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rather than for Christopher Columbus. This seems the more strange since we know so little about the life of Americus. Americus Vespucius was born in Florence, Italy, and like many other young Italians of that day entered the service of neighboring countries. He went to Spain and accompanied several Spanish expeditions sent to explore the new continent which Columbus had discovered on his third voyage.

Perhaps Americus went as a pilot; he certainly was not the leader in any expedition. But he seems to have written to his friends interesting accounts of what he had seen. In one of these letters Americus seems to have written boastfully of how he had found lands which might be called a new world. He said that the new continent was more populous and more full of animals than Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and that the climate was even more temperate and pleasant than any other region. This was clearly a new world.

WHY AMERICUS WAS REGARDED AS THE DISCOVERER OF AMERICA. The statement of Americus was scattered widely by the help of the newly invented printing press. It was written in Latin, and so could be read by the learned of all countries. They were impressed by the belief of Americus that he had seen a new world and not simply the Indies. This was especially true of men living outside of Spain who had heard little of Columbus or his discovery.

Columbus for his part had written as if his great discovery was a way to the Indies and the finding of islands on the way thither less important. Besides, when he saw what we call South America he had no idea that it was a new world. The people of Europe either never knew that he had discovered the mainland or had forgotten it altogether. But they heard a great deal about Americus and his doings. It is not strange that Americus rather than Columbus was long regarded as the true discoverer of America.

TWO NAMES FOR THE NEW LANDS. Even then the new continent might not have been called America but for the suggestion of a young scholar of the time. Martin Waldseemüller, a professor of geography at the college of St. Dié, now in eastern France, wrote a book on geography. In his description of the parts of the world unknown to the ancients, he suggested naming the continent stretching to the south for Americus.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE Of the passage in the _Cosmographia Introductio_ (1507), by Martin Waldseemüller, in which the name of America is proposed for the New World.]

The facsimile’s transcription reads as follows:

Nunc Vero et hae partes sunt latius lustratae, et alia quarta pars per Americum Vesputium (ut in sequentibus audietur) inventa est quam non video cur quis jure vetet ab Americo inventore sagacis ingenii viro Amerigen quasi Americi terram, sive Americam dicendam: cum et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint nomina. Ejus situm et gentis mores ex bis binis Americi navigationibus quae sequuntur liquide intelligidatur.

Waldseemüller thought Americus had been the real discoverer of this continent. He said, “Now, indeed, as these regions are more widely explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius, I do not see why any one may justly forbid it to be named Amerige–that is, Americ’s Land, from Americus, the discoverer.”

Others adopted Waldseemüller’s suggestion and the name America came into general use outside of Spain. But the Spaniards continued to call all the new lands by the name which Columbus had given them–the Indies. America was at first the name for South America only, but later was also used by writers for the other continent which was soon found to the north. It was natural to distinguish the two continents as South and North America.

BALBOA. The successors of Columbus kept up a ceaseless search for the real Indies, but the more they explored the more they saw that a great continental barrier was lying across the sea passage to Asia. A few began to suspect that after all America was not a part of Asia. Vasco Nuñez Balboa was one of these. Balboa was a planter who had settled in Española. He fell deeply into debt, and to escape his creditors had himself nailed up in a barrel and put aboard a vessel bound for the northern coast of South America. From there he went to the eastern border of Panama with a party of gold seekers. The Indians told him of a great sea and of an abundance of gold on its shores to be found a short distance across the isthmus. It is probable that the Indians wished to get rid of the Spaniards as neighbors.

[Illustration: VASCO NUÑEZ BALBOA]

BALBOA’S DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. Balboa resolved to make a name for himself and to be the discoverer of the other sea. He set off in 1513. The land is not more than forty-five miles wide at Panama, but it is almost impassable even to this day. For twenty-two days the hardy adventurers advanced through a forest, dense with thickets and tangled swamps and interlacing vines–so thick that for days the sun could not be seen–and over rough and slippery mountain-sides until they came to an open sea stretching off to the south and west. Balboa called it the South Sea, but it is usually called the Pacific Ocean, the name given it afterward.

Balboa had made the important discovery that the barrier of land was comparatively narrow. This gave the impression that North America, too, was narrower than it proved to be, and the search for the passage to the Indies was pushed with greater vigor.

MAGELLAN. A Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, had really won the race begun by Prince Henry’s navigators and Columbus for India, the land of cloves, pepper, and nutmegs. He had won in 1497 by going around the Cape of Good Hope. Another explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, finally, reached the Indies in a long westward voyage lasting two years, from 1519 to 1521.

[Illustration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN]

THE BEGINNING OF MAGELLAN’S VOYAGE. Magellan, himself a Portuguese, tried in vain like Columbus to persuade the king of Portugal to aid him in his project. He succeeded better in Spain, and sailed from there in 1519 with a small fleet given him by the young king Charles. The five ships in his fleet were old and in bad repair, and the crews had been brought together from every nation. They sailed directly to South America, and spent the first year searching every inlet along the coast for a passage.

[Illustration: THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN]

They found that the natives of South America used for food vegetables that “looked like turnips and tasted like chestnuts.” The Indians called them “patatas.” In this way the potato, one of the great foods of to-day, was found by Europeans. A whole winter was passed on the cold and barren coast of Patagonia. Magellan called the natives “Patagones,” the word in his language meaning big feet, from the large foot-prints which they left on the sand.

THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. Magellan finally found a strait, since named for him the Strait of Magellan, and sailed his ships through it amid the greatest dangers. The change from the rough waters of the strait to the calm sea beyond made the word Pacific or Peaceful Sea seem the most suitable name for the vast body of water which they had entered.

THE FIRST VOYAGE ACROSS THE PACIFIC. From the western coast of South America Magellan struck boldly out into the Pacific Ocean on his way to Asia. The crews suffered untold hardships. The very rats which overran the rotten ships became a luxurious article of food which only the more fortunate members of the crews could afford. The poorer seamen lived for days on the ox-hide strips which protected the masts. These were soaked in sea-water and roasted over the fire.

Magellan was fortunate enough to chance upon the Isle of Guam, where plentiful supplies were obtained. He called the group of small islands, of which Guam is one, the Ladrones. This was his word for robbers, used because the natives were such robbers. The expedition discovered a group of islands afterwards called the Philippines. There Magellan fell in with traders from the Indies and knew that the remainder of the voyage would be through well-known seas and over a route frequently followed. Poor Magellan did not live to complete his remarkable voyage. He was killed in the Philippine Islands in a battle with the natives.

[Illustration: AN OLD MAP OF THE NEW WORLD–1523 After Magellan’s voyage, but before the exploration of North America had gone far]

Only one of the five ships found its way through the Spice Islands, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and so back to Spain; but this one carried home twenty-six tons of cloves, worth more than enough to pay the whole cost of the expedition. Such was the value of the trade Europe was so eagerly seeking.

WHAT MAGELLAN HAD SHOWN THE PEOPLE OF EUROPE. Magellan’s voyage had, however, been a great event. Historians are agreed that it was the greatest voyage in the history of mankind. It had shown in a practical way that the earth is a globe, just as Columbus and other wise men had long taught, for a ship had sailed completely around it.

But Magellan had also proved some things that they had not dreamed. He had shown that two great oceans instead of one lay between Europe and Asia; he had made clear that the Indies which the Spanish explorers had found, and which other people were beginning to call the Americas, were really a new world entirely separate from Asia, and not a part of Asia as Columbus had thought.

QUESTIONS

1. Why were the early American explorers disappointed at finding two continents between Europe and Asia?

2. What land did John Cabot discover? Where did he think this land was? Why did the English people take little interest in this voyage?

3. Why was our country named America? Do you think that Americus Vespucius deserved so great an honor? By what name did the Spaniards continue to call the new region? Why did the Spaniards have one name and the other Europeans another name for a long time?

4. How did Balboa come to find the Pacific Ocean? Why did men search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific more vigorously after Balboa’s expedition?

5. Why has Magellan’s voyage been called the greatest one in history? What three things had Magellan shown the European world?

EXERCISES

1. Make out a list of the explorers mentioned in this chapter who helped in the discovery of the New World, and place opposite the name of each the name of the land he discovered.

2. Trace Magellan’s voyage on the map and make a list of the lands or countries he passed. Look at the map of North America on this old map, and at the one in mentioned Chapter XIX. How do you account for the queer shape of North America on the old map?

_Important date_–1519-21. Magellan’s ship made the first voyage around the world.

CHAPTER XVI

EARLY SPANISH EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS ON THE MAINLAND

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MEXICAN INDIANS. Early Spanish explorers on the coast of Mexico found the Indians of the mainland more highly civilized than the natives of the West Indies. Some of these, especially the Aztecs, lived in large villages or cities and were ruled by powerful chiefs or kings. They built to their gods huge stone temples with towers several stories in height.

Their houses, quite unlike those of the other Indians the Spanish had seen, were made of stone or sun-dried brick and coated with hard white plaster. Some of them were of immense size and could hold many families. Doors had not been invented, but hangings of woven grass or matting of cotton served instead. Strings of shells which a visitor could rattle answered for door-bells.

The streets of the towns were narrow, but were often paved with a sort of cement. Aqueducts in solid masonry somewhat like the old Roman aqueducts, although not so large, carried water from the neighboring hills for fountains and rude public baths.

The women wove cotton and prepared clothing for their families. Workmen made ornaments of gold and copper, and utensils and dishes of pottery for every-day use. The people cultivated the fields around the cities, raising a great variety of foods, and even built ditches to carry water for irrigating the fields. All this was in striking contrast with the simple habits of the West Indians.

[Illustration: AZTEC SACRIFICIAL STONE Now in the National Museum in the City of Mexico]

CRUEL CUSTOMS OF THE AZTECS. With all the good features of Mexican life, with all the superiority of the Mexicans over the other Indians, there was much that was hideous and cruel. The Aztecs, the most powerful tribes, were continually at war with their neighbors. They lived mainly upon the plunder of their enemies and the tribute which they took from those they had conquered. Like all Mexicans, they worshiped great ugly idols as gods and to these their priests offered part of the captives taken in war as human sacrifices.

SPANISH IDEAS OF MEXICO. The reports of the Aztec civilization and of the treasures of gold, mostly untrue, excited the interest and greed of the Spaniards. Mexico seemed like the China which Marco Polo had described, and might offer a chance of immense wealth for those who should conquer it. In truth, Mexican civilization did resemble that of Asia more than anything that the Spaniards had seen. Montezuma, a powerful chief or king of the Aztecs, lived somewhat like a Mongol Emperor of Persia or China.

[Illustration: MONTEZUMA, THE LAST KING OF MEXICO After Montanus and Ogilby]

CORTÉS. In 1519 the governor of Cuba sent Hernando Cortés to explore and conquer Mexico. The expedition landed where Vera Cruz is now situated. The ships were then sunk in order to cut off all hope of retreat for the soldiers. “For whom but cowards,” said Cortés, “were means of retreat necessary!” Cortés, with great skill, worked up the zeal of his soldiers to the fury of a religious crusade. All thought it a duty to destroy the idols they saw, to end the practice of offering human sacrifices, and to force the Christian religion upon the natives.

The small army marched slowly inland towards the City of Mexico, which was the capital of Montezuma’s kingdom. Cortés and his men had learned the Indian mode of fighting from ambush, and also how successfully to match cunning and treachery with those villagers who tried to prevent his invasion of their country.

HOW THE SPANIARDS AND THE AZTECS FOUGHT. The Mexican warriors, though they fought fiercely, were no match for the Spaniards. The Mexicans were experts with the bow and arrow, using arrows pointed with a hard kind of stone. They carried for hand-to-hand fighting a narrow club set with a double edge of razor-like stones, and wore a crude kind of armor made from quilted cotton. But such things were useless against Spanish bullets shot from afar.

[Illustration: THE ARMOR OF CORTÉS After an engraving of the original in the National Museum, Madrid]

The roaring cannon, the glittering steel swords, the thick armor and shining helmets, the prancing horses on which the Spanish leaders were mounted, gave the whole a strange, unearthly appearance to the simple-minded Indians. The story is told that the Mexicans believed that one of their gods had once floated out to sea, saying that, in the fulness of time, he would return with fair-skinned companions to begin again his rule over his people. Many Aztecs looked upon the coming of the white men as the return of this god and thought that resistance would be useless. Such natives sent presents, made their peace with Cortés, and so weakened the opposition to the conquerors.

CORTÉS IN PERIL. Cortés easily entered the City of Mexico, and forced Montezuma to resign. But here the natives attacked his army in such numbers that he had to retreat to escape capture. The Spaniards fled from the city at night amid the onslaught of the inhabitants fighting for their religion and their homes.

[Illustration: CANNON OF THE TIME OF CORTÉS After Van Menken. There are in the naval museum at Annapolis guns captured in the Mexican War supposed to be those used by Cortés]

The retreat cost the Spaniards terrible losses. Cortés started in the evening on the retreat with 1,250 soldiers, 6,000 Indian allies, and 80 horses. There were left in the morning 500 soldiers, 2,000 allies, and 20 horses. Cortés is said to have buried his face in his hands and wept for his lost followers, but he never wavered in his purpose of taking Mexico. He was able to defeat the Indians in the open country, and to return to the attack on the capital city.

CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO. The siege which followed, lasting nearly three months, has rarely been matched in history for the bravery and suffering of the natives. The fighting was constant and terrible. The fresh water supply was cut off from the inhabitants in the city, and famine aided the invaders. At length the defenders were exhausted and Cortés entered. It had taken him two years to conquer the Aztecs. A greater task remained for him to do. He was to cleanse and rebuild the City of Mexico, make it a center of Spanish civilization, and Mexico a New Spain. By such work Cortés showed that he could be not only a great conqueror, but also an able ruler in time of peace.

[Illustration: THE CITY OF MEXICO UNDER THE CONQUERORS From the engraving in the “Niewe Wereld” of Montanus]

PIZARRO. A few years after Cortés conquered Mexico a second army conquered another famous Indian kingdom. Francisco Pizarro commanded this expedition, which set out from Panama in 1531. Pizarro had been with Balboa at the discovery of the South Sea or Pacific Ocean, and, like his master, had become interested in the stories the Indians told of a rich kingdom far to the south. The golden kingdom which the Indians described was that of the Incas, who lived much as the Aztecs. The Spaniards called the region of the Incas the Biru country or, by softening the first letter, the Peru country, from Biru, who was a native Indian chieftain.

[Illustration: A STONE IDOL OF THE AZTEC’S It is more than eight feet high and five feet across, and was dug up in the central square of the City of Mexico more than one hundred years ago]

CONQUEST OF PERU. Pizarro found the Incas divided as usual by civil wars and incapable of much resistance. One of their rival chiefs was outwitted when he tried to capture Pizarro by a trick, and was himself made a prisoner instead. He offered to give Pizarro in return for his freedom as much gold as would fill his prison room as high as he could reach. The offer was accepted, and gold, mainly in the shape of vases, plates, images, and other ornaments from the temples for the Indian idols, was gathered together.

The Spaniards soon found themselves in possession of almost $7,000,000 worth of gold, besides a vast quantity of silver. As much more was taken from the Indians by force. The whole was divided among the conquerors. Pizarro’s share was worth nearly a million dollars. But the poor chief who had made them suddenly rich was suspected of plotting to have his warriors ambush them as they left the country, was tried by his conquerors, and put to death. The bloody work of conquest was soon over. Peru, like Mexico, rapidly became a center of Spanish settlement. Emigrants, instead of stopping in the West Indies, had the choice of going on into the newer regions which Cortés and Pizarro had won.

EMIGRANTS TO SPANISH AMERICA. It was much harder in the sixteenth century to leave Spain and settle in America than it is today. The first and sometimes the greatest difficulty was in getting permission to leave Spain. No one could go who had not secured the king’s consent. The emigrant must show that neither he nor his father nor his grandfather had ever been guilty of heresy, that is, that he and his forefathers had been steadfast Catholic Christians. His wife, if he had one, must give her consent. His debts must all be paid. The Moors and the Jews of Spain could not secure permits to move to the New World. Foreigners of whatever nation were not wanted in the colonies and were usually kept out. Spain tried to keep its colonies wholly for Spaniards.

HARDSHIPS OF THE SEA VOYAGE. Those who did go to the colonies found the voyage dangerous and costly. One traveler has related that it cost him about one hundred and eighty dollars for the passage, and that he provided his own chickens and bread. The danger to sailing ships from storms was much greater than it is today for steamships. The voyage required three or four weeks and not uncommonly as many months.

THE NEED OF LABORERS. The hardships and dangers of the voyage and the reports of suffering from famine and disease kept most people from going to the New World. Emigration was slow, amounting to about a thousand a year. There were always fewer capable white laborers than the landowners in the colonies needed for their work, for there was much to do in clearing the land and preparing it for use. The landowners were usually well-to-do Spaniards who did not like to work in the fields themselves. A great many of the laborers who migrated to America served in the army or went to the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru. The craze for gold constantly robbed the older colonies of their farm laborers. The landowners in the islands of the West Indies, during the early history of the colonies, made slaves of the Indians and compelled them to take the place of the laborers they needed and could not obtain.

INDIAN SLAVERY. The people of Europe thought that the whole world belonged to the followers of Christ. Non-Christians, whether Indian or negro, had the choice of accepting Christianity or of being made slaves. The choice of Christianity did not always save them from the fate of slavery. In this the Spaniards were no more cruel than their neighbors the English or the French. The Spanish planters from the beginning forced the Indians to work their farms. The gold seekers made them work in their mines.

The labor in every case was hard, and specially hard for the Indian unused to work. The overseers were brutal when the slaves did not do the tasks set for them. Hard usage and the unhealthful quarters rapidly broke down the natives. The white men also brought into the island diseases which they, with their greater experience, could resist, but from which, one writer says, the Indians died like sheep with a distemper.

[Illustration: A SPANISH GALLEON Ships like this carried the Spanish emigrants to America]

SLAVERY DESTROYS THE WEST INDIANS. When the number of the Indians in Española and Cuba had decreased so much that there were not enough left to meet the needs of the planters, slave-hunters searched the neighboring islands for others. Finally, when the Indians were nearly gone, and the planters began to look to the mainland for their slaves, the king of Spain forbade making slaves of the Indians. Unfortunately he did not forbid them to capture negroes in Africa for the same purpose, and the change merely meant that negroes took the place of Indians as slaves. The story of the change is in great part the story of the life of Bartholomew de Las Casas.

LAS CASAS. The father of Las Casas was a companion of Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. He returned to Spain, taking with him a young Indian slave whom he gave to his son. This youth became greatly interested in the race to which his young slave belonged. In 1502 he went to Española to take possession of his father’s estate. The planter’s life did not long satisfy him and finally he became a priest. He moved from Española to Cuba, the newer colony.

Las Casas became convinced that Indian slavery was wrong, and gave his own slaves their freedom. In his sermons he attacked the abuses of slavery. He visited Spain in order to help the slaves, and secured many reforms which lessened the hardships of their lot. Since the planters demanded more laborers and Las Casas thought the negro would be hardier than the Indian, he advocated negro slavery in place of Indian slavery as the less of two evils. Finally, in 1542, Las Casas persuaded his king, Charles V, to put an end to Indian slavery of every form.

His success came too late to benefit the natives of the West Indies. They had decreased until almost none were left. It is said that there were two hundred thousand Indians in Española in 1492, and that in 1548 there were barely five hundred survivors. The same decrease had taken place in the other islands. But the work of Las Casas came in time to save the Indians on the mainland from the fate of the luckless islanders.

NEGRO SLAVERY. Las Casas later regretted that he had advised the planters to obtain negroes to take the place of the Indians. Some negroes had been captured by the Portuguese on the coast of Africa during their explorations and taken to Europe as slaves. Columbus carried a few of these to the West Indies with him, and others had followed his example, but negro slavery had grown very slowly until after Las Casas stopped Indian slavery, when it increased rapidly in Spanish America.

[Illustration: LAS CASAS After the picture by Felix Parra in the Academy, Mexico. Las Casas is supposed to be imploring Providence to shield the natives from Spanish cruelty]

THE MISSIONS OF THE MAINLAND. Las Casas became at one time a missionary to a tribe of the most desperate warriors located on the southern border of Mexico, in a region called by the Spaniards the “Land of War.” Three times a Spanish army had invaded the country, and three times it had been driven back by the native defenders. Las Casas wished to show the Spaniards that more could be accomplished by treating the Indians kindly than by bloody warfare and conquest.

He and the monks whom he took with him learned the language of the Indians, and went among them not as conquerors but as Christian teachers. Their gentle manners and endless patience won the friendship of the Indians in time and changed the land of constant warfare into one of peace. They led the natives to destroy their idols and to give up cannibalism. The mission established among them and kept up by the monks who were attracted to it was only one of a great number which sprang up on the mainland.

THE WORK OF THE MISSIONS. Influenced by the work of Las Casas against Indian slavery and for Indian missions, the Spaniards bent their efforts to preserve and Christianize the natives wherever they came upon them in America. Catholic priests gathered the Indians into permanent villages, which were called missions. Within about one hundred years after the death of Columbus, or by 1600, there were more then 5,000,000 Indians in such villages under Spanish rule. Priests taught them to build better houses, checked their native vices, and suppressed heathen practices.

Every mission became a little industrial school for children and parents alike, where all might learn the simpler arts and trades and the customs and language of their teachers. Each Indian cultivated his own plot of land and worked two hours a day on the farm belonging to the village. The produce of the village farm supported the church. The monks or friars who had charge of the mission cared for the poor, taught in the schools, preserved the peace and order of the village, and looked after the religious welfare of all.

[Illustration: RUINS OF A SPANISH MISSION HOUSE]

Gradually Spanish emigrants settled in the mission stations, and planters established farms around them, and they became Spanish villages in every respect like those in the islands or in the Old World, except that many inhabitants in the towns on the mainland were Indians. The emigrants freely intermarried with the Indians and a mixed race took the place of the old inhabitants. The customs, language, religion, and rule of Spain prevailed in this New Spain, though in some ways the new civilization was not so good as that of the Old World.

QUESTIONS

1. In what ways did the Aztecs resemble the Europeans? How did they differ from them? Why were the Spaniards particularly anxious to conquer Mexico?

2. Why did many of the Mexicans refuse to fight the Spaniards? How many soldiers and Indian allies did Cortés lose in one battle? How long did it take Cortés to conquer Mexico?

3. What other Indian people was conquered a few years later? By whom? What seemed to be the main object of these conquerors, Cortés and Pizarro, in their expeditions?

4. Why did the Spaniards make slaves of the Indians in the West Indies? Why did they later cease making slaves of Indians and begin making slaves of negroes? What share had Las Casas in this change?

5. What good work did the priests and monks in the Spanish Missions accomplish? What became of the Aztecs or other Indian tribes in Mexico?

EXERCISES

1. Find all you can about the houses, food, clothing, and occupations of any Indians living in your part of the United States, or if none are there now, learn this from your parents or from some neighbor who knew the Indians. Did they resemble the Aztecs in these respects or the West Indians?

2. Review the account of emigrating to Spanish America four hundred years ago. Who could not go to Spanish America then? Find out who may not come into the United States to-day. What did it cost one traveler to get to America in the sixteenth century? Find out the cost of a voyage from Europe to America to-day. How long did it take to make such a voyage? Find out the usual length of a voyage from Europe to-day.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SPANISH EXPLORERS OF NORTH AMERICA

PONCE DE LEON. While men like Cortés were exploring and conquering the countries on the west shore of the Gulf of Mexico, others began to search the vast regions to the north. One of these explorers was Ponce de Leon, who had come to Española with Columbus in 1493. He afterwards spent many years in the West Indies capturing Indians, and understood from something they said that a magic fountain could be found beyond the Bahamas which would restore an old man to youth and vigor, if he bathed in it.

[Illustration: PONCE DE LEON]

As Ponce de Leon was beginning to feel aged he went in search of this wondrous fountain, but he found instead a coast where flowers grew in great abundance. It was the Easter season in 1513. Since the Spanish call this season _Pascua Florida_ or Flowery Easter, Ponce called the new flowery country Florida. He went ashore near the present site of St. Augustine, and later, while trying to establish a settlement, lost his life in a battle with the Indians.

EXPLORATIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN COAST. Other Spanish explorers between 1513 and 1525 followed the whole Gulf coast from Florida to Vera Cruz, and the Atlantic coast from Florida to Labrador. They sought continually for a passage to India. Every large inlet was entered, for it might prove to be the long-looked-for strait. Slowly the coast of North America took shape on the maps of that time. Two famous expeditions into the interior of the country did much to enlarge this knowledge. One was made by De Soto through the region which now forms seven southern states of the United States, and the other was by Coronado through the great southwest.

[Illustration: HERNANDO DE SOTO]

DE SOTO. Hernando de Soto, a noble from Seville in Spain, had won fame and fortune with Pizarro in Peru. The King of Spain, to reward his bravery and skill in conquering Indians, made him Governor of Cuba. In those days the Governor of Cuba controlled Florida. It was a larger Florida than the present state of that name, for Spanish Florida included the whole north coast of the Gulf of Mexico running back into the continent without any definite boundary.

THE STORY OF THE GILDED MAN. De Soto had heard a fanciful story of a country so rich in gold that its king was smeared every morning with gum and then thickly sprinkled with powdered gold, which was washed off at night. De Soto thought this country might be somewhere in Florida, and prepared to search for the Gilded Man, or in the Spanish language _El Dorado._

THE COMRADES OF DE SOTO. More than six hundred men, some of them from the oldest families of the nobility of Spain and Portugal, flocked to De Soto’s banner. They sold their possessions at home and ventured all their wealth in the hope of obtaining great riches in Florida.

DE SOTO’S ROUTE THROUGH THE SOUTH OF NORTH AMERICA. De Soto crossed from Cuba to the west coast of Florida in 1539, and advanced northward by land to an Indian village near Apalachee Bay. Here he spent the first winter. A white man, whom the Indians had taken captive twelve years before and finally adopted, joined De Soto and became very useful as an interpreter.

[Illustration: SPANISH KNIGHT OF 16TH CENTURY]

In the spring De Soto renewed his explorations. It was like a journey into the interior of Africa. The expedition passed northeasterly through the country now within Georgia and South Carolina, as far, perhaps, as the border of North Carolina. From here it passed through the mountains, and turned southwesterly through Tennessee and Alabama until a large Indian village called Mauvilla was reached. This was near the head of Mobile Bay. Mobile was named from the Indian village Mauvilla. The Alabama Indians, whose name means “the thicket clearers,” were near by. Here again De Soto changed his course to the northwest into the unknown interior.

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE JOURNEY. His army was almost exhausted by the difficulties of the journey. A road had to be cut and broken through thickets and forest, paths had to be made through the many swamps, and fords found across the rivers. It frequently became necessary to stop for months at a time, to let the horses, worn out from travel and starving because of the scarcity of fodder, fatten on the grass. The stores which the army brought with them soon gave out. The men were forced to live like Indians, and were often reduced to using the roots of wild plants for food. Where they could, they robbed the Indians of their scanty stores of corn and beans.

[Illustration: INDIANS BROILING FISH]

CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS. De Soto was cruel in his treatment of the conquered natives along his route. Many of his officers came with him really for the purpose of obtaining Indian slaves for their plantations in Cuba. Indian women were made to do the work of the camp. Indian men were chained together and forced to carry the baggage. The chiefs were held as hostages for the good behavior of the whole tribe. The Indians who tried to shirk work or offered resistance were killed without mercy.

[Illustration: MAP OF DE SOTO’S ROUTE–1539-1542]

De Soto’s cruelties made the Indian of the South hate the white men, and left him the enemy of any who should come to those regions in after-years. More than once De Soto narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of the enraged savages. They attacked the Spaniards with all their strength at Mauvilla, and again while they were in camp in northern Mississippi for the winter of 1540-1541. These two battles with the Indians cost the Spaniards their baggage, which was destroyed in the burning villages. New clothing, however, was soon made from the skins of wild animals. Deerskins and bearskins served for cloaks, jackets, shirts, stockings, and even for shoes. The great army must have looked much like a band of Robinson Crusoes.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. De Soto marched on northwesterly until May 8, 1541, when he was somewhere near the site of the present city of Memphis. There he came upon a great river. One of his officers tells us that the river was so wide at this point that if a man on the other side stood still, it could not be known whether he were a man or not; that the river was of great depth, and of a strong current; and that the water was always muddy.

De Soto called it, in his own language, the Rio Grande or Great River, but the Indians called it the Mississippi. Americans have adopted the Indian name. Other Spanish explorers had probably passed the mouth of the Mississippi River before De Soto, and wondered at its mighty size, but De Soto was the first white man to approach it from the land and to appreciate the importance of his discovery.

WANDERINGS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The Spaniards cut down trees, made them into planks and built barges on which they crossed the Mississippi. Then they wandered for another year through the endless woods and marshes of the low-lying lands now within the state of Arkansas. They probably went as far west as the open plains of Oklahoma or Texas. In these border regions between the forests and the prairies they met Indians who used the skins of the buffalo for clothing.

[Illustration: BURIAL OF DE SOTO IN THE MISSISSIPPI]

DEATH AND BURIAL OF DE SOTO. The severe winter of 1541-1542 discouraged the hardy travelers, who had now spent nearly three years in a vain search. The natives whom they had found made clothing from the fiber in the bark of mulberry trees and from the hides of buffaloes, and stored beans and corn for food, but such things seemed of little value to the seekers for the Gilded Man.

De Soto returned to the Mississippi and prepared to establish a colony somewhere near the mouth of the Red River. It was his purpose to send to Cuba for supplies, and, with this settlement as a base, make a farther search in the plains of the great West. He did not live to carry out his plan. Long exposure and anxiety had weakened him. The malaria of the swamps attacked him, and he died within a few days. His body was wrapped in mantles weighted with sand, carried in a canoe, and secretly lowered in the midst of the great river he had discovered.

His successor tried to conceal De Soto’s death from the Indians. The Spaniards had called their leader the Child of the Sun, and now he had died like any other mortal. They were afraid if the Indians found his body they would cease to believe that the strangers were immortal and would massacre them all. The Indians were told that the great leader had gone to Heaven, as he had often done before, and that he would return in a few days.

RESULTS OF DE SOTO’S JOURNEY. The weary survivors built boats, floated down the Mississippi into the Gulf, and sailed cautiously along the coasts to Mexico. They had been gone four years and three months, and half of the army which set out had perished. However, the expedition of De Soto will always remain one of the most remarkable journeys in the history of North America. It had extended the Spanish claims far into the interior. With it had begun the written history of the country now composing at least eight states in the United States, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. It had perhaps reached the present Oklahoma and Texas, and had certainly passed down the Mississippi River through Louisiana.

THE STORY OF THE SEVEN CITIES. While De Soto was exploring the southeastern part of North America a second expedition searched the southwest. Both were looking for rich Indian kingdoms like Mexico and Peru. The second expedition came about in this manner. Some of the Indians from northern Mexico told the Spaniards a strange tale of how in the distant past their ancestors came forth from seven caves.

[Illustration: AN INDIAN OF NORTHERN MEXICO]

The Spaniards, however, confused the tale with a story of their own about Seven Cities. They believed that at the time Spain was overrun by the Moors in the eighth century, seven bishops, flying from persecution, had taken refuge, with a great company of followers, on an island or group of islands far out in the Atlantic Ocean, and that they had built Seven Cities. Wonderful stories were told in Spain of these cities, of their wealth and splendor, though nobody ever pretended to have actually seen them. The Spaniards thought the Indians meant to tell them of these Seven Cities instead of seven caves.

The mistake was natural, as the Spanish explorers had much trouble in understanding the Indian languages. They had long expected to find the Seven Cities in America. Indeed there was rumor that white travelers had seen them north of Mexico.

THE JOURNEY OF FRIAR MARCOS. In 1539 the Viceroy of Mexico sent a frontier missionary, Friar Marcos by name, together with a negro, Stephen, and some Christianized Indians to look for them. Friar Marcos traveled far to the north. He inquired his way of the Indians, always asking them about Seven Cities. He described them as large cities with houses made of stone and mortar. The Indians, half-understanding him, directed him to seven Zuñi villages or pueblos. The first of these they called Cibola. Friar Marcos henceforth spoke of them as the Seven Cities of Cibola.

The good friar himself never entered even the first of them. His negro, Stephen, had been sent on in advance to prepare the way, but this rough, greedy fellow offended the Indians, who promptly murdered him. When the friar approached he found the Indians so excited and hostile that he dared not enter their village. He did, however, venture to climb a hill at a distance, from which he had a view of one of the cities of Cibola. The houses, built of light stone and whitish adobe, glistened in the wonderfully clear air and bright sunlight of that region, and gave him the idea of a much larger and richer city than really existed. Friar Marcos, by this time thoroughly frightened, hurriedly retraced his steps.

CORONADO. There was great excitement in Mexico over the story Friar Marcos told. The account of what had been seen grew, as such stories always do, in the telling and retelling. Nothing else was thought of in all New Spain. The Viceroy of Mexico made ready a great army for the conquest of the Seven Cities of Cibola. He gave the command to his intimate friend, Francisco de Coronado. Everybody wanted to accompany him, but it was necessary to have the consent of the viceroy. Sons of nobles, eager to go, traded with their more fortunate neighbors for the viceroy’s permit. Some men who secured these sold them as special favors to their friends. Whoever obtained one of them counted it as good as a title of nobility. So high were the expectations of great wealth when the Seven Cities should be discovered!

[Illustration: A ZUÑI PUEBLO FROM A DISTANCE]

THE ARMY OF CORONADO. In the early part of 1540, Coronado set forth from his home in western Mexico near the Gulf of California. He had an army of three hundred Spaniards, nearly all the younger sons of nobles. They were fitted out with polished coats of mail and gilded armor, carried lances and swords, and were mounted on the choicest horses from the large stock-farms of the viceroy. There were in the army a few footmen armed with crossbows and harquebuses. A thousand negroes and Indians were taken along, mainly as servants for the white masters. Some led the spare horses. Others carried the baggage, or drove the oxen and cows, the sheep and swine which would be needed on the journey. A small fleet carried part of the baggage by way of the Gulf of California, prepared also to help Coronado in other ways, and to explore the Gulf to its head.

[Illustration: THE ROUTE OF CORONADO]

THE ROUTE OF CORONADO TO CIBOLA. The large army marched slowly through the wild regions of the Gulf coast. Coronado soon became impatient and pushed ahead of the main body with a small following of picked horsemen. They went through the mountainous wilderness of northern Mexico and across the desert plains of southeastern Arizona. After a march lasting five months, over a distance equal to that from New York to Omaha, Coronado came upon the Seven Cities of Cibola; but the real Seven Cities of Cibola as Coronado found them bore little resemblance to what he had expected.

[Illustration: A ZUÑI PUEBLO]

THE REAL SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. The first city of Cibola was an Indian pueblo of about two hundred flat-roofed houses, built of stone and sun-dried clay. The houses were entered by climbing ladders to the top and then passing down into the rooms as we enter ships through hatches. The people wore only such clothes as could be woven from the coarse fiber of native plants, or patched together from the tanned skins of the cat or the deer. They cultivated certain plants for food, but only small and poor varieties of corn, beans, and melons. They had some skill in making small things for house and personal decoration, mainly in the form of pottery and simple ornaments of green stone.

The kingdom of rich cities dwindled to a small province of poor villages inhabited by an unwarlike people. We know now that Coronado had found the Zuñi pueblos in the western part of New Mexico. The conquest of these was a wofully small thing for so grand and costly an expedition. No gold or silver or precious jewels had been found.

[Illustration: CANYON OF THE COLORADO]

THE CANYON OF THE COLORADO. Yet the wonders of the natural world about them astonished and interested the Spaniards. Some of their number found the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and vividly described it to their comrades. As they looked into its depths it seemed as if the water was six feet across, although in reality it was many hundred feet wide. Some tried without success to descend the steep cliff to the stream below or to discover a means of crossing to the opposite side. Those who staid above estimated that some huge rocks on the side of the cliff were about as tall as a man, but those who went down as far as they could swore that when they reached these rocks they found them bigger than the great tower of Seville, which is two hundred and seventy-five feet high.

CORONADO IN NEW MEXICO. Coronado marched from the Cities of Cibola eastward to the valley of the Rio Grande River, and settled for the winter in an Indian village a short distance south of the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Spaniards drove the natives out, only allowing them to take the clothes they wore.

A WINTER IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE. The soldiers passed the severe winter of 1540-1541 comfortably quartered in the best houses of the Indian village. A plentiful supply of corn and beans had been left by the unfortunate owners. The live stock brought from Mexico furnished an abundance of fresh meat. Coronado required the Indians to furnish three hundred pieces of cloth for cloaks and blankets for his men, to take the place of their own, now worn out. Nor did the officers give the Indians time to secure the cloth that was demanded, but forced them to take their own cloaks and blankets off their backs. When a soldier came upon an Indian whose blanket was better than his, he compelled the unlucky fellow to exchange with him without more ado.

Coronado’s strenuous efforts to provide well for the comforts of his men made him much loved by them, but much hated by the Indians. It is no wonder that such treatment drove the Indians into rebellion, and that Coronado was obliged to carry on a cruel war of reconquest and revenge.

THE TALE OF QUIVIRA. An Indian slave in one of the villages cheered Coronado and his followers with a fabulous tale about a wonderful city, many days’ journey across the plains to the northeast, which he called Quivira. The king of Quivira, he said, took his nap under a large tree, on which were hung little gold bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the air. Every one in the city had jugs and bowls made of wrought gold. The slave was probably tempted by the eagerness of his hearers to make his tale bigger. He perhaps made it as enticing as he could in order to lead the strangers away to perish in the pathless plains where water would be scarce and corn unknown.

THE SEARCH FOR QUIVIRA. The slave’s story deceived the Spaniards. Coronado grasped eagerly at the only hope left of finding a rich country and marched away in search of Quivira. He traveled to the northeast for seventy-seven days. There were no guiding land marks. Soldiers measured the distance traveled each day by counting the footsteps. The plains were flat, save for an occasional channel cut by some river half buried in the sand; they were barren, except for a short wiry grass and a small rim of shrubs and stunted trees along the watercourses.

QUIVIRA. The most marvelous sight of the long journey was the herds of buffaloes in countless numbers. The Indians guided Coronado in the end to a cluster of Indian villages which they called Quivira. This was somewhere in what is now central Kansas near Junction City. The Indians were in all probability the Wichitas. Here again the great explorer met with a bitter disappointment.

[Illustration: INDIAN TEPEES]

Instead of a fine city of stone and mortar, he found scattered Indian villages with mere tent-like houses formed by fastening grass or straw or buffalo skins to poles. The people were the poorest and most barbarous which he had met. Coronado was, however, fortunate in securing a supply of corn and buffalo meat in Quivira for his long return journey.

CORONADO’S OPINION OF THE WEST. A year later a crestfallen army of half-starved men clad in the skins of animals stumbled back homeward through Mexico in straggling groups. Great sadness prevailed in Mexico, for many had lost their fortunes besides friends and relatives in the enterprise. Coronado seemed to the people of the time to have led a costly army on a wild-goose chase. He himself thought that the regions he had crossed were valueless. He said they were cold and too far away from the sea to furnish a good site for a colony, and the country was neither rich enough nor populous enough to make it worth keeping.

RESULTS OF CORONADO’S EXPLORATIONS. We know better to-day the value of Coronado’s great discoveries. He had solved the age-long mystery of the Seven Cities, and explored the southwest of the United States of our day. The rich region now included in the great states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas had been seen, and it was soon after described for the European world. His men had explored the Gulf of California to its head, and the Colorado River toward its source for two hundred miles. They had proved that lower California was not an island but a part of the mainland. Others soon explored the entire coast of California to the limits of the present state of Oregon.

HOW DE SOTO AND CORONADO CAME NEAR MEETING. De Soto and Coronado together pushed the Spanish frontier far northward to the center of North America. A story which was told by De Soto’s men shows how close together the two great explorers were at one time. While Coronado was in Quivira, De Soto was wandering along the borders of the plains west of the Mississippi River, though neither knew of the nearness of the other. An Indian woman who ran away from Coronado’s army fell in with De Soto’s, nine days later. If De Soto and Coronado had met on the plains there would have been a finer story to tell, almost as dramatic as the meeting of Stanley and Livingstone in central Africa. One cannot refrain from wondering how different would have been the ending with the two great armies united and encouraged to continue their explorations.

QUESTIONS

1. What story had Ponce de Leon heard in the West Indies? What did he find? Why did he call the new country which he discovered Florida? What was included in Florida as the Spaniards understood it?

2. What was De Soto looking for in North America? How long did he search? What did he find? Was he disappointed? What was he planning to do when he died? Why was his journey very remarkable? Through what present states of the United States did he pass?

3. Where did the Spaniards expect to find the Seven Cities? Why did he expect to find them there? What was the story of the Seven Cities? Of the Seven Caves?

4. What did Coronado expect to find at the Seven Cities of Cibola? What did he find there? Why did he go far on into North America in search of Quivira? What did he find on the way to Quivira? What did he find Quivira to be?

5. What did Coronado think of his own discoveries? What had he found out of interest or value to the rest of the world? Which of the present states of the United States did his route touch?

REVIEW

1. Review the effect of the discoveries of Columbus, Magellan, De Soto, Coronado, on the knowledge of the new world.

_Important date_–1541. The discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto.

CHAPTER XVIII

RIVALRY AND STRIFE IN EUROPE

THE RIVALS OF SPAIN. When the early voyages to America and Asia were ended, the French, the English, and the other northern peoples of Europe seemed to be beaten in the race for new lands and for new routes to old lands. The French had sent a few fishermen to the Banks of Newfoundland, and that was all. The English had made one or two voyages and appeared to be no longer interested. (See Chapter XIV, Cabot) The Dutch seemed to be only sturdy fishermen, thrifty farmers, or keen traders, occupied much of the time in the struggle against the North Sea, which threatened to burst the dikes and flood farms and cities.

THE TRADE-WINDS. The Portuguese and the Spaniards had a great advantage in living nearer the natural starting-point for such voyages. To go to Asia ships went by way of the Cape of Good Hope. To go to America a southern route was taken, for in the North Atlantic the prevailing winds are from the southwest, while south of Spain the trade-winds blow towards the southwest, making it easy to sail to America. To take the northern route, which was the natural one for French and English sailors, would be to battle against head winds and heavy seas.

THE SPANIARDS AND THE PORTUGUESE DIVIDE THE WORLD. The Spaniards and the Portuguese believed that their discoveries gave them the right to all new lands which should be found and to all trade by sea with the Golden East. Two years after the first voyage of Columbus the Spaniards agreed with the Portuguese that a line running 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands should separate the regions claimed by each. The Spaniards were to hold all lands discovered west of that line, and the Portuguese all east of it. This left Brazil within the region claimed by the Portuguese. The rest of North and South America lay within the Spanish claims. It is the future history of this region that especially interests us as students of American history.

[Illustration: CABOT MEMORIAL TOWER Erected at Bristol, England, in memory of the first sailor from England to visit America]

THE MAIN QUESTION. Were the Spaniards to keep what they claimed and continue to outstrip their northern rivals? The answer to this question is found in the history of Europe during the sixteenth century. Unfortunately for the Spaniards they were drawn into quarrels in Europe which cost them many men and much money. The consequence was that they were unable to make full use of their discoveries, even if they had known how. Before the century was ended their rivals, the English and the French, were stronger than they; and the Dutch, their own subjects, had rebelled against them.

THE ENGLISH AND THE FRENCH DESIRE A SHARE. Men had such great ideas of the immense wealth of the Indies that the successes of one nation made the other nations eager for some part of the spoil. Englishmen and Frenchmen were not likely to allow the Portuguese to take all they could find by sailing eastward around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spaniards to keep whatever they discovered by sailing directly westward or by following the route marked out by Magellan. Both would search for new routes to the East, and both would lay claim to lands they saw by the way, regardless of any other nation. Many quarrels came from this rivalry, but quarrels arose also from other causes.

KING CHARLES AND KING FRANCIS. About the time Cortés conquered Mexico, his master, King Charles of Spain, began a war against Francis, the king of France. As long as these two kings lived they were either fighting or preparing to fight. Had Charles been king of Spain only, there might have been no trouble, but he ruled lands in Italy and claimed others which the French king ruled. He also ruled all the region north of France which is now Belgium and Holland, and he owned a district which forms part of eastern France near Switzerland. As he was the German emperor besides, the French king thought him too dangerous to be left in peace. These wars have little to do with American history, except that they helped to weaken the king of Spain and to prevent the Spaniards from making the most of their early successes in colonizing.

RELIGION A CAUSE OF STRIFE. Religion was the most serious cause of quarrel in the sixteenth century, and the king of Spain was the prince most injured by the struggle. At the time of Prince Henry of Portugal and of Columbus all peoples in western Europe worshiped in the same manner, taught their children the same beliefs, and in religious matters they all obeyed the pope. But by 1521 this had changed. The troubles began in Germany when Charles V was emperor. Before they were over Philip II, son of Charles, lost control of the Dutch, who rebelled and founded a republic of their own. The English finally became the principal enemies of Spain. The French, most of whom were of the same religion as the Spaniards, came to hate Spanish methods of defending religion, especially after the Spaniards had massacred a band of French settlers in America.

[Illustration: EMPEROR CHARLES V]

THE “REFORMERS.” Many men became discontented at the way the Church was managed. At first all were agreed that the evils of which they complained could be removed if priests, bishops, and pope worked together to that end. After a while some teachers in different countries not only complained of evils, but refused to believe as the Church had taught and as most people still believed. They did not mean to divide the Christian Church into several churches, but they thought they understood the words of the Bible better than the teachers of the Church.

THE REFORMATION. At that time people who were not agreed in their religious beliefs did not live peaceably in the same countries. The princes and kings who were faithful to the Church ordered that the new teachers and their followers should be punished. Other princes accepted the views of the “reformers,” and soon began to punish those of their subjects who continued to believe as the Church taught. In Germany these princes were called “Protestants,” because they protested against the efforts of the Emperor Charles and his advisers to stop the spread of the new religion. This name was afterwards given to all who refused to remain in the older Church, subject to the bishops and the pope.

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT LEADERS. The most famous leaders of the Roman Catholics at this time were Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard, Reginald Pole, an Englishman, and Carlo Borromeo, an Italian. Loyola had been a soldier in his youth, but while recovering from a serious wound, resolved to be a missionary. With several other young men of the same purpose he founded the Society of Jesus or the Jesuit Order. Of the Protestants the greatest leaders were Martin Luther, a German, and John Calvin, a Frenchman. Luther was a professor in the university at Wittenberg in Saxony, which was ruled by the Elector Frederick the Wise. Calvin had lived as a student in Paris, but when King Francis resolved to allow no Protestants in his kingdom, Calvin was obliged to leave the country. He settled in the Swiss city of Geneva.

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. Luther’s teachings were accepted by many Germans, especially in northern Germany. He translated the Bible into German. After a while his followers formed a Church of their own which was called Lutheran. It differed from the Roman Catholic Church in the way it was governed as well as in what it taught.

THE FRENCH HUGUENOTS. Calvin lived in Geneva, but most of those who accepted his teachings continued to live in France. The nickname Huguenots, or confederates, was given to them. They were not permitted by the French king to worship as Calvin taught, but by 1562 so many nobles had joined them that it was no longer possible to treat them as criminals. They were permitted to hold their meetings outside the walled towns. The leader whom they most honored was Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Both he and they, as we shall see, soon had reason to fear and hate the Spaniards. But we must first understand the difficulties which the king of Spain had in dealing with his Dutch subjects.

THE KING OF SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS. Philip II inherited from his father Charles seventeen duchies, counties, and other districts north of France in what is now Belgium and Holland. Charles had known how to manage these people, because he was brought up among them. The task of managing them was not easy. Each district or city had its own special rights and its people demanded that these should be respected by the ruling prince. Charles had remembered this, but Philip wished to rule the Netherlanders, as these people were called, just as he ruled the people of Spain.

[Illustration: THE DIKES ALONG THE YSSEL IN THE NETHERLANDS]

PROTESTANTS IN THE NETHERLANDS. The trouble was made worse because many of the Netherlanders became followers of Luther or Calvin, and brought their books into the country. Now Philip, like his father Charles, was faithful to the teachings of the Church, and thought it was his duty to punish such persons. The result was that Philip soon had two kinds of enemies in his Netherland provinces, those who did not like the way he ruled and those who refused to believe as the Church taught, and the two united against him. After a while most of the Lutherans were driven away, but the Calvinists kept coming in over the border from France.

THE NETHERLANDS. The Netherlands, or Low Countries, are well named, especially the northern part where the Dutch live, because much of the land is below the level of the sea at high tide, and some of it at low tide. For several hundred years the Dutch built dikes to keep back the sea, or pumped it out where it flowed in and covered the lower lands. Occasionally great storms broke through the dikes and caused the Dutch months or years of labor. A people so brave and industrious were not likely to submit to the will of Philip II. The chances that they would rebel were increased by the spread of the new religious views, which the Dutch accepted more readily than their neighbors, the southern Netherlanders. The southern Netherlanders who became Calvinists generally emigrated to the northern cities, like Amsterdam, where they were safer.

[Illustration: Map Of The Netherlands]

WILLIAM OF ORANGE. William, Prince of Orange, was the leader of the Dutch against Philip II. He had been trusted by Charles, Philip’s father, who had leaned on his shoulder at the great ceremony held in Brussels when Charles gave up his throne to Philip. William was called the “Silent,” because he was careful not to tell his plans to any except his nearest friends. When Philip returned to Spain, William was made governor or _stadtholder_ of three of the Dutch provinces–Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. Philip was angry because William and other great nobles in the Netherlands opposed his way of dealing with the heretics and of ruling the Netherlands. In this both the southern Netherlanders and the northern Netherlanders were united, although the southern Netherlanders remained faithful to the Roman Catholic religion.

SPAIN AND ENGLAND. The English at first had no reason to quarrel with the king of Spain. They were friendly to the Netherlanders, who were his subjects. During the Middle Ages they sold great quantities of wool to the Netherland cities of Bruges, Brussels, and Ghent, and bought fine cloth woven in those towns. The friendship of the ruler of the Netherlands seemed necessary, if this trade was to prosper. It was the trouble about religion which finally made the English and the Spaniards enemies.

HENRY VIII. During the reign of Henry VIII, King of England, the king, the parliament, and the clergy decided to refuse obedience to the pope. The king called himself the head of the Church in England. Lutheran views crept into the country as they had done into the Netherlands, but King Henry at first disliked the Lutherans quite as much as he grew to dislike the pope.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH. So long as Henry lived not much change was made in the beliefs or the manner of worship in the Church. During the short reign of his son, the English Church became more like the Protestant Churches on the Continent, except that in England there were still archbishops and bishops, and the government of the Church went on much as before. When Henry’s daughter Mary was made queen she tried to stop these changes, and for a few years her subjects were again obedient to the pope, but she died in 1558 and her half-sister, Elizabeth, became queen.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH]

THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE CATHOLICS. In religious matters Queen Elizabeth did much as her father and her brother had done. All persons were forced to attend the religious services carried on in the manner ordered in the prayer-book. Roman Catholics could not hold any government office. They were punished if they tried to persuade others to remain faithful to the older Church. Philip did not like this, but for a time he preferred to be on friendly terms with the English.

[Illustration: COSTUMES AT THE TIME OF ELIZABETH]

QUEEN ELIZABETH. Queen Elizabeth ruled England for forty-five years. The English regard her reign as the most glorious in their history. Before it was over they proved themselves more than a match for the Spaniards on the sea. They also began to seek for routes to the East and to attempt settlements in America. Their trade was increasing. The Greek and Roman writers were studied by English scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. Books and poems and plays were written which were to make the English language the rival of the languages of Greece and Rome. This was the time when Shakespeare wrote his first plays.

QUESTIONS

1. Why was it easier to sail toward America from Spain or Portugal than from England?

2. What peoples divided the new world between them? Where did they draw the line of division?

3. Why were the kings of France and Spain rivals? Over what countries did King Charles rule?

4. When did religion become a cause of strife? What king was chiefly injured by such struggles?

5. Who were called “reformers?” By what other names were they called?

6. Who were the leaders of the Catholics? of the Protestants? Who were the Huguenots? What was their leader’s name?

7. Why did Philip II and his subjects in the Netherlands quarrel?

8. What was strange about the land in which the Dutch lived? Who was the hero of the Dutch?

9. Why were the English and the Spaniards at first friendly? What king of England refused to obey the pope?

10. Why do Englishmen think Queen Elizabeth a great ruler? How did Elizabeth settle the question of religion?

EXERCISE

Collect pictures of the Dutch, of their canals, dikes, and towns.

CHAPTER XIX

FIRST FRENCH ATTEMPTS TO SETTLE AMERICA

CARTIER. During the reign of Francis I, the French made the first serious attempts to find a westward route to the Far East and to settle the new lands that seemed to lie directly across the pathway. In 1534 Jacques Cartier was sent with two ships in search of a strait beyond the regions controlled by Spain or Portugal which would lead into the Pacific Ocean. Cartier passed around the northern side of Newfoundland and into the broad expanse of water west of it. This he called the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

CARTIER AT MONTREAL. Cartier made a second voyage in the following year, exploring the great river which he called the St. Lawrence. He went up the river until the heights of Mount Royal or Montreal, as he called them, appeared on his right hand, and swift rapids in the river blocked his way in front. The name Lachine rapids, or the China rapids, which was afterwards given to these, remains to remind us that Cartier was searching for a passage to China.

THE FIRST WINTER IN CANADA. Cartier spent the severe winter which followed at the foot of the cliffs which mark the site of the modern city of Quebec. The expedition returned to France with the coming of spring.

ATTEMPTS TO PLANT A COLONY AT QUEBEC. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable place for their colony. But the settlers were ill-fitted for the hardships of a new settlement in so cold and barren a country. Diseases and the hostility of the Indians completely discouraged them, and all gladly returned to France.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JACQUES CARTIER’s VOYAGES Thus: 1st Voyage—- 2d Voyage…. 3d Voyage–> –>]

The zeal of the French for American discovery and settlement on the St. Lawrence ceased with Cartier. His hope that the St. Lawrence would prove the long-sought passage to China had to be given up, but the river which he had discovered and so thoroughly explored proved to be a great highway into the center of North America.

COLIGNY’S PLAN FOR A HUGUENOT COLONY. Nearly thirty years later the French Protestant leader, Coligny, formed the plan of establishing a colony in America, which would be a refuge for the Huguenots if their enemies got the upper hand in France. An expedition left France in 1564, and selected a site for a settlement near the mouth of the St. Johns river in Florida. It seemed a good place. A fort, called Fort Caroline, was quickly built. But the first colonists were not well chosen. They were chiefly younger nobles, soldiers unused to labor, or discontented tradesmen and artisans. There were few farmers among them.

THE MISDEEDS OF THE COLONISTS. They spent their time visiting distant Indian tribes in a vain search for gold and silver, or plundering Spanish villages and ships in the West Indies. No one thought of preparing the soil and planting seeds for a food supply. It seemed easier to rob neighbors. The provisions which they had brought with them gave out. Game and fish abounded in the woods and rivers about them, but they were without skill in hunting and fishing. Before the first year had passed the miserable inhabitants of Fort Caroline were reduced to digging roots in the forest for food. Starvation and the revenge of angry Indians confronted them.

RELIEF SENT TO THE COLONY. In August, 1565, just as the half-starved colonists were preparing to leave the country, an expedition with fresh settlers–mostly discharged soldiers, a few young nobles, and some mechanics with their families, three hundred in all–arrived in the harbor. It brought an abundance of supplies and other things needed by a colony in a new country. It looked then as though these Frenchmen would succeed in their plan and establish a permanent colony in America.

[Illustration: FORT CAROLINE, THE FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN FLORIDA From De Bry’s Voyages]

FORT CAROLINE AND THE SPANIARDS. The French had, however, settled in Florida. Indeed, it would have been difficult to settle in America at any place along the Atlantic coast without doing so. The Spaniards regarded all North America from Mexico to Labrador as lying within Florida. The attempt of the French to settle on the lands claimed by the king of Spain was sure to bring on a war, sooner or later. The conduct of the French at Fort Caroline in plundering the Spanish colonies in the West Indies made all Spaniards anxious to drive out such a nest of robbers and murderers. Besides, the Spaniards hated Coligny’s followers more than ordinary Frenchmen, because they were Huguenots.

MENENDEZ. At the time the news reached Spain of Coligny’s settlement at Fort Caroline, a Spanish nobleman, Pedro Menendez, was preparing to establish a colony in Florida, and thus after a long delay carry out the task which De Soto had vainly attempted. Menendez was naturally as eager as the king to drive out the French intruders. So an expedition larger than was planned at first was hurried off. Menendez was to do three things: drive the French out, conquer and Christianize the Indians, and establish Spanish settlements in Florida.

THE DEFEAT OF THE FRENCH FLEET. Menendez with a part of his fleet arrived before Fort Caroline just one week after the relief expedition which Coligny had sent over came into harbor. His ships attacked and scattered those of the French. The vessels of the French for the most part sought refuge on the high seas. They were too swift to be overtaken, but no match for the Spanish in battle. Menendez decided to wait for the rest of his ships before making another attack on Fort Caroline. Meanwhile he sailed southward along the coast for fifty miles till he came to an inlet. He called the place St. Augustine.

ST. AUGUSTINE FOUNDED. A friendly Indian chief readily gave his dwelling to the Spaniards. It was a huge, barn-like structure, made of the entire trunks of trees, and thatched with palmetto leaves. Soldiers quickly dug a ditch around it and threw up a breastwork of earth and small sticks. The colonists who came with Menendez landed and set about the usual work of founding a settlement. Such was the beginning of the Spanish town of St. Augustine, founded in 1565, and the oldest town in the United States.

[Illustration: ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA, AS FOUNDED BY MENENDEZ Pagus Hispanorum as given in Montanus and Ogilby]

FRENCH SAIL TO ATTACK ST. AUGUSTINE. Both sides prepared for a terrible struggle, the French at Fort Caroline and the Spaniards in their new quarters at St. Augustine. The French struck the first blow. A few of the weaker and the sick soldiers were left at Fort Caroline to stand guard with the women and children. The main body aboard the ships advanced by sea to attack St. Augustine, but a furious tempest scattered and wrecked the French fleet before it arrived.

MENENDEZ DESTROYS FORT CAROLINE. Menendez now took advantage of the storm to march overland to Fort Caroline, wading through swamps and fording streams amid a fearful rain and gale. His drenched and hungry followers fell like wild beasts upon the few French left in the fort. About fifty of the women and children were spared to become captives. As many men escaped in the forests around the fort, but the greater part were killed.

CAPTURE OF THE SHIPWRECKED FRENCH. The French fleet had been wrecked off the coast of Florida a dozen miles south of St. Augustine. A few days later Menendez discovered some survivors wandering along the coast, half starved, trying to live on the shell-fish they found on the beach, and slowly and painfully working their way back toward Fort Caroline. The Frenchmen begged Menendez to be allowed to remain in the country till ships could be sent to take them off, but he was unwilling to make any terms with them.

MURDER OF THE CAPTIVES. The unhappy Frenchmen were taken prisoners, and, a few hours later, put to death. Other shipwrecked refugees were captured a few days later, and these suffered the same fate. Nearly three hundred perished in this cold-blooded manner. It was a merciless deed, and yet such was the character of all warfare at the time. Menendez believed that he was doing his duty. Nor did the king of Spain think Menendez unduly cruel, for when he heard the story of the fate of the Frenchmen of Fort Caroline he sent this message to Menendez: “Say to him that, as to those he has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys.”

[Illustration: NORTH AMERICA AS KNOWN AFTER THE EXPLORATIONS OF DE SOTO CORONADO AND CARTIER]

[Illustration: (map)]

QUESTIONS

1. Who was the leader in the first French efforts to explore and settle in North America? Find as many reasons as possible why France had not tried to settle in America before. What parts of the continent did Cartier become interested in? Why was he specially interested in St. Lawrence region?

2. How did Montreal get its name? Why was the name, Lachine rapids, given to the rapids above Montreal on the St. Lawrence river?

3. Why did Cartier fail in his attempts to plant a French colony in North America? How much had he and his friends accomplished for France in North America?

4. Why did Coligny later wish to establish a colony in America? Where did his people try to settle? Find the place on the map. Give several reasons why they soon got into trouble with the Spaniards.

5. What did the king of Spain send Menendez to Florida to do? What things did he accomplish? Why do we specially remember St. Augustine? Find it on the map.

EXERCISES

1. Examine the map of North America in 1541. What parts of North America were known? What parts were unknown? Can you see why the explorers would search each bay or inlet or great river?

2. Find how far into the continent of North America the French explored the St. Lawrence river, that is, the distance from Newfoundland to Montreal by using the scale of miles on a map in one of your geographies.

_Important Date_: 1565. The founding of St. Augustine.

CHAPTER XX

THE ENGLISH AND THE DUTCH TRIUMPH OVER SPAIN

CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE NETHERLANDERS. Two years after the cruel massacre of the Huguenot colony in Florida, Philip II, the King of Spain, decided to put an end to the obstinacy of the Netherlanders, and sent an army from Spain commanded by the Duke of Alva, who was as pitiless as Menendez. Alva began by seizing prominent nobles, and he would have arrested the Prince of Orange, but he escaped into Germany. A court was set up which condemned many persons to death, including the greatest nobles of the land. The people nicknamed it the Council of Blood. Alva also turned the merchants against him by compelling them to pay the “tenth penny,” that is, one tenth of the price of the goods every time these were either bought or sold. Alva made himself so thoroughly hated that even Philip decided to call him back to Spain.

THE BEGGARS OF THE SEA. Just then something happened which gave Coligny and the Huguenots their chance for vengeance. The men who were resisting the king’s officers in the Netherlands had been nicknamed the “Beggars.” When they were driven from the cities they took to the sea. The “Beggars of the Sea” sometimes found a port of refuge in La Rochelle, a Huguenot town on the western coast of France, and sometimes they put into friendly English harbors. From these places they would sail out and attack Spanish vessels. When Queen Elizabeth in 1572 ordered a fleet of these “Beggars” to leave, they crossed over to their own shores and drove the Spanish garrison out of Brille. This success encouraged the Dutch and many of the southern Netherlanders to rise and expel the Spanish soldiers from their towns.

THE FRENCH PROMISE AID. As soon as Coligny heard the news he urged the French king to send an army into the Netherlands and take vengeance not only for the massacre at Fort Caroline, but also for all the wrongs that he and his father and his grandfather had ever received at the hands of the Spaniards. The French king agreed and wrote a letter to the Netherlanders promising aid.

[Illustration: GASPARD DE COLIGNY After the portrait in the Public Library, Geneva]

MASSACRE OF HUGUENOTS IN PARIS. The plan was never carried out. While Coligny and many other Huguenots were in Paris, his enemies attempted to kill him. When the attempt failed these enemies, including the king’s mother, persuaded the king that Coligny and the Huguenots were plotting against him, and goaded the king into ordering the murder of all the Huguenots in Paris and the other cities of France. Thousands of Huguenots perished. When the Netherlanders heard of what had befallen Coligny and his followers, they were crushed with grief. Coligny had missed the chance of vengeance. But the Spanish king was soon to have other enemies besides the Huguenots who were ready to help the Dutch. These new enemies were the English.

THE ENGLISH DRAWN INTO THE CONFLICT. The religious troubles in England had been growing more serious. Two or three plots were made to assassinate Elizabeth in order to put on the throne Queen Mary of Scotland, who was the next heir. Philip began to encourage these plotters, especially after the pope in 1570 had excommunicated Elizabeth and forbidden her subjects to obey her as queen. She was sure to be dragged into the struggle in the Netherlands sooner or later. We have seen that she had once sheltered the “Beggars of the Sea.” The murder of Coligny and his followers frightened the English and made many of them anxious to join in the conflict before their friends on the Continent, the French Huguenots and the Dutch Calvinists, were utterly destroyed.

GROWTH OF ENGLISH TRADE. If England should be drawn into war, her safety would depend mainly upon her ships. Englishmen had always taken to the sea, as was natural for men whose shores were washed by the Atlantic, the Channel and the North Sea, but they were slow in building fleets of ships either for trade or for war. The trade of the country with other peoples in the Middle Ages was carried on mostly by foreigners. Yet since the days of Elizabeth’s father and grandfather a change had taken place. English merchants found their way to all markets. They also made new things to sell. Refugees driven by the religious troubles from France and the Netherlands brought their skill to England and taught the English how to weave fine woolens and silks.

THE NEW ENGLISH NAVY. The English navy was growing. One of the new ships, _The Triumph_, carried 450 seamen, 50 gunners, and 200 soldiers. Besides harquebuses for the soldiers, there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such as culverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four of the cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inches in diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her men rather than upon the size of her ships that England relied for victory.

[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE After the painting at Buckland Abby, England]

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. One of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake became thus a shipmaster on his own account, and in time the most popular of Queen Elizabeth’s sea-captains.

SLAVE-TRADERS. He often went with his cousin, John Hawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves from slave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom they found, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the West Indies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other men of their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslaving the heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wild life of the slave-trader with its dangers and rich rewards.

WHY DRAKE HATED THE SPANIARDS. The king of Spain tried to keep the trade in slaves for his own merchants, and attempted to prevent the trade of the English slavers with the West Indies. Spanish ships-of-war ruined one of the voyages from which Hawkins and Drake hoped for large profits. The Spaniards won thereby the undying hatred of Drake.

THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS. It was a time, too, when Drake’s countrymen at home shared his intense hatred of the Spaniard. While England and Spain were not at war with one another, English and Spanish traders fought whenever they met on the high seas. The English made the Spanish settlements in America their special prey. At certain times of the year Spanish ships, called government ships, carried to Spain gold and silver–the royal share of the products of America. Drake, like many another of his countrymen, lay in wait to rob these ships of their precious cargoes. He managed to gather a fortune by his cunning and courage. More than once he was forced to bury his treasures in the sand to lighten his ships that they might sail the faster, and escape his pursuers. The Spaniards came to know and to fear Drake as the Dragon of the Seas.

[Illustration: SPANISH TREASURE SHIP]

DRAKE’S VENTURE. Drake once formed the plan to take a fleet into the Pacific Ocean in order to plunder the treasure ships where they would be less on their guard. A fleet of five ships was made ready. Contributions from wealthy merchants and powerful nobles, perhaps a gift from Queen Elizabeth herself, gave him the means for unusual luxuries in the equipment of his fleet. Skilful musicians and rich furniture were taken on board Drake’s own ship, the _Pelican_, or the _Golden Hind_ as he afterwards christened it. The brilliant little fleet left Plymouth in 1577. One after another of the ships turned back or was destroyed on the long voyage of twelve months across the Atlantic and through the Strait of Magellan.

BEYOND THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. The _Golden Hind_ alone remained to carry out the original project. As it entered the Pacific Ocean a furious storm drove the little vessel southward beyond Cape Horn to the regions where the oceans meet. No one before had sailed so far south.

THE FIRST PRIZES. Drake regained control of his ship when the storm had passed, and sailed northward along the coast, plundering and robbing as he went. Once, as a land-party was searching along the shore for fresh water, it came upon a Spaniard asleep with thirteen bars of silver beside him. His nap was disturbed long enough to take away his burden. Further on they met another Spaniard and an Indian boy driving a train of Peruvian sheep laden with eight hundred pounds of silver. The Englishmen took their place, and merrily drove the sheep to their boats. A treasure ship, nicknamed the _Spitfire_, on the way to Panama, was captured after a long chase of nearly eight hundred miles. Drake obtained from it unknown quantities of gold and silver. With such a rich load, his thoughts turned to the homeward voyage.

DRAKE’S VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD. By this time a host of Spanish war-ships were on Drake’s track. They expected to capture him on his return through the Strait of Magellan. Drake, now confronted with real danger, cunningly outwitted his enemies. He and many other Englishmen of his day were sure a passage would be found somewhere through North America between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Spanish, French, and English explorers had all carried on the search for this passage. Drake decided to return by such a route, if it were possible. He followed the coast of California, and probably passed that of Oregon and Washington as far as Vancouver

[Illustration: MAP OF DRAKE’S VOYAGE]

When it grew colder and the coast turned to the westward, he gave up the search.

After making some needed repairs in a small harbor a few miles above the modern San Francisco, Drake set out boldly across the Pacific to return home, as Magellan’s men had done before him, by going around the world. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, and slowly worked his way around the Cape of Good Hope. The _Golden Hind_, long since given up as lost, reached England in the fall of 1580, after nearly three years’ absence. For a second time a ship had sailed around the world. Drake was the first Englishman to gain the honor.

DRAKE’S REWARD. Queen Elizabeth liked the story Drake told of outwitting and plundering Spaniards. Arrayed in her most gorgeous robes she visited his ship, where a banquet had been prepared. While Drake knelt at her feet she made him a knight. And so it was that the man whom the Spaniards called with good reason the Master Thief of the Seas, the English called by a new title, Sir Francis Drake, and praised as the greatest sea-captain of the age. His ship, the _Golden Hind_, was ordered to be preserved forever.

THE DUTCH STRUGGLE AGAINST SPAIN. A few years after Drake returned the English took a deeper interest in the struggle between Philip and the Dutch. Although the Dutch had lost hope of help from the French Huguenots, they resisted Philip’s generals more boldly than ever. The Spanish soldiers treated the towns which surrendered so savagely that the other towns decided it was better to die fighting than to yield. The siege of Leyden became famous because, after food had given out and the inhabitants were starving their friends cut the great dikes in order that the boats of the “Beggars of the Sea” loaded with provisions might be floated up to the very walls of the city. This unexpected flood also drove away the Spaniards. Fortunately after the rescue of the city a strong wind arose and drove back the waves so that the dikes could again be replaced.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH MAKING DRAKE A KNIGHT]

THE DEATH OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. King Philip had come to the conclusion that unless William of Orange were killed the Dutch could not be conquered, and so he put a price on Prince William’s head, offering a large sum of money to any one who should kill him. The first attempts failed, but finally in 1584 he was shot.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. The murder of William alarmed the English for Elizabeth’s life, especially as Philip had already aided men who were plotting against her. She sent an army into the Netherlands to aid the Dutch, although she had not made up her mind to attack Philip directly. The army did not give much help to the Dutch, but it is remembered because a noble English poet, Sir Philip Sidney, was mortally wounded in one of the battles. The story is told that while Sidney was riding back, tortured by his wound, he became very thirsty, as wounded men always do, and begged for a drink of water. Looking up when it was brought to him he saw on the ground a common soldier more sorely wounded than he. He immediately sent the water to the soldier saying, “Thy necessity is greater than mine.”

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. The king of Spain now decided that he could not subdue the Dutch until he had thoroughly punished the English. He even planned to put himself upon the English throne, claiming that he was the heir of one of the early kings of England. Months were spent in preparing a great fleet, an “Invincible Armada” which was to sail up the Channel, take on board the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and cross over to England. While these preparations were being made with Philip’s usual care, Sir Francis Drake swooped down on Cadiz and burnt so much shipping and destroyed so many supplies that the voyage had to be postponed a year. This Drake called “singeing the king of Spain’s beard.”

THE ARMADA IN THE CHANNEL. It was July, 1588, before the “Invincible Armada” appeared off Plymouth in the English Channel. Many of the Spanish ships were larger than the English ships, but they were so clumsy that the English could outsail them and attack them from any direction they chose. Moreover, the Spaniards needed to fight close at hand in order that the soldiers armed with ordinary guns might join in the fray. The English kept out of range of these guns and used their heavy cannon.

[Illustration: THE SPANISH ARMADA IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL After an engraving by the Society of Antiquarians following a tapestry in the House of Lords]

DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMADA. With the English ships clinging to the flanks and rear of the Armada, the Spaniards moved heavily up the Channel. In the narrower waters between Dover and Calais the English attacked more fiercely, and sank several Spanish vessels. Soon the others were fleeing into the North Sea, driven by a furious gale. Many sought to reach Spain by sailing around Scotland and Ireland, and some of these ships were dashed on the rocky shores. Only a third of Philip’s proud fleet returned to Spain.

EFFECT OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA ON SPAIN. This was the last attempt Philip made to attack the English, because Spain had been exhausted in the effort to collect money and supplies for the Invincible Armada. The war dragged on for many years, and the English attacked and plundered Spanish vessels wherever they found them.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE DUTCH. The ruin of the Armada also meant that the Dutch would succeed in becoming independent of the Spanish king. Seven of the northern provinces had already formed a union and had begun to call themselves the United Netherlands. They were growing richer while their neighboring provinces on the south, which had decided to return to their allegiance to Spain, grew poorer.

FIRST VOYAGE OF THE DUTCH TO THE EAST. Even while the fight was going on the Dutch traded in places where Philip had not permitted them to trade while he could control them. One of these places was Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Here the Dutch obtained spices which the Portuguese brought from the East Indies. But in 1580 Philip seized Portugal, and the Dutch could no longer go to Lisbon. This made them anxious to find their way to the East. In 1595 the first fleet set out. This voyage was unsuccessful, but other fleets followed, until soon the Dutch had almost driven the Portuguese, now subjects of the king of Spain, from the Spice Islands. Soon also Dutch sailors ventured across the Atlantic to the shores of America.

QUESTIONS

1. What country in northern Europe did Spain rule? What name was given to those who resisted the Spanish officers in the Netherlands? Why were they given this name?

2. What promise did Coligny make to the people of the Netherlands? Why was he unable to carry it out? What other people were ready to help the Dutch? Can you give one reason at least why the English were willing to help the Dutch against Spain?

3. Why had English trade grown important? Did this help to make a navy?

4. Why did English sailors like Drake specially hate the Spaniards? What was Drake’s method of making a living? How did he come to go around the world in 1577-1580? How long was it since Magellan made his voyage?

5. What did the English think of Drake? What did the Spaniards think of him? Why did each people think as it did?

6. Why did Philip of Spain have William of Orange killed? Why did this make the conquest of the Dutch even harder?

7. Why did Philip, king of Spain, try to conquer England and make himself king of that country? How did he try to carry out his plan? Why were the English victorious in the great battle with the Armada? Where was the battle fought?

8. How did the defeat of the Armada affect Spain’s war in the Netherlands? Did all of the Netherlands become independent of Spain?

9. What trade did the Dutch begin to carry on before their war with Spain ended?

10. What new people became rivals of the Spaniards and French for trade and settlements in America?

EXERCISES

1. What parts of North America did Drake visit on his famous voyage around the world?

2. What effect did the quarrels in Europe described in Chapters 19 and 20 have upon the progress in exploring and settling America?

3. Find out whether the people of the northern Netherlands and the southern Netherlands are still separate countries to-day.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA

ENGLISH INTEREST IN AMERICA AWAKENED. Voyages like those made by Sir Francis Drake awakened a desire throughout England to learn more about the New World. Until this time even the great discoveries of Columbus and the Cabots had failed to stir the English people to take part in the exploration and settlement of the Americas. The principal reason was because their attention was occupied by the struggle between their monarchs and the popes to decide whether king or pope should govern the English Church. This continued until Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne some years.

Other sea-captains, hearing of Drake’s success, now turned their ships toward the Americas. Many went to the West Indies, as he had done, mainly to seize the rich plunder to be found on board the ships of Spain bound homeward. Some of them explored the coast of North America, hoping to find valuable regions that had not fallen into the possession of the Spaniards.

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE. Martin Frobisher made three voyages, the last in 1578, in search of a passage through North America to China. He entered the bay which bears his name, and the strait which was later called after Hudson, but failed to find a passage. Drake attempted to find the western entrance to such a passage in 1579 as a short cut homeward when he tried to avoid his Spanish pursuers.

GILBERT. A grander scheme was planned by Humphrey Gilbert. He wished to build up another England across the sea, just as the people of Spain were building up another Spain. He planned to do this by establishing farms to which he and others might send laborers who could not find work at home. Queen Elizabeth liked this plan, and to encourage him, and to repay him for the expense of carrying the emigrants over, she promised him the land for six hundred miles on each side of his settlements.

[Illustration: CHARLCOTE HALL An English Manor House of the time of Queen Elizabeth]

FAILURE OF GILBERT’S EXPEDITION. Gilbert tried twice to plant a colony in the neighborhood of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, was one of his captains in the expedition of 1578. He would have been in the disastrous second attempt in 1583 had not Queen Elizabeth, full of forebodings of danger to her favorite, refused to let him go. As it was he sent a ship at his own cost. Gilbert took a large supply of hobby-horses and other toys with which to please the savages. Mishap, desertion, and shipwreck pursued the luckless commander.

The second expedition left Plymouth with five vessels in 1583. The ship that Raleigh sent, the best in the fleet, deserted before they were out of sight of England. One was left in Newfoundland. The wreck of the largest ship, with most of the provisions, off Cape Breton, so discouraged the crews that they prevailed upon Gilbert to abandon the plan to settle on such barren and stormy shores, Gilbert attempted to return on the _Squirrel_, the smaller of the two remaining vessels. This was a tiny vessel of scarcely ten tons burden. What was left of the little fleet voyaged homeward by the southern way, and ran into a fearful storm as it approached the Azores.

Although Gilbert was urged to go aboard the larger vessel, he refused to desert his companions, with whom he had passed through so many storms and perils, and tried to calm the fears of all by his reply, “Do not fear, Heaven is as near by water as by land.” One night the _Squirrel_ suddenly sank. All on board were lost. Such was the sad ending of the first efforts to establish an English colony in North America.

RALEIGH Sir Walter Raleigh took up the interesting plan which his kinsman, Gilbert, had at heart. Raleigh was now at the height of his favor with Queen Elizabeth. She had made him wealthy, especially by the gift of large estates which she had taken from others. She readily promised him the same privileges in America which she had offered to Gilbert. Raleigh doubtless thought that he might increase his fortune and win glory for himself and for his country by planting English colonies in the New World. No man of the age was better fitted for the undertaking. He had shown himself a fearless soldier and an able commander in the war against Spain in the Netherlands. He had fortune, skill, and powerful friends. Like Gilbert, he was a friend of poets and scholars and a student of books; like Drake, he was a natural leader of men.

[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS SON]

VIRGINIA. Raleigh began in 1584 by sending an expedition to explore the coast for a suitable site for a colony. His men sailed by way of the Canaries, and came upon North America in the neighborhood of Pamlico Sound, avoiding the stormy route directly across the Atlantic which Gilbert had followed. They found, therefore, instead of the bleak shore of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, the genial climate of North Carolina and Virginia.

They carried home glowing reports of the country. They were particularly pleased with an island in Pamlico Sound called by the Indians Roanoke Island. They noted with wonder the overhanging grape-vines loaded with fruit, the fine cedar trees which seemed to them the highest and reddest in the world, the great flocks of noisy white cranes, and the numberless deer in the forests. The Indians appeared gentle and friendly, Elizabeth was so pleased with the accounts of the country that she allowed it to be called Virginia after herself, the Virgin Queen, and made Raleigh a knight.

THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONISTS. Raleigh made several attempts to plant a colony in Virginia. The most famous one was led by John White in 1587. White had visited Virginia on an earlier voyage, and painted more than seventy pictures of Indian life, representing their dress and their manner of living. These may still be seen in the British Museum in London. His interest in the country and its Indian population made his appointment as governor seem a wise choice. Care was taken in the selection of colonists in order to secure farmers rather than gold-seekers. Twenty-five women and children were included in the colony of about one hundred and fifty persons.

ROANOKE. White and his followers settled on Roanoke Island. They found that the fort, which one of Raleigh’s officers had built some years earlier, was leveled to the ground. Several huts were still standing, but they were falling to pieces. The first task was to rebuild the huts and move into them from their ships. A baby girl was born a few days after the landing, the first child born of English parents in the New World. Her father, Ananias Dare, was one of White’s councilors; her mother, Eleanor Dare, was the daughter of Governor White. The baby was given the name Virginia, the name of the country which was to be her home.

[Illustration: MAP OF RALEIGH’S COLONIES]

THE COLONISTS IN DANGER. The little colony must have foreseen the hostility of the Indians and a scarcity of food, for before Governor White had been in America two months, he was sent back to England to obtain more provisions, White, from his own account, did not wish to leave his daughter and granddaughter.

WHITE’S SEARCH FOR AID. White returned to England in the fall of 1587 at the wrong moment to ask for aid. All England was alarmed by the rumor that a great Spanish fleet was about to land an invading army. The friends of Virginia in England were too busy protecting their own homes from the invader to give heed to the needs of the farmer colonists across the sea. White traveled through England, seeking aid for his friends and family, but was disappointed everywhere.

WHY RALEIGH GAVE NO HELP. Raleigh had by no means forgotten his colonists, but his queen and his country had the first claim on him through the long war with Spain. Twice during this period, he found time and means to prepare relief expeditions for Virginia. The queen stopped the first one just as it was ready to sail, because all the ships were needed at that moment for service in the war. A second expedition was attacked by the Spaniards and forced to return.

THE LOST COLONY. White finally secured passage for himself on a fleet going to the West Indies, not with a fleet and relief supplies of his own, but as a passenger on another man’s ship. It was the summer of 1591 when he arrived at Roanoke, four years after his departure. The colonists were not to be found. Their houses were torn down. The chests which they had evidently buried in order to hide them from the Indians had been dug up and ransacked of everything of value. White’s own papers which he had left behind were strewn about. His pictures and maps were torn and rotten with the rain. His armor was almost eaten through with rust.

One trace of the fate of the settlers was left. The large letters CROATOAN were carved on a tree near the entrance to the old fort. White recalled the agreement made when he left four years before. If the colonists should find it necessary to leave Roanoke, they were to carve on a tree the name of the place to which they were going. If they were in danger or distress when they left, they were to carve a cross over the name of the place. White found no cross. The word Croatoan was the name of a small island lying south of Cape Hatteras, where Indians lived who were known to be friendly. White believed his friends to be safe among the Indians at Croatoan, but he could not go farther in search for them because the captains of the ships which brought him over refused to delay longer. They gave many excuses, but were evidently more eager to attack the Spaniards than to find a few luckless emigrants.

[Illustration: AN INDIAN VILLAGE IN 1589 After a drawing by John White, now in the British Museum]

The fate of Raleigh’s colony is one of the puzzles of history. It is