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Near Greenland, on the north-east, we find on the original of our map the following most remarkable inscription : "Here the compass of the ships does not hold, and the ships which contain iron cannot return." * This, as Humboldt observes,t is a proof that the old navigators (Cabot, Cortereal), before the year 1508, liad made some observations on the action of the magnetic needle in these parts, and had some notion of the vicinity of the magnetic pole; the position of which has been better defined in modern times.
"Island " (Iceland) appears in its true position, at the east of Green- land. At the south-west of Greenland, the configuration and outlines
*On our copy I have not repeated this inscription.
.
t See Humboldt in Ghillany, Geschichte des Martin Behaim, p. 4.
1
158
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
of Newfoundland are easily recognized. Newfoundland, on all of the old maps is, after Greenland, the best-defined part of North America. Copies of the charts of Cabot, or the Cortereals, or of the Frenchman, Jean Denys de Honfleur, who is said to have made, in 1506, an excel- lent map of Newfoundland, may have been brought to Rome, and been used by the author of our map.
Newfoundland is called "Terra nova." We find on its eastern coast the names of places often repeated; as "Cabo Glaciato," the little island of Bacallaos, called on our map, " Baccalauras, and Cape Race, to which is affixed the name of "C. de Portogesi" (Cape of the Por- tuguese).
Between the shores of Newfoundland, Labrador, and Greenland, is a great gulf, called " Sinus Gruenlanticus " (the Gulf of Greenland), evi- dently an indication of the entrance of Davis' Strait.
The south coast of Terra nova, which, like Cape Race, has its true latitude about 46º N., runs for some distance east and west. Then comes a pretty broad and long inlet, probably the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and at the west of this, a square-shaped headland, or peninsula, by which Cape Breton and Nova Scotia may have been intended.
All these, Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, are attached on the map to Asia, as sections and projections of the old world.
4. ON A MAP, NO. 7, OF NORTH AMERICA FROM THE GLOBE OF JOHANN SCHONER, 1520.
Johann Schoner* was one of the learned German mathematicians and astronomers of the school of the famous Regiomontanus, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, assembled in Nuremburg, and there exercised by their writings, maps, and globes a great influence on American discovery and geography.
Schoner was professor of mathematics in the gymnasium at Nurem- burg, and wrote several geographical and astronomical works, often quoted by Humboldt in his " Critical Researches." In the year 1520, upon the invitation and at the expense of a wealthy friend, Johann Seyler, he constructed a large globe, on which he carefully laid down the configuration of the several parts of the world, according to his con- ceptions. This globe is still preserved in the city of Nuremburg. It was for the first time copied, printed, and published in a planisphero by Dr. F. W. Ghillany, State librarian of Nuremburg, in 1853, in his ex-
* Sometimes erroneously written " Schoener."
Nº. VII.
DESERTUM
SYVDEICLAUSIS
Hibernia.
OD
0
5.
3903.
TERRA
CORTE
REALIS
0
-
0
8
Tillerius Byognithe
: CabedalligneOceanus Occipitalis
0
TEBET PRO
BANGALA
0
TERRA İ
GUIN
TEINSU
TO
derano
a Kadaally Lacalientes
0
Stato del gato
Cancri Propices
5200
0
CIAMBA
INDIA ORIENTALIS
525
ONOLL
500
00
oringy lafia
Orcanus Occidentalij
10
0
dinastialis Circulo
190
200
2110
220
2400
200
290
DITERRA2
340
3,50
3,00
PARIAS
.+,
CANIBALORTERRA
DIONALES
AMERICA VEL
IAVA'
BRASILIA SIVE
MAIOR
PAPAGALLI TERRA
North- America from the Globe of Johann Schoner 1520.
VITRA INCOGNIYTT
YPER MASN
TERRA NOVA
INDIA ) MERI
ZIPANGRI
ULTRA' NONDY LUSTRATUMO
3 6
FORTUNA
SAI
Diabe fora.
0
Copier & may
VINCIA E
ASIA
INDIA SURERIOR
ABELLA
Insula canconfet
0
SINUS
MESPERIG
DE CUBA
Insula Vindu
CATMERIDES
HI SPANIA
les Ititudinios
-
0
1
159
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
cellent work on Martin Behaim. It was accompanied by introductory . remarks by Humboldt; who has also incidentally treated of this'globe in several places of his great work, " Critical Researches." After this the globe of Schoner was repeatedly copied in other works; for in- stance, in Lelewel's History of the Geography of the Middle Ages, and thus became better known.
I give here, after Ghillany's fac-simile, a reduced copy of the sec- tion of this globe, relating to North America. I have, however, left out several names and inscriptions contained in the original; and only re- tained those which have appeared to me as having an interest for the subject of our work.
There are in Germany several other globes, which depict the world nearly in the same manner as this. One is preserved in the city of Frankfort on the Main, with the same date, 1520, which has been repro- duced in a fac-simile copy by M. Jomard, in his "Monuments de la Géographie." Another is preserved in the collection of the grand duke of Weimar. All these globes give to North and South America the same configuration and position, as they have on the map of Schoner. Baron Humboldt thinks, that they all have a common origin, and that they are, with respect to America, copies of an older chart, " hidden perhaps in the Archives of Italy or Spain."*
I cannot exhibit here the whole contents of this interesting map; but I will examine the principal points which relate to our main sub- ject. In comparing this draft with Beliaim's map (see map No. 4), I may call attention to the manner, in which some of the discoverers and cos- mographers of the age of Columbus endeavored to combine the new discoveries in this hitherto unknown world, with the notions which had previously prevailed of the space intervening between Europe and Africa on one side, and the eastern ends of Asia on the other. They had filled this great interval with innumerable islands, of which some had long been known, as the Canaries, Azores, and Cape Verde; others had been mentioned by Marco Polo and his successors, as Zi- pangu (Japan) ; and others were more or less imaginary or mythical, as " Antilia " and " St. Brandan." After the first discovery of America by Columbus, they conceived of all the new countries as belonging to some of those groups, lying in the waters of Asia; and so they gave to these sections of America, seen by Columbus, Cabral, Cortereal, and others, as diminutive a figure as possible, to make them appear as islands. Therefore, in their bistorical and geographical reports and treatises on America, they gave to them the names of "the new isl-
* See Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, p. 307.
.
160
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
ands," "the new-discovered islands," and the like. And on their maps they crowded these " new islands" into the groups of the old ones, which they did not like to leave off their charts.
Some, however, took a different view, and represented these regions as peninsulas and headlands of Asia, as was shown on the map of Ruysch (No. 6). As further light broke in, some cosmographers changed their opinions, as did Schoner, who having represented North America on the globe of 1520. as a large and independent island, makes it, in a later work, a peninsula of Asia. as did Kuysch.
On the globe we are now examining, Schoner breaks up America into as many islands as possible. At first he puts down the Antilles, cir- cumnavigated as they had already been, by Columbus and his succes- sors. Then he represents South America as a very large island, to which he applies several names : as " Terra nova" (the new country) and " America vel Brasilia sive Papagalli terra" (America or Brazil or the Parrots' country). The name " America" was applied by Schoner, as by nearly all his contemporaries, only to South America, the great theatre of the voyages and explorations of Amerigo Vespucci. North America was not comprised under the name until a later date.
" Terra nova," or South America, is separated from the northern island by a broad strait; the one for which Columbus, in his later voy- ages, made search. And notwithstanding the successors of Columbus had, prior to 1520, proved the Caribbean Sea to be shut in on the west, and the southern and northern countries to be connected by an istli- mus; still Schoner and his Nuremburg contemporaries either did not know of the results of those explorations, or did not believe in them, and preferred to cherish the opinion, that there was still some passage here which had been overlooked. We have maps of a later date than 1520, on which ships are represented sailing through this Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean.
The idea of Columbus, still retained on the map of Ruysch (No. 6)' that Zipangu was nothing but the island " Española," was given up by Schoner. He has restored Japan to its proper place on the east of China, and has given to " Española" a separate existence and a more eastern position. Still he does not venture to make the distance be- tween Japan and the newly discovered islands very great. He makes the " Eastern Ocean "* (the Pacific) very narrow, and puts Japan, as it was done for a long time after him, very near to North America.
He depicts North America as an island, not very broad, its greatest length extending from south to north. In its southern part he has the
* So called in respect to Asia.
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161
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
name " Paria," which is here widely misplaced. To the northern part, he has given the name " Terra de Cuba " (the country of Cuba), which is apparently intended to be the general name of the whole region. It is well known that Columbus, hearing for the first time the name of "Cuba," believed that a very large country was meant by it, and that the land which he called " Isabella " (our present Cuba) was continental with it. He did not believe in the existence of the Bahama channel; and when, some time after (150S), this channel and the insularity of "Isabella" were clearly proved, some cosmographers, and Schoner among them, transferred the name of Cuba to the great country in the north.
Schoner, or his Spanish original, must have known something of the expeditions of Ponce de Leon to Florida in 1513, and of the first explor- ing voyages to the Gulf of Mexico; for he plainly depicts both the gulf and peninsula of Florida. To Española he gives nearly the true latitude. But he, as well as Cosa (No. 5), places " Isabella," our Cuba, several degrees too far north. The southern end of Florida is not far enough south, though the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico has its true latitude about 30° N.
The entire west coast of " Terra de Cuba " (North America) is drawn with uncertain lines as unknown, and is expressly so designated in the inscription upon it,-" Ultra nondum illustratum " (beyond this not yet explored). Our east coast, on the contrary, is depicted as high up as about 50° N., as already known and explored. Several capes, harbors, and gulfs are depicted on it, to which names are given. Beyond 50° N., the country is said not to be known, " Ulterius incognitum."
The names written upon our east coast appear to be of Spanish ori- gin, though they are sometimes Italianized, or otherwise corrupted. The voyages, which were made between the time of Columbus and 1520 along our east coast, and upon which we are more or less in- formed, are those of Cabot, in 1498; of Ponce de Leon, not higher north than about 30º N., in 1513; of Antonio de Alaminos, sailing with the Gulf-stream along the coast of Florida, in 1519; and of Ayllon, as high as about 34º N., in 1520. In none of these expeditions, and the writings and charts belonging to them, do we find any of the names mentioned on our globe, or on the map of Cosa, or the other maps of America known to us before the year 1520. Nor do any of these names occur on subsequent maps of America, for instance, that of Ribero of 1529. They are all new and original. We can account for the use of these names only by supposing that they were the invention of the map-makers, or were given by some explorer whose chart is now unknown. That Schoner, the very learned professor of astronomy, who prepared his
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2
162
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
globe for a wealthy and learned friend, and not for the market, invented such fantastic names, is quite out of the question. He, no doubt, as Humboldt suggests, copied from some original which he believed to be authentic and correct. The author of this Spanish original, whom we do not know, may have invented the names. And though some of them look like corruptions, still the greater part do not look like inven- tions. On the contrary, they appear to be such as a navigator might well have distributed on an unknown coast discovered by him. Such, for instance, are the following :
"Capo del gato " (the cape of the cat), " Cabo sancto " (the holy cape), " las cabras " (the goats), " Costa alta " (the high coast), etc. In one name a certain "Diego" is mentioned. "Rio de Don Diego" (the river of Don Diego). These do not seem fanciful. I do not believe that the Spanish, Italian, and German map-makers of the time of Co- lumbus and soon after him, were in the habit of inventing new names. They gave them as they found them. A little later, when elegant maps were much sought after and became fashionable, and when great num- bers were fabricated in Italy and elsewhere, unknown countries may sometimes have been embellished with merely fanciful names. It is probable that they were the work of some Spanish navigator, perhaps a private adventurer, whose name has not reached us: for, as Gomara says, "Of many discoverers and explorers of the Western Indies we have no memorial, particularly of those who sailed to the northern parts."*
The names run up as high as 50º N., which must probably be reckoned a few degrees lower; and where the names "Cosen d'mar," "Cabo delli contis," "C. bona ventura" occur, the neighborhood of New England would seem to be indicated.
Newfoundland, and probably also a part of Labrador appear upon our map as a large island, floating forsaken in the midst of the great northern ocean, under the name of "Terra Corterealis " (Cortereal's land), and separated from the rest of America by a very broad strait- an exaggeration of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is represented in the same manner on many early maps.
Schoner's globe thus truly indicates two great series of North Amer- ican voyages and discoveries ; of which, one was directed to the north- west, and, commencing with the Cabots, Cortereals, and their predeces- sors at Newfoundland and Labrador, by degrees came down to Canada and Nova Scotia; while the other series, commencing with Colum- bus, Ponce de Leon, Alaminos, Ayllon, and their successors in the
· Gomara, Historia de las Indias, fol. 20. Madrid, 1553.
163
THE GLOBE OF SCHONER, 1520.
south, advanced from the West India Islands by degrees toward the north, to Virginia and New England. Between these extreme points, there remained a more or less unknown region, which, on our globe, has been indicated by open water.
In depicting the east coast of Asia and the many islands there, including Japan and " Java major," our author follows Martin Behaim's globe which existed then as now, in Nuremburg. In fact, Schoner's globe may be considered as a new edition of Behaim, with the addition of the newly discovered islands. (See map No. 4.)
CHAPTER V.
EXPEDITIONS OF GASPAR AND MIGUEL DE CORTEREAL TO THE NORTH-EASTERN COAST OF AMERICA IN THE YEARS 1500-1503.
.
1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
SOON after the exploring expeditions of the Cabots, the flag of another nation of Western Europe appeared in our waters. The Portuguese, in the year 1500, entered the field of western discovery, and exercised an important influ- ence on American history and geography, which continued a long time, and is still visible in several names given by them to certain localities on our coast, which have generally been adopted by subsequent voyagers and geographers.
The young king of Portugal, Emanuel, called the Great, or the Fortunate, after the death of his cousin, John I, had come to the throne in 1495. He was a talented, enterpris- ing, and highly educated sovereign, in whose reign com- merce, science, and the arts flourished in Portugal. Under him Portugal became the most powerful nation on the ocean, and the commercial center of Europe.
In 1497, he had sent out Vasco de Gama to circumnavi- gate Africa, and to reach the East Indies on that route. And, in the beginning of 1500, he had sent Pedro Alvarez Cabral on a similar expedition ; who, on his way, touched the eastern parts of South America, discovered the coast of Brazil, and gained there for Portugal an extensive empire.
The Portuguese, having declined the proposal of Columbus in 1484, for a western voyage, were grievously disappointed
ء
165
VOYAGES OF THE CORTEREALS.
when the news arrived, that in 1493, sailing under the auspices of Spain, he had reached Japan, as he supposed he had, when he arrived at Hispaniola. Cut off from the east in that direction by the Spaniards; and aroused by the fear that some shorter way still might be found, by which he might be invaded in the new dominion, conquered for him in the east by Vasco de Gama in 1497 ; and, at the same time, inspired by the hope that he might himself succeed in his wish to find that shorter route, in the direction in which, as he well knew, it had been sought by the Cabots without success,- the new king Emanuel resolved, near the close of 1499, to send an expedition to the north-west. He therefore ordered two ships to be fitted out, and appointed Gaspar Cortereal, one of his able and accomplished officers, to the command. Cortereal's confidence of success was so great, that lie offered to pay a part of the expenses ; in consideration of which, the king offered him certain rights and privileges, and to make him governor of the countries he should discover.
The Cortereals were of a noble Portuguese family, of con- siderable influence. The father of Gaspar, Jolin Vaz Cor- tereal, had, in 1464, been made hereditary governor of Terceira, as successor of the Flemish governor, Jacob of Bruges. Thus stationed in the midst of the ocean, on the largest of " the Western Islands," the family of the Cortereals became familiar with sea-voyages and oceanic enterprises. Some historians have even asserted, that the father, Vaz Cortereal, had himself made an expedition to the far west, and discovered, before Columbus, an island or country called Terra de Baccalhaos (the land of cod-fish). But for this claim there is no reliable evidence .* The Spanish historian Herrera, calls him "the discoverer of Terceira," which is
* See Biddle's Memoir, p. 286 seq.
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166
VOYAGES OF THE CORTEREALS.
not strictly true. Vaz Cortereal may have done much for the better exploration and settlement of the Azores, but they had been discovered before his time. Yet he may have been a great navigator, and his sons may have inherited from him, not only the government of Terceira, but also his taste for maritime enterprise.
2. FIRST VOYAGE OF GASPAR CORTEREAL IN THE YEAR 1500.
Gaspar Cortereal sailed from Lisbon in 1500 ; probably in the spring of that year. We have no authentic information in regard to the preliminary circumstances of this voyage,. the causes which led to it, nor indeed of its plan, or of the royal instructions prescribed for it. But although the scat- tered reports concerning the expedition are silent as to its object, we cannot doubt that it was similar to that of the Cabots,-a discovery of the long-coveted passage to Cathay. Nothing else could have induced the Portuguese to go to the arctic regions. Nor have we any official report or journal of the voyage, or any chart prepared by the commander, although some charts remain, which are probably copies of one or more made by Cortereal.
He sailed from Lisbon on a western course to the Azores, where his elder brother, Vasqueanes, was governor, as suc- cessor to his father, and where he could easily make his final arrangements and complete his outfit for the voyage .*
By what chart he was guided we have no information ; but it is presumed, that he must have had or seen a sketch . of Cabot's map, as it had reached Spain in 1499; and by this, he must have been attracted to the headland of " Cabo de Ynglatierra " (Cape Race) stretching far to the east. On one side of this conspicuous promontory, he could see the
* Galvano, in " Discoveries of the World." Hakluyt, first ed., p. 97, says, " that he touched at Terceira."
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VOYAGES OF THE CORTEREALS
coast, running first westerly, then southerly ; and, on the other side, it was represented as running north toward un- known regions. Having such a map, or, at all events, having some similar information about the latitudes and longitudes of the countries seen by the Cabots, and their configuration, Cortereal would naturally steer for that prominent cape; and, avoiding the continuous and hopeless coast to the south, make directly for the coast to the north of " Cabo de Ynglatierra," which lay in his track and which he hoped might conduct to open water in the north : in this manner, he would arrive somewhere on the east coast of Newfoundland.
That his land-fall was not to the south of Cape Race and. the St. Lawrence, on the coasts of Nova Scotia or New Eng- gland, as Mr. Biddle has supposed,* is still more probable from the general direction of the winds and currents in the ocean he was crossing on his north-western course from the Azores. He passed through the broad eastern prolongation of the Gulf-stream, and through that part of the temper- ate zone in which westerly winds prevail. These westerly winds and currents would have the tendency to set him to
* [The subject of the land-fall of this voyage, and its general features, have received a very ample and critical discussion in the able and rare work of Richard Biddle, "A Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," published anonymously in London and Philadelphia in 1831-32. This "Review of Maritime Discovery" did not receive the attention from the public it deserved. It came unheralded upon the world, at a time when general attention had not been turned to these inquiries. Mr. Biddle was born in Philadelphia in 1796, a brother of Nicholas Biddle, the famed President of the United States Bank in its contest with General Jackson. Mr. Biddle was eminent as an author and a jurist. His memoir of Cabot was the result of careful and laborious examination of original documents and the accounts of the early voyages, and freed from obscurity a subject which had been overshadowed by misapprehension and numerous errors. The work is now very rare, and has justly taken its place among the most valued authorities on the matters of which it treats. Mr. Biddle died in 1847 .- ED.]
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VOYAGES OF THE CORTEREALS
the east, and carry him away from the coasts of Nova Scotia and New England, even if he may, at first, have taken a more westerly course, which I think is improbable.
The exact latitude of Cortereal's land-fall is nowhere given. Some authors think, that it was at Conception Bay, and that he gave to it this name. Conception Bay is not far north of Cape Race, and from what has been said, inay very probably have been the place which he first touched.
From his land-fall he sailed toward the north ; how far, we do not know; and then discovered a country, which he is said to have indicated under the name of "Terra verde" (Greenland) ; probably the same country which has borne that name ever since the time of the Northmen .*
He came to a river, called by him " Rio nevado " (the snow river), which has been put on later maps, by different authors, as near the latitude of Hudson's Strait. Here he is represented to have been stopped by ice, and returned directly to Lisbon, after having revisited a harbor on the east coast of Newfoundland, to repair his ships and refresh his crew after their northern hardships. He arrived at Lisbon in the autumn of 1500,t the precise date we do not know ; nor do we hear that on this first voyage he brought home Indians, or any products of the countries which he saw. He must, however, have judged the prospect favorable and prom- ising ; for he at once made arrangements for a second voyage to the same regions.
* This is made more probable from an inspection of the charts relating to Cortereal's voyage, Nos. 8, 9, 10 in the Appendage.
t I follow here, with respect to Cortereal's first voyage, in most points, the results of the research of Kunstmann, who has examined the Portuguese archives, and brought to light several new facts. See Kunstmann, Die Entdeckung America's, p. 57. München, 1859.
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VOYAGES OF THE CORTEREALS.
3. GASPAR CORTEREAL'S SECOND VOYAGE IN THE YEAR 1501.
. On the 15th of May, 1501, Gaspar Cortereal left Lisbon again with two* ships, and sailed "in a west-north-west direction."¡ In this direction, "at a distance of about two thousand Italian miles " from Lisbon, he discovered land ; and this, his second land-fall, must also have been on some part of the east coast of Newfoundland, north of Cape Race, to which a west-north-west course, at a distance of two thousand Italian miles, would conduct him. It could not, therefore, have been on the coasts of New England ; for, being in the same latitude as Portugal, they could not be reached by a west-north-west course ; and they are nearly three thousand miles, instead of two thousand, distant from Lisbon.
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