Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/749

Rh DISCOVERY.] AMERICA 707 of these countries was probably such as the announcement of a new island eastward of Spitsbergen would produce at the present day. No reasonable doubt can exist, however, that the north-eastern portions of America (considering Greenland as a distinct country) were familiarly known to the Norwegians in the eleventh century. scovery The obscure allusions of Aristotle, Plato, and Seneca, to America a country hid in the Western Ocean, must have derived fresh Colum- importance from the discovery of the Canary Isles, Madeira, and the Azores in the early part of the fifteenth century. The love of maritime adventure was excited by these events ; and among the active spirits who were attracted to nautical life by the career of distinction which was then opened up, was Christopher Columbus. Our limits do not permit us to enter into details respecting this great man, an outline of whose life will be found under the proper heading. He had received a learned education, and the study of the geographi cal systems then in vogue impressed him with a strong con viction that a voyage to India by a course directly westward was quite practicable with the degree of nautical science which his contemporaries possessed. From the old and im perfect maps of Ptolemy he was led to believe that the parts of the globe known to the ancients embraced 15 hours, or 225 degrees of longitude, which exceeds the truth by more than one-third. The discovery of the Azores on the west side had lengthened the space by one hour; and the accounts gleaned by Marco Polo in Asia induced him to think that the isles connected with this continent stretched out so far to the eastward that their distance from Europe could not be great. Columbus was, however, without the fortune neces sary to fit out ships ; and when he attempted to interest some of the princes of those times in his project, he encountered neglects and difficulties which would have exhausted the patience of any mind less ardent than his own. At length, after many delays and discouragements, Ferdinand and Isa bella of Spain supplied him with three small vessels, two of them only half -decked ; and in this little armament, accom panied by 120 men, he set sail from the port of Palos on the 3d of August 1492. He proceeded first to the Canary Isles, where he was detained three weeks in repairing one of his vessels. On leaving these isles he entered on a region of ocean where all was mystery. The trade-wind, however, bore him steadily along, and the labour of the ships pro ceeded cheerfully, till the increasing length of the voyage, the failure of prognostics which had from time to time kept alive the hopes of the crew, and various circumstances interpreted by their superstition as evil omens, produced a mutinous spirit, which all the address and authority of Co lumbus would not have been able to quell had the discovery of land happened one day later than it did. Columbus, says Humboldt, on sailing westward of the meridian of the Azores, through an unexplored sea, sought the east of Asia by the western route, not as an adventurer, but according to a pre-conceived and steadfastly-pursued plan. He had on board the sea-chart which the Florentine astronomer Toscanelli had sent him in 1477. If he had followed the chart, he would have held a more northern course, along a parallel of latitude from Lisbon. Instead of this, in the hope of reaching Zipangu (Japan), he sailed for half the distance in the latitude of Gomera, one of the Canary Islands. Un easy at not having discovered Zipangu, which, according to his reckoning, he should have met with 216 nautical miles more to the east, he after a long debate yielded to the tianity among the natives. The announcement was contained in a letter addressed to a person in Washington, and published in Nile s Register (Baltimore), in November 1828. But M. Rafn afterwards found reason to change his opinion as to the site of the Icelandic colony, and he latterly considered that it was at the mouth of the River Taunton, which falls into the sea in Narraganset Bay, at the north end of Rhode Island. opinion of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and steered to the south west. The effect of this change in his course curiously ex emplifies the influence of small and apparently trivial events on the world s history. If Columbus, resisting the counsel of Pinzon, had kept his original route, he would have en tered the warm current of the Gulf Stream, have reached Florida, and thence perhaps been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia. The result would probably have been to give the present United States a Roman Catholic Spanish popula tion, instead of a Protestant English one, a circumstance of immeasurable importance. Pinzon was guided in forming his opinion by a flight of parrots towards the south-west. Never, says the Prussian philosopher, had the flight of birds more important consequences. It may be said to have de termined the first settlements on the new continent, and its distribution between the Latin and Germanic races. It was on the 12th of October that the western world revealed itself to the wondering eyes of Columbus and his companions. What a triumph for this extraordinary man, who had trea sured in his breast for twenty years, amidst neglect, dis couragement, and ridicule, the grand truth which his own incomparable skill, wisdom, and firmness had now demon strated in the eyes of an incredulous world ! The spot which he first touched was Guanahani, or Watling Island, as was suggested by Munoz in 1793, and proved by Mr R. H. Major in 1870. After spending nearly three months in visiting Cuba, Hispaniola, and other isles, he returned to Spain. He made three other voyages, and in the second coasted along a part of South America, which he rightly judged to be a continent from the volume of water poured into the sea by the Orinoco. But he died ignorant of the real extent and grandeur of his discoveries, still believing that the countries he had made known to Europe be longed to that part of Eastern Asia which the ancients called India. Hence the name of West Indies which the tropical islands and part of the continent have ever since received. We should extend this article to an unreasonable length Progre were we to describe in detail the discoveries and settlements discove made by the several nations of Europe in America. We wa f. co shall therefore confine ourselves to a very brief chronologi- cal notice of the more important events. 1495. The first place in which the Spaniards established their power was the large island of Hayti or Hispaniola, which was inhabited by a numerous race of Indians of a mild and gentle character, a third part of whom are said to have perished within two or three years after the Spaniards conquered them. 1497. John Cabot discovered Newfoundland June 24th, and coasted along the shores of North America to Florida. 1498. Columbus first saw the mainland, May 30. 1500. Cabral, a Portuguese, visited the coast of Brazil, and discovered the mouth of the Amazon. It was probably colonised before 1515. In 1500, too, Cortereal touched at Labrador. 1508. Vincent Pinzon is said to have entered the Rio de la Plata. It was in the same year that the Spaniards, find ing the aborigines too weak for the labour of the mines in Hayti, first imported negroes from Guinea, and thus laid the foundation of a traffic which continued to disgrace the civilisation of Europe for three centuries. 1511. Diego Columbus conquered the island of Cuba with 300 soldiers, of whom he did not lose one. 1513. Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien with 290 men, and discovered the South Sea. 1519. Hernando Cortes sailed from Cuba with 11 ships and 550 men, and landed on the coast of Mexico, which had been discovered in the previous year. The conquest of the empire was finished in 1521 by 950 Spaniards, assisted by a vast number of the Indians of Tlascala.