IV. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE LAND NOT
MADE FROM THE PERSONAL OBSERVATION OF THE WRITER OF THE LETTER. WHAT
DISTINCTIVELY BELONGED TO THE NATIVES IS UNNOTICED, AND WHAT IS
ORIGINALLY MENTIONED OF THEM IS UNTRUE. FURTHER ALTERATIONS OF THE
TEXT BY RAMUSIO.
We are brought now to the observations in reference to the people
and productions of the country. The communications which the
explorers had with the shore are not represented as having been
numerous, or their visits of long duration, the longest having been
one of three days, while they were riding at anchor off the coast of
North Carolina, and another of fifteen, spent in replenishing the
supplies for their ship, in the harbor in the great bay of
Massachusetts. These opportunities were however, it seems,
sufficient to have enabled them to study the characteristics of the
natives and to determine the nature of the vegetation at those
places; but the description given of both is very general. Not a
single person, sagamore or warrior, or even the boy who was carried
away to France, is designated by name, nor any object peculiar to
the region by its native appellation. Not an Indian word, by which a
locality or a tribe might be traced, occurs in the whole narrative.
Some familiar details are mentioned of Indian manners and customs,
which give the account the appearance of truth, but there is nothing
in them which may not have been deduced from known narratives of
earlier voyages to adjoining parts of America; while much that was
peculiar to the country claimed to have been discovered, and of a
character to compel observation, is omitted; and some particulars
stated which could not have existed.
In its incidents of Indian life it recalls the experiences of
Columbus. When the great discoverer first came to the island of
Hispaniola it is related, "they saw certaine men of the Islande who
perceiving an unknowen native comming toward them, flocked together
and ran into the thicke woodes, as it had bin hares coursed with
greyhoundes. Our men pursuing them took only one woman, whom they
brought, to the ships, where filling her with meate and wine, and
apparrelling her, they let her depart to her companie." Also, "their
boates are made only of one tree made hollow with a certain sharpe
stone, for they have no yron, and are very long and narrow." And
again, "when our men went to prayer, and kneeled on their knees,
after the manner of the Christians, they did the like also. And
after what manner soever they saw them pray to the crosse, they
followed them in all poyntes as well as they could." [Footnote: Peter
Martyr, Dec. LL in Eden.]. The Verrazzano letter tells us, in like
phrase, that when they landed at the end of fifty leagues from the
landfall, "we found that the people had fled to the woods for fear.
By searching around we discovered in the grass a very old woman and
a young girl of about eighteen or twenty, who had concealed
themselves for the same reason. We gave them a part of our
provisions, which they accepted with delight, but the girl would not
touch any." At the same place, it is added, "we saw many of their
boats made of one tree, without the aid of stone or iron or other
kind of metal." And to make the parallel complete, the letter
asserts of the natives, "they are very easy to be persuaded and
imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all which they saw us do
as Christians in our acts of worship." While they were taking in
their supplies and interchanging civilities with the Indians in the
harbor of the great bay, the following scene of royalty is described
as having occurred. "One of the two kings often came with his queen
and many gentlemen (gentili uomini) to see us for his amusement, but
he always stopped at the distance of about two hundred paces, and
sent a boat to inform us of his intended visit, saying they would
come and see our ship. This was done for safety, and as soon as they
had an answer from us, they came off and remained awhile to look
around; but on hearing the annoying cries of the sailors, the king
sent the queen with her maids (demizelle) in a very light boat to
wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant from us while he
remained a long time on board." This hyperbolical description of the
visit of the sachem of Cape Cod accompanied by the gentlemen of his
household and of his squaw queen with her maids of honor, has its
prototype in the visit paid to Bartholomew Columbus, during the
absence of his brother, the admiral, by Bechechio the king or
cacique of Xacagua and his sister, the queen dowager, Anacoana, who
are represented as going to the ship of the Adelantado in two
canoes, "one for himself and certayne of his gentlemen, another for
Anacoana and her waiting women." The astonishment which the natives
manifested at the appearance of the Dauphiny and her crew; their
admiration of the simple toys and little bells which were offered
them by the strangers; their practice of painting their bodies,
adorning themselves with the gay plumage of birds, and habiting
themselves with the skins of animals, seem all analogized, in the
same way, from the accounts given by Peter Martyr of the inhabitant
of the islands discovered by Columbus, and of the northern regions
by Sebastian Cabot. These traits of Indian life and character,
therefore, not having been peculiar to the natives of the country
described in the letter, and having been already mentioned in
earlier accounts of the adjoining parts of America, the description
of them here furnishes no proof of originality or of the truth of
the letter for that reason.
On the other hand objects which historically belong to the
inhabitants of the places declared to have been visited, and
characterize them distinctly from those previously discovered, and
which were of such a marked character as to have commanded
attention, are not mentioned at all. Of this class perhaps the most
prominent is the wampum, a commodity of such value and use among
them that, like gold among the Europeans, it served the double
purpose of money and personal adornment. The region of the harbor
where the voyagers spent, according to the letter, fifteen days in
familiar intercourse with the inhabitants, was its greatest mart,
from which it was spread among the tribes, both north and east.
Wood, describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they "are the most
curious minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out
of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels. The northerne, easterne,
and westerne Indians fetch all their coyne from these southern mint-
masters. From hence they have most of their curious pendants and
bracelets; hence they have their great stone pipes which will hold a
quarter of an ounce of tobacco." And in regard to their practice of
ornamentation, he remarks again: "although they be poore, yet is
there in them the sparkes of naturall pride which appeares in their
longing desire after many kinde of ornaments, wearing pendants in
their eares, as formes of birds, beasts and fishes, carved out of
bone, shels, and stone, with long bracelets of their curious wrought
wampompeage and mowhackees which they put about their necks and
loynes; which they count a rare kinde of decking." The same writer
adds a description of an Indian king of this country in his attire,
which is somewhat less fanciful than that in the letter. "A sagamore
with a humberd (humming-bird) in his eare for a pendant, a
blackhawke in his occiput for his plume, mowhackees for his gold
chaine, good store of wampompeage begirting his loynes, his bow in
his hand, his quiver at his back, with six naked Indian
spatterlashes at his heeles for his guard, thinkes himselfe little
inferiour to the great Cham. [Footnote: New England Prospect, pp.
61, 65-6.] Roger Williams confirms this account of the importance of
the wampum among these same Indians. "They hang," he states "these
strings of money about their necks and wrists, as also about the
necks and wrists of their wives and children. Machequoce, a girdle,
which they make curiously of one, two, three, four and five inches
thickness and more, of this money, which sometimes to the value of
tenpounds and more, they weare about their middle, and a scarfe
about their shoulders and breasts.
The Indians prize not English gold,
Nor English, Indians shell:
Each in his place will passe for ought,
What ere men buy or sell."
[Footnote: Key into the Language of America, pp. 149-50.]
Another important article in universal use among the Indians of the
main land, north and south, was the tobacco pipe. Tobacco was used
by the natives of the West India islands, made up in rolls or
cigars; but by the Indians of the continent it was broken up,
carried in small bags attached to a girdle round the body, and
smoked through clay, stone or copper pipes, sometimes of very
elaborate workmanship. Smoking the pipe was of universal use among
them, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. It was a tender
of hospitality to strangers; and a sign of peace and friendship
between the nations. [Footnote: For a full and interesting account
of the importance of the tobacco-pipe among the Indians of North
America, upon cited authorities, we refer the reader to Antiquities
of the Southern Indians. By Charles C. Jones Jr., p. 382. (New York,
1873.)] When Captain Waymouth ran along the coast of the great bay
of Massachusetts, in 1605, he repeatedly encountered this custom. On
one occasion the natives came from the shore in three canoes, and
Rosier remarks of them: "they came directly aboord us and brought us
tobacco, which we tooke with them IN THEIR PIPE which was made of
earth very strong, but blacke and short, containing a great
quantity. When we came at shoare they all most kindely entertained
us, taking us by the hands, as they had observed we did to them
aboord in token of welcome, and brought us to sit downe by their
fire, where sat together thirteene of them. They filled their
tobacco pipe, which was then the short claw of a lobster, which will
hold ten of our pipes full and we dranke of their excellent tobacco,
as much as we would with them." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1662.] No
notice is taken of this custom, either of tobacco or the pipe in the
Verrazzano letter.
The most remarkable omission of all is of the bark canoe. This light
and beautiful fabric was peculiar to the Algonkin tribes. It was not
found among the southern Indians, much less in the West India
islands. Its buoyancy and the beauty of its form were such as to
render it an object of particular observation. Though so light as to
be capable of being borne on a man's shoulders, it would sometimes
carry nine men, and ride with safety over the most stormy sea. It
was always from the first a great object of interest with the
discoverers of the northerly parts of the coast, which they
manifested by taking them back to Europe, as curiosities. Aubert
carried one of them to Dieppe in 1508, and Captain Martin Fringe,
who was one of the first to visit the shores of Cape Cod, took one,
in 1603, thence to Bristol, which he thus describes, as if he saw no
other kind.
"Their boats whereof we brought one to Bristoll, were in proportion
like a wherrie of the river of Thames, seventeene foot long and
foure foot broad, made of the barke of a birch tree, farre exceeding
in bignesse those of England: it was sowed together with strong and
tough oziers or twigs, and the seames covered over with rozen or
turpentine little inferiour in sweetnesse to frankincense, as we
made triall by burning a little thereof on the coales at sundry
times after our comming home: it was also open like a wherrie, and
sharpe at both ends, saving that the beake was a little bending
roundly upward. And though it carried nine men standing upright, yet
it weighed not at the most, above sixtie pounds in weight, a thing
almost incredible in regard of the largenesse and capacitie thereof.
Their oares were flat at the end like an oven peele, made of ash or
maple, very light and strong, about two yards long wherewith they
row very swiftly." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1655.]
The silence of the letter in regard to this species of the canoe is
the more remarkable, as it is in connection with the natives of the
harbor where they spent fifteen days, that mention is made in it a
second time of the manner of making their boats out of single logs,
as if it were a subject of importance, and worthy of remark. The
inference is most strongly to be drawn therefore, from this
circumstance, that the writer knew nothing about the bark canoe, or
the people who used them.
The absence of all allusion to any of the peculiar attributes,
especially of the essential character just described, of the natives
of the great bay leads to the conclusion that the whole account is a
fabrication. But this end is absolutely reached by the positive
statement of a radical difference in complexion between the tribes,
which they found in the country.
The people whom they saw on their first landing, and who are stated
to have been for the most part naked, are described as being black
in color, and not very different from Ethiopians, (di colore neri
non molto dagli Etiopi disformi) and of medium stature, well formed
of body and acute of mind. The latter observation would imply that
the voyagers had mixed with these natives very considerably in order
to have been able to speak so positively in regard to their mental
faculties, and therefore could not have been mistaken as to their
complexion for want of opportunity to discover it. The precise place
where they first landed and saw these black people is not mentioned
further than that the country where they lived was situated in the
thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they proceeded
further along the coast northwardly, and again coming to anchor
attempted to go ashore in a boat without success, when one of them,
a young sailor, attempted to swim to the land, but was thrown, by
the violence of the waves, insensible on the beach. Upon recovering
he found himself surrounded by natives who were black like the
others. That there is no mistake in the design of the writer to
represent these people as really black, like negroes, is made
evident by his account of the complexion of those he found in the
harbor of the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40", who are
described as essentially different and the finest looking tribe they
had seen, being "of a very white complexion, some inclining more to
white, and others to a yellow color" (di colore bianchissimo; alcuni
pendano piu in bianchezza, altri in colore flavo). The difference
between the inhabitants of the two sections of country, in respect
to color, is thus drawn in actual contrast.
This is unfounded in fact. No black aborigines have ever been found
within the entire limits of North America, except in California
where some are said to exist. The Indians of the Atlantic coast were
uniformly of a tawny or yellowish brown color, made more conspicuous
by age and exposure and being almost white in infancy. The first
voyagers and early European settlers universally concur in assigning
them this complexion. Reference need here be to such testimony only
as relates to the two parts of the country where the distinction is
pretended to have existed. The earliest mention of the inhabitants
of the more southerly portion is when the vessels of Ayllon and
Matienzo carried off sixty of the Indians from the neighborhood of
the Santee, called the Jordan, in 1521, and took them to St.
Domingo. One of them went to Spain with Ayllon. They are described
by Peter Martyr, from sight, as semifuscos uti nostri sunt agricolae
sole adusti aestivo, half brown, like our husbandmen, burnt by the
summer sun. [Footnote: Dec. VII, 2.] Barlowe, in his account of the
first expedition of Raleigh, which entered Pamlico sound, within the
region now under consideration, describes the Indians whom he found
there as of a "colour yellowish." [Footnote: Hakluyt, III. 248.]
Captain John Smith, speaking of those of the Chesapeake, remarks,
that they "are of a color brown when they are of age, but they are
born white." [Footnote: Smith, Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 19.] On the
other hand the natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in latitude
4l Degrees 40' are described by the first explorers of that region
in substantially the same terms. Brereton, who accompanied Gosnold
in his first voyage to the Elisabeth islands and the main land
opposite, in 1602, mentions the natives there, as being of a
complexion or color "much like a dark olive." [Footnote: Purchas, IV.
1652.] Martin Fringe who visited Martha's Vineyard the next year and
constructed there a barricade where the "people of the country came
sometimes, ten, twentie, fortie or three score, and at one time one
hundred and twentie at once," says, "these people are inclined to a
swart, tawnie or chesnut colour, not by nature but accidentally."
[Footnote: Ibid, IV, 1655.] And Roger Williams, partaking of the
same idea as Pringe, that the swarthy color was accidental,
testifies, almost in the same language as Captain Smith, that the
Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of
them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were
born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the
authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians
existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the
people of the two sections claimed to have been visited in this
voyage.
Of an equally absurd and preposterous character is the statement
made in reference to the condition in which the plants and
vegetation were found. The grape particularly is mentioned in a
manner which proves, beyond question, that the writer could not have
been in the country. The dates which are given for the exploration
are positive; and are conclusive in this respect. The Dauphiny is
represented as having left Madeira on the 17th of January, and
arrived on the coast on the 7th of March, that is, the 17th of that
month, new style. [Footnote: See ante, page 4, note.] They left the
harbor of the great bay, where they had remained for fifteen days on
the 6th of May, which makes their arrival there to have been on the
21st of April, or first of May, N. S. They were thus during the
months of March and April, engaged in coasting from the landfall to
the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40', during which period the
observations relating to the intermediate country, consequently,
must have been made. They left the coast, finally, in latitude 50
Degrees N., for the purpose of returning to France, in time to reach
there and have the letter written announcing their arrival at Dieppe
on the 8th of July, and therefore it must have been some time in
June, at the latest; so that very little if any portion of the
summer season was passed upon the coast of America.
In describing the country which they reached at the end of the fifty
leagues north of the landfall, that is, near the boundary between
North Carolina and Virginia, where they discovered the old woman and
girl concealed in the GRASS and found the land generally, "abounding
in forests filled with various kinds of trees but not of such
FRAGRANCE" as those where they first landed, the writer gives a
particular description of the condition in which they found the
vines and flowers.
"We saw," he says, "many vines there growing naturally, which run
upon, and entwine about the trees, as they do in Lombardy, and which
if the husbandmen were to have under a perfect system of
cultivation, would without doubt produce the BEST WINES, because
TASTING (beendo, literally, drinking or sucking) THE FRUIT MANY
TIMES, we perceived it was sweet and pleasant, not different from
ours. They are held in estimation by them because wherever they grow
they remove the small trees around them in order that the fruit may
be able to germinate. We found wild roses, violets, lilies and many
species of plants and ODORIFEROUS FLOWERS, different from ours."
[Footnote: "Vedenimo in quella molte vite della natura prodotte,
quali alzando si avvoltano agli alberi come nella Cisalpina Gallia
custumano; le quali se dagli agricultori avessimo el perfetto ordine
di cultura, senza dubbio produrrebbono ottimi vini, perche piu volte
il frutto di quello beendo, veggiendo suave e dolce, non dal nostro
differente sono da loro tenuti in extimatione; impero che per tutto
dove nascono, levano gli arbusculi circustanti ad causa il frutto
possa gierminare. Trovamo rose silvestre et vivuole, gigli et molte
sorte di erbe e fiori odoriferi da nostri differenti."]
The flavor and vinous qualities of the grapes are thus particularly
mentioned as having been proven several times by eating the ripe and
luscious fruit, and in language peculiarly expressive of the fact.
According to the dates before given, this must have occurred early
in the month of April, as the scene is laid upon the coast of North
Carolina. There is no native vine which ever flowers in this
country, north of latitude thirty-four, before the month of May, and
none that ripens its fruit before July, which is the month assigned
by Lawson for the ripening of the summer fox grape in the swamps and
moist lands of North Carolina,--the earliest of all the grapes in
that region. [Footnote: New Voyage to Carolina, p. 602.] North of
latitude 41 Degrees no grape matures until the latter part of
August. As the explorers are made to have left the shores of
Newfoundland for home in June, at farthest, they were at no time on
any part of the coast, in season to have been able to see or taste
the ripe or unripe fruit of the vine. The representation of the
letter in this respect depending both upon the sight and the taste,
must, like that of the contrasted appearance of the natives, be
regarded as deliberately made; and consequently, the two as
establishing the falsity of the description in those particulars,
and thus involving the integrity and truth of the whole.
The liberty which Ramusio took with these passages in his version of
the letter, demands notice, and adds his testimony again to the
absurdity of the account. He doubtless knew, from the numerous
descriptions which had been published, of the uniformity of the
physical characteristics of the American Indians; and he certainly
knew of it as regarded the natives of this coast; as is proven by
his publication of Oviedo's account of the voyage of Gomez, made
there in 1525, in which they are described, in the same volume with
the Verrazzano letter. [FOOTNOTE: Tom. III. fol. 52, (ed. 1556).]
His own experience, as to the climate of Venice, taught him also
that grapes could not have ripened in the latitude and at the time
of year assigned for that purpose. He had therefore abundant reason
to question the correctness of the letter in both particulars. As in
the case of the representation of the extent of the discovery,
before mentioned, he did not hesitate to make them conform more to
the truth. He amended the original in regard to the complexion of
the natives represented as those first seen, by inserting in place
of the words, applied to them, of "black and not much different from
Ethiopians," the phrase, "brownish and not much unlike the Saracens"
(berrettini & non molto dalli Saracini differenti) [FOOTNOTE:
Berrettini is derived from beretta, the Turkish fez, a red cap,
designating also the scarlet cap of the cardinals & the church of
Rome.] by which they are likened to those Arabs whose complexion,
"yellow, bordering on brown," is of a similar cast; [Footnote:
Pritchard, Natural History of Man, p. 127 (2d edition).] and in
regard to the grapes, by substituting instead of, "tasting the fruit
many times we perceived it was sweet and pleasant," the passage,
"having often seen the fruit thereof DRIED, which was sweet and
pleasant," (havedo veduto piu volte il frutto di quelle secco, che
era suave & dolce,) by which he apparently obviates the objection,
but in fact only aggravates it, by asserting what has never yet been
heard of among the Indians of this coast, the preservation of the
grape by drying or otherwise.
It is evident that whatever may have been the motives of Ramusio in
making these repeated alterations of the statements in the letter,
they not only show his own sense of their necessity, but they have
had the effect to keep from the world the real character of this
narrative in essential particulars, until its exposure now, by the
production of the Carli version.