CHAPTER II
STAKING OUT CLAIMS
As we saw in the first chapter, nature had clearly defined the paths by which America might be found. The time when the discovery would be made was almost as definitely determined by events in the Old World. For countless centuries, Europe, by many routes and through many intermediaries, had traded with the vaguely localized countries of the Orient. Throughout the Middle Ages, not only had she been dependent on the East for most of her luxuries, but many of these, from long usage, had become necessities. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, this commerce, “the oldest, the most extensive, and the most lucrative trade known to Europe,” began to be interfered with by the internal changes in the East, mainly due to conquests by the Ottoman Turks. Beginning about 1300, marked by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and continuing until all the seaports of the eastern Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, were in their possession by 1522, the process was a gradual one. At first uneasy, then alarmed, finally facing commercial ruin by the almost complete strangulation of her Oriental trade, Europe struggled frantically against geographical conditions, in her efforts to find a new and unimpeded route to the East.
During the latter part of the same period, geographical science had been making many strides; while the theory of the earth’s sphericity had been held, by some at least, since the days of Plato. After nearly two thousand years, motives developed which led men to turn that idea into action by use of the new discoveries, and in one generation Columbus sailed west to America, and Da Gama east to India, and Magellan circumnavigated the globe. The thought advanced by philosophy, denied by common sense, and fought by the Church, finally wrought the greatest change yet known in the world’s history through the commonplace necessities of trade.
Voyaging toward the northwest, in the hope of finding the treasures of the East, had possibly been undertaken annually from 1491, by certain citizens of Bristol, England, when the Italian, John Cabot, domiciled in their city, applied to King Henry VII for letters patent “for the discovery of new and unknown lands.” The Cabots themselves left no account of their voyages, and the story must be made up from a few contemporary documents, some hearsay evidence, and a large amount of inference. Apparently, John Cabot sailed, some time in 1497, under the patent granted to himself and his sons, and by the end of August was back in England, after a voyage of several months. The location of the landfall, made June 24, is wholly uncertain. A second voyage was made the following year, and a considerable part of the northeast coast appears to have been explored, although it is impossible to place the limits of the discovery. Whether he was accompanied on either or both of the voyages by his son Sebastian is uncertain, but it is probable that he was. As for the rest, one is tempted to echo Dawson’s remark, that “as for John Cabot, Sebastian says he died, which is one of the few undisputed facts in the discussion.” To us, the importance of the voyage lies in the fact that upon it England based her claims, in later times, to a portion of the New World, though she made no effort to colonize for another eighty years, and the immediate effect of the discovery was not great. The times were not yet ripe. Exploration and land-grabbing were games for kings and not for private endeavor, as the merchants of Bristol had doubtless found; and Henry, as the Milanese ambassador observed, was “not lavish.”
Owing to the great demand for fish in a Catholic Europe, however, the shores of Newfoundland soon became the accustomed resort of English, French, and Portuguese. The coast between Canada and Florida, nevertheless, remained practically unexplored, and the maps of the period either break the continent into islands, or connect the two known portions by a fanciful delineation, considered by some students to represent the eastern coast of Asia. Where nothing is certain, all is possible, and it was thought that the passage to the East, so vainly sought elsewhere, might yet be found in this unknown part of the world. In 1524, Verrazano, under the flag of France, and, a year later, Gomez, under that of Spain, undertook again the task of finding a westward route to Zipangu and Cathay. The Frenchman, apparently, coasted northward from Carolina to Newfoundland, and the Spaniard seems to have covered part of the same range, though the limits are not known, nor even the direction in which he sailed.