Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

When Columbus reached Spain in June, 1496, "Ferdinand and
Isabella received him kindly, gave him new honors and promised
him other outfits. Enthusiasm, however, had died out and
delays took place. The reports of the returning ships did not
correspond with the pictures of Marco Polo, and the new-found
world was thought to be a very poor India after all. Most
people were of this mind; though Columbus was not
disheartened, and the public treasury was readily opened for a
third voyage. Coronel sailed early in 1498 with two ships, and
Columbus followed with six, embarking at San Lucas on the 30th
of May. He now discovered Trinidad (July 31), which he named
either from its three peaks, or from the Holy Trinity; struck
the northern coast of South America, and skirted what was
later known as the Pearl coast, going as far as the Island of
Margarita. He wondered at the roaring fresh waters which the
Oronoco pours into the Gulf of Pearls, as he called it, and he
half believed that its exuberant tide came from the
terrestrial paradise. He touched the southern coast of Hayti
on the 30th of August. Here already his colonists had
established a fortified post, and founded the town of Santo
Domingo. His brother Bartholomew had ruled energetically
during the Admiral's absence, but he had not prevented a
revolt, which was headed by Roldan. Columbus on his arrival
found the insurgents still defiant, but he was able after a
while to reconcile them, and he even succeeded in attaching
Roldan warmly to his interests.
{55}
Columbus' absence from Spain, however, left his good name
without sponsors; and to satisfy detractors, a new
commissioner was sent over with enlarged powers, even with
authority to supersede Columbus in general command, if
necessary. This emissary was Francisco de Bobadilla, who
arrived at Santo Domingo with two caravels on the 23d of
August, 1500, finding Diego in command, his brother, the
Admiral, being absent. An issue was at once made. Diego
refused to accede to the commissioner's orders till Columbus
returned to judge the case himself; so Bobadilla assumed
charge of the crown property violently, took possession of the
Admiral's house, and when Columbus returned, he with his
brother was arrested and put in irons. In this condition the
prisoners were placed on shipboard, and sailed for Spain. The
captain of the ship offered to remove the manacles: but
Columbus would not permit it, being determined to land in
Spain bound as he was; and so he did. The effect of his
degradation was to his advantage; sovereigns and people were
shocked at the sight; and Ferdinand and Isabella hastened to
make amends by receiving him with renewed favor. It was soon
apparent that everything reasonable would be granted him by
the monarchs, and that he could have all he might wish short
of receiving a new lease of power in the islands, which the
sovereigns were determined to see pacified at least before
Columbus should again assume government of them. The Admiral
had not forgotten his vow to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the
Infidel; but the monarchs did not accede to his wish to
undertake it. Disappointed in this, he proposed a new voyage;
and getting the royal countenance for this scheme, he was
supplied with four vessels of from fifty to seventy tons each.
... He sailed from Cadiz, May 9, 1502, accompanied by his
brother Bartholomew and his son Fernando. The vessels reached
San Domingo June 29. Bobadilla, whose rule of a year and a
half had been an unhappy one, had given place to Nicholas de
Ovando; and the fleet which brought the new governor--with
Maldonado, Las Casas and others--now lay in the harbor waiting
to receive Bobadilla for the return voyage. Columbus had been
instructed to avoid Hispaniola; but now that one of his
vessels leaked, and he needed to make repairs, he sent a boat
ashore, asking permission to enter the harbor. He was refused,
though a storm was impending. He sheltered his vessels as best
he could, and rode out the gale. The fleet which had on board
Bobadilla and Roldan, with their ill-gotten gains, was
wrecked, and these enemies of Columbus were drowned. The
Admiral found a small harbor where he could make his repairs;
and then, July 14, sailed westward to find, as he supposed,
the richer portions of India. ... A landing was made on the
coast of Honduras, August 14. Three days later the explorers
landed again fifteen leagues farther east, and took possession
of the country for Spain. Still east they went; and, in
gratitude for safety after a long storm, they named a cape
which they rounded, Gracias à Dios--a name still preserved at
the point where the coast of Honduras begins to trend
southward. Columbus was now lying ill on his bed, placed on
deck, and was half the time in revery. Still the vessels
coasted south," along and beyond the shores of Costa Rica;
then turned with the bend of the coast to the northeast, until
they reached Porto Bello, as we call it, where they found
houses and orchards, and passed on "to the farthest spot of
Bastidas' exploring, who had, in 1501, sailed westward along
the northern coast of South America." There turning back,
Columbus attempted to found a colony at Veragua, on the Costa
Rica coast, where signs of gold were tempting. But the gold
proved scanty, the natives hostile, and, the Admiral,
withdrawing his colony, sailed away. "He abandoned one
worm-eaten caravel at Porto Bello, and, reaching Jamaica,
beached two others. A year of disappointment, grief, and want
followed. Columbus clung to his wrecked vessels. His crew
alternately mutinied at his side, and roved about the island.
Ovando, at Hispaniola, heard of his straits, but only tardily
and scantily relieved him. The discontented were finally
humbled; and some ships, despatched by the Admiral's agent in
Santo Domingo, at last reached him and brought him and his
companions to that place, where Ovando received him with
ostentatious kindness, lodging him in his house till Columbus
departed for Spain, Sept. 12, 1504." Arriving in Spain in
November, disheartened, broken with disease, neglected, it was
not until the following May that he had strength enough to go
to the court at Segovia, and then only to be coldly received
by King Ferdinand--Isabella being dead. "While still hope was
deferred, the infirmities of age and a life of hardships
brought Columbus to his end; and on Ascension Day, the 20th of
May, 1506, he died, with his son Diego and a few devoted
friends by his bedside."

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

ALSO IN:
_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States,
volume 1, chapter 2 and 4._

_W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus,
book 10-18 (volume 2)._

AMERICA: A. D. 1499-1500.
The Voyages and Discoveries of Ojeda and Pinzon.
The Second Voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.

One of the most daring and resolute of the adventurers who
accompanied Columbus on his second voyage (in 1493) was Alonzo
de Ojeda. Ojeda quarrelled with the Admiral and returned to
Spain in 1498. Soon afterwards, "he was provided by the Bishop
Fonseca, Columbus' enemy, with a fragment of the map which the
Admiral had sent to Ferdinand and Isabella, showing the
discoveries which he had made in his last voyage. With this
assistance Ojeda set sail for South America, accompanied by
the pilot, Juan de la Cosá, who had accompanied Columbus in
his first great voyage in 1492, and of whom Columbus
complained that, 'being a clever man, he went about saying
that he knew more than he did,' and also by Amerigo Vespucci.
They set sail on the 20th of May, 1499, with four vessels, and
after a passage of 27 days came in sight of the continent, 200
leagues east of the Oronoco. At the end of June, they landed
on the shores of Surinam, in six degrees of north latitude,
and proceeding west saw the mouths of the Essequibo and
Oronoco. Passing the Boca del Drago of Trinidad, they coasted
westward till they reached the Capo de la Vela in Granada. It
was in this voyage that was discovered the Gulf to which Ojeda
gave the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice, on account of
the cabins built on piles over the water, a mode of life which
brought to his mind the water-city of the Adriatic.
{56}
From the American coast Ojeda went to the Caribbee Islands,
and on the 5th of September reached Yaguimo, in Hispaniola,
where he raised a revolt against the authority of Columbus.
His plans, however, were frustrated by Roldan and Escobar, the
delegates of Columbus, and he was compelled to withdraw from
the island. On the 5th of February, 1500, he returned,
carrying with him to Cadiz an extraordinary number of slaves,
from which he realized an enormous sum of money. At the
beginning of December, 1499, the same year in which Ojeda set
sail on his last voyage, another companion of Columbus, in his
first voyage, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, sailed from Palos, was the
first to cross the line on the American side of the Atlantic.
and on the 20th of January, 1500, discovered Cape St.
Augustine, to which he gave the name of Cabo Santa Maria de la
Consolacion, whence returning northward he followed the
westerly trending coast, and so discovered the mouth of the
Amazon, which he named Paricura. Within a month after his
departure from Palos, he was followed from the same port and
on the same route by Diego de Lepe, who was the first to
discover, at the mouth of the Oronoco, by means of a closed
vessel, which only opened when it reached the bottom of the
water, that, at a depth of eight fathoms and a half, the two
lowest fathoms were salt water, but all above was fresh. Lepe
also made the observation that beyond Cape St. Augustine,
which he doubled, as well as Pinzon, the coast of Brazil
trended south-west."

_R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, chapter 19._

ALSO IN:
_W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, volume 3, chapter 1-3._

AMERICA: A. D. 1500.
Voyages of the Cortereals to the far North, and of Bastidas to
the Isthmus of Darien.

"The Portuguese did not overlook the north while making their
important discoveries to the south. Two vessels, probably in
the spring of 1500, were sent out under Gaspar Cortereal. No
journal or chart of the voyage is now in existence, hence
little is known of its object or results. Still more dim is a
previous voyage ascribed by Cordeiro to João Vaz Cortereal,
father of Gaspar. ... Touching at the Azores, Gaspar
Cortereal, possibly following Cabot's charts, struck the coast
of Newfoundland north of Cape Race, and sailing north
discovered a land which he called Terra Verde, perhaps
Greenland, but was stopped by ice at a river which he named
Rio Nevado, whose location is unknown. Cortereal returned to
Lisbon before the end of 1500. ... In October of this same
year Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed from Cadiz with two vessels.
Touching the shores of South America near Isla Verde, which
lies between Guadalupe and the main land, he followed the
coast westward to El Retrete, or perhaps Nombre de Dios, on
the Isthmus of Darien, in about 9° 30' North latitude.
Returning he was wrecked on Española toward the end of 1501,
and reached Cadiz in September, 1502. This being the first
authentic voyage by Europeans to the territory herein defined
as the Pacific States, such incidents as are known will be
given hereafter."

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1,
page 113._

"We have Las Casas's authority for saying that Bastidas was a
humane man toward the Indians. Indeed, he afterwards lost his
life by this humanity; for, when governor of Santa Martha, not
consenting to harass the Indians, he so alienated his men that
a conspiracy was formed against him, and he was murdered in
his bed. The renowned Vasco Nuñez [de Balboa] was in this
expedition, and the knowledge he gained there had the greatest
influence on the fortunes of his varied and eventful life."

_Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America,
book 5, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_J. G. Kohl, History of the Discovery of Maine, chapter 5_.

_R. Biddle, Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, book 2, chapters 3-5_.

See, also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.

AMERICA: A. D. 1500-1514.
Voyage of Cabral.
The Third Voyage of Americus Vespucius.
Exploration of the Brazilian coast for the King of Portugal.
Curious evolution of the continental name "America."

"Affairs now became curiously complicated. King Emanuel of
Portugal intrusted to Pedro Alvarez de Cabral the command of a
fleet for Hindustan, to follow up the work of Gama and
establish a Portuguese centre of trade on the Malabar coast.
This fleet of 13 vessels, carrying about 1,200 men, sailed
from Lisbon March 9, 1500. After passing the Cape Verde
Islands, March 22, for some reason not clearly known, whether
driven by stormy weather or seeking to avoid the calms that
were apt to be troublesome on the Guinea coast, Cabral took a
somewhat more westerly course than he realized, and on April
22, after a weary progress averaging less than 60 miles per
day, he found himself on the coast of Brazil not far beyond
the limit reached by Lepe. ... Approaching it in such a way
Cabral felt sure that this coast must fall to the east of the
papal meridian. Accordingly on May day, at Porto Seguro in
latitude 16° 30' South, he took formal possession of the country
for Portugal, and sent Gaspar de Lemos in one of his ships
back to Lisbon with the news. On May 22 Cabral weighed anchor
and stood for the Cape of Good Hope. ... Cabral called the
land he had found Vera Cruz, a name which presently became
Santa Cruz; but when Lemos arrived in Lisbon with the news he
had with him some gorgeous paroquets, and among the earliest
names on old maps of the Brazilian coast we find 'Land of
Paroquets' and 'Land of the Holy Cross.' The land lay
obviously so far to the east that Spain could not deny that at
last there was something for Portugal out in the 'ocean sea.'
Much interest was felt at Lisbon. King Emanuel began to
prepare an expedition for exploring this new coast, and wished
to secure the services of some eminent pilot and cosmographer
familiar with the western waters. Overtures were made to
Americus, a fact which proves that he had already won a high
reputation. The overtures were accepted, for what reason we do
not know, and soon after his return from the voyage with
Ojeda, probably in the autumn of 1500, Americus passed from
the service of Spain into that of Portugal. ... On May 14,
1501, Vespucius, who was evidently principal pilot and guiding
spirit in this voyage under unknown skies, set sail from
Lisbon with three caravels. It is not quite clear who was
chief captain, but M. Varnhagen has found reasons for
believing that it was a certain Don Nuno Manuel. The first
halt was made on the African coast at Cape Verde, the first
week in June. ... After 67 days of 'the vilest weather ever
seen by man' they reached the coast of Brazil in latitude
about 5° South, on the evening of the 16th of August, the
festival-day of San Roque, whose name was accordingly given to
the cape before which they dropped anchor.
{57}
From this point they slowly followed the coast to the
southward, stopping now and then to examine the country. ...
It was not until All Saints day, the first of November, that
they reached the bay in latitude 13° South, which is still known
by the name which they gave it, Bahia de Todos Santos. On New
Year's day, 1502, they arrived at the noble bay where 54 years
later the chief city of Brazil was founded. They would seem to
have mistaken it for the mouth of another huge river, like
some that had already been seen in this strange world; for
they called it Rio de Janeiro (River of January). Thence by
February 15 they had passed Cape Santa Maria, when they left
the coast and took a southeasterly course out into the ocean.
Americus gives no satisfactory reason for this change of
direction. ... Perhaps he may have looked into the mouth of
the river La Plata, which is a bay more than a hundred miles
wide; and the sudden westward trend of the shore may have led
him to suppose that he had reached the end of the continent.
At any rate, he was now in longitude more than twenty degrees
west of the meridian of Cape San Roque, and therefore
unquestionably out of Portuguese waters. Clearly there was no
use in going on and discovering lands which could belong only
to Spain. This may account, I think, for the change of
direction." The voyage southeastwardly was pursued until the
little fleet had reached the icy and rocky coast of the island
of South Georgia, in latitude 54° South. It was then decided to
turn homeward. "Vespucius ... headed straight North North East
through the huge ocean, for Sierra Leone, and the distance of
more than 4,000 miles was made--with wonderful accuracy,
though Vespucius says nothing about that--in 33 days. ...
Thence, after some further delay, to Lisbon, where they
arrived on the 7th of September, 1502. ... Among all the
voyages made during that eventful period there was none that
as a feat of navigation surpassed this third of Vespucius, and
there was none, except the first of Columbus, that outranked
it in historical importance. For it was not only a voyage into
the remotest stretches of the Sea of Darkness, but it was
preeminently an incursion into the antipodal world of the
Southern hemisphere. ... A coast of continental extent,
beginning so near the meridian of the Cape Verde islands and
running southwesterly to latitude 35° South and perhaps beyond,
did not fit into anybody's scheme of things. ... It was land
unknown to the ancients, and Vespucius was right in saying
that he had beheld there things by the thousand which Pliny
had never mentioned. It was not strange that he should call it
a 'New World,' and in meeting with this phrase, on this first
occasion in which it appears in any document with reference to
any part of what we now call America, the reader must be
careful not to clothe it with the meaning which it wears in
our modern eyes. In using the expression 'New World' Vespucius
was not thinking of the Florida coast which he had visited on
a former voyage, nor of the 'islands of India' discovered by
Columbus, nor even of the Pearl Coast which he had followed
after the Admiral in exploring. The expression occurs in his
letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, written from Lisbon in March or
April, 1503, relating solely to this third voyage. The letter
begins as follows: 'I have formerly written to you at
sufficient length about my return from those new countries
which in the ships and at the expense and command of the most
gracious King of Portugal we have sought and found. It is
proper to call them a new world.' Observe that it is only the
new countries visited on this third voyage, the countries from
Cape San Roque southward, that Vespucius thinks it proper to
call a new world, and here is his reason for so calling them:
'Since among our ancestors there was no knowledge of them, and
to all who hear of the affair it is most novel. For it
transcends the ideas of the ancients, since most of them say
that beyond the equator to the south there is no continent,
but only the sea which they called the Atlantic, and if any of
them asserted the existence of a continent there, they found
many reasons for refusing to consider it a habitable country.
But this last voyage of mine has proved that this opinion of
theirs was erroneous and in every way contrary to the facts."
... This expression 'Novus Mundus,' thus occurring in a
private letter, had a remarkable career. Early in June, 1503,
about the time when Americus was starting on his fourth
voyage, Lorenzo died. By the beginning of 1504, a Latin
version of the letter [translated by Giovanni Giocondo] was
printed and published, with the title 'Mundus Novus.' ... The
little four-leaved tract, 'Mundus Novus,' turned out to be the
great literary success of the day. M. Harisse has described at
least eleven Latin editions probably published in the course
of 1504, and by 1506 not less than eight editions of German
versions had been issued. Intense curiosity was aroused by
this announcement of the existence of a populous land beyond
the equator and unknown (could such a thing be possible) to
the ancients,--who did know something, at least, about the
eastern parts of the Asiatic continent which Columbus was
supposed to have reached. The "Novus Mundus," so named, began
soon to be represented on maps and globes, generally as a
great island or quasi-continent lying on and below the
equator. "Europe, Asia and Africa were the three parts of the
earth [previously known], and so this opposite region,
hitherto unknown, but mentioned by Mela and indicated by
Ptolemy, was the Fourth Part. We can now begin to understand
the intense and wildly absorbing interest with which people
read the brief story of the third voyage of Vespucius, and we
can see that in the nature of that interest there was nothing
calculated to bring it into comparison with the work of
Columbus. The two navigators were not regarded as rivals in
doing the same thing, but as men who had done two very
different things; and to give credit to one was by no means
equivalent to withholding credit from the other." In 1507,
Martin Waldseemüller, professor of geography at Saint-Dié,
published a small treatise entitled "Cosmographic
Introductio," with that second of the two known letters of
Vespucius--the one addressed to Soderini, of which an account
is given above (A. D. 1497-1498)--appended to it. "In this
rare book occurs the first suggestion of the name America.
{58}
After having treated of the division of the earth's inhabited
surface into three parts--Europe, Asia, and
Africa--Waldseemüller speaks of the discovery of a Fourth
Part," and says: "'Wherefore I do not see what is rightly to
hinder us from calling it Amerige or America, i. e., the land
of Americus, after its discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious
mind, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from
women.' ... Such were the winged words but for which, as M.
Harisse reminds us, the western hemisphere might have come to
be known as Atlantis, or Hesperides, or Santa Cruz, or New
India, or perhaps Columbia. ... In about a quarter of a
century the first stage in the development of the naming of
America had been completed. That stage consisted of five
distinct steps: 1. Americus called the regions visited by him
beyond the equator 'a new world' because they were unknown to
the ancients; 2. Giocondo made this striking phrase 'Mundus
Novus' into a title for his translation of the letter. ... 3.
the name Mundus Novus got placed upon several maps as an
equivalent for Terra Sanctæ Crucis, or what we call Brazil; 4.
the suggestion was made that Mundus Novus was the Fourth Part
of the earth, and might properly be named America after its
discoverer; 5. the name America thus got placed upon several
maps [the first, so far as known, being a map ascribed to
Leonardo da Vinci and published about 1514, and the second a
globe made in 1515 by Johann Schöner, at Nuremberg] as an
equivalent for what we call Brazil, and sometimes came to
stand alone as an equivalent for what we call South America,
but still signified only a part of the dry land beyond the
Atlantic to which Columbus had led the way. ... This wider
meaning [of South America] became all the more firmly
established as its narrower meaning was usurped by the name
Brazil. Three centuries before the time of Columbus the red
dye-wood called brazil-wood was an article of commerce, under
that same name, in Italy and Spain. It was one of the valuable
things brought from the East, and when the Portuguese found
the same dye-wood abundant in those tropical forests that had
seemed so beautiful to Vespucius, the name Brazil soon became
fastened upon the country and helped to set free the name
America from its local associations." When, in time, and by
slow degrees, the great fact was learned, that all the lands
found beyond the Atlantic by Columbus and his successors,
formed part of one continental system, and were all to be
embraced in the conception of a New World, the name which had
become synonymous with New World was then naturally extended
to the whole. The evolutionary process of the naming of the
western hemisphere as a whole was thus made complete in 1541,
by Mercator, who spread the name America in large letters upon
a globe which he constructed that year, so that part of it
appeared upon the northern and part upon the southern
continent.

_J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 7 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_W. B. Scaife, America: Its Geographical History,
section 4._

_R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry of Portugal,
chapter 19._

_J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 2, ch, 2, notes._

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, pages
99-112, and 123-125._

AMERICA: A. D. 1501-1504.
Portuguese, Norman and Breton fishermen on the Newfoundland
Banks.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.

AMERICA: A. D. 1502..
The Second Voyage of Ojeda.

The first voyage of Alonzo de Ojeda, from which he returned to
Spain in June 1500, was profitable to nothing but his
reputation as a bold and enterprising explorer. By way of
reward, he was given "a grant of land in Hispaniola, and
likewise the government of Coquibacoa, which place he had
discovered [and which he had called Venezuela]. He was
authorized to fit out a number of ships at his own expense and
to prosecute discoveries on the coast of Terra Firma. ... With
four vessels, Ojeda set sail for the Canaries, in 1502, and
thence proceeded to the Gulf of Paria, from which locality he
found his way to Coquibacoa. Not liking this poor country, he
sailed on to the Bay of Honda, where he determined to found
his settlement, which was, however, destined to be of short
duration. Provisions very soon became scarce; and one of his
partners, who had been sent to procure supplies from Jamaica,
failed to return until Ojeda's followers were almost in a
state of mutiny. The result was that the whole colony set sail
for Hispaniola, taking the governor with them in chains. All
that Ojeda gained by his expedition was that he at length came
off winner in a lawsuit, the costs of which, however, left him
a ruined man."

_R G. Watson, Spanish and Portuguese South America,
book 1, chapter 1._

AMERICA: A. D. 1503-1504.
The Fourth Voyage of Americus Vespucius.
First Settlement in Brazil.

In June, 1503, "Amerigo sailed again from Lisbon, with six
ships. The object of this voyage was to discover a certain
island called Melcha, which was supposed to lie west of
Calicut, and to be as famous a mart in the commerce of the
Indian world as Cadiz was in Europe. They made the Cape de
Verds, and then, contrary to the judgment of Vespucci and of
all the fleet, the Commander persisted in standing for Serra
Leoa." The Commander's ship was lost, and Vespucci, with one
vessel, only, reached the coast of the New World, finding a
port which is thought to have been Bahia. Here "they waited
above two months in vain expectation of being joined by the
rest of the squadron. Having lost all hope of this they
coasted on for 260 leagues to the Southward, and there took
port again in 18° S. 35° West of the meridian of Lisbon. Here
they remained five months, upon good terms with the natives,
with whom some of the party penetrated forty leagues into the
interior; and here they erected a fort, in which they left 24
men who had been saved from the Commander's ship. They gave
them 12 guns, besides other arms, and provisions for six
months; then loaded with brazil [wood], sailed homeward and
returned in safety. ... The honour, therefore, of having
formed the first settlement in this country is due to Amerigo
Vespucci. It does not appear that any further attention was as
this time paid to it. ... But the cargo of brazil which
Vespucci had brought home tempted private adventurers, who
were content with peaceful gains, to trade thither for that
valuable wood; and this trade became so well known, that in
consequence the coast and the whole country obtained the name
of Brazil, notwithstanding the holier appellation [Santa Cruz]
which Cabral had given it."

_R. Southey, History of Brazil, volume 1, chapter 1._

{59}

AMERICA: A. D. 1509-1511.
The Expeditions of Ojeda and Nicuesa to the Isthmus.
The Settlement at Darien.

"For several years after his ruinous, though successful
lawsuit, we lose all traces of Alonzo de Ojeda, excepting that
we are told he made another voyage to Coquibacoa [Venezuela],
in 1505. No record remains of this expedition, which seems to
have been equally unprofitable with the preceding, for we find
him, in 1508, in the island of Hispaniola as poor in purse,
though as proud in spirit, as ever. ... About this time the
cupidity of King Ferdinand was greatly excited by the accounts
by Columbus of the gold mines of Veragua, in which the admiral
fancied he had discovered the Aurea Chersonesus of the
ancients, whence King Solomon procured the gold used in
building the temple of Jerusalem. Subsequent voyagers had
corroborated the opinion of Columbus as to the general riches
of the coast of Terra Firma; King Ferdinand resolved,
therefore, to found regular colonies along that coast, and to
place the whole under some capable commander." Ojeda was
recommended for this post, but found a competitor in one of
the gentlemen of the Spanish court, Diego de Nicuesa. "King
Ferdinand avoided the dilemma by favoring both; not indeed by
furnishing them with ships and money, but by granting patents
and dignities, which cost nothing, and might bring rich
returns. He divided that part of the continent which lies
along the Isthmus of Darien into two provinces, the boundary
line running through the Gulf of Uraba. The eastern part,
extending to Cape de la Vela, was called New Andalusia, and
the government of it given to Ojeda. The other to the west
[called Castilla del Oro], including Veragua, and reaching, to
Cape Gracias à Dios, was assigned to Nicuesa. The island of
Jamaica was given to the two governors in common, as a place
whence to draw supplies of provisions." Slender means for the
equipment of Ojeda's expedition were supplied by the veteran
pilot, Juan de la Cosa, who accompanied him as his lieutenant.
Nicuesa was more amply provided. The rival armaments arrived
at San Domingo about the same time (in 1509), and much
quarreling between the two commanders ensued. Ojeda found a
notary in San Domingo, Martin Fernandez de Enciso, who had
money which he consented to invest in the enterprise, and who
promised to follow him with an additional ship-load of
recruits and supplies. Under this arrangement Ojeda made ready
to sail in advance of his competitor, embarking November 10, 1509.
Among those who sailed with him was Francisco Pizarro, the
future conqueror of Peru. Ojeda, by his energy, gained time
enough to nearly ruin his expedition before Nicuesa reached
the scene; for, having landed at Carthagena, he made war upon
the natives, pursued them recklessly into the interior of the
country, with 70 men, and was overwhelmed by the desperate
savages, escaping with only one companion from their poisoned
arrows. His faithful friend, the pilot, Juan de la Cosa, was
among the slain, and Ojeda himself, hiding in the forest, was
nearly dead of hunger and exposure when found and rescued by a
searching party from his ships. At this juncture the fleet of
Nicuesa made its appearance. Jealousies were forgotten in a
common rage against the natives and the two expeditions were
joined in an attack on the Indian villages which spared
nothing. Nicuesa then proceeded to Veragua, while Ojeda
founded a town, which he called San Sebastian, at the east end
of the Gulf of Uraba. Incessantly harassed by the natives,
terrified by the effects of the poison which these used in
their warfare, and threatened with starvation by the rapid
exhaustion of its supplies, the settlement lost courage and
hope. Enciso and his promised ship were waited for in vain. At
length there came a vessel which certain piratical adventurers
at Hispaniola had stolen, and which brought some welcome
provisions, eagerly bought at an exorbitant price. Ojeda, half
recovered from a poisoned wound, which he had treated
heroically with red-hot plates of iron, engaged the pirates to
convey him to Hispaniola, for the procuring of supplies. The
voyage was a disastrous one, resulting in shipwreck on the
coast of Cuba and a month of desperate wandering in the
morasses of the island. Ojeda survived all these perils and
sufferings, made his way to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to San
Domingo, found that his partner Enciso had sailed for the
colony long before, with abundant supplies, but could learn
nothing more. Nor could he obtain for himself any means of
returning to San Sebastian, or of dispatching relief to the
place. Sick, penniless and disheartened, he went into a
convent and died. Meantime the despairing colonists at San
Sebastian waited until death had made them few enough to be
all taken on board of the two little brigantines which were
left to them; then they sailed away, Pizarro in command. One
of the brigantines soon went down in a squall; the other made
its way to the harbor of Carthagena, where it found the tardy
Enciso, searching for his colony. Enciso, under his
commission, now took command, and insisted upon going to San
Sebastian. There the old experiences were soon renewed, and
even Enciso was ready to abandon the deadly place. The latter
had brought with him a needy cavalier, Vasco Nuñez de
Balboa--so needy that he smuggled himself on board Enciso's
ship in a cask to escape his creditors. Vasco Nuñez, who had
coasted this region with Bastidas, in 1500, now advised a
removal of the colony to Darien, on the opposite coast of the
Gulf of Uraba. His advice, which was followed, proved good,
and the hopes of the settlers were raised; but Enciso's modes
of government proved irksome to them. Then Balboa called
attention to the fact that, when they crossed the Gulf of
Uraba, they passed out of the territory covered by the patent
to Ojeda, under which Enciso was commissioned, and into that
granted to Nicuesa. On this suggestion Enciso was promptly
deposed and two alcaldes were elected, Balboa being one. While
events in one corner of Nicuesa's domain were thus
establishing a colony for that ambitious governor, he himself,
at the other extremity of it, was faring badly. He had
suffered hardships, separation from most of his command and
long abandonment on a dc solate coast; had rejoined his
followers after great suffering, only to suffer yet more in
their company, until less than one hundred remained of the 700
who sailed with him a few months before. The settlement at
Veragua had been deserted, and another, named Nombre de Dios
undertaken, with no improvement of circumstances. In this
situation he was rejoiced, at last, by the arrival of one of
his lieutenants, Rodrigo de Colmenares, who came with
supplies. Colmenares brought tidings, moreover, of the
prosperous colony at Darien, which he had discovered on his
way, with an invitation to Nicuesa to come and assume the
government of it. He accepted the invitation with delight;
but, alas! the community at Darien had repented of it before
he reached them, and they refused to receive him when he
arrived. Permitted finally to land, he was seized by a
treacherous party among the colonists--to whom Balboa is said
to have opposed all the resistance in his power--was put on
board of an old and crazy brigantine, with seventeen of his
friends, and compelled to take an oath that he would sail
straight to Spain. "The frail bark set sail on the first of
March, 1511, and steered across the Caribbean Sea for the
island of Hispaniola, but was never seen or heard of more."

_W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus and his
Companions, volume 3._

ALSO IN
_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States,
volume 1, chapter 6._

{60}

AMERICA: A. D. 1511.
The Spanish conquest and occupation of Cuba.

See CUBA: A. D. 1511.

AMERICA: A. D. 1512.
The Voyage of Ponce de Leon in quest of the Fountain of Youth,
and his Discovery of Florida.

"Whatever may have been the Southernmost point reached by
Cabot in coasting America on his return, it is certain that he
did not land in Florida, and that the honour of first
exploring that country is due to Juan Ponce de Leon. This
cavalier, who was governor of Puerto Rico, induced by the
vague traditions circulated by the natives of the West Indies,
that there was a country in the north possessing a fountain
whose waters restored the aged to youth, made it an object of
his ambition to be the first to discover this marvellous
region. With this view, he resigned the governorship, and set
sail with three caravels on the 3d of March 1512. Steering N.
¼ N., he came upon a country covered with flowers and verdure;
and as the day of his discovery happened to be Palm Sunday,
called by the Spaniards' Pasqua Florida,' he gave it the name
of Florida from this circumstance. He landed on the 2d of
April, and took possession of the country in the name of the
king of Castile. The warlike people of the coast of Cautio (a
name given by the Indians to all the country lying between
Cape Cañaveral and the southern point of Florida) soon,
however, compelled him to retreat, and he pursued his
exploration of the coast as far as 30° 8' North latitude, and
on the 8th of May doubled Cape Cañaveral. Then retracing his
course to Puerto Rico, in the hope of finding the island of
Bimini, which he believed to be the Land of Youth, and
described by the Indians as opposite to Florida, he discovered
the Bahamas, and some other islands, previously unknown. Bad
weather compelling him to put into the isle of Guanima to
repair damages, he despatched one of his caravels, under the
orders of Jaun Perez de Ortubia and of the pilot Anton de
Alaminos, to gain information respecting the desired land,
which he had as yet been totally unable to discover. He
returned to Puerto Rico on the 21st of September; a few days
afterwards, Ortubia arrived also with news of Bimini. He
reported that he had explored the island,--which he described
as large, well wooded, and watered by numerous streams,--but
he had failed in discovering the fountain. Oviedo places
Bimini at 40 leagues west of the island of Bahama. Thus all
the advantages which Ponce de Leon promised himself from this
voyage turned to the profit of geography: the title of
'Adelantado of Bimini and Florida,' which was conferred upon
him, was purely honorary; but the route taken by him in order
to return to Puerto Rico, showed the advantage of making the
homeward voyage to Spain by the Bahama Channel."

_W. B. Rye, Introduction to "Discovery and Conquest of
Terra Florida, by a gentleman of Elvas" (Hakluyt Society,
1851)._

ALSO IN _G. R. Fairbanks, History of Florida, chapter 1_

AMERICA: A. D. 1513-1517.
The discovery of the Pacific by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.
Pedrarias Davila on the Isthmus.

With Enciso deposed from authority and Nicuesa sent adrift,
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa seems to have easily held the lead in
affairs at Darien, though not without much opposition; for
faction and turbulence were rife. Enciso was permitted to
carry his grievances and complaints to Spain, but Balboa's
colleague, Zamudio, went with him, and another comrade
proceeded to Hispaniola, both of them well-furnished with
gold. For the quest of gold had succeeded at last. The Darien
adventurers had found considerable quantities in the
possession of the surrounding natives, and were gathering it
with greedy hands. Balboa had the prudence to establish
friendly relations with one of the most important of the
neighboring caciques, whose comely daughter he
wedded--according to the easy customs of the country--and
whose ally he became in wars with the other caciques. By gift
and tribute, therefore as well as by plunder, he harvested
more gold than any before him had found since the ransacking
of the New World began. But what they obtained seemed little
compared with the treasures reported to them as existing
beyond the near mountains and toward the south. One Indian
youth, son of a friendly cacique, particularly excited their
imaginations by the tale which he told of another great sea,
not far to the west, on the southward-stretching shores of
which were countries that teemed with every kind of wealth. He
told them, however, that they would need a thousand men to
fight their way to this Sea. Balboa gave such credence to the
story that he sent envoys to Spain to solicit forces from the
king for an adequate expedition across the mountains. They
sailed in October, 1512, but did not arrive in Spain until the
following May. They found Balboa in much disfavor at the
court. Enciso and the friends of the unfortunate Nicuesa had
unitedly ruined him by their complaints, and the king had
caused criminal proceedings against him to be commenced.
Meantime, some inkling of these hostilities had reached
Balboa, himself, conveyed by a vessel which bore to him, at
the same time, a commission as captain-general from the
authorities in Hispaniola. He now resolved to become the
discoverer of the ocean which his Indian friends described,
and of the rich lands bordering it, before his enemies could
interfere with him. "Accordingly, early in September, 1513, he
set out on his renowned expedition for finding 'the other
sea,' accompanied by 190 men well armed, and by dogs, which
were of more avail than men, and by Indian slaves to carry the
burdens. He went by sea to the territory of his father-in-law,
King Careta, by whom he was well received, and accompanied by
whose Indians he moved on into Poncha's territory." Quieting
the fears of this cacique, he passed his country without
fighting. The next chief encountered, named Quarequa,
attempted resistance, but was routed, with a great slaughter
of his people, and Balboa pushed on. "On the 25th of
September, 1513, he came near to the top of a mountain from
whence the South Sea was visible.
{61}
The distance from Poncha's chief town to this point was forty
leagues, reckoned then six days' journey; but Vasco Nuñez and
his men took twenty-five days to accomplish it, as they
suffered much from the roughness of the ways and from the want
of provisions. A little before Vasco Nuñez reached the height,
Quarequa's Indians informed him of his near approach to the
sea. It was a sight in beholding which, for the first time,
any man would wish to be alone. Vasco Nuñez bade his men sit
down while he ascended, and then, in solitude, looked down
upon the vast Pacific--the first man of the Old World, so far
as we know, who had done so. Falling on his knees, he gave
thanks to God for the favour shown to him in his being
permitted to discover the Sea of the South. Then with his hand
be beckoned to his men to come up. When they had come, both he
and they knelt down and poured forth their thanks to God. He
then addressed them. ... Having ... addressed his men, Vasco
Nuñez proceeded to take formal possession, on behalf of the
kings of Castile, of the sea and of all that was in it; and in
order to make memorials of the event, he cut down trees,
formed crosses, and heaped up stones. He also inscribed the
names of the monarchs of Castile upon great trees in the
vicinity." Afterwards, when he had descended the western slope
and found the shore, "he entered the sea up to his thighs,
having his sword on, and with his shield in his hand; then he
called the by-standers to witness how he touched with his
person and took possession of this sea for the kings of
Castile, and declared that he would defend the possession of
it against all comers. After this, Vasco Nuñez made friends in
the usual manner, first conquering and then negotiating with"
the several chiefs or caciques whose territories came in his
way. He explored the Gulf of San Miguel, finding much wealth
of pearls in the region, and returned to Darien by a route
which crossed the isthmus considerably farther to the north,
reaching his colony on the 29th of January, 1514, having been
absent nearly five months. "His men at Darien received him
with exultation, and he lost no time in sending his news,
'such signal and new news,' ... to the King of Spain,
accompanying it with rich presents. His letter, which gave a
detailed account of his journey, and which, for its length,
was compared by Peter Martyr to the celebrated letter that
came to the senate from Tiberius, contained in every page
thanks to God that he had escaped from such great dangers and
labours. Both the letter and the presents were intrusted to a
man named Arbolanche, who departed from Darien about the
beginning of March, 1514. ... Vasco Nuñez's messenger,
Arbolanche, reached the court of Spain too late for his
master's interests." The latter had already been superseded in
the Governorship, and his successor was on the way to take his
authority from him. The new governor was one Pedrarias De
Avila, or Davila, as the name is sometimes written;--an
envious and malignant old man, under whose rule on the isthmus
the destructive energy of Spanish conquest rose to its meanest
and most heartless and brainless development. Conspicuously
exposed as he was to the jealousy and hatred of Pedrarias,
Vasco Nuñez was probably doomed to ruin, in some form, from
the first. At one time, in 1516, there seemed to be a promise
for him of alliance with his all-powerful enemy, by a marriage
with one of the governor's daughters, and he received the
command of an expedition which again crossed the isthmus,
carrying ships, and began the exploration of the Pacific. But
circumstances soon arose which gave Pedrarias all opportunity
to accuse the explorer of treasonable designs and to
accomplish his arrest--Francisco Pizarro being the officer
fitly charged with the execution of the governor's warrant.
Brought in chains to Acla, Vasco Nuñez was summarily tried,
found guilty and led forth to swift death, laying his head
upon the block (A. D. 1517). "Thus perished Vasco Nuñez de
Balboa, in the forty-second year of his age, the man who,
since the time of Columbus, had shown the most statesmanlike
and warriorlike powers in that part of the world, but whose
career only too much resembles that of Ojeda, Nicuesa, and the
other unfortunate commanders who devastated those beautiful
regions of the earth."

_Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America,
book 6 (volume 1)_.

"If I have applied strong terms of denunciation to Pedrarias
Dávila, it is because he unquestionably deserves it. He is by
far the worst man who came officially to the New World during
its early government. In this all authorities agree. And all
agree that Vasco Nuñez was not deserving of death."

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States,
volume 1, chapter 8-12 (foot-note, page 458)._

ALSO IN
W. Irving, _Life and Voyages of Columbus and His
Companions, volume 3._

AMERICA: A. D. 1515.
Discovery of La Plata by Juan de Solis.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557.

AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518.
The Spaniards find Mexico.

"An hidalgo of Cuba, named Hernandez de Cordova, sailed with
three vessels on an expedition to one of the neighbouring
Bahama Islands, in quest of Indian slaves (February 8, 1517). He
encountered a succession of heavy gales which drove him far
out of his course, and at the end of three weeks he found
himself on a strange and unknown coast. On landing and asking
the name of the country, he was answered by the natives
'Tectelan,' meaning 'I do not understand you,' but which the
Spaniards, misinterpreting into the name of the place, easily
corrupted into Yucatan. Some writers give a different
etymology. ... Bernal Diaz says the word came from the
vegetable 'yuca' and 'tale,' the name for a hillock in which
it is planted. ... M. Waldeck finds a much more plausible
derivation in the Indian word 'Ouyouckatan,' 'listen to what
they say.' ... Cordova had landed on the north-eastern end of
the peninsula, at Cape Catoche. He was astonished at the size
and solid materials of the buildings constructed of stone and
lime, so different from the frail tenements of reeds and
rushes which formed the habitations of the islanders. He was
struck, also, with the higher cultivation of the soil, and
with the delicate texture of the cotton garments and gold
ornaments of the natives. Everything indicated a civilization
far superior to anything he had before witnessed in the New
World. He saw the evidence of a different race, moreover, in
the warlike spirit of the people. ... Wherever they landed
they were met with the most deadly hostility.
{62}
Cordova himself, in one of his skirmishes with the Indians,
received more than a dozen wounds, and one only of his party
escaped unhurt. At length, when he had coasted the peninsula
as far as Campeachy, he returned to Cuba, which he reached
after an absence of several months. ... The reports he had
brought back of the country, and, still more, the specimens of
curiously wrought gold, convinced Velasquez [governor of Cuba]
of the importance of this discovery, and he prepared with all
despatch to avail himself of it. He accordingly fitted out a
little squadron of four vessels for the newly discovered
lands, and placed it under the command of his nephew, Juan de
Grijalva, a man on whose probity, prudence, and attachment to
himself he knew he could rely. The fleet left the port of St.
Jago de Cuba, May 1, 1518. ... Grijalva soon passed over to
the continent and coasted the peninsula, touching at the same
places as his predecessor. Everywhere he was struck, like him,
with the evidences of a higher civilization, especially in the
architecture; as he well might be, since this was the region
of those extraordinary remains which have become recently the
subject of so much speculation. He was astonished, also, at
the sight of large stone crosses, evidently objects of
worship, which he met with in various places. Reminded by
these circumstances of his own country, he gave the peninsula
the name New Spain, a name since appropriated to a much wider
extent of territory. Wherever Grijalva landed, he experienced
the same unfriendly reception as Cordova, though he suffered
less, being better prepared to meet it." He succeeded,
however, at last, in opening a friendly conference and traffic
with one of the chiefs, on the Rio de Tabasco, and "had the
satisfaction of receiving, for a few worthless toys and
trinkets, a rich treasure of jewels, gold ornaments and
vessels, of the most fantastic forms and workmanship. Grijalva
now thought that in this successful traffic--successful beyond
his most sanguine expectations--he had accomplished the chief
object of his mission." He therefore dispatched Alvarado, one
of his captains, to Velasquez, with the treasure acquired, and
continued his voyage along the coast, as far as the province
of Panuco, returning to Cuba at the end of about six months
from his departure. "On reaching the Island, he was surprised
to learn that another and more formidable armament had been
fitted out to follow up his own discoveries, and to find
orders at the same time from the governor, couched in no very
courteous language, to repair at once to St. Jago. He was
received by that personage, not merely with coldness, but with
reproaches, for having neglected so fair an opportunity of
establishing a colony in the country he had visited."

_W. H. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, book 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: C.
_St. J. Fancourt, History of Yucatan, chapter 1-2._

_Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs, V. 1, chapter 2-19._

AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.
The Spanish Conquest of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1519-1524.

AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.
The Voyage of Magellan and Sebastian del Cano.
The New World passed and the Earth circumnavigated.
The Congress at Badajos.