FORERUNNERS OF JACQUES CARTIER
We have seen that after the return of the second expedition of the
Cabots no voyages to the coasts of Canada of first-rate importance were
made by the English. This does not mean, however, that nothing was done
by other peoples to discover and explore the northern coasts of
America. The Portuguese were the first after the Cabots to continue the
search along the Canadian coast for the secret of the hidden East. At
this time, we must remember, the Portuguese were one of the leading
nations of Europe, and they were specially interested in maritime
enterprise. Thanks to Columbus, the Spaniards had, it is true, carried
off the grand prize of discovery. But the Portuguese had rendered
service not less useful. From their coasts, jutting far out into the
Atlantic, they had sailed southward and eastward, and had added much to
the knowledge of the globe. For generations, both before and after
Columbus, the pilots and sailors of Portugal were among the most
successful and daring in the world.
For nearly a hundred years before the discovery of America the
Portuguese had been endeavouring to find an ocean route to the spice
islands of the East and to the great Oriental empires which, tradition
said, lay far off on a distant ocean, and which Marco Polo and other
travellers had reached by years of painful land travel across the
interior of Asia. Prince Henry of Portugal was busy with these tasks at
the middle of the fifteenth century. Even before this, Portuguese
sailors had found their way to the Madeiras and the Canary Islands, and
to the Azores, which lie a thousand miles out in the Atlantic. But
under the lead of Prince Henry they began to grope their way down the
coast of Africa, braving the torrid heats and awful calms of that
equatorial region, where the blazing sun, poised overhead in a
cloudless sky, was reflected on the bosom of a stagnant and glistening
ocean. It was their constant hope that at some point the land would be
found to roll back and disclose an ocean pathway round Africa to the
East, the goal of their desire. Year after year they advanced farther,
until at last they achieved a momentous result. In 1487, Bartholomew
Diaz sailed round the southern point of Africa, which received the
significant name of the 'Cape of Good Hope,' and entered the Indian
Ocean. Henceforth a water pathway to the Far East was possible.
Following Diaz, Vasco da Gama, leaving Lisbon in 1497, sailed round the
south of Africa, and, reaching the ports of Hindustan, made the
maritime route to India a definite reality.
Thus at the moment when the Spaniards were taking possession of the
western world the Portuguese were establishing their trade in the
rediscovered East. The two nations agreed to divide between them these
worlds of the East and the West. They invoked the friendly offices of
the Pope as mediator, and, henceforth, an imaginary line drawn down the
Atlantic divided the realms. At first this arrangement seemed to give
Spain all the new regions in America, but the line of division was set
so far to the West that the discovery of Brazil, which juts out
eastward into the Atlantic, gave the Portuguese a vast territory in
South America. At the time of which we are now speaking, however, the
Portuguese were intent upon their interests in the Orient. Their great
aim was to pass beyond India, already reached by da Gama, to the
further empires of China and Japan. Like other navigators of the time,
they thought that these places might be reached not merely by southern
but also by the northern seas. Hence it came about that the Portuguese,
going far southward in Africa, went also far northward in America and
sailed along the coast of Canada.
We find, in consequence, that when King Manoel of Portugal was fitting
out a fleet of twenty ships for a new expedition under da Gama, which
was to sail to the Indies by way of Africa, another Portuguese
expedition, setting out with the same object, was sailing in the
opposite direction. At its head was Gaspar Corte-Real, a nobleman of
the Azores, who had followed with eager interest the discoveries of
Columbus, Diaz, and da Gama. Corte-Real sailed from Lisbon in the
summer of 1500 with a single ship. He touched at the Azores. It is
possible that a second vessel joined him there, but this is not clear.
From the Azores his path lay north and west, till presently he reached
a land described as a 'cool region with great woods.' Corte-Real called
it from its verdure 'the Green Land,' but the similarity of name with
the place that we call Greenland is only an accident. In reality the
Portuguese captain was on the coast of Newfoundland. He saw a number of
natives. They appeared to the Portuguese a barbarous people, who
dressed in skins, and lived in caves. They used bows and arrows, and
had wooden spears, the points of which they hardened with fire.
Corte-Real directed his course northward, until he found himself off
the coast of Greenland. He sailed for some distance along those rugged
and forbidding shores, a land of desolation, with jagged mountains and
furrowed cliffs, wrapped in snow and ice. No trace of the lost
civilization of the Norsemen met his eyes. The Portuguese pilot
considered Greenland at its southern point to be an outstanding
promontory of Asia, and he struggled hard to pass beyond it westward to
a more favoured region. But his path was blocked by 'enormous masses of
frozen snow floating on the sea, and moving under the influence of the
waves.' It is clear that he was met not merely by the field ice of the
Arctic ocean, but also by great icebergs moving slowly with the polar
current. The narrative tells how Corte-Real's crew obtained fresh water
from the icebergs. 'Owing to the heat of the sun, fresh and clear water
is melted on the summits, and, descending by small channels formed by
the water itself, it eats away the base where it falls. The boats were
sent in, and in that way as much was taken as was needed.'
Corte-Real made his way as far as a place (which was in latitude 60
degrees) where the sea about him seemed a flowing stream of snow, and
so he called it Rio Nevado, 'the river of snow.' Probably it was Hudson
Strait.
Late in the same season, Corte-Real was back in Lisbon. He had
discovered nothing of immediate profit to the crown of Portugal, but
his survey of the coast of North America from Newfoundland to Hudson
Strait seems to have strengthened the belief that the best route to
India lay in this direction. In any case, on May 15, 1501, he was sent
out again with three ships. This time the Portuguese discovered a
region, so they said, which no one had before visited. The description
indicates that they were on the coast of Nova Scotia and the adjacent
part of New England. The land was wooded with fine straight timber, fit
for the masts of ships, and 'when they landed they found delicious
fruits of various kinds, and trees and pines of marvellous height and
thickness.' They saw many natives, occupied in hunting and fishing.
Following the custom of the time, they seized fifty or sixty natives,
and crowded these unhappy captives into the holds of their ships, to
carry home as evidence of the reality of their discoveries, and to be
sold as slaves. These savages are described by those who saw them in
Portugal as of shapely form and gentle manner, though uncouth and even
dirty in person. They wore otter skins, and their faces were marked
with lines. The description would answer to any of the Algonquin tribes
of the eastern coast. Among the natives seen on the coast there was a
boy who had in his ears two silver rings of Venetian make. The
circumstance led the Portuguese to suppose that they were on the coast
of Asia, and that a European ship had recently visited the same spot.
The true explanation, if the circumstance is correctly reported, would
seem to be that the rings were relics of Cabot's voyages and of his
trade in the trinkets supplied by the merchants.
Gaspar Corte-Real sent his consort ships home, promising to explore the
coast further, and to return later in the season. The vessels duly
reached Lisbon, bringing their captives and the news of the voyage.
Corte-Real, however, never returned, nor is anything known of his fate.
When a year had passed with no news of Gaspar Corte-Real, his brother
Miguel fitted out a new expedition of three ships and sailed westward
in search of him. On reaching the coast of Newfoundland, the ships of
Miguel Corte-Real separated in order to make a diligent search in all
directions for the missing Gaspar. They followed the deep indentations
of the island, noting its outstanding features. Here and there they
fell in with the natives and traded with them, but they found nothing
of value. To make matters worse, when the time came to assemble, as
agreed, in the harbour of St John's, only two ships arrived at the
rendezvous. That of Miguel was missing. After waiting some time the
other vessels returned without him to Portugal.
Two Corte-Reals were now lost. King Manoel transferred the rights of
Gaspar and Miguel to another brother, and in the ensuing years sent out
several Portuguese expeditions to search for the lost leaders, but
without success. The Portuguese gained only a knowledge of the
abundance of fish in the region of the Newfoundland coast. This was
important, and henceforth Portuguese ships joined with the Normans, the
Bretons, and the English in fishing on the Grand Banks. Of the
Corte-Reals nothing more was ever heard.
The next great voyage of discovery was that of Juan Verrazano, some
twenty years after the loss of the Corte-Reals. Like so many other
pilots of his time, Verrazano was an Italian. He had wandered much
about the world, had made his way to the East Indies by the new route
that the Portuguese had opened, and had also, so it is said, been a
member of a ship's company in one of the fishing voyages to
Newfoundland now made in every season.
The name of Juan Verrazano has a peculiar significance in Canadian
history. In more ways than one he was the forerunner of Jacques
Cartier, 'the discoverer of Canada.' Not only did he sail along the
coast of Canada, but did so in the service of the king of France, the
first representative of those rising ambitions which were presently to
result in the foundation of New France and the colonial empire of the
Bourbon monarchy. Francis I, the French king, was a vigorous and
ambitious prince. His exploits and rivalries occupy the foreground of
European history in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. It was
the object of Francis to continue the work of Louis XI by consolidating
his people into a single powerful state. His marriage with the heiress
of Brittany joined that independent duchy, rich at least in the
seafaring bravery of its people, to the crown of France. But Francis
aimed higher still. He wished to make himself the arbiter of Europe and
the over-lord of the European kings. Having been defeated by the
equally famous king of Spain, Charles V, in his effort to gain the
position and title of Holy Roman Emperor and the leadership of Europe,
he set himself to overthrow the rising greatness of Spain. The history
of Europe for a quarter of a century turns upon the opposing ambitions
of the two monarchs.
As a part of his great design, Francis I turned towards western
discovery and exploration, in order to rival if possible the
achievements of Columbus and Cortes and to possess himself of
territories abounding in gold and silver, in slaves and merchandise,
like the islands of Cuba and San Domingo and the newly conquered empire
of Montezuma, which Spain held. It was in this design that he sent out
Juan Verrazano; in further pursuit of it he sent Jacques Cartier ten
years later; and the result was that French dominion afterwards,
prevailed in the valley of the St Lawrence and seeds were planted from
which grew the present Dominion of Canada.
At the end of the year 1523 Juan Verrazano set out from the port of
Dieppe with four ships. Beaten about by adverse storms, they put into
harbour at Madeira, so badly strained by the rough weather that only a
single seaworthy ship remained. In this, the Dauphine, Verrazano set
forth on January 17, 1524, for his western discovery. The voyage was
prosperous, except for one awful tempest in mid-Atlantic, 'as
terrible,' wrote Verrazano, 'as ever any sailors suffered.' After seven
weeks of westward sailing Verrazano sighted a coast 'never before seen
of any man either ancient or modern.' This was the shore of North
Carolina. From this point the French captain made his way northward,
closely inspecting the coast, landing here and there, and taking note
of the appearance, the resources, and the natives of the country. The
voyage was chiefly along the coast of what is now the United States,
and does not therefore immediately concern the present narrative.
Verrazano's account of his discoveries, as he afterwards wrote it down,
is full of picturesque interest, and may now be found translated into
English in Hakluyt's Voyages. He tells of the savages who flocked to
the low sandy shore to see the French ship riding at anchor. They wore
skins about their loins and light feathers in their hair, and they were
'of colour russet, and not much unlike the Saracens.' Verrazano said
that these Indians were of 'cheerful and steady look, not strong of
body, yet sharp-witted, nimble, and exceeding great runners.' As he
sailed northward he was struck with the wonderful vegetation of the
American coast, the beautiful forest of pine and cypress and other
trees, unknown to him, covered with tangled vines as prolific as the
vines of Lombardy. Verrazano's voyage and his landings can be traced
all the way from Carolina to the northern part of New England. He noted
the wonderful harbour at the mouth of the Hudson, skirted the coast
eastward from that point, and then followed northward along the shores
of Massachusetts and Maine. Beyond this Verrazano seems to have made no
landings, but he followed the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. He
sailed, so he says, as far as fifty degrees north, or almost to the
Strait of Belle Isle. Then he turned eastward, headed out into the
great ocean, and reached France in safety. Unfortunately, Verrazano did
not write a detailed account of that part of his voyage which related
to Canadian waters. But there is no doubt that his glowing descriptions
must have done much to stimulate the French to further effort.
Unhappily, at the moment of his return, his royal master was deeply
engaged in a disastrous invasion of Italy, where he shortly met the
crushing defeat at Pavia (1525) which left him a captive in the hands
of his Spanish rival. His absence crippled French enterprise, and
Verrazano's explorations were not followed up till a change of fortune
enabled Francis to send out the famous expedition of Jacques Cartier.
One other expedition to Canada deserves brief mention before we come to
Cartier's crowning discovery of the St Lawrence river. This is the
voyage of Stephen Gomez, who was sent out in the year 1524. by Charles
V, the rival of Francis I. He spent about ten months on the voyage,
following much the same course as Verrazano, but examining with far
greater care the coast of Nova Scotia and the territory about the
opening of the Gulf of St Lawrence. His course can be traced from the
Penobscot river in Maine to the island of Cape Breton. He entered the
Bay of Fundy, and probably went far enough to realize from its tides,
rising sometimes to a height of sixty or seventy feet, that its farther
end could not be free, and that it could not furnish an open passage to
the Western Sea. Running north-east along the shore of Nova Scotia,
Gomez sailed through the Gut of Canso, thus learning that Cape Breton
was an island. He named it the Island of St John-or, rather, he
transferred to it this name, which the map-makers had already used.
Hence it came about that the 'Island of St John' occasions great
confusion in the early geography of Canada. The first map-makers who
used it secured their information indirectly, we may suppose, from the
Cabot voyages and the fishermen who frequented the coast. They marked
it as an island lying in the 'Bay of the Bretons,' which had come to be
the name for the open mouth of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Gomez, however,
used the name for Cape Breton island. Later on, the name was applied to
what is now Prince Edward Island. All this is only typical of the
difficulties in understanding the accounts of the early voyages to
America. Gomez duly returned to the port of Corunna in June 1525.
We may thus form some idea of the general position of American
exploration and discovery at the time when Cartier made his momentous
voyages. The maritime nations of Europe, in searching for a passage to
the half-mythical empires of Asia, had stumbled on a great continent.
At first they thought it Asia itself. Gradually they were realizing
that this was not Asia, but an outlying land that lay between Europe
and Asia and that must be passed by the navigator before Cathay and
Cipango could rise upon the horizon. But the new continent was vast in
extent. It blocked the westward path from pole to pole. With each
voyage, too, the resources and the native beauty of the new land became
more apparent. The luxuriant islands of the West Indies, and the Aztec
empire of Mexico, were already bringing wealth and grandeur to the
monarchy of Spain. South of Mexico it had been already found that the
great barrier of the continent extended to the cold tempestuous seas of
the Antarctic region. Magellan's voyage (1519-22) had proved indeed
that by rounding South America the way was open to the spice islands of
the east. But the route was infinitely long and arduous. The hope of a
shorter passage by the north beckoned the explorer. Of this north
country nothing but its coast was known as yet. Cabot and the fishermen
had found a land of great forests, swept by the cold and leaden seas of
the Arctic, and holding its secret clasped in the iron grip of the
northern ice. The Corte-Reals, Verrazano, and Gomez had looked upon the
endless panorama of the Atlantic coast of North America--the glorious
forests draped with tangled vines extending to the sanded beaches of
the sea--the wide inlets round the mouths of mighty rivers moving
silent and mysterious from the heart of the unknown continent. Here and
there a painted savage showed the bright feathers of his headgear as he
lurked in the trees of the forest or stood, in fearless curiosity,
gazing from the shore at the white-winged ships of the strange
visitants from the sky. But for the most part all, save the sounds of
nature, was silence and mystery. The waves thundered upon the sanded
beach of Carolina and lashed in foam about the rocks of the iron coasts
of New England and the New Found Land. The forest mingled its murmurs
with the waves, and, as the sun sank behind the unknown hills, wafted
its perfume to the anchored ships that rode upon the placid bosom of
the evening sea. And beyond all this was mystery--the mystery of the
unknown East, the secret of the pathway that must lie somewhere hidden
in the bays and inlets of the continent of silent beauty, and above all
the mysterious sense of a great history still to come for this new land
itself--a sense of the murmuring of many voices caught as the undertone
of the rustling of the forest leaves, but rising at last to the mighty
sound of the vast civilization that in the centuries to come should
pour into the silent wildernesses of America.
To such a land--to such a mystery--sailed forth Jacques Cartier,
discoverer of Canada.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The Icelandic sagas contain legends of a discovery of America before
Columbus. Benjamin de Costa, in his 'Pre-Columbian Discovery of
America', has given translations of a number of these legends. Other
works bearing on this mythical period are: A. M. Reeves's 'The Finding
of Wineland the Good'; J. E. Olson's 'The Voyages of the Northmen' in
Vol. I of the 'Original Narrative of Early American History', edited by
J. F. Jameson; Fridtjof Nansen's 'In Northern Mists'; and John Fiske's
'The Discovery of America'. A number of general histories have chapters
bearing on pre-Columbian discovery; the most accessible of these are:
Justin Winsor's 'Narrative and Critical History of America';
Charlevoix's 'Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France'
(1744), translated with notes by J. G. Shea (1886); Henry Harrisse's
'Discovery of North America'; and the 'Conquest of Canada', by the
author of 'Hochelaga'.
There are numerous works in the Spanish, French, Italian, and English
languages dealing with Columbus and his time. Pre-eminent among the
latter are: Irving's 'Life of Columbus'; Winsor's 'Christopher Columbus
and how he Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery'; Helps's
'Life of Columbus'; Prescott's 'History of Ferdinand and Isabella';
Crompton's 'Life of Columbus'; St John's 'Life of Columbus'; and
Major's 'Select Letters of Columbus' (a Hakluyt Society publication).
Likewise in every important work which deals with the early history of
North or South America, Columbus and his voyages are discussed.
The literature dealing with the Cabots is quite as voluminous as that
bearing on Columbus. Henry Harrisse's 'John Cabot, the Discoverer of
North America and Sebastian, his Son; a Chapter of the Maritime History
of England under the Tudors, 1496-1557', is a most exhaustive work.
Other authoritative works on the Cabots are Nichols's 'Remarkable Life,
Adventures, and Discoveries of Sebastian Cabot', in which an effort is
made to give the chief glory of the discovery of America not to John
Cabot, but to his son Sebastian; Dawson's 'The Voyages of the Cabots,
1497 and 1498', 'The Voyages of the Cabots, a Sequel', and 'The Voyages
of the Cabots, Latest Phases of the Controversy', in 'Transactions
Royal Society of Canada'; Biddle's 'Memoir of Sebastian Cabot';
Beazley's 'John and Sebastian Cabot, The Discovery of North America';
and Weare's 'Cabot's Discovery of America'.
A number of European writers have made able studies of the work of
Verrazano, and two American scholars have contributed valuable works on
that explorer's life and achievements; these are, De Costa's 'Verrazano
the Explorer: a Vindication of his Letter and Voyage', and Murphy's
'The Voyage of Verrazano'.
In addition to the general histories already mentioned, the following
works contain much information on the voyages of the forerunners of
Jacques Cartier: Parkman's 'Pioneers of France'; Kohl's 'Discovery of
Maine'; Woodbury's 'Relation of the Fisheries to the Discovery of North
America' (in this work it is claimed that the Basques antedated the
Cabots); Dawson's 'The St Lawrence Basin and Its Borderlands'; Weise's
'The Discoveries of America'; 'The Journal of Christopher Columbus',
and 'Documents relating to the Voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar
Corte-Real', translated with Notes and an Introduction by Sir Clements
R. Markham; and Biggar's 'The Precursors of Jacques Cartier,
1497-1534'. This last work is essential to the student of the early
voyages to America. It contains documents, many published for the first
time, in Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French dealing with
exploration. The notes are invaluable, and the documents, with the
exception of those in French, are carefully though freely translated.
For the native tribes of America the reader would do well to consult
the 'Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico', published by the
Bureau of American Ethnology, and the 'Handbook of Indians of Canada',
reprinted by the Canadian Government, with additions and minor
alterations, from the preceding work, under the direction of James
White, F.R.G.S.