altogether lost to our +nation if we fell into the hands of the Spaniards, from whom we could +expect no other treatment than death or slavery; besides, we saw that +we were not prepared to resist the Indians, the allies of the +Europeans, who continually infested the lower part of this river; we +therefore came to the conclusion to return, and make a report to those +who had sent us. So that having rested another day, we left the +village of the Akansea, on the seventeenth of July, 1673, having +followed the Mississippi from the latitude 42° to 34°, and preached +the Gospel to the utmost of my power, to the nations we visited. We +then ascended the Mississippi with great difficulty against the +current, and left it in the latitude of 38° north, to enter another +river [Illinois], which took us to the lake of the Illinois +[Michigan], which is a much shorter way than through the River +Mesconsin [Wisconsin], by which we entered the Mississippi.... + + [1] Father Marquette was born at Laon, in France, in 1637, and + died on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan in 1675. Marquette had + kept daily memoranda of his expedition, but during the return + voyage up the Mississippi his papers were lost. He afterward + composed from memory his narrative published under the title + "Travels and Discoveries in North America." It has been printed in + the "Historical Collections of Louisiana," and in Hart's "American + History Told by Contemporaries." + + In this journey, occupying about four months, Marquette and Joliet + paddled their canoes more than 2,500 miles. It has been maintained + by some writers, and among them Mr. Thwaites, that Joliet and + Marquette were as much the real discoverers of the Mississippi as + Columbus was the discoverer of America. While Europeans had + actually reached the Mississippi before them, just as Asiatics and + Norwegians probably had reached America before Columbus, it was + Joliet and Marquette who first wrote narratives of their + expedition, prepared excellent maps, and were followed by others + who opened the region to enterprise and settlement. Of de Soto's + century-and-a-quarter earlier discovery, nothing came, while the + contention put forth for La Salle that he made an earlier visit + than Joliet and Marquette is based "on the merest surmise." + + [2] The Mississippi. + + [3] The arm of Lake Michigan, now called Green Bay. + + [4] The town of Prairie du Chien lies just north of the confluence + of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. + + + + +THE DEATH OF MARQUETTE + +(1675) + +BY FATHER CLAUDE DABLON[1] + + +Father James Marquette, having promised the Illinois, called +Kaskaskia, to return among them to teach them our mysteries, had great +difficulty in keeping his word. The great hardships of his first +voyage had brought on a dysentery, and had so enfeebled him that he +lost all hope of undertaking a second voyage. Yet, his malady having +given way and almost ceased toward the close of summer in the +following year, he obtained permission of his superiors to return to +the Illinois to found that noble mission.... + +After the Illinois had taken leave of the father, filled with a great +idea of the gospel, he continued his voyage, and soon after reached +the Illinois Lake, on which he had nearly a hundred leagues to make by +an unknown route, because he was obliged to take the southern +[eastern] side of the lake, having gone thither by the northern +[western]. His strength, however, failed so much that his men +despaired of being able to carry him alive to their journey's end; +for, in fact, he became so weak and exhausted that he could no longer +help himself, nor even stir, and had to be handled and carried like a +child.... + +The eve of his death, which was a Friday, he told them, all radiant +with joy, that it would take place on the morrow. During the whole day +he conversed with them about the manner of his burial, the way in +which he should be laid out, the place to be selected for his +interment; he told them how to arrange his hands, feet, and face, and +directed them to raise a cross over his grave. He even went so far as +to enjoin them, only three hours before he expired, to take his +chapel-bell, as soon as he was dead, and ring it while they carried +him to the grave. Of all this he spoke so calmly and collectedly that +you would have thought that he spoke of the death and burial of +another, and not of his own. + +Thus did he speak with them as they sailed along the lake, till, +perceiving the mouth of a river with an eminence on the bank which he +thought suited for his burial, he told them that it was the place of +his last repose. They wished, however, to pass on, as the weather +permitted it and the day was not far advanced; but God raised a +contrary wind which obliged them to return and enter the river pointed +out by Father Marquette. They then carried him ashore, kindled a +little fire, and raised for him a wretched bark cabin, where they laid +him as little uncomfortably as they could; but they were so overcome +by sadness that, as they afterward said, they did not know what they +were doing. + +The father being thus stretched on the shore, like Saint Francis +Xavier, as he had always so ardently desired, and left alone amid +those forests,--for his companions were engaged in unloading,--he had +leisure to repeat all the acts in which he had been employed during +the preceding days.... + +He had prayed his companions to remind him, when they saw him about to +expire, to pronounce frequently the names of Jesus and Mary. When he +could not do it himself, they did it for him; and, when they thought +him about to pass, one cried aloud, Jesus Maria, which he several +times repeated distinctly, and then, as if at those sacred names +something had appeared to him, he suddenly raised his eyes above his +crucifix, fixing them apparently on some object which he seemed to +regard with pleasure, and thus with a countenance all radiant with +smiles, he expired without a struggle, as gently as if he had sunk +into a quiet sleep. + +His two poor companions, after shedding many tears over his body, and +having laid it out as he had directed, carried it devoutly to the +grave, ringing the bell according to his injunction, and raised a +large cross near it to serve as a mark for passers-by. + + [1] From Dablon's "Relation." Dablon was the Superior General of + the Jesuit Missions in America. + + + + +DISCOVERY OF NIAGARA FALLS + +(1678) + +BY FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN[1] + + +Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious +cadence of water which falls down after a surprizing and astonishing +manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. 'Tis +true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such things; but we may well +say they are but sorry patterns, when compared to this of which we now +speak. At the foot of this horrible precipice, we meet with the river +Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a league broad, but is +wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this descent, +that it violently hurries down the wild beasts while endeavoring to +pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand +the force of its current, which inevitably casts them down headlong +above six hundred foot. + +This wonderful downfall is compounded of two great cross-streams of +water, and two falls, with an isle sloping along the middle of it. The +waters which fall from this vast height, do foam and boil after the +most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more +terrible than that of thunder; for when the wind blows from off the +south, their dismal roaring may be heard above fifteen leagues off. + +The river Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible precipice, +continues its impetuous course for two leagues together, to the great +rock above mentioned, with an inexpressible rapidity: But having +passed that, its impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for +two leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac. + +Any bark or greater vessel may pass from the fort to the foot of this +huge rock above mentioned. This rock lies to the westward, and is cut +off from the land by the river Niagara, about two leagues farther down +than the great fall; for which two leagues the people are obliged to +carry their goods over-land; but the way is very good, and the trees +are but few, and they chiefly firs and oaks. + +From the great fall unto this rock, which is to the west of the river, +the two brinks of it are so prodigious high, that it would make one +tremble to look steadily upon the water, rolling along with a rapidity +not to be imagined. Were it not for this vast cataract, which +interrupts navigation, they might sail with barks or greater vessels, +above four hundred and fifty leagues further, cross the Lake of +Hurons, and up to the farther end of the Lake Illinois (Michigan); +which two lakes we may well say are little seas of fresh water. + + [1] Louis Hennepin, born in Belgium in 1640, was a friar of the + Recollect order, an offshoot of the Franciscans. Mr. Thwaites, who + has edited Hennepin's "New Discovery of a Vast Country," from + which the account of Niagara Falls here given is taken, describes + him as "an uneasy soul, uncontent to remain cloistered and + fretting to engage in travel and wild adventure." After the + pioneer voyage down the Mississippi, made by Joliet and Marquette, + had become known in Europe, it intensified an already active + spirit of discovery. In the summer of 1678 Hennepin joined La + Salle and Laval Montmorency in the famous expedition of La Salle + undertaken from Quebec to explore the interior, with a view to + uniting Canada with the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of forts. On + arrival in Quebec Father Hennepin was sent forward by La Salle to + Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario. Thence, with La Monte and sixteen + men, he went on to Niagara in order to smooth the way with the + Indians for La Salle's later coming. It was at this time that + Hennepin first saw Niagara Falls. White men had probably seen the + cataract before, but he is the first who wrote a description of it + that has come down to us. Hennepin's character has been severely + criticized. He was much given to exaggeration, and he magnified + his own importance. Mr. Thwaites describes him as "hardy, brave + and enterprising," but "lacking in spiritual qualities." + + Hennepin's estimate of the height of the falls (about 600 feet) + may be cited as an example of his faculty in exaggeration. The + actual height is 167 feet. The descent from Lake Erie to Ontario, + including that of the rapids above and below the falls, is only + 330 feet. + + + + +LA SALLE'S VOYAGE TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI + +(1682) + +BY FRANCIS PARKMAN[1] + + +La Salle chose eighteen of his Indian allies, whom he added to the +twenty-three Frenchmen who remained with him, some of the rest having +deserted, and others lagged behind. The Indians insisted on taking +their squaws with them. These were ten in number, besides three +children; and thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom +some were useless, and others a burden. + +On the 21st of December, Tonty and Membré set out from Fort Miami with +some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river +Chicago. La Salle, with the rest of the men, joined them a few days +later. It was the dead of winter, and the streams were frozen. They +made sledges, placed on them the canoes, the baggage, and a disabled +Frenchman; crossed from the Chicago to the northern branch of the +Illinois, and filed in a long procession down its frozen course. They +reached the site of the great Illinois village, found it tenantless, +and continued their journey, still dragging their canoes, till at +length they reached open water below Lake Peoria. + +La Salle had abandoned for a time his original plan of building a +vessel for the navigation of the Mississippi. Bitter experience[2] had +taught him the difficulty of the attempt, and he resolved to trust to +his canoes alone. They embarked again, floating prosperously down +between the leafless forests that flanked the tranquil river; till, on +the sixth of February, they issued upon the majestic bosom of the +Mississippi. Here, for the time, their progress was stopt; for the +river was full of floating ice. La Salle's Indians, too, had lagged +behind; but, within a week, all had arrived, the navigation was once +more free, and they resumed their course. Toward evening, they saw on +their right the mouth of a great river; and the clear current was +invaded by the headlong torrent of the Missouri, opaque with mud. They +built their camp-fires in the neighboring forests; and at daylight, +embarking anew on the dark and mighty stream, drifted swiftly down +toward unknown destinies. They passed a deserted town of the Tamaroas; +saw, three days after, the mouth of the Ohio; and, gliding by the +wastes of bordering swamp, landed on the twenty-fourth of February +near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs. They encamped, and the hunters went +out for game. All returned, excepting Pierre Prudhomme; and, as the +others had seen fresh tracks of Indians, La Salle feared that he was +killed. While some of his followers built a small stockade fort on a +high bluff by the river, others ranged the woods in pursuit of the +missing hunter. After six days of ceaseless and fruitless search, they +met two Chickasaw Indians in the forest; and, through them, La Salle +sent presents and peace-messages to that warlike people, whose +villages were a few days' journey distant. Several days later, +Prudhomme was found, and brought in to the camp, half-dead. He had +lost his way while hunting; and, to console him for his woes, La Salle +christened the newly-built fort with his name, and left him, with a +few others, in charge of it. + +Again they embarked; and, with every stage of their adventurous +progress, the mystery of this vast New World was more and more +unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The hazy +sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening +flowers, betokened the reviving life of Nature. For several days more +they followed the writhings of the great river, on its tortuous course +through wastes of swamp and canebrake, till on the thirteenth of March +they found themselves wrapt in a thick fog. Neither shore was visible; +but they heard on the right the booming of an Indian drum and the +shrill outcries of the war-dance. La Salle at once crossed to the +opposite side, where, in less than an hour, his men threw up a rude +fort of felled trees. Meanwhile, the fog cleared; and, from the +farther bank, the astonished Indians saw the strange visitors at their +work. Some of the French advanced to the edge of the water, and +beckoned them to come over. Several of them approached, in a wooden +canoe, to within the distance of a gun-shot. La Salle displayed the +calumet, and sent a Frenchman to meet them. He was well received; and, +the friendly mood of the Indians being now apparent, the whole party +crossed the river. + +On landing, they found themselves at a town of the Kappa band of the +Arkansas, a people dwelling near the mouth of the river which bears +their name. "The whole village," writes Membré to his superior, "came +down to the shore to meet us, except the women, who had run off. I +cannot tell you the civility and kindness we received from these +barbarians, who brought us poles to make huts, supplied us with +firewood during the three days we were among them, and took turns in +feasting us. We did not lose the value of a pin while we were among +them." ... + +After touching at several other towns of this people, the voyagers +resumed their course, guided by two of the Arkansas; passed the sites, +since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf; and, about three +hundred miles below the Arkansas, stopt by the edge of a swamp on the +western side of the river. Here, as their two guides told them, was +the path to the great town of the Taensas. Tonty and Membré were sent +to visit it. They and their men shouldered their birch canoe through +the swamp, and launched it on a lake which had once formed a portion +of the channel of the river. + +In two hours they reached the town; and Tonty gazed at it with +astonishment. He had seen nothing like it in America: large square +dwellings, built of sun-baked mud mixed with straw, arched over with a +dome-shaped roof of canes, and placed in regular order around an open +area. Two of them were larger and better than the rest. One was the +lodge of the chief; the other was the temple, or house of the sun. +They entered the former, and found a single room, forty feet square, +where, in the dim light,--for there was no opening but the door,--the +chief sat awaiting them on a sort of bedstead, three of his wives at +his side, while sixty old men, wrapt in white cloaks woven of +mulberry-bark, formed his divan. When he spoke, his wives howled to do +him honor; and the assembled councilors listened with the reverence +due to a potentate for whom, at his death, a hundred victims were to +be sacrificed. He received the visitors graciously, and joyfully +accepted the gifts which Tonty laid before him. This interview over, +the Frenchmen repaired to the temple, wherein were kept the bones of +the departed chiefs. In construction, it was much like the royal +dwelling. Over it were rude wooden figures, representing three eagles +turned toward the east. A strong mud wall surrounded it, planted with +stakes, on which were stuck the skulls of enemies sacrificed to the +Sun; while before the door was a block of wood, on which lay a large +shell surrounded with the braided hair of the victims. The interior +was rude as a barn, dimly lighted from the doorway, and full of smoke. +There was a structure in the middle which Membré thinks was a kind of +altar; and before it burned a perpetual fire, fed with three logs laid +end to end, and watched by two old men devoted to this sacred office. +There was a mysterious recess, too, which the strangers were forbidden +to explore, but which, as Tonty was told, contained the riches of the +nation, consisting of pearls from the Gulf, and trinkets obtained, +probably through other tribes, from the Spaniards and other +Europeans.... + +On the next morning, as they descended the river, they saw a wooden +canoe full of Indians; and Tonty gave chase. He had nearly overtaken +it, when more than a hundred men appeared suddenly on the shore, with +bows bent to defend their countrymen. La Salle called out to Tonty to +withdraw. He obeyed; and the whole party encamped on the opposite +bank. Tonty offered to cross the river with a peace-pipe, and set out +accordingly with a small party of men. When he landed, the Indians +made signs of friendship by joining their hands,--a proceeding by +which Tonty, having but one hand, was somewhat embarrassed[3]; but he +directed his men to respond in his stead. + +The Indians of this village were the Natchez; and their chief was +brother of the great chief, or Sun, of the whole nation. His town was +several leagues distant, near the site of the city of Natchez; and +thither the French repaired to visit him. They saw what they had +already seen among the Taensas,--a religious and political despotism, +a privileged caste descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred +fire. La Salle planted a large cross, with the arms of France +attached, in the midst of the town; while the inhabitants looked on +with a satisfaction which they would hardly have displayed, had they +understood the meaning of the act.... + +And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, the +river divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that +of the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the +middle passage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low +and marshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze +grew fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of +the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, +limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, +without a sign of life. + +La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the marshy borders of the sea; and then +the reunited parties assembled on a spot of dry ground, a short +distance above the mouth of the river. Here a column was made ready, +bearing the arms of France, and inscribed with the words,--"LOUIS LE +GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME 1682." ... + +On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous +accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the +Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of +the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks +of the Rocky Mountains,--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked +deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by +a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of +Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at +half a mile. + + [1] From "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West." By + permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Robert Cavelier, + Sieur de La Salle, was born in Rouen, in France, in 1643, and + assassinated in Texas in 1687. He was of burgher descent, had been + educated by the Jesuits, with whom for a time he was connected, + and first went to Canada in 1666, discovering the Ohio River in + 1669, and the upper waters of the Illinois in 1671. In 1679 he + established a fort on the Illinois River, near the present Peoria, + intending it as a starting-point for an expedition down the + Mississippi. The expedition here described, organized in 1681, + comprized, beside La Salle and Tonti, thirty Frenchmen and a band + of Indians. It reached the Mississippi by way of the Chicago + portage and the Illinois River, and arrived at the mouth in 1682. + In 1684 La Salle attempted to found a settlement at the mouth of + the Mississippi. Starting from France, he made a landing in + Matagorda Bay, Texas, and near a branch of the Trinity River, in + Texas, was assassinated by some of his disaffected followers. His + patent of nobility dates from 1673. + + [2] A reference to the loss of the _Griffin_, which he had built + at the mouth of Cayuga Creek, near Buffalo, the first vessel ever + built on the Great Lakes, and which was lost on Lake Michigan soon + afterward. + + [3] Tony tells us he lost his hand in Sicily, where it was "shot + off by a grenade." + + +END OF VOL. 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