The making of the American nation; a history for elementary schools

Front matter

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THE MAKING

Contents

Cir AFTER PAGE

I. Discoveries and Explorations 1

II. The Indians 19

Chapter I

Chinese and Japanese Legends. — When we speak of the New World, almost always the mind reverts to the voyage of Columbus and that eventful day in October when the banner of Spain was unfurled on the island which the great explorer named San Salvador. But there are accounts of voyagers who may have found this same new land five hundred and possibly one thousand years before the discoveries of the great explorer.

Certain legends common to the knowledge of both the Chinese and the Japanese relate the deeds of one Hwui Shan/ a Buddhist missionary, who found, many miles to the eastward of China, a land which he called Fusang.^ About the

A Native's Home.

The Chinese find America year 499 he, with five brother priests, went along the coast of China to Kamchatka, and thence by way of the Aleutian Islands to Alaska. Hwui Shan's description of the people he found applies very correctly to the Aleuts and the Eskimos living in this region to-day. From Alaska, which they called

1 For the pronunciation of difficult names, see the Appendix, page 4<).

2 This story only recently came into the literature of western peoples. A few years ago the Chinese government directed one of its hest scholars to search the I'ecords of the imperial historian, and from these records came the story as here given. The details are vague, and scholars are divided between assigning the description to Japan or the American coast.

Great Han, the missionary party proceeded along the coast to Fusang. Hwui Shan describes the houses of Fusang as made of sun-dried bricks of mud, and containing many people — a description which fits the pueblos of ancient America. He mentions a plant which was used in making both cordage and paper, which afforded a vegetable milk, and which yielded tender sprouts that were used for food. Now there is but one plant which answers to this description, and that is the maguey.^ He also describes a plant and its fruit which must have been the cactus, or prickly pear. Fusang, according to these accounts, was very much like Mexico.

Whatever credit we may give to the story, one fact cannot be overlooked. Steady winds blow from China and Japan toward Uncertainty ^^^® Pacific coast of North America, dragging with of our them the surface drift of the Japan Current. More-

knowledge Qvgj., the Chinese of the coast and the Japanese are born sailors, and their junks, numbering tens of thousands, went everywhere. From the very nature of the conditions, one or more of these junks must accidentally have been blown across the ocean. Certain it is, too, that Asiatic peoples must have crossed Bering Strait, or traversed the chain of the Aleutian Islands. But the records and "proofs concerning such voyages are unsatisfactory, and the evidence of them is circumstantial.

Norse Discoveries. — In the accounts of discoveries by adventurous mariners of northern Europe, however, we are dealing with historic facts about which there is no doubt; and although the settlements made by the Northmen have no connection with the history of modern America, we should at least notice the leading facts.

Shortly after the settlement of Iceland (probably 875) a master

mariner named Gunnbjorn lost his reckoning at sea and was

carried to the unknown Greenland coast, where he

was forced to spend the winter locked in an ice pack.

This land was again visited, about 983, by a Norse sea rover

named Eric the Red. He made a settlement there, and in time

several hundred people came out from Iceland. For more than

1 Pronounced ma'-gwa.

four centuries Greenland was a commercial center. Late in the

fourteenth century the government forbade the people of Green-

lami, Iceland, and the near-by islands to carry on their great

sea commerce, or even to own the vessels in which the goods were

carried. As a result, the trade dropped off and, little by little,

the Greenland colony passed out of existence.

A short time after the settlement of Greenland an adventurous

young fellow named Herjulf, who was on his way to Greenland

from Iceland, sailed into foggy weather, and after , ., „ .

-If T 1 -1 j^- 1 T Leif Encson

several days came m sight of a low, heavily timbered

coast, apparently free from ice and snow. Finding his position, he turned his vessel northeastward to his home in Greenland. One of the hearers of Herjulf 's story was Leif Ericson, a son of Eric the Red.

His curiosity was excited, and he resolved to learn for himself about the strange coast that Herjulf described.

So in the year 1000 he left his home with a crew of thirty-five men.

Their first landing was made somewhere along the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland. The surface was so thickly covered with rock that they called it Helluland, meaning "Slateland." It was not an attractive country, and so they turned the vessel southward along the coast. After several days they reached a timbered coast, probably that of Nova Scotia, which they named Markland. Thence they sailed southward for two days, casting anchor in a pleasant place where Ericson and his crew resolved to spend the fall and winter.

In the following spring Leif Ericson returned to Greenland, his vessel laden with timber. The trade in lumber proved so successful that his brothers, one after another, fitted out vessels

The Northmen on the Seas.

to engage in the business, which was regularly carried on until the year 1011. Then a quarrel ended in the massacre of half the people of the settlement, and the survivors returned to Greenland. And so ended the settlement at Vinland, as it was called, the first definitely known to have been established by Europeans in America.^ No evidence exists to show that the Norse rovers intended to colonize the coast. Their settlement was a lumber camp, founded for commerce and for no other purpose.

The visit of the Ericson brothers should not be considered as the finding of a new continent. It was an incident and a noteworthy one ; but it is wholly apart from the voyages and explorations that, one after another, resulted in the discovery of a then unknown continent.

Trade Routes between Europe and India. — The blockading of trade routes between Europe and India, more than five hundred years ago, would seem to have little connection with the first settlement of the United States of America, but the two occurrences are links in the same chain of events. During the wars of the Crusades the people of western Europe for the first time began to have open trade not only with one another, but also with India and China. Only in those two countries could then be procured the silks, muslins, spices, pearls, gems, and ivory — commodities that were wanted by the wealthy people of Europe. A splendid trade resulted in the course of time, and most of this trade concentrated at the ports of Venice and Genoa.

Now, although we commonly consider Europe and Asia as a single great body of laud, as a matter of fact an almost impassable barrier separates them. This barrier is the desert highland that rises abruptly in front of the Persian Gulf and culminates in the Hindu Kush plateau. In only two or three places can this

1 Just where the Vinland camp was pitched is not known. Two circumstances aiford a slight clew. From casual statements made by Leif Ericson it has been inferred that the shortest day of winter was about nine hours long. Moreover, they found an abundance of wild grapes, probably the common fox grape, and this gave the camp its name. From these statements it is reasonable to believe that Vinland was somewhere between Nova Scotia and Massachusetts Bay — more likely nearer the latter than the former.

lofty highland be crossed; in two or three others it can be avoided. The chief routes of travel and trade were : —

(1) From Venice to Alexandria, through the Red Sea, to the east

coast of India.

(2) From Genoa to Constantinople, by way of the Black Sea, the

Tigris and Euphrates, to the Persian Gulf, to the coast of India.

(3) From Constantinople and the Black Sea, across to the Cas-

pian Sea, up the Amu Darya (or Oxus), to the Indus.

Route from Venice; w4>*t- Routi! from Genoa: _■._....-..- Route from Constantinuiile^.^— JJoute of Vasco da.Gama: •

Trade Routes to the East.

The Turks blockade the Trade Routes. — Half-savage Turkomans in their zeal for the religion taught them by followers of Mohammed began to interfere with this trade of the Christian European nations. In 1453 they captured Constantinople, and a few years later they barred every other gateway to the East. Commerce must always move along lines in which there are no great obstacles. In the face of high mountain ranges across which there are no passes, or over wide deserts, the transit of goods at that time was next to impossible. Even though it might be possible to transport the goods, the cost would be so great as to be prohibitive. This blockading of the trade routes caused general concern, for people were beginning to realize the importance of commerce and trade routes,

The Search for a Route around Africa. — Energies were directed toward the search for a route around Africa which the Turks could not blockade. In this search Portugal took the

The World as known in the Time of Columbus.

lead — mainly from the fact that Prince Henry of Portugal, best known as " the Navigator," had established a school for training master mariners, and this institution had drawn to itself many of the best sailors of the Mediterranean.^

Long before the voyage of Columbus the Portuguese sailors were Vascoda actively at work. Many geographers believed that Gama Africa was a peninsula, and therefore there must be a

1 Pope Eugenius IV had conferred (about 1442) upon Portugal "all heathen lands from Cape Bojador [on the west coast of Africa, about latitude 28° Nortli] eastward even to the Indies." Spain therefore must look westward for her route to India, and her sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, were consequently interested in the proposals of Christopher Columbus for an expedition across the Atlantic to India.

way around its southern point. Under the direction of Prince Henry, the Portuguese vessels, one after another, got farther and farther along the west coast until, in 1487, Bartholomew Dias passed the cape now called Cape of Good Hope.^ Ten years later (1497) Vasco da Gama rounded the cape in a furious cyclone that carried him in a northeasterly direction, almost to the west coast of India. When he let go his anchors, his vessel was at the city of Calicut, India. And thus one part of the problem of reaching India was solved.

The Search for a Westward Route : Columbus. — Before Vasco da Gama had reached India, a new factor was introduced into the problem. This factor was a man of both power and perseverance.

His name was Christopher Columbus. Columbus was a native of the state of Genoa, and possibly of the city of that name; he was born within a few years of 1434.

He had begun a sea-faring life when- in his teens, and at the age of fifty was well known as a master mariner and a maker of charts and globes.^

Some years before the voyage of Da Gama, Columbus had made up his mind that India might be reached by a westward route across the Atlantic instead of eastward, around Africa. In reaching this conclusion he had been guided by a number of traditions

Christopher Columbus.

1 His vessel was so badly shattered by a cyclone that he put back to Portugal in sore distress. He called the headland Cape Tormentoso, meaning " Cape of the Furies." After Da Gama's voyage, however, King John of Portugal gave it its present name.

2 Contrary to common opinion, the rotundity of the earth was generally accepted at that time by merchants, sailors, and people engaged in commercial pursuits. Columbus thought the circumference to be 20,400 miles, and this appears to have been his greatest error. Many years before, Eratosthenes had computed it at 25,290 nautical miles ; but apparently Columbus did not know this.

about land to the west in the untraveled ocean. ^ There was evidence which none could gainsay. Tropical vegetation, borne by winds and ocean currents, had been cast on European shores, and so also had the drowned bodies of people of a swarthy-colored race. Perhaps the matter which more than any other influenced him was a letter and a map that had been sent by Toscanelli, the astronomer of Florence in Italy, to an officer in the household of the king of Portugal. Toscanelli believed that India could be reached by sailing west across the Atlantic. He afterward sent a copy of the map and the letter to Columbus, and this seems greatly to have strengthened the explorer's determination. The plans of Columbus were well laid, and his ideas were very clear. It was about eighteen years, however, before he was able to carry them out.

Although both Genoa and Venice had everything to gain and nothing to lose in the discovery of a new route to India, neither

1 Among the master mariners there was a story about a certain Jean Cousin whose vessel had heen blown from the African coast clear across the ocean to an unknown land, which was probably Brazil. This actually happened to Cabral in 1500. Another story referred to Alonzo Sanchez, a Spanish pilot, who was in similar fashion cast ashore on the island now called Haiti. This story was common at the time and was known to Columbus. Indeed, the air was full of that sort of talk, and bad been since the blockade of the old trade routes.

Columbus in Portugal state seems to have taken any interest in the matter. Portugal alone was active ; Columbus therefore turned to that state. He made a favorable impression on King John, and, had Prince Henry the Navigator been living, it is probable that the plans of Columbus would have been accepted by the Portuguese king. Unfortunately for Portugal, the matter was referred by the king to certain learned men of the state, and by them condemned. The king then fitted out a vessel secretly and dispatched it along the route suggested by Columbus. The master of the vessel, however, lacking the courage to attempt such an uncertain voyage, put back to Lisbon, and thus the secret was out. In disgust, Columbus shook the dust of Portugal from his feet and departed for Spain.

In 1486 he submitted his plans to a group of Spanish scholars, and the latter practically derided them. Fortunately there were several priests among them who were inclined to give the plans of Columbus a fair trial, and their influence finally prevailed. Perhaps the fact that all the idle gossip about India made it a country of fabulous wealth had something to do with the favorable decision of the king, for he was sorely pressed for funds. At all events it was Queen Isabella who came to the front at the last moment and pledged her jewels for the amount necessary to fit out the expedition. A flagship and two caravels were purchased for the expedi-

1 This picture is from a photojyraph of the caravels built for the Columbian Exposition in 1893, exactly reproducing the ships of Columbus.

/l^ji_ mm m ^

The Santa Maria, i

Columbus in Spain tion; they were the Santa Maria (or Capitana), the flagship, the Pinta, and the Nina. The largest of the three was about ninety feet in length over all.

The First Voyage of Columbus. 1492. — The squadron set sail from Palos, a small seaport of Spain, August 3, 1492. The vessels put in at the Canary Islands to repair the rudder of the Pinta ; this done, they turned south westward headed, as Columbus thought, for Zipango, or Japan. As the days and weeks passed, the crew, a motley lot of roustabouts, showed signs of mutiny and laid plans to throw Columbus overboard. Then their fears were calmed by occasional signs of land, and so the squadron kept on. Columbus had understated his daily runs intentionally, so that by October 7 the real distance of twenty-seven hundred miles was made to appear five hundred miles less.

In a few days, however, the signs of land were unmistakable, and on the 12th of October, 1492 (October 21, present style of reckoning), seventy days after their starting, land was sighted. That same morning Columbus went ashore on one of the islands now known as the West Indies and took possession of the land in the name of Spain. He named the island San Salvador; the natives, of whom he found a great number, called it Guanahaui.^ Columbus spent a few days among the islands, feeling certain that he was near the coast of Asia. The natives he called Indians, because he supposed he was in the East Indian archipelago. He found many of them wearing gold ornaments, and he learned from them that the precious metal came from a large island to the southwest. He visited this island, now known to be Cuba, thinking it might be Japan; and then he Avent to Haiti, which he named Espagnola, or Little Spain.

On Christmas the Santa Maria was wrecked on a shoal off the coast of Haiti. From the timbers of this vessel Columbus built a fort, and left in it a small garrison. With the rest of his men he returned to Spain. Fort Nativity, as it was called, was the

1 It is not with certainty known on wliicli island of the Bahama group the first landing was made; various historians have favored Cat Island, Turks, and Watling, but the strongest evidence is in favor of Samana, or Atwood Key, a small Island northeast of Ackliu and Crooked islands.

first European colony established in the New World, after the lumber camp of Leif Ericson, nearly five hundred years earlier.

Other Voyages of Columbus : South America Discovered. — Columbus made three more voyages, in which he discovered other islands of the West Indies. On his third voyage he entered the mouth of the Orinoco River (1498). The great volume of the stream,

The Line of Demarcation, and the Routes of Columbus's Voyages.

greater than that of any European river, convinced him that it could drain nothing less than a continent ; and so the discovery of South America justly belongs to him. On his fourth voyage (1502-1504) he coasted the shore of that part of North America now called Central America.

The gold, gems, and spices which the Spanish monarch had hoped for were not found. Enemies rose up to plot against the great discoverer, and he died forsaken and in poverty. His

12 THE MAKIN(? OF THE AMERICAN NATION

remains, first buried at Yalladolid in Spain, were several times removed, and to this day no one knows tlieir final resting place.' Columbus died ignorant of the fact that the land he had found was not India.

The Outcome of the Discoveries. — The voyages of Columbus and Da Gama are turning points in the history of America and of Europe. In time it was learned that, instead of a new route to an old land, a new world was discovered. Still it was nearly twoscore years after the first voyage of Columbus before Europe seemed to realize the fact that an unknown continent, and not the eastern shores of India and China, had been found.

In order to keep peace between Spain and Portugal, Pope Alexander VI (1494) issued a decree which gave to Spain all lands west, and to Portugal all lands east, of the meridian

e ine ^^^^^ j^^ three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde. Possibly this measure, which established the " line of demarcation," kept a nominal peace between the two countries, but it left open the gates to hordes of adventurers from all parts of maritime Europe ; and for more than a century afterward the history of the New World was the history of plunder, rapine, warfare, and massacre.

The Cabots discover the Coast of North America. 1497-1498. — The half century beginning with the year 1475 was a period of active research and exploration. In addition to Da Gama's discovery of the cape route to India and the voyages of Columbus to the new land in the west, several other expeditions of discovery were undertaken which greatly influenced the course of history.

The merchants and trading companies of England were determined to look ahead for the possibilities of enlarging their field of commerce. In 1497 John Cabot, and probably his son Sebastian, undertook to find a shorter route to India by the northwest. Cabot did not find a northwest passage to India, but he did land upon the shores of Labrador or Newfoundland, which he claimed

1 The sarcophagus long in the cathedral at Havana, Cuba, and removed to Spain about the close of the nineteenth century, niay have contained the remains of his son, but it seems certain that they were not those of Columbus.

for England. He was, so far as history records, the first European after Lief Ericson to see North America. On his return an expedition of five ships was quicklyfitted out for further exploration. The squadron of vessels failed to force a passage through the ice-bound straits of the northwest, and so Cabot turned southward and explored the coast possibly as far as Cape Hatteras (1498). Upon this discovery of the Cabots England in after years based her claim to North America. In an account book of Henry VII, known as the "Privy Purse," there occurs this entry : —

lOth August 1497. To him that found the New Isle £10.

Voyages of Vespucci. 1499- 1503. — In 1499 Amerigo Vespucci, a master mariner of Florence in the service of Portugal, became an active factor in exploration. On his first voyage he followed the coast of Venezuela and Guiana, and possibly he may have continued along the northeast coast of Brazil. His subsequent expeditions were the result of an interesting circumstance.

It seems that Cabral, also in the service of Portugal, who was following the African coast, got into foul weather and was carried westward across the Atlantic to the east coast of Brazil. He was somewhat surprised at the sight of land lying so far to the east ; he knew that it must be east of the " demarcation line " and that it therefore must belong to Portugal by his discovery. Cabral dispatched a ship to the king to inform him of the fact,

The Cabot Memorial Tower at Bristol, England.

Amerigo Vespucci.

and Vespucci was sent to explore the region. His three ships seem to have followed about eighteen hundred miles of coast, and

Vespucci himself entered the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, or Plata River. The discoveries of Cabral and Vespucci secured Brazil to Portugal.

The report of Vespucci's work greatly interested Europe. Vespucci was not only a The naming „qq^ explorer but an of America „ , , . ,

excellent chronicler as

well, and his accounts of his explorations were widely read.

There had been traditions for more than twenty centuries that the world " contained four parts."

Three of these, Europe, Asia, and Africa, were known; the great new continent to the southwest was looked upon as the " fourth part." ^ Waldseemliller, a German geographer, proposed calling the " fourth part " America, in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. This name was in time applied to the whole northern and southern continent.

Completing the Discovery of America. — The growing belief that the new land was not a part of Asia was intensified when, in 1513, Vasco Nuflez de Balboa, in the service of Spain, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, as he named it. The belief was confirmed by the most remarkable voyage ever made up to that time.

Ferdinand Magellan, as the name is called in English, a Portuguese master mariner in the service of Spain, conceived the idea of reaching the IVIolucca Islands, lying to the southeast of Asia,

1 Herodotus expresses the opinion, "All men say that the earth contains three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), now certainly they should add a fourth part, the Delta land of Egypt." The geography of Mela also taught that there were four parts, though Ptolemy's geography claimed only three.

Balboa

Magellan by a westward passage. In order to avoid the Portuguese and

the English lauds, he determined upon a southerly course. In

1519 he cleared from the coast of Spain with five ships

aud two hundred and eighty men. Following the

east coast of South America, they reached a break in the coast

which proved to be the strait now bearing the commander's name.

It required five weeks to work the ships through the strait. About this time one ship was wrecked and one deserted. During their long voyage across the Pacific, the crew of the three remaining vessels suffered most horribly from starvation. They stopped at one of the islands now called the Ladrones and at the Philippines, where Magellan was killed in a fight with the natives. Thence the squadron proceeded to the Moluccas, where one ship was burned and another condemned as unseaworthy. After three years of hardship and suffering, one ship, with eighteen starved and scurvy-stricken men, sailed into the Guadalquivir River of Spain. The surviving ship of the squadron had sailed around the world.^

Even after Magellan's voyage, it was more than half a century before the fact that America was a continent was fully realized. Other work of discovery and exploration was necessary. First among these explorations was the voyage of Sir Francis Drake (1577-1580). Drake passed through the Strait of Magellan and skirted the west coast of the continent to a point a little way north of San Francisco Bay. He returned to England by way

1 The captain of the surviving ship secured a royal coat of arms bearing a globe upon wliich was iuscribed the legend, "Primus eircumdedisti me (thou first circumscribedst me)."

The Tomb of Magellan, on the Spot wheee He fell.

of the Molucca Islands. Martin Frobislier (1576-1578), John Davis (1585-1587), Henry Hudson (1607-1609), and William Baffin (1615) visited the coast along the northeast in search of a route to Asia. It was more than two centuries after Magellan's voyage (1728) that the strait which separates America from Asia was discovered by Veit Bering.

The Spaniards in North America. — Many daring men, in the service of Spain, explored the coasts and inland region of North America.

Vicente Pinzon and Juan Solis (1498) explored the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Ponce de Leon, governor of Porto Eico (1513), discovered Florida while seeking the fountain of perpetual youth.

Alvarez de Pineda (1519) explored the Gulf Coast and entered the river de Santo Espiritu — probably Mobile Bay and River, possibly the Mississippi or Appalachicola. He reported much gold in the hands of the natives.

Hernando Cortez (1519) entered upon the conquest of Mexico.

Panfilo de Narvaez (1528) explored the region about the Gulf of Mexico. De Vaca continued the exploration to the Gulf of California.

Fray Marcos (1539) searched the region about New Mexico for the Seven Cities of Cibola, in the country of the Zuni Indians.

Francisco Coronado (1510-1512) explored regions about the Rio Grande and the Colorado River.

Hernando de Soto (1539-1541) explored the region embracing the South Atlantic states as far west as the Mississippi River.

From the foregoing summary it is readily seen that the Spaniards were very active in exploring the New World. Few of the explorations seem to have been looking toward the establishment of colonies ; practically all were made for the purpose of trade or else in search of gold. The conquest of Mexico by Cortez and the settlement of Cuba probably incited most of the other expeditions, and these were confined mainly to the region about the Gulf of Mexico.

Pineda's accounts of the gold held by the Indians were plausible because Cortez had actually obtained much gold treasure from Montezuma, the Aztec king in Mexico. In turn, Narvaez was led by the stories of Pineda to undertake the expedition that led to his death, by drowning, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Some of his survivors, however, crossed the continent under the lead of Cabeza de Vaca.

These men brought back the report that far inland were seven great cities. The story, as it was told, had all the glamour of marvelous tales of the Arabian Nights, and the Spanish governor of Mexico sent Brother Mark (Fray Marcos), ^^ ^^®° a Franciscan friar, in search of the cities. Brother Mark was a man of great ability, and was therefore expected to accomplish by tact what his military predecessors had thought to win by force of arms. He found not seven great cities, but a number of Indian settlements, pueblos of the Zuhi tribe. In spite of this disillusion, in the following year (1540) Coronado, with a force of more than one thousand men, proceeded against the seven cities. He apparently thought that the pueblos were not worth having, and so continued his march over the plains probably as far as the boundary of the present state of Nebraska. He looked for gold, but found none. The expedition then returned to Mexico.

De Soto's expedition also was a result of that of Narvaez'. De Soto had been appointed governor of Cuba, and was ordered to hold all the territory discovered by Narvaez. His -p. c ^ explorations were carried on mainly in the lower part of the Mississippi Valley, and he fell a victim to the pestilential fever that still lingers there. His body was silently buried in the river, and his followers made their way down the river and across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba.