UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

DISCOVERY, EXPLORATION, AND ATTEMPTED SETTLEMENT. 1492-1602.

CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.

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1. The Known World during the Fifteenth Century. At the time. of the discovery of America, nearly all portions of the world were inhabited, though but a few nations were in any sense civilized. There were the Indians of America, the Negroes of Africa, the Chinese of Eastern Asia; but the world with which the civilized peoples were acquainted comprised only a quarter of that with which we are familiar. Observe that northeastern Asia, the largest part of Africa, the Western Hemisphere, and nearly all the islands of the sea were unknown to the Europeans of the fifteenth century.

2. Causes of this Ignorance. The savage nature of the tribes inhabiting some of these regions kept them from associating with the civilized nations. The vessels of that time were crude and unsea

worthy, and there existed a superstitious fear of things unknown. The means of communication between one nation and another

THE WORLD AS KNOWN AT THE TIME OF COLUMBUS

were poor, both because of the difficulty in travelling, and because of the differences in languages and. the labor involved in writing manuscripts. The sailors of the time were willing to make voyages only where the shore could be kept constantly in sight. As the compass was not in general use, they had to depend upon the sun and stars for guidance. Their trips were confined mostly to the Mediterranean Sea,

though a few of the more venturesome made voyages between Spain and England, keeping close all the way to the shore of France.

Old Stone Mill.-In Touro Park, Newport, R. I., stands a "circular stone tower, with round arches," which has been called the "Round Tower," or the "Old Stone Mill." The tradition has been current that it was built by the Northmen during the eleventh century. This explanation is not generally accepted at the present time, as it has been clearly shown that it was a colonial windmill. Towers similar in appearance are still standing in those portions of Great Britain, from which some of the settlers of Rhode Island emigrated.

3 Voyages of the Northmen. In spite of these apprehensions, some of the bolder sailors among the nations of northern Europe, partly by accident, and partly from very foolhardiness, had reached countries hitherto unknown. The inhabitants of what is now Norway were called Norsemen, and are famous in history for their warlike nature and their bold seamanship. The people dwelling along the sea-coasts of England and Scotland, and of that portion of France now called Normandy, were in constant fear of these Northmen, who, without a moment's warning, would sail down upon them, and not only plunder them of their possessions, but frequently carry them away captive. These hardy voyagers were the discoverers of Iceland during the ninth century, being driven there by severe storms. Making a settlement, they were able, in the next hundred

years, to go even farther from the beaten tracks, and to discover and make a temporary colony on the shores of Greenland. Not even with this remote island did these bold navigators end their voyages. In the "Sagas," or stories sung by the Norse bards, which are like the Greek songs of Homer, accounts have been found of voyages beyond Greenland to a most delightful country, abounding in wild grapes, and thence called Vinland.

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4. Leif Ericson's Discovery. The first visit to Vinland was made, in the year 1000, by a Norseman called Leif, the son of Eric. Many think that Leif and his companions, sailing from Greenland, passed along by the coasts of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Maine, and landed somewhere in southern Massachusetts or Rhode Island. The Sagas report that one or more winters were spent in this delightful region, and that the voyagers then returned home, and told the stories of what they had found. Because this Norseman came to the shores of New England at a time so early in history, the credit of discovering America is The dissometimes given to him. covery was not followed by other voyages, however, and the fact of the existence of land to the westward of Europe continued to be unknown to the inhabitants of the Old World. In those days, not only was communication

In De Costa's "Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen," are given quotations from the Icelandic Sagas. A portion of one of these runs as follows: "It happened one evening that a man of the party was missing, and it was the south countryman, Tyrker.... Leif . . . proposed to go to find him; but they had only gone a short way from the station when Tyrker came to meet them.... Leif said to him, 'Why art thou so late, my foster-father? and why didst thou leave thy comrades?'. . . After a while, and some delay, he said in Norse, 'I did not go much further than they; and yet I have something altogether new to relate, for I have found vines and grapes.' 'Is that true, my foster-father?' said Leif. 'Yes, true it is,' answered he, 'for I was born where there was no scarcity of grapes.' They slept all night, and the next morning Leif said to his men, 'Now we shall have two occupations to attend to. namely, to gather grapes or cut vines, and to fell wood in the forest to lade our vessel.''

between nations very difficult, but also the art of printing had not been discovered; and the Norse Sagas were handed down by word of mouth, as they had not been committed to writing.

5. Trade with India. There were many reasons which tended to make the year 1492 rather than the year 1000 the date of the discovery of America. The voyage of Leif to the shores of New England was not made with any definite purpose, nor did it produce any valuable results. The establishment of the printing-press, the scattering of the learned men of the Eastern Roman Empire

throughout Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, and the consequent formation of schools, came later than the time of Eric. The

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Printing. - -"In Europe, as late as the second half of the fourteenth century, every book (including school and prayer books), and every public and private document, proclamation, bull, letter, etc., was written by hand; all figures and pictures, even playing-cards and images of saints, were drawn with the pen or painted with a brush. When all this writing, transcribing, illuminating, etc., had reached their period of greatest development, the art of printing from wooden blocks on silk, cloth, vellum, and paper made its appearance in Europe.. The invention of printing with movable metal types took place at Haarlem about the year 1444, by Lourens Janszoon Coster." (Typography: Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XXIII., Ninth Ed.) The art of printing spread rapidly; and, by the time of Columbus, nearly every European city of any prominence had introduced the printing-press.

trade that had sprung up between India and Europe by caravan to the Mediterranean, and thence by vessel to the ports of Venice and Genoa, was the main incentive to the voyage which resulted in the discovery of a continent. Silks, spices, and precious stones were being brought in great abundance when the pirates, with whom the Mediterranean Sea had long been infested, nearly brought the commerce to an end, by their captures of these richly laden vessels. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453, was the last blow to the trade between India and Genoa. The question at once presented itself, whether a new route was possible. The Portuguese attempted to find a way by sailing south, along the west shore of Africa, around the southern point, and thence north again to India. Bartolomeo Diaz, a Portuguese captain, discovered the "Cape of Storms," or, as it is now called, the Cape of Good Hope, in 1487. The first voyage to India was made ten years later, and five years after the discovery of America, when Da Gama, another Portuguese sailor, reached the land of spices, by sailing around the coast of Africa.

6. Christopher Columbus. — The Italian boy, Cristoforo Colombo, or, as the Latin form of his name is the more common, Christopher Columbus, was born in Genoa about the year 1436, and spent most. of his life, after early boyhood, upon the sea. He was an excellent sailor, for his time, and a man unusually well read, capable of thinking for himself. He was ready to accept new ideas when made clear to him, and was possessed of much less than the usual amount of superstition. He had made many voyages himself, and, loyal to his native city, was eager to find a new route to India. He had accepted the theory, held in those days by only a few of the most