1497] The Cabot Voyages New theory 31 found himself in the estuary of a mighty river, the Orinoco. The new land was plainly no outlying island of India, for the river was continental in magnitude. For a while Columbus was sorely puzzled, but only for a time. Suddenly, he made up his mind that the earth was not round as a ball, but was shaped like a pear, and that this mighty river flowed down from the terrestrial paradise which was situated at the stem end. To gain its mouth he and his companions had been actually sailing up hill! Thence Columbus. he sailed northward to Santo Domingo. In 1500 he returned to Spain under arrest, to answer complaints which had been made against him by the Spanish colonists. In 1502 he was once more in the West Indies in search of a waterway to Cathay between Cuba, which he still believed to be a part of the Asiatic mainland, and the new continent discovered on his third voyage. He coasted the eastern shores of Central America from Honduras to the Isthmus of Panama; he found no strait leading to China, but he heard vague rumors of a great body of water on the other side of the land along which he sailed. The reports made slight impression on his mind; for was not the Indian Ocean there?—if only one could reach it. At last he abandoned the attempt to find the waterway and, after suffering great hardships, returned once again to Spain and there died in 1506, scarcely noticed by his contemporaries. as to the shape of the earth. * Winsor's The fourth voyage, 1502. * Winsor's Columbus; Hart's Contemporaries, I, No. 19. Winsor's 1-7; Fiske's 2. 17. The Cabot Voyages, 1497, 1498. — Meantime, other First Cabot explorers had not been idle. In 1497 John Cabot, born voyage, 1497. in Italy, but living in Bristol, England, sailed across the North Atlantic under a license from Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings. He made land far to the north of Discovery, II, Columbus's landfall, in the vicinity of the Gulf of St. Lawrence or, perhaps, even farther north, near Hudson Bay, and returned in safety to England. Our knowledge of his voyage is derived from the study of the official documents authorizing the expedition, and from letters written by other Italians, then in England, to their employers or friends in Italy: there is no statement from John Cabot Evidence for the first voy age. American History Leaflets, No. 9. The "Cabot map." Win sor's America, III. himself now known to scholars. From these accounts it is possible to state that the voyage was made in 1497, and that John Cabot, and not his son Sebastian, was the commander; more than this cannot be asserted from contemporary evidence, not even as to the precise point of the American shore reached by the great navigator. There is in Paris a large engraved map which is supposed to have been made by Sebastian Cabot, who may have accompanied his father in 1497, or may have remained at home in Bristol with the younger brothers. A reduced sketch of a portion of this map is given herewith. The map contains an inscription, attached to what was probably intended The legend. History No. 9. Retrete Guadalupa Dominica CANCHIETE CYRIANAC Ins,dil.r. Verde 00. PARIAS MONDO NO VO Boca Dildragon C. Verde Sanbna Olns. de Canibali Golfofonnoso S.Crose C.de Palmas Senega Mins Sgorgu L'EQUINOCTIALIS to represent Cape Breton Island, that this was the first land seen-prima tierra vista; a legend on the side of the map seems to say, however, that the landfall was farther north. There is no information as to the further doings of the discoverer. Other accounts of the voyage contain what the narrators thought they heard Sebastian Cabot say many years later. Perhaps they misunderstood him or had forgotten his exact words before an opportunity offered to write them down. Whatever the reason may have been, these later accounts do not agree with the statements of those who wrote at the time. It is also supposed that Cabot voy age. the Cabots made another voyage in the next year, 1498, Later during which they coasted the shores of North America as far south as Florida. The evidence for this expedition is very vague and unsatisfactory; and although investigators The Cabot Map, 1544 Americus America, II, bus, 344. believe it to have been undertaken, they are silent as to the details. It is on these discoveries of John Cabot, especially on those of 1497, that the English based their claim to the right to colonize North America. 18. The Naming of America. Another Italian to visit America at an early day was Americus Vespucius, whose name is spelled in so many different ways in the original accounts that it is very difficult to recognize the real Vespucius. In one place it is given as Alberic, again it appears as Morigo, and again as Vespucci. It is certain that there was a man named Amerigo Vespucci or Americus Vespucius; Nuc yo & hę partes funt latius luftratæ/& alia quarta pars per Americũ Vefputiu(vt in sequenti bus audietur )inuenta eft/qua non video cur quis iure vetet ab Americo inuentore fagacis ingenij vi Ameri ro Amerigen quafi Americi terra/fiue Americam dicendã:cũ & Europa & Asia a mulieribus fua for tita fint nomina.Eius fitu & gentis mores ex bis bi nis Americi nauigationibus quæ fequunt liquide intelligi datur. ca Facsimile of Passage in the Cosmographiae Introductio that he visited the northern coast of South America at an early time; that he printed an account of what he saw; and that he rose to high rank in the Spanish service. It is also certain that America was named in his honor; but not much more is really known as to his connection with American history. Some writers think that as early as 1497 he sailed along the shores of Florida even as far north as Chesapeake Bay; others believe that this early expedition was to the northern coast of South America; more cautious His letter of students decline to recognize any particular voyage as having been made by him. It happened, however, that in 1504 he wrote an account of his experiences in the New World 1504. Old South Leaflets, X, No. 5. 1513] Discovery of the Pacific 35 name the New World for the perusal of an Italian friend of his. This paper found its way to a little college which Duke René of Lorraine had established at St. Dié in the Vosges Mountains. There, in 1507, it was printed at the College Press with an introductory part entitled: Cosmographic Introductio. This was written by the teacher of geography in the college, a man named Martin Waldseemüller, who preferred to be known on the title-page as Hylacomylus. It is probable that before writing this introduction Waldseemüller consulted his fellow-teachers, among whom was at least one admirer of Americus. Whoever may have first suggested it, the Introductio contains a proposal that the new-found Proposal to world should be named America, in honor of the person whom Waldseemüller understood had discovered it,- retaining Columbus's names for the islands which the latter had brought to light. There is no reason to suppose that Waldseemüller and his comrades designed to detract from the honor due to Columbus. Probably they knew nothing of his voyage to the Orinoco, for the Spanish government was very reticent as to the discoveries made by its mariners; nor is there any reason to suppose that Americus Vespucius knew of their design. The proposed name found favor Acceptance before long and was placed on South America on the maps of that time. Later, when it became certain that the American continents were one and were not connected with Asia, the name spread over the whole New World. 19. Discovery of the Pacific, 1513. While off the coast of Central America, Columbus, as we have seen (p. 31), had heard indistinct rumors of a great body of water to the westward; the story suggested no new ocean to his mind, as Toscanelli and Behaim agreed that the Indian Ocean was not far to the westward of the coast along which he was sailing. It was reserved, therefore, for. another intrepid explorer to associate his name with the great ocean, as it was given to Americus Vespucius to connect his name with the southern continent which so inopportunely appeared where water should have been, America. 146-152; 129-145. of the name. |