1498] Columbus's Later Voyages 25 Indians Guanahani; but which of the three thousand islands and islets of the Bahama group this island was, no one knows, nor, in all probability, ever will know. Sailing thence, Columbus reached the northern coast of Cuba, and, doubling back on his course, discovered the island of Santo Domingo, or Española, as it was called at the time; the Indian name was Haiti. After many adventures and great hardships, Columbus returned to Spain, having lost his largest ship off the coast of Española. At Barcelona, he was received by Ferdinand and Isabella with great splendor. He had most wonderful stories to tell, which lost nothing in the telling; he also had many interesting things to show them,- ornaments of gold, curious woods, and, above all, some natives of the Indian islands on the other side of the Ocean Sea. *Winsor's Columbus. 15. Columbus's Later Voyages. A large expedition was The second at once fitted out, and Columbus sailed to take possession voyage, 1494. of the magic islands; but his later career was not fortunate. There was little treasure to be found in the lands first occupied by the Spaniards, and Columbus's despotic temper, well suited to the explorer, proved a misfortune to the founder of a colony. Harshness and a failure to fulfill his promises. led to rebellion. In 1496 he returned to Spain for reinforcements. On this second voyage he had explored the southern coasts of Cuba and had discovered the island of Jamaica. The third voyage, 1498. *Winsor's Columbus; - the Higginson's 31-50. The year 1498 saw him again on the western side of the Atlantic. This time he pursued a more southerly route, reached the northeastern corner of South America, and found himself in the mouth of a mighty river, Orinoco. The new land was plainly no outlying island Explorers, of India, for the river was continental in magnitude. For a while Columbus was sorely puzzled, but only for a time. New theory 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. Thence he sailed northward as to the shape of the earth. *Winsor's Columbus. The fourth voyage, 1502. *Winsor's Columbus. 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 1498] The Cabot Voyages 27 great hardships, returned once again to Spain and there died. in 1506, scarcely noticed by his contemporaries. Winsor's 16. The Cabot Voyages, 1497, 1498. — Meantime, other First Cabot explorers had not been idle. In 1497 John Cabot, born in voyage, 1497. Italy, but living in Bristol, England, sailed across the North America, III, Atlantic under a license from Henry VII, the first of the 1-7; Fiske's Tudor kings. He made land far to the north of Columbus's Discovery, II, landfall, in the vicinity of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Our knowledge of his voyage is derived from the official documents authorizing the expedition, and from letters written 2. Ine,dil.r. Verde 00 Boca SPAGNIA Senega Dildragon C. Verde Sanbna Agenagi Popali AFRICA Golfofonnoso de Palmas Mins Sgorgu Olns, de Canibali Map made by Bartholomew Columbus before 1502 (Note connection between " Mondo Novo" and Asia.) L'EQUINOCHIALIS by other Italians, then in England, to their employers or Evidence for friends in Italy: there is no statement from John Cabot him- the first voyself 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 The "Cabot large engraved map which is supposed to have been made map." Winby Sebastian Cabot, who may have sailed with 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, sor's Amer ica, III. attached to what was probably intended to represent Cape Breton Island, that this was the first land seen -prima tierra vista. It is on this discovery of John Cabot that the English based their claim to the right to colonize North America. 29 Winsor's ch. ii, and 538; Mark- bus, 344. His letter of 1504. Old South Leaflets, X, No. 5. 17. The Naming of America. Another Italian to visit Americus America at an early day was Americus Vespucius, whose Vespucius. name is spelled in so many different ways in the original America, II, 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; 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 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 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 fellowteachers, among whom was at least one admirer of Americus. Whoever may have first suggested it, the Introductio contains a proposal that the new-found 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 intended to lessen the honor due to Columbus. Probably they knew nothing of his voyage to the Orinoco, Proposal to name the New World Winsor's America, II, 146-152; Fiske's Dis covery, II, 129-145. |