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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.