Part 16

The fact that the Northmen knew of the existence of the Western Continent prior to the age of Columbus, was prominently brought before the people of this country in the year 1837, when the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen published their work on the Antiquities of North America, under the editorial supervision of the great Icelandic scholar, Professor Rafn. But we are not to suppose that the first general account of these voyages was then given, for it has always been known that the history of certain early voyages to America by the Northmen were preserved in the libraries of Denmark and Iceland. … Yet, owing to the fact that the Icelandic language, though simple in construction and easy of acquisition, was a tongue not understood by scholars, the subject has until recent years been suffered to lie in the background, and permitted, through a want of interest, to share in a measure the treatment meted out to vague and uncertain reports. … It now remains to give the reader some general account of the contents of the narratives which relate more or less to the discovery of the western continent. … The first extracts given are very brief. They are taken from the 'Landanama Book,' and relate to the report in general circulation, which indicated one Gunniborn as the discoverer of Greenland, an event which has been fixed at the year 876. … The next narrative relates to the rediscovery of Greenland by the outlaw, Eric the Red, in 983, who there passed three years in exile, and afterwards returned to Iceland. About the year 986, he brought out to Greenland a considerable colony of settlers, who fixed their abode at Brattahlid, in Ericsfiord. Then follow two versions of the voyage of Biarne Heriulfson, who, in the same year, 986, when sailing for Greenland, was driven away during a storm, and saw a new land at the southward, which he did not visit. Next is given three accounts of the voyage of Leif, son of Eric the Red, who in the year 1000 sailed from Brattahlid to find the land which Biarne saw. Two of these accounts are hardly more than notices of the voyage, but the third is of considerable length, and details the successes of Leif, who found and explored this new land, where he spent the winter, returning to Greenland the following spring [having named different regions which he visited Helluland, Markland and Vinland, the latter name indicative of the finding of grapes]. After this follows the voyage of Thorvald Ericson, brother of Leif, who sailed to Vinland from Greenland, which was the point of departure in all these voyages. This expedition was begun in 1002, and it cost him his life, as an arrow from one of the natives pierced his side, causing death. Thorstein, his brother, went to seek Vinland, with the intention of bringing home his body, but failed in the attempt. The most distinguished explorer was Thorfinn Karlsefne, the Hopeful, an Icelander whose genealogy runs back in the old Northern annals, through Danish, Swedish, and even Scotch and Irish ancestors, some of whom were of royal blood. In the year 1006 he went to Greenland, where he met Gudrid, widow of Thorstein, whom he married. Accompanied by his wife, who urged him to the undertaking, he sailed to Vinland in the spring of 1007, with three vessels and 160 men, where he remained three years. Here his son Snorre was born. He afterwards became the founder of a great family in Iceland, which gave the island several of its first bishops. Thorfinn finally left Vinland because he found it difficult to sustain himself against the attacks of the natives. The next to undertake a voyage was a wicked woman named Freydis, a sister to Leif Ericson, who went to Vinland in 1011, where she lived for a time with her two ships, in the same places occupied by Leif and Thorfinn. Before she returned, she caused the crew of one ship to be cruelly murdered, assisting in the butchery with her own hands. After this we have what are called the Minor Narratives, which are not essential.

_B. F. De Costa, Pre-Columban Discovery of America, General Introduction._

By those who accept fully the claims made for the Northmen, as discoverers of the American continent in the voyages believed to be authentically narrated in these sagas, the Helluland of Leif is commonly identified with Newfoundland, Markland with Nova Scotia, and Vinland with various parts of New England. Massachusetts Bay, Cape Cod, Nantucket Island, Martha's Vineyard, Buzzard's Bay, Narragansett Bay, Mount Hope Bay, Long Island Sound, and New York Bay are among the localities supposed to be recognized in the Norse narratives, or marked by some traces of the presence of the Viking explorers. Professor Gustav Storm, the most recent of the Scandinavian investigators of this subject, finds the Helluland of the sagas in Labrador or Northern Newfoundland, Markland in Newfoundland, and Vinland in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island.

_G. Storm, Studies of the Vineland Voyages._

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"The only discredit which has been thrown upon the story of the Vinland voyages, in the eyes either of scholars or of the general public, has arisen from the eager credulity with which ingenious antiquarians have now and then tried to prove more than facts will warrant. … Archælogical remains of the Northmen abound in Greenland, all the way from Immartinek to near Cape Farewell; the existence of one such relic on the North American continent has never yet been proved. Not a single vestige of the Northmen's presence here, at all worthy of credence, has ever been found. … The most convincing proof that the Northmen never founded a colony in America, south of Davis Strait, is furnished by the total absence of horses, cattle and other domestic animals from the soil of North America until they were brought hither by the Spanish, French and English settlers."

_J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 2._

"What Leif and Karlsefne knew they experienced," writes Professor Justin Winsor, "and what the sagas tell us they underwent, must have just the difference between a crisp narrative of personal adventure and the oft-repeated and embellished story of a fireside narrator, since the traditions of the Norse voyages were not put in the shape of records till about two centuries had elapsed, and we have no earlier manuscript of such a record than one made nearly two hundred years later still. … A blending of history and myth prompts Horn to say that 'some of the sagas were doubtless originally based on facts, but the telling and retelling have changed them into pure myths.' The unsympathetic stranger sees this in stories that the patriotic Scandinavians are over-anxious to make appear as genuine chronicles. … The weight of probability is in favor of a Northman descent upon the coast of the American mainland at some point, or at several, somewhere to the south of Greenland; but the evidence is hardly that which attaches to well established historical records. … There is not a single item of all the evidence thus advanced from time to time which can be said to connect by archæological traces the presence of the Northmen on the soil of North America south of Davis' Straits." Of other imagined pre-Columban discoveries of America, by the Welsh, by the Arabs, by the Basques, &c., the possibilities and probabilities are critically discussed by Professor Winsor in the same connection.

_J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 1, chapter 2, and Critical Notes to the same._

ALSO IN _Bryant and Gay, Popular History of the United States, chapter 3._

_E. F. Slafter, Editor, Voyages of the Northmen to America (Prince Society, 1877)_.

_E. F. Slafter, Editor, Discovery of America by the Northmen (N. H. History Society, 1888)_.

_N. L. Beamish, Discovery of America by the Northmen._

_A. J. Weise, Discoveries of America, chapter 1._

AMERICA: A. D. 1484-1492. The great project of Columbus, and the sources of its inspiration. His seven years' suit at the Spanish Court. His departure from Palos.

"All attempts to diminish the glory of Columbus' achievement by proving a previous discovery whose results were known to him have signally failed. … Columbus originated no new theory respecting the earth's form or size, though a popular idea has always prevailed, notwithstanding the statements of the best writers to the contrary, that he is entitled to the glory of the theory as well as to that of the execution of the project. He was not in advance of his age, entertained no new theories, believed no more than did Prince Henry, his predecessor, or Toscanelli, his contemporary; nor was he the first to conceive the possibility of reaching the east by sailing west. He was however the first to act in accordance with existing beliefs. The Northmen in their voyages had entertained no ideas of a New World, or of an Asia to the West. To knowledge of theoretical geography, Columbus added the skill of a practical navigator, and the iron will to overcome obstacles. He sailed west, reached Asia as he believed, and proved old theories correct. There seem to be two undecided points in that matter, neither of which can ever be settled. First, did his experience in the Portuguese voyages, the perusal of some old author, or a hint from one of the few men acquainted with old traditions, first suggest to Columbus his project? … Second, to what extent did his voyage to the north [made in 1477, probably with an English merchantman from Bristol, in which voyage he is believed to have visited Iceland] influence his plan? There is no evidence, but a strong probability, that he heard in that voyage of the existence of land in the west. … Still, his visit to the north was in 1477, several years after the first formation of his plan, and any information gained at the time could only have been confirmatory rather than suggestive."

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, summary appendix to chapter 1._

"Of the works of learned men, that which, according to Ferdinand Columbus, had most weight with his father, was the 'Cosmographia' of Cardinal Aliaco. Columbus was also confirmed in his views of the existence of a western passage to the Indies by Paulo Toscanelli, the Florentine philosopher, to whom much credit is due for the encouragement he afforded to the enterprise. That the notices, however, of western lands were not such as to have much weight with other men, is sufficiently proved by the difficulty which Columbus had in contending with adverse geographers and men of science in general, of whom he says he never was able to convince any one. After a new world had been discovered, many scattered indications were then found to have foreshown it. One thing which cannot be denied to Columbus is that he worked out his own idea himself. … He first applied himself to his countrymen, the Genoese, who would have nothing to say to his scheme. He then tried the Portuguese, who listened to what he had to say, but with bad faith sought to anticipate him by sending out a caravel with instructions founded upon his plan. … Columbus, disgusted at the treatment he had received from the Portuguese Court, quitted Lisbon, and, after visiting Genoa, as it appears, went to see what favour he could meet with in Spain, arriving at Palos in the year 1485." The story of the long suit of Columbus at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella; of his discouragement and departure, with intent to go to France; of his recall by command of Queen Isabella; of the tedious hearings and negotiations that now took place; of the lofty demands adhered to by the confident Genoese, who required "to be made an admiral at once, to be appointed viceroy of the countries he should discover, and to have an eighth of the profits of the expedition;" of his second rebuff, his second departure for France, and second recall by Isabella, who finally put her heart into the enterprise and persuaded her more skeptical consort to assent to it—the story of those seven years of the struggle of Columbus to obtain means for his voyage is familiar to all readers. {49} "The agreement between Columbus and their Catholic highnesses was signed at Santa Fe on the 17th of April, 1492; and Columbus went to Palos to make preparation for his voyage, bearing with him an order that the two vessels which that city furnished annually to the crown for three months should be placed at his disposal. … The Pinzons, rich men and skilful mariners of Palos, joined in the undertaking, subscribing an eighth of the expenses; and thus, by these united exertions, three vessels were manned with 90 mariners, and provisioned for a year. At length all the preparations were complete, and on a Friday (not inauspicious in this case), the 3d of August, 1492, after they had all confessed and received the sacrament, they set sail from the bar of Saltes, making for the Canary Islands."

_Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, book 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN _J. Winsor, Christopher Columbus, chapter 5-9, and 20._

AMERICA: A. D. 1492. The First Voyage of Columbus. Discovery of the Bahamas, Cuba and Hayti.

The three vessels of Columbus were called the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina. "All had forecastles and high poops, but the 'Santa Maria' was the only one that was decked amidships, and she was called a 'nao' or ship. The other two were caravelas, a class of small vessels built for speed. The 'Santa Maria,' as I gather from scattered notices in the letters of Columbus, was of 120 to 130 tons, like a modern coasting schooner, and she carried 70 men, much crowded. Her sails were a foresail and a foretop-sail, a sprit-sail, a main-sail with two bonnets, and maintop sail, a mizzen, and a boat's sail were occasionally hoisted on the poop. The 'Pinta' and 'Nina' only had square sails on the foremast and lateen sails on the main and mizzen. The former was 50 tons, the latter 40 tons, with crews of 20 men each. On Friday, the 3d of August, the three little vessels left the haven of Palos, and this memorable voyage was commenced. … The expedition proceeded to the Canary Islands, where the rig of the 'Pinta' was altered. Her lateen sails were not adapted for running before the wind, and she was therefore fitted with square sails, like the 'Santa Maria.' Repairs were completed, the vessels were filled up with wood and water at Gomera, and the expedition took its final departure from the island of Gomera, one of the Canaries, on September 6th, 1492. … Columbus had chosen his route most happily, and with that fortunate prevision which often waits upon genius. From Gomera, by a course a little south of west, he would run down the trades to the Bahama Islands. From the parallel of about 30° N. nearly to the equator there is a zone of perpetual winds—namely, the north-east trade winds—always moving in the same direction, as steadily as the current of a river, except where they are turned aside by local causes, so that the ships of Columbus were steadily carried to their destination by a law of nature which, in due time, revealed itself to that close observer of her secrets. The constancy of the wind was one cause of alarm among the crews, for they began to murmur that the provisions would all be exhausted if they had to beat against these unceasing winds on the return voyage. The next event which excited alarm among the pilots was the discovery that the compasses had more than a point of easterly variation. … This was observed on the 17th of September, and about 300 miles westward of the meridian of the Azores, when the ships had been eleven days at sea. Soon afterwards the voyagers found themselves surrounded by masses of seaweed, in what is called the Sargasso Sea, and this again aroused their fears. They thought that the ships would get entangled in the beds of weed and become immovable, and that the beds marked the limit of navigation. The cause of this accumulation is well known now. If bits of cork are put into a basin of water, and a circular motion given to it, all the corks will be found crowding together towards the centre of the pool where there is the least motion. The Atlantic Ocean is just such a basin, the Gulf Stream is the whirl, and the Sargasso Sea is in the centre. There Columbus found it, and there it has remained to this day, moving up and down and changing its position according to seasons, storms and winds, but never altering its mean position. … As day after day passed, and there was no sign of land, the crews became turbulent and mutinous. Columbus encouraged them with hopes of reward, while he told them plainly that he had come to discover India, and that, with the help of God, he would persevere until he found it. At length, on the 11th of October, towards ten at night, Columbus was on the poop and saw a light. … At two next morning, land was distinctly seen. … The island, called by the natives Guanahani, and by Columbus San Salvador, has now been ascertained to be Watling Island, one of the Bahamas, 14 miles long by 6 broad, with a brackish lake in the centre, in 24° 10' 30'' north latitude. … The difference of latitude between Gomera and Watling Island is 235 miles. Course, West 5° South; distance 3,114 miles; average distance made good daily, 85'; voyage 35 days. … After discovering several smaller islands the fleet came in sight of Cuba on the 27th October, and explored part of the northern coast. Columbus believed it to be Cipango, the island placed on the chart of Toscanelli, between Europe and Asia. … Crossing the channel between Cuba and St. Domingo [or Hayti], they anchored in the harbour of St. Nicholas Mole on December 4th. The natives came with presents and the country was enchanting. Columbus … named the island 'Española' [or Hispaniola]. But with all this peaceful beauty around him he was on the eve of disaster." The Santa Maria was drifted by a strong current upon a sand bank and hopelessly wrecked. "It was now necessary to leave a small colony on the island. … A fort was built and named 'La Navidad,' 39 men remaining behind supplied with stores and provisions," and on Friday, January 4, 1493, Columbus began his homeward voyage. Weathering a dangerous gale, which lasted several days, his little vessels reached the Azores February 17, and arrived at Palos March 15, bearing their marvellous news.

_C. R. Markham, The Sea Fathers, chapter 2._

_C. R. Markham, Life of Columbus, chapter 5._

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The statement above that the island of the Bahamas on which Columbus first landed, and which he called San Salvador, "has now been ascertained to be Watling Island" seems hardly justified. The question between Watling Island, San Salvador or Cat Island, Samana, or Attwood's Cay, Mariguana, the Grand Turk, and others is still in dispute. Professor Justin Winsor says "the weight of modern testimony seems to favor Watling's Island;" but at the same time he thinks it "probable that men will never quite agree which of the Bahamas it was upon which these startled and exultant Europeans first stepped."

_J. Winsor, Christopher Columbus, chapter 9._

_J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 1, note B._

Professor John Fiske, says: "All that can be positively asserted of Guanahani is that it was one of the Bahamas; there has been endless discussion as to which one, and the question is not easy to settle. Perhaps the theory of Captain Gustavus Fox, of the United States Navy, is on the whole best supported. Captain Fox maintains that the true Guanahani was the little Island now known as Samana or Attwood's Cay."

_J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN _U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Report, 1880, appendix 18._

AMERICA: A. D. 1493. Papal grant of the New World to Spain.

"Spain was at this time connected with the Pope about a most momentous matter. The Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo, arrived at the Spanish court in March, 1493, with the astounding news of the discovery of a new continent. … Ferdinand and Isabella thought it wise to secure a title to all that might ensue from their new discovery. The Pope, as Vicar of Christ, was held to have authority to dispose of lands inhabited by the heathen; and by papal Bulls the discoveries of Portugal along the African coast had been secured. The Portuguese showed signs of urging claims to the New World, as being already conveyed to them by the papal grants previously issued in their favour. To remove all cause of dispute, the Spanish monarchs at once had recourse to Alexander VI., who issued two Bulls on May 4 and 5 [1493] to determine the respective rights of Spain and Portugal. In the first, the Pope granted to the Spanish monarchs and their heirs all lands discovered or hereafter to be discovered in the western ocean. In the second, he defined his grant to mean all lands that might be discovered west and south of an imaginary line, drawn from the North to the South Pole, at the distance of a hundred leagues westward of the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands. In the light of our present knowledge we are amazed at this simple means of disposing of a vast extent of the earth's surface." Under the Pope's stupendous patent, Spain was able to claim every part of the American Continent except the Brazilian coast.

_M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Reformation, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN _E. G. Bourne, The Demarcation Line of Pope Alexander VI. (Yale Review., May, 1892)_.

_J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 6 (volume 1)._

_J. Gordon, The Bulls distributing America (American Society of Ch. Dist., volume 4)_.

See, also, below: A. D. 1494.

AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496. The Second Voyage of Columbus. Discovery of Jamaica and the Caribbees. Subjugation of Hispaniola.