A School History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, and kept steadily on westward till October 7, when a flock of land birds were seen flying to the southwest. Pinzon (peen-thon'), who commanded one of the vessels, begged Columbus to follow the birds, as they seemed to be going toward land. Had the little fleet kept on its way, it would have brought up on the coast of Florida. But Columbus yielded to Pinzon. The ships were headed southwestward, and about ten o'clock on the night of October 11, Columbus saw a light moving in the distance. It was made by the inhabitants going from hut to hut on a neighboring coast. At dawn the shore itself was seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his men, hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a huge cross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him with caravels and men.[1] He had landed on one of a group of islands which we call the Bahamas.[2]
[Footnote 1: Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn sahl-vah-dor', Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]
[Footnote 2: Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have rival claims as the landing place of Columbus. At present, Watlings Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot. Read an account of the voyage in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I., pp. 408–442; Irving's Life and Voyages of Columbus, Vol. I., Book III.]
[Illustration: Coat of arms of Columbus]
During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then, turning southward, he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and so to Haiti, which he named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the Santa Maria was wrecked. The Pinta had by this time deserted him, and, as the Niña could not carry all the men, forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first colony of Europeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last a year, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, and on March 15 was safe at Palos.
Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had not the faintest idea. That he had found a new world; that a continent was blocking his way to the East, never entered his mind. He supposed he had landed on some islands off the east coast of Asia, and as that coast was called the Indies, and as the islands were reached by sailing westward, they came to be called the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the native races of the New World have ever since been called Indians. Although Columbus in after years made three more voyages to the New World, he never found out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that he had discovered a direct route to Asia.[1]
[Footnote 1: Columbus began his second voyage in September, 1493, and discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico (por'-to ree'-co), and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. On his third voyage, in 1498, he discovered the island of Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, and saw South America at the mouth of the Orinoco River. During his fourth and last voyage, 1502–1504, he explored the shores of Honduras and the Isthmus of Panama in search of a strait leading to the Indian Ocean. Of course he did not find it, and, going back to Spain, he died poor and broken-hearted on May 20, 1506.]
%5. The Atlantic Coast explored.%—And now that Columbus had shown the way, others were quick to follow. In 1497 and 1498 came John and Sebastian Cabot (cab'-ot), sailing under the flag of England, and exploring our coast from Labrador to Cape Cod; and Pinzon and Solis, with Vespucius[2] for pilot, sailing under the flag of Spain along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, around the peninsula of Florida, and northward to Chesapeake Bay. Between 1500 and 1502 two Portuguese navigators named Cortereal (cor-ta-ra-ahl') went over much the same ground as the Cabots. For the time being, however, these voyages were fruitless. It was not a new world, but China and Japan, the Indian Ocean, and the spice islands, that Europe was seeking. When, therefore, in 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, passed around the end of Africa, reached India, and came back to Portugal in 1499 with his ship laden with the silks and spices of the East, all explorers turned southward, and for eleven years after the visit of the Cortereals no voyages were made to North America.
[Footnote 2: As this man was an Italian, his name was really Amerigo
Vespucci (ah-ma'-ree-go ves-poot'-chee), but it is usually given in its
Latinized form, Americus Vespucius (a-mer'-i-cus ves-pu'-she-us).]
%6. Why the Continent was called America.%—But some great voyages meantime were made to South America. In 1500 a Portuguese fleet of thirteen vessels, commanded by Cabral, started from Portugal for the East. In place of following the usual route and hugging the west coast of Africa, Cabral went off so far to the westward that one day in April, 1500, he was amazed to see land. It proved to be what is now Brazil, and after sailing along a little way he sent one of his vessels home to Portugal with the news.
[Illustration: %DISCOVERY% ON THE EAST COAST OF %AMERICA%]
He did this because six years before, in June, 1494, Spain and Portugal made a treaty and agreed that a meridian should be drawn 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands and be known as "The Line of Demarcation" All heathen lands discovered, no matter by whom, to the east of this line, were to belong to Portugal; all to the west of it were to be the property of Spain. Now, as the strange coast seemed to be east of the line of demarcation, and therefore the property of Portugal, Cabral sent word to the King that he might explore it.
Accordingly, in May, 1501, the King sent out three ships in charge of Americus Vespucius. Vespucius sighted the coast somewhere about Cape St. Roque, and, finding that it was east of the line of demarcation, explored it southward as far as the mouth of the river La Plata. As he was then west of the line, and off a coast which belonged to Spain, he turned and sailed southeastward till he struck the island of South Georgia, where the Antarctic cold and the fields of floating ice stopped him and sent him back to Lisbon.
The results of this great voyage were many. In the first place, it secured Brazil for Portugal. In the second place, it changed the geographical ideas of the time. The great length of coast line explored proved that the land was not a mere island, but that Vespucius had found a new continent in the southern hemisphere—off the coast of Asia, as was then supposed. This for a time was called the "Fourth Part" of the world—the other three parts being Europe, Asia, and Africa. But in 1507 a German professor published a little book on geography, in which he suggested that the new part of the world discovered by Americus, the part which we call Brazil, should be called America.
As Columbus was not supposed to have discovered a new world, but merely a new route to Asia, this suggestion seemed very proper, and soon the word "America" began to appear on maps as the name of Brazil. After a while it was applied to all South America, and finally to North America also.
%7. The Pacific discovered; the Mexican Gulf Coast explored.%—A few years after the publication of the little book which gave the New World the name of America, a Spaniard named Balboa landed on the Isthmus of Panama, crossed it (1513), and from the mountains looked down on an endless expanse of blue water, which he called the South Sea, because when he first saw it he was looking south.
Meantime another Spaniard, named Ponce de Leon (pon'tha da la-on'), sailed with three ships from Porto Rico, in March, 1513, and on the 27th of that month came in sight of the mainland. As the day was Easter Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pascua (pas'-coo-ah) Florida, he called the country Florida.
[Illustration: Map of 1515][1]
[Footnote 1: Showing what was then supposed to be the shape and position of the newly discovered lands.]
Six years later (1519) Pineda (pe-na'-da) skirted the shores of the Gulf from Florida to Mexico.
%8. Spaniards sail round the World.%—In the same year (1519) that Pineda explored the Gulf coast, a Portuguese named Magellan (ma-jel'-an) led a Spanish fleet across the Atlantic. He coasted along South America to Tierra del Fuego, entered the strait which now bears his name, passed well up the western coast, and turning westward sailed toward India. He was then on the ocean which Balboa had discovered and named the South Sea. But Magellan found it so much smoother than the Atlantic that he called it the Pacific. Five ships and 254 men left Spain; but only one ship and fifteen men returned to Spain by way of India and Cape of Good Hope. Magellan himself was among the dead.[1]
[Footnote