GREAT EXPLORERS AND EMPIRE BUILDERS
Columbus was not the first great successful explorer of this century
that we have called by his name. Many daring navigators, particularly
during the half century preceding the discovery of America, had braved
the perils of the ocean, so literally trackless for them, in order to
add to man's knowledge. A great stimulus to the spirit of navigation
and exploration came with the rediscovery of the Cape Verde Islands by
the Portuguese in 1447. Men dared after this to sail with the definite
purpose of finding hitherto unknown land, and their bravery was
rewarded in 1460 by the discovery of Sierra Leone. Prince Henry of
Portugal then realized that the future of his country, hemmed in as it
was in Europe, would largely depend upon the success of her
navigators. He gathered together and systematized all the knowledge
obtainable in nautical matters, and well deserves the name of Henry
the Navigator. It was under his inspiration that the coast of Africa
and the Senegal and the Gambia were explored. Probably no one more
than he helped to remove the imagined terrors of the deep and gave men
courage to venture ever farther and farther in exploration. His great
purpose was the spread of Christianity, and to this he brought every
incentive from patriotism and every possible help that could be
obtained from science in any way. His name gloriously opened Columbus'
Century.
It is possible that the old tradition that Henry established a college
of navigation and even, as some have declared, an astronomical
observatory at Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, with the special purpose
of making observations on the declination of the sun so as to secure
more accurate nautical tables, may be a pious exaggeration of ardent
admirers. Undoubtedly, however, he did a great deal for the scientific
{263} development of navigation and established a tradition that was
well followed in Portugal. John II of Portugal appointed a commission
on navigation consisting of Roderick and Joseph, his physicians, and
Martin of Bohemia. They invented the astrolabe, though the cross staff
continued to be used for some time by navigators and was one of the
few instruments possessed by Columbus and Vasco da Gama. Martin Cortez
described the astrolabe and shows how much more convenient it is than
the cross staff for taking altitudes.
During the latter part of Columbus' Century, the Portuguese made a
series of magnificent discoveries. In 1486 King John II appointed
Bartholomew Dias as the head of an expedition whose purpose was to
sail around the southern end of Africa. Henry the Navigator had been
attracted by the story of Prester John, the legendary Christian king
of Abyssinia, who was said to rule over a large part of Africa. The
Christian monarchs of the West hoped to get in touch with him. Recent
reports had arrived apparently confirmatory of the tradition, and the
Portuguese under King John wanted to enter into friendly relations
with them. Dias sailed in 1487, reached the mouth of the Congo, which
had been discovered the year before, followed the African coast,
entered Walfisch Bay and erected a column near the present Angra
Pequena. He was driven by a storm then far to the south, but after the
storm sailed easterly and, turning northward, he landed in Mossel Bay.
He followed the coast as far as Algoa Bay and the Great Fish River. On
his return he discovered the cape and gave it the name of _Cabo
Tormentoso_ (Stormy, Dangerous Cape), but on his arrival home King
John proposed the name it still bears--the Cape of Good Hope--with the
desire apparently of dissipating, if not its dangers, at least the
dread of them that so filled men's minds. After this it was a
comparatively easy matter to reach India, at least Dias had shown the
way, and the problem which had occupied Prince Henry of joining the
East and the West, so that the peoples might learn to exchange their
riches, the costly materials of the East and the religious treasures
of the West, was solved.
The great Portuguese Empire in India is an example of {264} empire
building under the most difficult circumstances, which shows the
energy and the enterprise, the courage and the successful achievement
of the men of this period. India was a very long distance from
Portugal in those days. To think of sending out a colony, the men for
which had to make the long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope with
all its dangers, was a daring thought reaching almost to hardihood. In
the course of a single generation, however, that empire became a
wonderful source of added power and income to the mother country.
Bartholomew Dias more than any other accomplished this for Portugal,
but there were a large number of men of bravery and high
administrative ability who helped in the work. Portugal had the
advantage at this time of producing a supremely great poet, Camoeens,
who could celebrate the work of his fellow-countrymen and immortalize
the story of their achievement. Nearly always the poet comes when a
work worthy of his genius has been accomplished. India proved to be a
school of courage and enterprise for the Portuguese of that
generation, which lifted a little country (the smallest of Europe) to
almost the highest plane of influence and greatness.
While Columbus' great discovery has overshadowed the work of all the
other explorers and navigators in the Western Ocean at this time, it
must not be forgotten that during this century a large number of
hardy, heroic men, with a determination not due to ignorance or to
mere foolhardiness, but with purposes as sincere and courage as high
as our Arctic explorers, accomplished wonderful results in the
enlargement of human knowledge of the Western Continent and its
inhabitants and varied products. Even before Columbus himself had
reached the American continent, Amerigo Vespucci as well as the two
Cabots had already touched it. Vespucci's biographers insist that his
first voyage to America was made in 1497 and that he coasted along the
northern shore of South America and into the Gulf of Mexico, returning
to Spain November 15, 1498. It was in this latter year that Columbus
first touched the mainland. In 1499 Vespucci went out with a second
fleet and, keeping his former course, he succeeded in reaching the
mouth of the Orinoco River, and returned {265} to Cadiz in 1500. He
made a third voyage in 1501 and reached as far south as 52 deg. of
latitude, having coasted the South American shore from 5 deg. south
latitude to within 4 deg. of Cape Horn. The fourth voyage was undertaken
the next year, and on this Vespucci explored portions of the coast of
Brazil. While it is usually said, and it must be confessed with some
justification, that Columbus was deprived of what may be considered
his proper privilege as first discoverer in not having the continent
of America named after him, there is no doubt that Vespucci deserved
highly of mankind for his daring explorations and his expert
seamanship and hardy navigation. The scientific world owes him still
more for the publication of his maps and detailed description of the
American coast. These served to spread widely definite knowledge with
regard to the new continent. Above all others, with the single
exception of Columbus, even if that exception must be made, he
deserved to have the Continent named after him. [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 23: The news of Amerigo Vespucci's discovery
seems to have spread rapidly throughout Europe and his
writings became familiar within a few years to a much
greater number of people than we would think possible in
the limited means of communication at the time. In
discussing "The Four Elements," the Morality Play, in the
chapter on English Literature lines are quoted to show
that the play was written within twenty years of the
discovery of America. Ordinarily it would be assumed that
this would mean Columbus' discovery in 1492, but the whole
passage shows that the reference was to Amerigo's, in
Latin Americus', discovery of the Continent. The complete
passage is:
"Till now, within this twenty years.
Westward he found new lands.
That we never heard tell of before this
By writing nor other means.
But this new lands found lately
Been called America, because only
Americus did first them find."]
While we are not likely to think of the Italians as a seafaring
people, Columbus himself is an Italian, so was Amerigo Vespucci, but
still more remarkable the other greatest navigators of the first half
of Columbus' Century, the Cabots, were also of Italian origin. John
and Sebastian Cabot were Venetians, settled at Bristol, and they
reached the continent of {266} North America in 1498 and sailed for a
considerable distance along it. It was on their discoveries that
England based its claims to the North American portion of the
hemisphere. Their merits as bold and fearless, yet intelligent,
navigators have rightly been given the highest recognition. Owing to
their connection with North America, we have known much more about
them than about many of the others who ventured to make long, perilous
voyages of discovery about this time.
The great Portuguese discoverers after Bartholomew Dias are Vasco da
Gama (c. 1460-1524) and Magellan (1470-1521), almost exactly his
contemporary. Vasco da Gama, who had proved his intrepidity as a
mariner often before, was entrusted with the fleet of four vessels
sent out by the Portuguese in July, 1497, in order to determine
whether the story of Bartholomew Dias, that it was possible to sail
around the continent of Africa and thus reach India, was true or not.
He touched at St. Helena Bay, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and on the
20th of May, 1498, arrived at Calcutta on the Malabar coast. On his
return he was magnificently received by the King, and three years
later he was sent out with a larger expedition which took possession
of India and created the Portuguese Indian Empire. At this time, in
spite of rich rewards, he was evidently distrusted by the King, who
apparently feared his ambition, and for twenty years he lived in
retirement. After that he was called from his seclusion and created
Viceroy of India. Unfortunately, his career as Viceroy lasted but a
few months, yet even in that short time he had succeeded in correcting
many abuses and reestablishing firmly Portuguese authority in India.
Da Gama had the good fortune to be celebrated in an immortal epic by
Camoeens, and it is the tribute of the great poet almost more than his
own achievement that has given him high distinction among the many
great navigators of his time.
One of the greatest of the explorers of this time was undoubtedly Da
Gama's compatriot and contemporary, Ferdinand Magellan. He had been in
the service of the king of Portugal, but as his services were
unappreciated he went over to the king of Spain and succeeded in
persuading the Spanish Government that the Spice Islands could be
reached by {267} sailing to the West. The Portuguese had previously
reached them by sailing East. Magellan's idea was to find some mode of
getting through or around the American continent so as to sail into
the great South Sea. He reached the land to which he gave the name of
Patagonia, where he noted the presence of men of huge size. South of
this he succeeded in finding a passage which he called San Vittoria
Strait, but which has come much more properly to be known since as the
Straits of Magellan. He shed tears of joy, as Pigafetti who was with
him on the expedition tells, when he beheld the immense expanse of the
new ocean. He found it so placid that he gave it the name it has borne
ever since, the Pacific Ocean. For nearly four months he sailed on the
Pacific without seeing any inhabited land. His sailors were compelled
to eat even the skin and leather wherewith their rigging was bound and
to drink water which had become putrid. It required super-human
courage and perseverance to continue the expedition, but Magellan did
so. He touched at the Ladrone Islands, but unfortunately he was killed
shortly after his vessels reached the Spice Islands, it is presumed by
the natives, though perhaps by his own men, who dreaded his intensity
of purpose to circumnavigate the globe and feared that it would carry
them once more through similar awful sufferings to those which they
had experienced in the voyage through the Pacific Ocean.
His lieutenant, Sebastian de Elcano, directed his course from the
Moluccas to the Cape of Good Hope, but did not reach it until he had
gone through hardships almost as severe as those suffered in the
Pacific. He lost twenty-one of his men, but succeeded in getting back
to Seville just about three years and one month after they had sailed
from that port. They had accomplished, however, one of the greatest
achievements in the history of the race. They had circumnavigated the
globe and proved beyond all doubt that by sailing westward one might
come round to where one started. It is interesting to know that
Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian, received high honors and armorial
bearings, with the globe of the world belted by the inscription, "You
were the first to go round me" (_Primus circumdedisti me_). Spain made
many claims {268} to lands discovered on this expedition and it added
notably to the extent of the Spanish Empire.
The French scarcely more than the Italians are thought of as great
navigators. We are likely to reserve that designation for the
Spaniards, Portuguese and English, yet next in point of priority at
this time there are records of some magnificent French accomplishments
in navigation. We have an account of a voyage by Paulmier de
Gonneville, a French priest, the evidence for which rests on a
judicial statement made before the Admiralty in France, July 19, 1505.
De Gonneville called the large island that he discovered Terre
Australe, so that for a long time it was thought that he was the first
to touch Australia. The description that he gives, however, of the
people and the products of the country evidently applies to some
northern island of the Indian Ocean and not to the great southern
continent. There is good reason to think, however, that in this voyage
important discoveries were made. A little later in the century,
Verrazano, an Italian in charge of a French expedition which sailed
along the coast of North America, entered the harbor of New York,
sailed up the Hudson River and landed an expedition on Manhattan
Island, where in 1524 a religious service, probably the Mass as Rev.
Dr. Morgan Dix suggested, was celebrated. Bennett's discussion of the
matter in his "Catholic Footsteps in Old New York" (New York, 1910)
leaves little doubt of the fact.
Two Spanish expeditions probably reached Australia during the first
half of the sixteenth century. The first of these was under Alvar de
Saavedra, who was sent out by Cortez. Cortez, having settled himself
in Mexico, wished to get in touch with the East, and especially the
Spice Islands, and it was he who despatched Saavedra, who was a
relative. There is some doubt as to whether this navigator did not
touch New Guinea rather than Australia, but there is no question but
that he navigated across the Pacific Ocean as early as 1528. In 1542
Bernard della Torre is reported to have landed on the Australian
continent, and critical analysis of his description of the natives and
of the conditions that he found there puts his discovery beyond all
doubt.
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The men who were leaders of expeditions to the newly discovered
countries at this time were all of them distinguished for bravery, and
most of them for high administrative ability and a talent for
government and the management of men which stamp them as among the
world's geniuses. In our time much has been said of the ability of
such a man as Cecil Rhodes and what he accomplished as an empire
builder in South Africa. Considering the difference of circumstances,
the lack of means of communication, the immense distances that had to
be traversed and the dangers encountered, there are at least three men
of Columbus' Century who have gained a place in history such as Cecil
Rhodes will never have. The qualities exercised were of the same kind,
but of much higher order, because requiring more independent activity
and the most absolute self-reliance. What Vasco da Gama did in India
for the Portuguese, Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru for the
Spaniards represent achievements in empire building that have
deservedly given these men an undying name in history. There were
unfortunate abuses in the work. There always are whenever a savage
race is brought under the dominance of what is at least supposed to be
a more civilized people. There always are, even in the heart of our
modern civilization, whenever one class of people can with impunity
take advantage of another.
The work of these men is perhaps best illustrated by short sketches of
the careers of Cortes and Pizarro. Cortes, sent as a boy to the
University of Salamanca, found that he had no liking for study and
that his restless spirit could not be satisfied with an education and
the career of law which his parents destined him for. He joined an
expedition that brought him to the Antilles at the age of nineteen,
and soon showed the qualities of daring and military aptitude that
made him a favorite with his superiors in the service. As a
consequence, he was named as commander in the expedition to Mexico. He
had solved the Indian method of warfare by decoy and ambush and turned
it against the Indians themselves. He soon became noted for the almost
lightning-like celerity, as it seemed to his opponents, of his
movements. When the Governor of the Antilles, suspecting Cortes of
{270} personal ambitious designs, sent an expedition against him, he
captured its commander by a surprise, though he himself had only
one-quarter of the force that his opponent mustered. Against
overwhelming odds he succeeded in conquering the Mexicans and
establishing Spanish dominion throughout the country.
While his conquest was disfigured by many of the unfortunate evils
that so often have characterized such events in history, Cortes was
not unkind to the Indians and he endeavored in every way to improve
their condition and lift them up to a higher plane of civilization.
Even Las Casas mentions him favorably and, while his kind treatment of
the Indians is sometimes said to have been part of a deep-laid plan to
use his power over them for selfish reasons and even for treason
against the Spanish Crown, this explanation seems far-fetched. Cortes
knew how easily his position could be undermined at court and, above
all, he knew the fate of many of the men who had accomplished great
things for Spain and of the readily comprehensible suspicions that
were likely to attach to a man who had made so great a success as his.
He was of an independent character and used expressions which
indicated that he would not submit to the treatment that had been
dealt out to others. It is not surprising, then, that after a time he
was excluded from the government of Mexico and had to look elsewhere
for further occupation for his restless ambition. He was allowed to
join the great expedition against Algiers in 1541, but after its
disastrous end did not long survive the failure. Cortes could write
well, and has written the accounts of his own achievements, and these
have been published in a number of editions, with translations into
many languages. They show that he was a clear-headed man of great
ability in an intellectual and literary sense, as well as for
administration, and, while colored quite naturally in his own favor,
they are valuable sources for history.
Pizarro, _filius nullius_, with his fortune to make, everything to
gain and nothing to lose, set sail at the age of twenty-eight with
Alonzo de Ojeda from Spain. After many hardships he attached himself
to Balboa, and accompanied him across the Isthmus of Panama in the
expedition which discovered the {271} Pacific. After Balboa's death he
followed the fortunes of Pedrarias, the governor of the region.
Hearing of the achievements of Cortes in Mexico and the reports of the
riches of the countries lying along the shore of the Pacific Ocean to
the south, he organized an expedition to conquer them. Their project
seemed so utterly rash and foolhardy, without any prospects of
success, that the people of Panama called those who had joined the
expedition "the company of lunatics." In spite of every
discouragement, Pizarro continued his preparations, and after eighteen
months returned to Panama with an abundance of gold and glowing
accounts of the wealth of the countries he had visited. The Governor,
jealous of his success, withdrew his support and refused to allow him
to continue his explorations.
Pizarro then crossed the ocean to Charles V, laid his information and
plans before him and Charles, recognizing his ability and the probable
success of his project, conferred on him the Order of the Knighthood
of St. James and made him Governor and Captain-General, with absolute
authority, in all the territories he might discover and subjugate. His
orders could be reviewed only by the Royal Council in Spain. Armed
with this authority, Pizarro proceeded to add the empire of Peru to
that of Charles V, then ruling over more of Europe than anyone since
the time of the Roman Emperors. The romantic story of this achievement
and of Pizarro's assassination have often attracted the attention of
dramatists, writers of fiction, as well as historians. There is no
doubt at all of the magnificent daring, the political talent, nor the
administrative ability of the man who succeeded in doing this in spite
of obstacles that looked absolutely unsurmountable. This was
accomplished by the free use of treachery, breaking of faith, as well
as taking advantage in every way of the natives, but empire builders
at all times have had such elements in them. Pizarro is no worse than
modern conquerors, and in many respects is far better. The stories of
India, Egypt and Africa will look quite as bad before the bar of
history as that of Peru.
Our own great task of exploration and of colonization and conquest
during the past hundred years has been the opening {272} up of Africa
and the finding of the North and South Poles. The opening up of Africa
represents a really great extension of civilization, and doubtless
will hold an important place in history. It is more than doubtful,
however, if our colonizers and conquerors will be dealt with any more
generously in history, or placed on a higher plane of fellow-feeling
for the natives, than the colonizers and conquerors of Columbus'
Century. The slave trade had been abolished early in the nineteenth
century, and yet there has been the feeling many times during the past
hundred years that the natives of South Africa were being abused
almost as in the days of slavery, and that even the natives of South
America under European influence in certain places were little better
than slaves. Indeed, the whole attitude of mind of the modern time
with regard to the early conquerors has had very interesting light
thrown on it by investigations, which showed that in many states of
our own country there was a system of employing ignorant labor that
could only be characterized as slavery.
After recalling the "spheres of influence" of the different nations
and the mode in which South Africa has been parcelled out without any
regard for the native inhabitants or their rights in the question, it
becomes clear that the world, for all its complacent condemnation of
the men of the older time, has not changed a particle since Columbus'
Century. The two Latin nations, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, were
the conquerors and colonizers in the early sixteenth century. The
Teutonic nations, England and Germany, because they had replaced Spain
and Portugal as the leading commercial countries, did the work in the
later nineteenth. The differences between the modes of action and the
general conduct of affairs at the two periods are very slight when
compared to the close similarities of motive and purpose. Nations at
both periods were looking for a region by which they could enrich
themselves, and explorers and colonists and pioneers who went out were
actuated by just the same motives at both times. Indeed, it is very
doubtful whether we have point for point accomplished anything like so
much good for the natives as the Spaniards tried to do, and as we have
seen in the {273} chapter on Columbus' Century in America, often with
striking success.
After all, it must not be forgotten that there are more Indians alive
in Mexico and in South America now than when Columbus landed. It has
been impossible as yet to lift the natives up to the high plane of
civilization of their European invaders, which has been reached only
after many centuries of training, but undoubtedly much has been done.
In many of these countries even the natives are nearly ready for
self-government, and the countries with the handicap of their mixed
races are, considering all the conditions, as prosperous as we are,
and visitors often declare their upper classes possessed of a higher
state of culture than ours. President Taft, after thorough practical
experience in the Philippines, declared that the natives were on the
high road to readiness for self-government and that they represent the
only example of a people who, invaded by civilized conquerors and
colonists, had been gradually lifted out of their barbarism on to a
higher and higher plane. The beginning of this accomplishment came in
Columbus' Century. It is only by comparing what our own and that
century did in the solution of similar problems that we can get any
idea of how admirable in many ways is the work of the earlier period.
If at the end of the next century the natives of Africa shall fare as
well as those of South America and the Philippines, the comparison
will be more satisfactory.
Our problem of adventurous navigation in the nineteenth century has
been the discovery of the North and South Poles. We have succeeded in
our purpose, but not without much sacrifice of treasure and men and
much suffering. For many people in our time the finding of the Poles
has seemed merely a quixotic undertaking, and, as a matter of fact,
there has been no great practical purpose in it. The voyages of the
navigators of the early sixteenth century must have seemed just as
quixotic, though after any successful voyage the fruits of the
expedition, in a commercial as well as a scientific and cultural way,
could be readily appreciated. When we estimate the difference between
the small sailing vessels of that time and the utter lack of
facilities for the storage and {274} preservation of food as well as
the dangers of the literally trackless ocean, some idea of the bravery
of these hardy adventurers can be appreciated. Our steam vessels, with
preserved foods and medicines usually available and the understanding
of the dangers that they are to meet, has made our voyages
comparatively simple, yet we have felt the inspiration of
accomplishment. Columbus' Century is almost infinitely higher in the
place that must be accorded to it for the spirit and the number of the
men who ventured upon long voyages from which so many never returned
and on which all trace was absolutely lost of many and many a vessel.
In spite of the losses, there was never any dearth of men to take up
the work of exploration and conquest, and their success revolutionized
modern history.
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