CHAPTER OUTLINE

1. Mediæval trade between Europe and Asia.

2. Ideas regarding the world.

3. Fears of ocean navigation; the means by which these fears were partly

overcome.

4. Columbus's experiences in procuring aid to find the Indies.

5. The first voyage and its results.

6. Reception of Columbus in Spain.

7. Other voyages; their results. 8. Death of Columbus.

9. His service to the world.

CHAPTER II

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS

19. England discovers North America. Meanwhile, England did not intend that Spain and Portugal should have all the glory and profit of discovering far-distant lands. In 1497, a year before Columbus saw South America, the English King sent out into the western ocean another bold Genoese sailor, named John Cabot.1 In order that he might not conflict with the claims of Spain and Portugal, Cabot crossed the northern Atlantic; and, so far as we know, he was the first European, except the early Norwegians from Iceland, to reach the mainland of North America. Just where Cabot first saw our continent, no one now can tell; — some think it was Newfoundland; others, Cape Breton Island; still others, Labrador. No doubt he visited all of these places before returning to England. The next year he took with him his son Sebastian, and in a fleet of five or six vessels they explored the coast from Labrador to Cape Cod. In later years England based her claim to all of North America upon these discoveries by the Cabots.2

20. Americus Vespucius and the naming of America. Two great Italians, Columbus and Cabot, had discovered the New World. Yet, by a curious trick of fate, it was named for another Italian navigator, Americus Vespucius, who had merely followed in their footsteps. It is believed by some historians that he visited the northern coast of 1 The map on page 21 shows Cabot's route.

2 The miserly Henry VII, then King of England, rewarded John Cabot with £10 ($50) for discovering the "new isle." This sum would be equal to $700 or $800 in the money of our time. In 1498, the year of Cabot's second voyage and of Columbus's discovery of the South American mainland, a Portuguese named Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached Hindustan. He was the first to bring to Europe, by an all-sea route, the Asiatic goods that her merchants had formerly obtained over the old caravan trails.

South America as early as 1499. A few years later, in 1501 and 1503,1 being then in the pay of Portugal, he made two journeys to Brazil, which had already been discovered by a companion of Columbus, and published a map and description of that country. A professor of geography in a little German town, who read this account, believed that Americus had actually discovered a new continent; and he suggested that the name "America" be given to it. At first

the name was applied only to Brazil, but gradually it came to signify the whole of the western hemisphere. In this manner the name of a large part of the world was wrested for all time from its real discoverer, Columbus.2

21. Spanish explorations and conquests. Spaniards were now coming over in large numbers to America, which they still thought was a part of India. In some of the West Indian islands, but more particularly in Mexico and Peru, they found rich mines of gold and silver and built there large towns, guarding them by strong forts. The colonists were so excited by the stories of great wealth made by some of their countrymen, through conquest and mining, that they scorned ordinary employment; they would not cultivate the land and sought only lives of adventure, in

AMERICUS VESPUCIUS

1 Note his route on the map on page 21.

2 Columbia is the poetical name for the United States as in the wellknown song, "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Many geographical names in North and South America have been given in honor of Columbus.

3 In 1519, Cortes, an adventurous Spanish soldier, entered Mexico, and in a few years conquered the natives, whom he treated with great cruelty. Pizarro, another Spanish soldier, discovered Peru in 1527, and soon after that conquered the country.

which many of them found little else than disappointment and misery.

Early Spanish towns in America were practically military camps, where everything was managed for the people by the home Government in Spain. Not having to think and act for themselves, there was little else for the inhabitants to do but to conduct explorations and work the mines with Indian slaves.1

One of the most courageous of the Spanish explorers was Balboa. In 1513 he climbed a high peak on the Isthmus of Darien, now called the Isthmus of Panama, and, first of all Spaniards, saw the Pacific Ocean - or, as he called it, the South Sea.

Another famous discoverer was Balboa's aged countryman, Ponce de Leon, Governor of Porto Rico, who went to Florida in the same year with a company of soldiers, seeking not only gold, but a wonderful spring of which the Indians had told him. They said that if an old man like Ponce drank of its waters, he would be made young again. Of course the explorer found no such spring. He returned after a difficult journey, which nearly cost him his life; but he had discovered for Spain a country so beautiful that it well deserved to bear the name he gave it — Florida. His own reason for giving the name, however, was that he landed there on Easter Sunday, which the Spanish call Pascua Florida (Festival of Flowers).

22. Magellan's voyage around the world. Most geographers had now come to believe that the earth was a sphere, but as yet no one had actually sailed around it. So Ferdinand Magellan, a brave Portuguese navigator hired by Spain, set out to perform this great feat. In September, 1519, he started southwestward from Spain upon the most daring voyage that any man except Columbus had yet undertaken. In due time, he entered what we now know as the Strait of Magellan. Beyond this he found the mysterious South

1 Thousands of these poor people were put to the hardest kind of work for their white masters, and large numbers died from exhaustion and ill-treatment.

Sea. He called it " Pacific," because at first it seemed more quiet than the Atlantic, which had used him very roughly; but he soon saw that the Pacific might be quite as tempestuous as any other sea.

Months and months passed in that great unknown deep, with no sight of land. The sailors now believed that they had come to an ocean without end, from which they might

MAGELLAN

never be able to return. Mutinies were frequent; the crew of one ship deserted and steered their vessel back to Spain; others of the ships were wrecked; starvation threatened; there was much sickness, and many deaths. Finally, the party landed on the Philippine Islands, and here it was the fate of the brave leader of the expedition to be killed by savage natives.1 The survivors kept on their way; and on September 6, 1522, there sailed into a harbor of Spain a little ship manned by a crew of eighteen half

starved and ragged seamen, the only ones left to tell the thrilling tale of this first voyage around the world.

23. Results of Magellan's exploit. Two great results followed from Magellan's voyage:

(a) It was now proved, beyond doubt, that the earth is round.

(b) It was proved that America was not, as most geo

1 As Magellan had been in this region before, sailing eastward from Europe, he had, on arriving at the Philippines, completely circled the globe.