New American history

Front matter

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COF0UGHT DEPOSrr.

Contents

BEGINNINGS

I. Foundations of. American History .

II. The Century of Discovery (1492-1604)

Chapter I

I. Dawn of American History

Where does American history begin? The true fathers of America are the Europeans who, three or four centuries ago, had the courage to voyage across unknown seas, and the persistence to plant colonies beyond the ocean. The men of each colony brought with them the religion, language, laws, and methods of government to which they and their ancestors were accustomed ; hence the early history of America is really a part of European history. The first American colonists were simply Spaniards, Portuguese, or Frenchmen in America; and the English settlers who removed overseas looked upon themselves as still a part of the English people. When that bond was broken by the Revolution of 1775, the United States became at once one of the family of civilized nations. Our history has always been closely connected with that of Europe by commerce, by immigration, by sharing the world's literatures, by interchange of inventions and principles of government.

Five hundred years ago, the only parts of the world that were known to Europeans were their own continent, the neighboring islands, and parts of Asia and Africa. The discovery of America was a result in great part of that new spirit of interest in the past

I and curiosity about the world, which we call the Renaissance. When, about the year 1300, men of modern European nations began to appreciate the beauty and power of ancient writers and of ancient works of art, interest in nature sprang up again with passionate force, and with it the desire to know the shape and extent of the world. Hence, when a new commercial route from Europe to India was needed, men were wiUing to take great risks, to sail across the unknown western ocean, and to explore lands hitherto undreamed of.

2. Inventions

The new spirit showed itself especially in two inventions (both previously known in China), which helped discovery and exploration: (i) Gunpowder, first used in war about 1350, enabled the invaders of America to beat the savages. (2) Printing with movable t^^Des, probably first practiced in Europe by Gutenberg in 1450, served to spread the fame of the New World.

Long voyages became possible because the art of navigation was steadily advancing. Seagoing ships were now fitted with keels and single rudders, with heavy spars and square sails ; and for defense from the seas and from enemies, they were provided with high bulwarks, with " forecastles" and "aftercastles." There was little distinction between merchantmen and warships : in time of war the trader simply took on a few more guns and men and became a fighting cruiser.

Naval science was immensely aided by four inventions, which by 1450 were widely used: (i) The wondrous art of sailing on the wind gave confidence to men on long voyages, because they could get back against an adverse wind. (2) The magnetic compass was a guide far out of sight of land, and when the stars were not visible. (3) The astrolabe enabled the mariner roughly to estimate his distance from the equator. (4) The portolano, or sea chart, showed what was known about the seas and coasts.

Europe and the East 3

3. Europe and the East

The approach to American history came through the attempt to estabUsh new relations between Europe and Asia. In 1450 Europe had no direct intercourse by sea with India, China, and

Early Roctes of Commerce between EfROPE and Asia. (Showing the Portuguese discoveries along the African coast.)

Japan. Eastern products found their way westward only by transfer overland at the head of the Red Sea, or by a slow and expensive caravan journey across Asia, over routes which were broken in two by the Turks when they took Constantinople in 1453. After that, how were Europeans to get such eastern products as carpets and silks, pearls and cotton goods, the sweet white powder called sugar, the gums, and the pepper that sometimes sold for its weight in gold ?

One European, Marco Polo, had actually crossed Asia and returned from the Chinese coast in 1295, and thus reported : "And I tell you with regard to that Eastern Sea of Chin, according to what is said by the experienced pilots and mariners of those parts, there be 7459 Islands in the waters frequented by the said mariners. . . . And there is not one of those Islands but produces valuable and odorous woods . . . and they produce also a great variety of spices." In course of time the question began to be asked. Why might not the Spice Islands and Japan be reached by sea from western Europe? Hence attempts were made to find an eastward water passage around Europe by the Arctic Ocean, and around Africa by the Atlantic Ocean.

Moreover, the learned men of the Renaissance pointed out that the ancients believed the world to be round. A strange book of wonders, called the Travels of Sir John Mandeville (published about 1370), says, "For when the sun is east in those parts towards paradise terrestrial, it is then midnight in our parts of this half, for the roundness of the earth. For our Lord God made the earth all round in the midplace of the firmament." By 1470 the Florentine astronomer Toscanelli figured out the circumference of the earth at very nearly its true length. If the world was really round, why was it not possible to reach India by sailing westward instead of eastward?

4. The Early Colonizing Nations

Such a question could best be answered by the maritime nations of western Europe — by Italy, Spain, France, England, and Portugal. The Portuguese had already begun to make long voyages west and south. They discovered or rediscovered the four groups of the Canary, Madeira, Cape Verde, and Azores islands. Under the direction of Prince Henry the Navigator,

The Early Colonizing Nations 5

their vessels pushed down the west coast of Africa ; but at the time of his death they had reached no farther south than Sierra Leone.

The neighbor and great rival of Portugal was Spain. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabella of Castile brought under one sovereignty the Christian parts of that land. In 1492, by the conquest of the Moors of Granada (southern Spain), the way was cleared for one great Spanish kingdom. Twenty-seven

Western Europe about 1500. (Showing the chief commercial centers and routes of trade.)

Atlantic Coast of North America 7

years later, Charles V, grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, king of Spain and ruler of the Netherlands, became also German emperor, and thus brought Spain into the heart of European politics. Spain built a powerful navy, and organized an infantry that could defeat knights in armor and was almost invincible by other footmen ; and for many years she was the strongest state in Europe.

Germany, England, and France in this period were wearing themselves out with civil wars and other wars, and had little energy left for voyages of discovery. Italy was broken up into several states, but furnished the best and boldest sailors of that

period.

5. Atlantic Coast of North America

The Europeans of the fifteenth century thought of the world as consisting of only three parts : Europe, Asia, and Africa. After the discovery of America, as described in the next chapter, it required a generation of explorers to approach the truth that North America is not part of Asia, and more than a century passed before men generally began to think of the western hemisphere in its true relations to the rest of the world. The course of American discovery and colonization was much affected by the physical character of the land ; therefore, the nature of the country is one of the essentials of American history.

The Atlantic coast of North America abounds in deep and sheltered harbors, which helped the early settlers in their seafaring. The coast is bold and rugged as far south as Massachusetts Bay, and the country inland is hilly and stony, and abounds in waterfalls. South of the Hudson, a low coast plain gradually widens till it reaches Georgia, and thence stretches westward along the Gulf of Mexico to Texas. Its sandy coast is fringed with shallow lagoons, separated from the open sea by long, narrow islands.

Up to the foothills of the Appalachians this southern country is flat and fertile and well adapted to agriculture. The sluggish rivers are generally navigable from the coast to the "Fall Line,"

where abundant water power has aided the growth of a series of towns and cities, such as Trenton, Richmond, Petersburg, Raleigh, Columbia, Augusta, and Macon. The flatness of the Atlantic coast gave rise to one disadvantage : innumerable swamps and fresh-water ponds bred mosquitoes. When our forefathers sickened with fevers, they little guessed that it was this insignificant enemy which brought disease, death, and often ruin to a colony.

On the west, the Atlantic lowland is shut in by the Appalachian Mountain system, which extends in a belt about a hundred miles wide from the Gulf of St. Lawrence 1600 miles southwestward to northern Alabama. On the western side of these mountains is ah upland plateau which dechnes gradually to the west and is deeply trenched by the steep-sided valleys of the streams. Like the lower coast lands, this whole highland region was originally clothed with forests which concealed the lurking savage.

6. Interior of Our Country

The west slope of the Appalachian plateau merges into a vast low plain, which is drained partly northeastward to Hudson Bay, partly eastward through the Great Lakes to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but chiefly southward through the Mississippi River system. A northern belt, as far west as the upper Mississippi, and a southern belt, as far as the Ozark Plateau, were originally forest-covered ; but the central part from Indiana westward was made up of broad grassy prairies, treeless except for narrow fringes of timber along the watercourses.

The St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys makeup the most extensive tract of highly fertile land in the world. Most of it has abundant rainfall. "When tickled with a hoe, it laughs with a harvest" ; and it has almost every variety of soil and product. The numerous streams furnish alluvial "bottom land." North of the Missouri and Ohio rivers most of the country is covered with glacial deposits, making nature's wheat fields ; and the vast prairies grow all kinds of crops, especially corn.

Pacific Coast of Our Country

About 500 miles beyond the Mississippi River the land rises gradually into a treeless plateau, which is called the Great Plains and is so dry that not much farming is possible without irrigation. The "bunch grass" of these plains once supported countless herds of wild bison, and now is the pasturage for beef cattle.

Beyond the plains is the Rocky Mountain chain, with a general elevation of about io,ooo feet. These lofty and complicated ranges occupy a belt of country from 200 to 300 miles wide, made up of mountains extremely rough and steep. Their summits reach to nearly 15,000 feet, though the chain may be crossed at elevations not greater than from 6000 to 8000 feet. West of the mountains are broad, rugged plateaus. In these mountains and uplands the Indians found large game for food, and small fur-bearing animals. From the sheep that now range the region the white man still draws material for clothing ; while in the upheaved and dislocated strata he finds our richest stores of gold, silver, copper, and lead.

P.ACiFic Coast Country

OF Our

Farther west, rises the steep escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade chains, 'which sink away again in a long western slope, abundantly watered in winter by moist winds from the Pacific, that clothe it with thick forests of valuable trees. These chains are scarcely more than seventy-five miles wide, but they

Big Trees in California.

rival the Rocky Mountains in height and ruggedness. West of the crest of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade systems, and beyond a series of long lowland valleys, stand the low Coast Ranges, which rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. These ranges are broken down to the sea at three places only: the bay of San Francisco, the Columbia River, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which leads to Puget Sound. The climate is much the same all along the western coast — warm, dry summers and mild winters, which have made it a resort for travelers and health seekers,

8. Routes of Trade and Travel

Through the forests and across the mountains ran two systems of primeval routes of travel : footpaths and waterways, (i) Throughout the continent, buffalo paths and Indian trails, sometimes only six inches wide, led through prairie and forest ; they often followed the divides between the valleys, because they were free from crossings of streams. (2) A network of water routes was made by rivers and lakes, on which plied the dugout and, in the north, the Indian birch-bark canoe, which was one of the best inventions of any savage race ; it was easy to make, swift to paddle, and light to "tote" over a carry from one system of rivers to another.

For long journeys to the west the Atlantic streams could be followed up to the divides separating them from the tributaries of the Great Lakes or of the Ohio River. The routes across the Appalachian chain ran for the most part on the same lines as the present trunk-line railroads, especially through the gaps at the heads of the Mohawk, Susquehanna, Potomac, and James rivers. By carries or portages known to the Indians, one could also pass from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay, or to the upper Mississippi, or to the Ohio. Examples of such transfer points are Ravenna, Ohio, between the Cuyahoga and Mahoning rivers ; Fort Wayne, Indiana, between the Maumee and the Wabash; and Chicago, between Lake Michigan and

American Products

II Important Indian Portages

the Des Plaines branch of the IlHnois. At such places white men's towns eventually grew up. Indians rarely crossed from the east to the Pacific drainage, though the passes were known to the natives.

9. American Products

The whole land originally abounded in wild animals. The deer and the bison, commonly called buflalo, furnished meat for the hungry, clothing for the cold, and a roof for the family; the game birds, of which the turkey and the pigeon were the most plentiful, increased the food supply ; and the coast waters and streams abounded in fish and in fur-bearing animals. The earth furnished the savage with berries and other fruits, corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and maple sugar for his diet ; tobacco for his luxury ; herbs and simples for diseases and wounds ; wood for his hut and his fire.

Foundations of American Historv

Interior of a Zuni Pueblo. (About the siime size as in 1492.)

The colonists found valuable resources in the timber and the iron ores ; their descendants discovered coal and oil, and copper, lead, zinc, and the precious metals ; but almost the only things the Indian had to sell that the white man coveted were deerskins and furs, especially that of the beaver. Still America yielded three products not then known to the Old World : (i) Corn was the plant most widely sown and harvested by the Indians; the colonists quickly found it to be "a grain of general use to man and beast." (2) The potato, native of South America, in the course of time became the chief food of milhons of Europeans. (3) Tobacco, everywhere much prized by the Indians, grew wild or was rudely cultivated.

10. Native Civilization in America

The native inhabitants of America, called Indians by Columbus because he supposed he had reached the Indian coast of Asia, were almost all of one great race, though their origin is a puzzle for scientists. Throughout central North America exist a great number of mounds, some of which are graves, some

Native Civilization in America village sites, some defenses, some the outlines of animals ; but there is no reason to suppose that the "mound builders" were different from the ordinary Indians.

From Georgia to Arizona, most Indian tribes raised plenty of food and Uved in fixed towns, some southwestern peoples in cliff dwellings. The descendants of some of these tribes, as for instance the Zunis, still live in the same communal villages or pueblos, and carry on much the same life as their forefathers.

Farther south, in the communal city of Mexico, were the Aztecs, men of war who lived on tribute or plunder from neighboring tribes, and reveled in human sacrifice ; they had the arts of making pottery, of working in soft metals, of weaving and feather work, and even of a kind of picture writing. In Mexico and Central America ruined stone cities mark a higher civilization, already decaying when the white man came. These abound in elaborately carved stone walls, stairways, and monuments, strangely like certain temples and idols in eastern Asia. In South America native civilization reached its highest point in the empire of the Incas in Peru, who had an organization far above that of the ordinary Indians ; for they built roads and stone towns, trained llamas for beasts of burden, and used a system of records made by knotted cords.

The Indians who most disturbed the English colonists were three groups : (i) along the northern Atlantic coast, the Algonquin family ; (2) inland, between the Hudson and Lake Erie, the "Five Nations" of Iroquois ; (3) between the Mississippi and the southeast coast the powerful Cherokees, kin to the Iroquois, and the Muskogee family, hart's new .-vmer. hist. — 2

Ancient Peruvian J.vr. (Perhaps a portrait.)

including the intelligent, numerous, and warlike tribes of Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws. All these Indians were vigorous and hardy people, well built, tall, and handsome. Their clothing was chiefly of deerskins, supplemented after the whites came by the "match-coat," or blanket. They gathered into villages, hving for the most part in wigwams of bark or skins; though some tribes had "long houses" — rows of continuous wooden dwellings.

The main occupations of these Indians were fishing and hunting and fighting, but nearly all had cornfields, and some of them plots of tobacco and vegetables, all tilled by the women. The Indians were fond of gayety, lively conversation, dancing, and open-air games. They knew no real religion ; early discoverers said that they worshiped stones and the devil. Their priests were medicine men who sang, shook their rattles, and circled about the fire ten or twelve hours together, "with most impetuous and interminate clamours and howling." In many ways the Indians showed remarkable inventive skill. They strung bows, fashioned stone arrowheads, clubs, and hatchets, contrived snowshoes, made rude pottery, tanned skins, executed beautiful designs in beads and porcupine quills, manufactured maple sugar, plaited nets, carved pipes, wove baskets, painted pictographs on skins and rocks, had a currency of wampum made from seashells, and invented the serviceable bark canoe.

II. Indian Warfare and Government

In war the Indians were among the fiercest fighting men of all history. Their weapons were the bow and arrow, club, tomahawk, and stone knife ; and they quickly adopted the white man's muskets, axes, and knives. Swift and silent in movement, they chose to attack by surprise ; if once beaten back, they were likely to give up and go home for the time, rather than lose more men. Their custom of killing or enslaving men, women, and children alike, was too often imitated by their white enemies, who also learned how to take the scalps of their

Indian Warfare and Government savage adversaries. The narratives of white captives are filled with accounts of fearful tortures.

Fortunately for the whites, the Indians were broken up into small political fragments. The so-called "tribes," often including many villages, were united by the loosest of ties ; they fought among themselves. The fundamental idea of the Indian was that every member of every other tribe, unless bound by

Indian Wampi'm Belts.

friendly treaty, was his enemy ; and he looked on all white men as members of one hostile tribe. Indeed, the whole Indian conception of government and society was different from that of the white man. The tribes were subdivided into clans or "totems," and families; and the tribal councils were mere "powwows," for the decision bound nobody; yet discussion and decision were backed up by a powerful public opinion. The tribal lands were usually only the territory over which the tribe habitually ranged ; nobody " owned " land in the English sense of absolute properly which could be transferred to another jxTson.

The Indians were often friendly, gave food, furnished guides, and fought on the white men's side against other tribes; but their chiefs had no recognized power to compel obedience, and hence treaties with the EngHsh were always hard to enforce. Few Indians have come down in history as leaders of their people. Wahunsonacock, commonly called Powhatan by the Virginians, King Philip in New England, Pontiac and Corn Planter in the West, George Guess who invented a Cherokee alphabet, and later Tecumseh, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo the Apache, are almost the only great names.

Early x\merican history was simply a part of the history of the nations of Europe that made discoveries and planted colonies in the western hemisphere. They were aroused by that intellectual movement which we call the Renaissance, one phase of which was greater interest in seafaring. The interruption of trade with central Asia, caused by the invasion of the Turks, was an additional reason for trying to reach India by a new sea route.

Although the Europeans were not aware of it until some years later, the Atlantic coast of our country abounds in broad rivers and good harbors. From the water line the land rises to the summit of the Appalachian Mountains and then descends to the fertile St. Lawrence and Mississippi river basins. Westward the land again rises until it reaches the high Rockies, and the great upland beyond ; and beyond the Sierra Nevada it slopes down to the Pacific coast. Easy divides and passes connect the various parts of the country with one another.

A good share of this broad land abounded in animal life, furnishing food and clothing to the natives. The Indians also had corn, potatoes, and tobacco, none of which were then known in Europe. Most of the tribes were still in the savage stage of civilization, though many of them li\-ed in villages, and the Mexicans and Peruvians built stone cities and temples. The Indians provided themselves with tools and utensils. They were excellent warriors, but never understood how to unite in strong and numerous communities.

Geography and Maps. See maps, pp. 3, 5, 6, n. — Avery, U.S., I. — Bogart, I'Aon. Hist., 4, 5, 10, 18, 78. — Coma.n, Indust. Hist., hont., 3. — Epoch Maps, no. i. — Farrand, Basis of Am. Hist. — Shepherd, Hist. Atlas, 187, 188.

Secondary. Bassett, U.S., ch. i. — Becker, Beginnings, 1-17. — Cheyney, Europ. Background. — Farrand, Basis of Am. Hist. — Fiske, Discov. of Am., I. 1-147, 256-334, II. 294-364. — Hodge, Handbook of Am. Indians. — Morgan, Am-. Aborigines. — Powell, Physiographic Regions. — Shaler, Nature and Man in Am., 166-283. — Winsor, America, IV. i-xxx.

Sources. Hart, Source Book, § g; Source Readers, I. §§ 8, 19-33, 37-44, III. §§ 57-69. — Old South Leajlcts, nos. 30, 32. — See also New Engl. Hist. Teachers' Assoc, Hist. Sources, § 65 ; Syllabus, 167-168, 293.

Illustrative. Leland, Algonquin Legends of New Engl. — Longfellow, Hiawatha. — Lummis, Strange Corners of Our Country. — Whittier, Bridal of Pennacook.

Pictures. Avery, U.S., I. — Catlin, North Am. Indians. — Mc- Kenney and Hall, Hist, and Biography of the Indian Tribes. — Mentor, serial nos. 7, 34, 60, 83, 92, 113, 116. — U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, Reports. — Winsor, America, I.

(i) When and how was gunpowder first used in Europe? [§ 2] — (2) What were the first books printed in America? [§ 2] — (3) How did the mariner's compass come into use in Europe? [§ 2] — (4) What five harbors of North America were first located by Europeans? [§5] —

(5) What are the best passes across the Rocky Mountains? [§ 6] —

(6) What were the best waterways (with portages) from the Atlantic to the Mississippi? [§ 8] — (7) Indian mounds. [§ 10] — (8) The Indian totem system. [§ 11]

(9) Adventures of Marco Polo. [§ 3] — (10) Was there ever a Sir John Mandeville? [§3] — (11) Prince Henry the Navigator. [§4] —

(12) Introduction of corn, potatoes, and tobacco into Europe. [§ 9] —

(13) Indian remains in your neighborhood. [§ 10] — (14) Ancient buildings and monuments in Mexico and Central America. [§ 10] — (15) Peruvian roads and buildings. [§ 10] — (16) Account of one of the Indians mentioned in § 11.

Chapter II

13. Forp:runnings of Discovery (i 000- 1492)

Until about 1500, the existence of any western continent was undreamed of in Europe, although in far-off Iceland there

were records of a "saga," or memorized tradition, telHng how Leif Ericson — ^"Leif the Lucky " — reached the mainland, far south of Greenland, in the year 1000.

Another saga tells that in 1007 one Karlsefni landed there in a fine country, which has never been identified, abounding in flat stones and "wineberries" and fierce natives. No evidence has ever been found to show that Leif's discovery of North America was known to Italian or Spanish navigators. Their incentive to western voyages was the hope of finding a direct western route to India, especially after Bartholomew Diaz of Portugal reached the Cape of Good Hope (1487)

Leif Ericson's Ship.

Columbus the Discoverer 19

and saw a broad sea beyond, on which ships could undoubtedly sail to Asia, though by a long and roundabout route.

To Christopher Columbus, born (about 1451) in the Italian city of Genoa, is due the credit of applying the science of his time to this problem of reaching India. Before he was thirty years old he formed a phin of sailing westward to Asia, which he calculated to be not far from 2500 miles distant from Europe. Directly, or through his brother Bartholomew, he appealed to the kings of Portugal, Spain, England, and France to fit him out ; and all declined the splendid opportunity. Finally, he turned again to Spain and appealed to the zeal of Queen Isabella in behalf of the distant heathen, and aroused her counselors by depicting rich results of conquest and power. Isabella at last agreed to fit out an expedition in behalf of her kingdom of Castile.

14. Columbus the Discoverer (1492-1502)

Furnished with the queen's money, Columbus got together three little ships called caravels, the Santa Maria, Nina, and Pinta, carrying go men in all. He sailed from Palos early in August, 1492, and from the Canary Islands five weeks later; thenceforward his sole reliance was his own unconquerable will. When the crews threatened to mutiny unless he would turn back, he pleaded and threatened and even deceived them by underestimating the ship's daily run.

On Friday, October 12, 1492 (October 21 of our calendar), thirty-three days after losing sight of land, and then distant 3230 nautical miles from Palos, the caravels came upon an island, to which, says Columbus, "I gave the name of San Salvadore, in commemoration of his Divine IMajcsty who has wonderfully granted all this. The Indians call it Guanahani." This landfall was probably Watling Island of the Bahama group. A few days later Columbus reached the coast of Cuba, and then Hispaniola, now Haiti. He was deeply disappointed not to find towns and civilized communities, for to the dav of

ATLAKTIC^ OCEA2\

English and Portuguese Discoveries 21

his death he supposed thai he had hit on the coast of Asia. Thus was America discovered accidentally in the voyage of one of the most extraordinary men in history.

On a second and a third voyage (1493, HgS) Columbus discovered Porto Rico, Jamaica, some of the Lesser Antilles, and

Departure of Columbus. (From Dc Bry's Voyages, 1590.)

the mouth of the Orinoco. He founded a colony in Hispaniola, including the city of Santo Domingo, but was sent home in chains and for a time was in disgrace. He made, however, a fourth voyage (1502), in search of a water passage to India, which carried him to the coast of Honduras and to the Isthmus of Panama. Four years later he died in Spain.

15. English and Portuguese Discoveries (1493- 1507)

The announcement that Columbus had reached Asia aroused new national rivalries, and it was followed by many western voyages. Henry VII, king of England, gave authority to the Venetian navigator John Cabot and his three sons "to sail to all parts, regions, and waters of the eastern, western, and southern seas, and to discover any heathen regions which up to this time have remained unknown to Christians." Though this voyage later became the basis of the English claims to North America, we know only that Cabot came back in 1497 and reported "that 700 leagues hence he discovered land, the territory of the grand Chan. He coasted for 300 leagues and landed and found two very large and fertile new islands." His landfall is supposed to have been the island of Cape Breton. The next year Cabot and his son Sebastian are supposed to have made a voyage farther south ; but of their discoveries, if they made any, we have no contemporary accounts.

Meantime the Portuguese were trying to reach India by sailing eastward around Africa, and they claimed a monopoly of the discoveries that they might make. In May, 1493, the Pope issued a bull in which he undertook to divide the new non- Christian world between Portugal and Spain, by a north and south line through the Atlantic. A year later, in the treaty of Tordesillas, made directly between Spain and Portugal, it was agreed that the "line of demarcation" should run "from pole to pole, 370 leagues west from the Cape Verde Islands." The need of such a treaty was realized in 1497, when the Portuguese Vasco da Gama passed the Cape of Good Hope, and shortly reached India. Then Cabral, one of the Portuguese voyagers to India, hit on the coast of Brazil (1500), which he thought was an Asiatic island. Thus America would have been discovered without Columbus. Later it was found that the Hne of Tordesillas ran to the west of the Brazilian coast, which was therefore left to the Portuguese to settle.