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6. References.

Bibliographies.—Winsor, Columbus, and Narrative and Critical History, I. xix-xxxvii, 33-58, 76-132, 369-444, II. 153-179, 205, III. 7-58, 78-84, 97-104, 121, 126, 184-218; Larned, Literature of American History, 50-68, and History for Ready Reference, I. 54-79; Avery, United States, I. 376-403; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 81-96; also bibliographical chapters in Bourne, Cheney, and Tyler, below.

Historical Maps.—No. 1, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 1); MacCoun; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, I., II.; H. Harrisse, Discovery of North America, and Découverte et Evolution Cartographique de Terre-Neuve; E. L. Stevenson, Maps illustrating Early Discovery and Exploration in America; maps in American Nation series (Bourne, Cheney, and Tyler).

General Accounts.—On geographical knowledge of ancients, and pre-Columbian discoveries: Winsor, Narrative and Critical, I. chs. i., ii.,; W. Wilson, American People, I. ch. i.; Avery, I. chs. iii.-vi.; E. Cheney, European Background of American History, chs. i.-v.—On discovery and settlement, from Columbus to Jamestown: M. Creighton, Age of Elizabeth (Epochs of Modern History); R. Hildreth, United States, I. chs. i., iii.; G. Bancroft, United States, I. chs. i.-v.; Winsor, Narrative and Critical, II. chs. i.-vii., III. chs. i.-iv., and Columbus; Avery, I. chs. vii.-xxi.; E. Channing, United States, I. chs. i.-v.; J. Doyle, English Colonies in America, I. ch. iv.

Special Histories.—E. Bourne, Spain in America; Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, 28-233, 296-309; Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, chs. i.-iii.; C. Baird, Huguenot Emigration to America; L. Tyler, England in America, chs. i., ii. For lives of explorers, consult bibliographies, above.

Contemporary Accounts.—Hakluyt, Voyages; Camden Society, Publications, lxxxvii.; Relation of Captain Gosnold's Voyage (1602); Breton, Brief and True Relation (1602); Pring, Voyage for Discovery of North Part of Virginia (1603); Rosier, True Relation (1605); Amerigo Vespuccius, Letters.—Reprints: Prince Society, Publications; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part ii.; J. Jameson, Original Narratives of Early American History; American History Leaflets, 1, 3, 9, 13.

7. Pre-Columbian Discoveries.

The Basques, Normans, Welsh, Irish, and Scandinavians are the principal claimants for the honor of discovering America before Columbus; and there are also believers in early African migrations to the western continent, chiefly influenced by supposed ethnological and botanical evidences found in South America. |The Scandinavian claim.| The Scandinavians make out the strongest case. Iceland, so tradition runs, was first conquered by the Britons in the sixth century. Then followed a succession of Danish and Irish settlements. But the Celts were driven out by Ingolf, who led a colony of Norwegians thither in 875 and founded Reikjavik.

The ancient Norse sagas—oral traditions, none of which were fixed in writing until the twelfth century, and most of them not until the fourteenth—mention voyages to the west from Iceland, and the discovery of new lands in that quarter as early as 876. In 985 Eric the Red is said to have led colonies to this western land,—by this time called Greenland. The following year (986) Bjarni Herjulfson claimed to have been driven by contrary winds to a strange shore nine days' sail southwest from Greenland,—"to a land flat and covered with trees." Then comes the familiar story, that in the year 1000 Leif, son of Eric the Red, having come from Norway and introduced Christianity into both Iceland and Greenland, sailed away to the southwest with thirty-five companions, intent on visiting the country which Bjarni had discovered before him. They wintered, so the saga reads, "at a place where a river flowed out from a lake," called the region Vinland because of wild grapes growing there, "erected large buildings," and then set out for Greenland with a cargo of timber,—a commodity much needed in the fishing colonies of the less-favored North. It is related that other explorations succeeded this, and that in 1007 a temporary settlement was formed in sunny Vinland, where the colonists, nearly one hundred in number, "had all the good things of the country, both of grapes and of all sorts of game and other things." Trading voyages to the new country now became frequent, say the sagas, and considerable shipments of timber were made from Vinland to Greenland. Eric Upsi, a Greenland bishop, is alleged, on doubtful authority, to have gone to Vinland in 1121; and in 1347 there is mention of a Greenland ship sailing out there for a cargo of timber,—but this is the very last reference to Vinland by the Norwegian bards.

An enormous mass of literature has been the outgrowth of these geographical puzzles in the sagas, and many writers have ventured to identify every headland and other natural object mentioned in them. |It is shadowy, but not improbable.| The common theory among the advocates of the Scandinavian claim is, that Vinland was somewhere on the coast south of Labrador; but as to the exact locality, there is much diversity of opinion. There may easily have been early voyages to the American mainland south of Davis Straits by the hardy Norse seamen colonized in Iceland and Greenland, and it is probable that there were numerous adventures of that sort.

The sagas, like the Homeric tales, were oral narrations for centuries before they were committed to writing, and as such were subject to distortion and patriotic and romantic embellishment. It is now difficult to separate in them the true from the false; yet we have other contemporaneous evidence (Adam of Bremen, 1076) that the Danes regarded Vinland as a reality. Pretended monuments of the early visits of Northmen to our shores have been exhibited,—notably the old mill at Newport and the Dighton Rock; but modern scholarship has determined that these are not relics of the vikings, and had a much less romantic origin. It is now safe to say that nowhere in America, south of undisputed traces in Greenland, are there any convincing archæological proofs of these alleged centuries of Norse occupation in America.

8. Early European Discoveries (1492-1512).

But even granting the possibility, and indeed the probability, of pre-Columbian discoveries, they bore no lasting fruit, and are merely the antiquarian puzzles and curiosities of American history. |American development begun with Columbus.| The development of the New World began with the landing (Oct. 12, 1492) on an island in the Bahamas, of Christopher Columbus, the agent of Spain. It was an age of daring maritime adventure. India, whence Europe obtained her gold and silks, her spices, perfumes, and precious stones, was the common goal. For many centuries the great trade route had been by caravans from India overland through Central Asia and the Balkan peninsula to Italy, the Rhine country, the Netherlands, and beyond; but the raids of the fierce desert tribes and the capture of Constantinople (1453) had closed this path, and now the trade passed through Egypt. |The race for India.| With improvements in the art of navigation there arose a general desire to reach India by sea. Three centuries before Christ, Aristotle had taught that the earth was a sphere, and that the waters which laved Europe on the west washed the eastern shores of Asia. Here and there through the centuries others advanced the same opinion, and the map which the great Italian astronomer Toscanelli sent to Columbus (1474) showed China to be but fifty-two degrees west of Europe. |The idea of sailing westward to reach India not original with Columbus.| The idea that by sailing west India could be reached, was therefore quite familiar to the contemporaries of Columbus, although he stands in the front as the one man who put his faith to the test. The mistake lay in the current calculations regarding the size of the earth. Instead of being only three thousand miles to the west, Asia was twelve thousand, and the continent of America blocked the way. It is probable that Columbus went to his grave still firm in the belief that he had reached the confines of India,—indeed, the names he gave to the islands and to the strange people who inhabited them stand as enduring evidence of his geographical error.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, sought India by the southeast passage, around the continent of Africa, and had been creeping southward along the African coast for several years before Spain sent Columbus to reach Asia by the west. Thus in the race for India and the discovery of intermediate lands, the Portuguese and the Spanish had adopted opposite routes. |Pope Alexander's bull.| Pope Alexander VI. now issued his famous bull (May 4, 1493), partitioning the un-Christian world into two parts,—Spain to have lands west of an imaginary meridian 100 leagues west of Cape de Verde islands, and Portugal those to the east—a simple arrangement, on paper. Next year, by agreement, the line was moved to 270 leagues westward, but it was still supposed to be in mid-ocean. By this change, however, the eastern part of what is now Brazil fell to Portugal.

England, although still Catholic, was not disposed to allow Spain and Portugal to monopolize between them those portions of the earth which Europeans had not yet seen; and we are told that there was grievous disappointment at the court of London because Spain had been the path-breaker to the west. |England sends out John Cabot.| In 1497 John Cabot set sail from England armed with a trading charter, to endeavor to reach Asia by way of the northwest. He had knowledge of the exploit of Columbus, and may well have heard of the Scandinavian discovery of Vinland. Early in the morning of the 24th of June he sighted the gloomy headlands of Cape Breton,—the first known European to make this important discovery. It is on record that "great honors" were heaped upon the adventurous mariner upon his return to England, and that the generous king gave "£10 to him that found the new isle"—the equivalent of $700 or $800 of our money.