History of the United States

Preface

In teaching American history, whether in the secondary school or in the college, there are many problems in connection with the division of the subject, method of treatment, and emphasis. It has been my aim, in this short history, to add my contribution toward the solution of some of these problems from the practical standpoint of one who has had many years of experience both as teacher and as examiner, acquainted in the first capacity with the difhculty of presenting the subject, and in the second, with the unsatisfactory results often obtained.

Some of the subjects of special emphasis in the present volume are, in the period of exploration and discovery, the development of geographical knowledge; and in the colonial period the dependence of events in the colonies upon contemporary English history, and the close connection between the West Indies and the mainland as parts of the same colonial empire. Less space than usual has been given to military history, the attempt being to present the broad outlines of campaigns, the general plans with their successes and failures, rather than descriptions of battles in detail; while the social and industrial development of the country, economic progress, sources and effects of immigration, conditions on the ever-receding frontier, and changes in governmental forms', both hatix)rial and local, have received special attention. The' ped,(;;e' movement and £oreign relations, particularly the Pan-American movement, have been stressed. Recent history, which is often slighted for the period since 1865, occupies more than one-fourth of the book, a large share being devoted to the period since 1900. In fact, one of the objects of the book, constantly kept in mind, has been to introduce the student to present-day conditions and problems.

I desire to recognize my debt of gratitude to my colleagues, Professors Hill and Shattuck for various illustrations, and Professor Bracq, for permission to use his original Hondius-Mercator map; to Archibald Freeman of PhilHps Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, who has lately read the entire manuscript in its completed form and offered much valuable criticism; and to my wife, whose criticism and aid at every stage of the work has been a constant source of

inspiration and profit.

EMERSON DAVID FITE

Part I The New World Chapter Page

I. Discovery and Exploration i

II. The Native Americans and Their Country . , 22

Part II The European Colonies

III. Spanish and Portuguese America 29

IV. English America under Queen Elizabeth and the Early Stuart

V. Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Russian America 61

VI. English America. Influence of the Uprising of the English

VII. English America under the Later Stuart Kings, 1660-1688 . 69 VIII. English America. Influence of the English Revolution of

1688 79

IX. French America 83

X. British and French America 88

Appendix

I. Declaration of Independence 533

II. Articles of Confederation 536

III. Constitution of the United States 543

IV. War Message of President Wilson 557

V. Book Lists 564

Index 5^7

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Christopher Columbus 2

The Ships of Columbus 7

Balboa Taking Possession of the

Pacific Ocean 12

The Half Moon 17

An Indian Village 23

Sir Francis Drake 34

Drake's "Pelican" or "Golden

Hind" 35

Sir Walter Raleigh 36

John Smith 39

Jamestown, Va., in 1622 41

The Brewster House, Scrooby,

England 44

The First Thanksgiving Dinner . . 47 The Barker House at Pembroke,

Massachusetts 48

John Winthrop 49

Statue of Roger Williams 51

The Stadt Huys, First City Hall in

New York 62

New Amsterdam, about 1630 ... 63

Peter Stuyvesant 64

William Penn 76

Samuel de Champlain 84

The First Building in Quebec, 1608 85 Franklin's Device to Encourage Union, first used in the Pennsylvania Gazette 91

Benjamin Frankhn 92

Quebec 94

Colonial Stage 99

Growth of a Pioneer Home . . . 105

New York Harbor no

Harvard College, 1788 112

British Stamp iig

George III 122

The Boston Massacre 124

The Minute Man 128

Daniel Boone 134

Independence Hall, Philadelphia . 139

Franklin at the Court of France . . 149

Continental Money 151

Ohio Flatboat with Superstructure

of Rough Lumber 153

John Paul Jones 154

John Andre 156

The Surrender of Yorktown . . . 160

Fraunces' Tavern, New York . . 163

John Adams 169

The Start of the Ohio Company from Ipswich, Massachusetts, for

Marietta, Ohio 172

Mount Vernon i8o

Washington i8i

New York's Second City Hall, Federal Hall 182

Thomas Jefferson 183

Alexander Hamilton 184

Mrs. Washington's First Reception 190

An Early Frontier Fort in Ohio . . 193 Medal Struck for the Voyage of the

"Columbia" 200

John Marshall 209

James Madison 220

Henry Clay 221

U. S. Frigate Constitution — "Old

Ironsides" 225

Whitney's Cotton Gin 233

The "Clermont" 236

First Steamboat from Pittsburgh to

New Orleans 237

Picking Cotton, near Atlanta, Ga. 238

Cincinnati in 1810 239

Overland Travel 241

Typical Log Cabin 242

Mail Carrier about 1800 243

John Quincy Adams 251

John C. Calhoun 260

Canal Boat in 1825 263

"De Witt Clinton" and Train. . . 265

Andrew Jackson 268

Daniel Webster 270

Chicago in 1832 280

A Factory Town in 1838 (Lowell,

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Original McCormick Reaper . 284

William Lloyd Garrison 2S8

Martin Van Buren 292

Astoria in 1813 3°°

Mission San Francisco de la

Espada, San Antonio, Texas . . 305

Sutter's Mill 31°

Old Prairie Schooner and Stage

Coach of First Days in West . . 311

William H. Seward 322

Stephen A. Douglas 327

Sources of English Cotton Imports

Abraham Lincoln 35°

Fort Sumter 352

Ericsson's Monitor. Side Elevation 360

The Monitor and the Merrimac . 360

Wendell Phillips 364

Horace Greeley 3^5

President Lincoln and his Cabinet discussing the Emancipation Proclamation 366

Not According to the Constitution. 370 An Argument for the Use of Negro

Soldiers 37i

William T. Sherman 378

PAGE

Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln . . 382

Ulysses S. Grant 383

Jefferson Davis 384

Robert E. Lee 385

Vassar College in 1865 390

The Completion of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad 397

Thomas A. Edison 402

Wagon Train across the Plains . . 403

A Trial by the Ku Klux Klan . . . 417

Grover Cleveland 436

Pan-American Building, Washington, D.C 456

William McKinley 467

The Battleship "Maine" Entering

Havana Harbor 472

Theodore Roosevelt 479

Woodrow Wilson 480

Per Cent Distribution of Foreign- Born Population, 1910 .... 506 Increase of Population in the United States and the Principal Countries of Europe: 1800-1910. . . 510 A Modern Meat-Packing Plant . . 515 John Mitchell 518

LIST OF MAPS IN COLOR

Joliet's Map of New France Facing page xii

European Provinces, 1655 68

The Thirteen American Colonies in 1775 126

The West Indies 132

The United States at the Peace of 1783 162

Territorial Growth of the United States 308

The United States in i860 348

Territorial Acquisitions of the United States 482

The United States, exclusive of Insular Possessions 526

IN BLACK

The World According to Toscanelli 3

Columbus's First Voyage 8

Routes of Discoveries 10

Atlantic Discoveries 15

The Western Hemisphere, by Henry Hondius, 1630 19

Early Virginia and Maryland 57

North America in 1713 89

North America in 1763 95

Boston and Vicinity 130

Seat of War in the West, 1 775-1 783 134

Campaign in Middle States 144

Capture and Evacuation of Philadelphia 146

Burgoyne's Campaign 147

Revolution in the Southern States 157

Washington's Movement to York town 159

Operations along the Canadian Border 224

Operations around Washington 227

Expedition against New Orleans 228

The Cumberland Road 235

The Oregon Country 301

The Trails to Oregon and California 302

The Mexican War 306

The Missions and Chapels of California 307

Fort Sumter and Charleston Harbor 353

Battle of Bull Run 354

Operations in the West 358

Capture of New Orleans 359

McClellan's Peninsular Campaign 361

First Invasion of the North 362

Second Invasion of the North 367

The Vicksburg Campaign 368

Murfreesboro to Atlanta 369

Operations in the East 376

Sherman's March 379

Map of the Philippine Islands 473

xi

To Monseigneur, Count Frontenac, Councillor of the King, Governor and Lieutenant-General for his Majesty in Canada, Acadia, Newfoundland and in the country of New France.

Monseigneur

I take pleasure in presenting to you this map which will enable you to understand the location of the rivers and lakes on which one travels through Canada or North America, which is more than 1,200 leagues from East to West.

That great river (the Mississippi) beyond Lake Huron and Lake Illinois (or Michigan), which bears your name, the River Buade, since it was discovered in these last two years, 1673 and 1674, as a result of the first orders you gave me as you entered on the government of New France, flows between Florida and INIexico, and on its way to the sea runs through the most beautiful country imaginable. I have seen nothing in France so beautiful as the abundance of fine prairies and nothing so pleasant as the varieties of groves and forests where one can pick plums, pomegranates, lemons and several small fruits which are not found in Europe. In the fields, quail rise; in the woods, parrots are seen; and in the rivers one catches fish which cannot be identified by taste, shape or size.

Iron mines and reddish rocks, never found except with copper, are not rare, likewise slate, saltpetre, coal, marble, and alloys of copper. The largest pieces of copper that I saw were as large as a fist and free from impurities. It was discovered near the reddish rocks which are much like those of France and numerous.

All the savages have wooden canoes, fifty feet and more in length; they do not care for deer as food, but they kill buffalo, which roam in herds of thirty or fifty. I have myself counted 400 on the banks of the river, and turkeys are extremely common.

They harvest Indian corn generally three times a year, and they have watermelons for refreshment in the heat, since there is no ice and very little snow.

One of the great rivers running into the Mississippi from the West gives a passage into the Gulf of California (Mer Vermeille). I saw a village which is only five days' journey from a tribe which trades with the natives of California. If I had arrived two days earlier I could have talked to those who had come and had brought four hatchets as a present.

The description of everything could have been seen in my diary, if the good fortune which attended me all through the Journey had not failed me a quarter of an hour before arriving at the place from which I had departed. I had escaped the dangers from the savages, I had passed forty rapids and was about to land with all possible joy over the success of such a long and difficult undertaking when my canoe was overturned and I lost two men and my chest, in sight of and at the doors of the first French houses that I had left nearly two years before. Nothing is left to me but my life and the desire to use it for whatever will please you.

Monseigneur, your very humble and obedient servant and subject,

xii JOLIET

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Chapter I Discovery And Exploration Ideas And Events Leading Up To The Discovery Of America

P'oR centuries before Columbus the seas which stretched away from

the coasts of Europe had remained an expanse of mystery and wonder.

Ships had crept cautiously out upon their waters and back , ^ j •

•1 11 1 -1 r Introduction,

agam, but no one had ventured to sail away from land

for days and days, with no signs of hope from the apparently limitless waste, sustained only by faith in his own enterprise, until Columbus dared, and solved the mystery. In view of the results that have come from his ventures, his may be accounted the greatest discovery in the history of the world. Certainly his bold incursions into the mystery of the western horizon mark the beginning of American history.

Rejecting the common belief that the world was flat, Christopher Columbus maintained that it was round and that by sailing westward he could come to China and Japan in the East. Where Columbus's did he get this idea? It was not new, for the Greeks had F^at idea and held it two thousand years before him. At the very among the dawn of Greek civilization Homer had asserted that the ^^^^^ Greeks, earth was wheel-shaped and flat, surrounded on all sides by the ocean, beyond which was mythland; but Aristotle, in the fourth century before Christ, noting the circular shadow of the earth on the moon during an eclipse, and the different altitudes of the North Star at different places, reached the conclusion that the earth was spherical, and wrote that those who said that the sea was one from Gibraltar to India "do not assert things very improbable." After the decline of Greek civilization, the idea did not completely die out, but was handed down to modern times through the Mohammedans, from whom Columbus himself may have derived it in southern Spain, where Mohammedan

Scientific data in Columbus's day concerning the shape of the earth.

civilization, though on the decHne, was still prevalent in his day. In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon in England gave Aristotle's theory a place in Christian literature in his "Opus Majus," and his words were later repeated in a Latin book called "Imago Mundi," which we know influenced Columbus.

From 1472 to 1492 Europe saw several new editions of Ptolemy's old Greek geography, dating from the second century after Christ and based upon the theory that the world was round. In Columbus's time, too, the modern globe was slowly coming into use to represent the Greek conception of the earth's rotundity, and Columbus may have had opportunity to study one of these, or possibly he may have owned one himself.

The Behaim globe of his day is still in existence. Finally, the Florentine astronomer, Toscanelli, to whom Columbus wrote for advice, furnished him with geographical data based on the Greek conception, though both Behaim and Toscanelli underestimated the size of the earth and extended the continent of Asia so as to locate Cipango (Japan) about as far from Europe as is in actuality the Gulf of Mexico.

It is possible that Columbus made a visit to Iceland before 1492, or that he talked with sailors and others who knew the Icelandic sea Possible sug- tales. These tales, called sagas, first reduced to writing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, contained an account of certain old Icelandic or Norse sea rovers, who in the year 1000 or thereabouts, under the leadership of Leif Ericson, made a long ocean journey to a new land west and south of Greenland, where they found fields of "self-sown" grain and grapevines growing wild. This land they named Vinland. Since there is but one land west and south of Greenland, scholars generally believe that the Northmen reached the mainland of North America. Here to-day on the Atlantic coast is to be found a wild rice, which may be identified with the grain mentioned in the sagas,

Christopher Columbus gestions by

the Northmen

concerning

unknown

western

lands.

k and here to-day wild grapes still grow. The present northern limit of both the rice and the grapes is near Nova Scotia; and so, somewhere on the long Atlantic coast south of Nova Scotia, we conclude! that the Northmen made their landings, though at what spot we cannot tell. Every vestige of their presence on these shores has long since disappeared. So much for the Northmen, who have left no mark on American history. If Columbus heard their story, he found in it but one point of interest, — that there was a land beyond the ocean to be reached by a voyage to the west. As for cold and barren Vinland, , he would have nothing of it. He was eager to reach another and fairer land, described by a great traveler whose story was clearly authentic.

This traveler was Marco Polo, a Venetian, who reached Cathay,

or China, by a long overland journey from Europe in the latter

_ . , part of the thirteenth century, obtained a place in the

Xriflrco Polo S -^ ' 1

account of a native annals of China — which serves to verify his tale — ■ sea east of ^^^ returned to Europe to write of his experiences. In the Columbian library at Seville, Spain, there is a book entitled "The Book of Ser Marco Polo," on the margin of which are notes in the handwriting of Columbus. Two things in the story particularly interested him. First, Polo described the distant coasts which he visited as washed on the east by a great sea; so, reasoned Columbus, if there was an ocean east of this land and if the earth was round, this ocean might be the same as that which washed the shores of western Europe. Second, Polo pictured the Asiatic lands and the near-by island of Cipango (Japan) as abounding in palaces with roofs and pavements of gold. Columbus's ambition was fired to sail to these eastern countries and find their treasures. His first questions to the natives wherever he went on his coming voyages were always of gold.

In these early days, when people knew little of the art of modern cooking and still less of modern methods of preserving food from The need of decay, Europeans were wont to cover up rancid tastes a new route and odors in their food by the use of spices, which were imported from India and the adjacent islands. Silks, gems, precious stones, and drugs reached Europe from the same source. One of the routes of this trade ran by way of the Black and Caspian Seas and one through Persia and the Persian Gulf, but both of these routes were closed by the Turkish conquests in western Asia and eastern Europe, which culminated in the capture of Constantinople in 1453. A new route to the East became a commercial necessity.

As this need became apparent, Portuguese mariners, under the patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, began to explore the western coast of Africa in the hope that j^^^^ voyages somewhere in its extent they might find a passage through in his own to the East. They reached the equator in 147 1, and gave^practical fifteen years later the very southernmost tip of land and hints to Cothe coast beyond. This remarkable voyage was accomplished by Bartholomew Diaz, whose King, in speaking of the results of the voyage, exultingly declared that Diaz had rounded the "Cape of Good Hope." Continuing in the same way, Vasco da Gama actually reached India and the near-by islands in 1498, and the prize was won. Columbus's brother was with Diaz in i486, and Columbus himself may have been on one such voyage. These long voyages were a school of practical navigation, in which mariners first learned to compile nautical tables and to compute latitude in unknown seas by the newly discovered astrolabe. The only compass in use was a magnetized needle set on a straw in a basin of water, and this was not very sensitive.

It was a stirring age in which Columbus lived. Western Europe was the scene of a renaissance or re-birth of interest in art, sculpture, and architecture, in literature and science, and in commerce and geographical knowledge. Men were slowly a representacasting off the intellectual torpor of the Middle or Dark ^^ °.^ *h® Ages and awakening to new ideas and to new confidence in their own powers. With his interest in the Greek ideas, which were a characteristic of the period, with his mental alertness, his enterprise, and his zest for investigation, Columbus was a striking representative of the spirit of the times.

COLUMBUS, CABRAL, AND CABOT

By 1475, when he was about thirty years old, Columbus, who was a native of Genoa, Italy, came to Lisbon, Portugal, determined to devote his life to a career of maritime discovery. He Columbus's was an ardent student of the problems of the seas, and preparation, toiled year after year, studying maps, sailors' charts and stories, accounts of travels, and indeed everything connected with the seas and ships. While the Portuguese were turning their prows down the coasts of Africa in search of the Spice Islan'ds of the East, to Columbus the East lay in the West and westward he proposed to go.

Several of the leading sovereigns of Europe, including Henry VII of England and Charles VIII of France, to whom he applied for financial assistance, turned him aside as an impractical dreamer, but finally Queen Isabella of Spain came to his assistance. With her money, Columbus's ^^^ w^^^ contributions from Columbus himself and from first voyage to the seaport town of Palos, Spain, three small ships, the menca. Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta, were fitted out;

and in these, on Friday, August 3, 1492, in defiance of superstition, the little expedition of ninety men set sail from Palos. The flagship, the Santa Maria, was probably only sixty-three feet in length and twenty in width, while her companion ships were still smaller. Even with the present knowledge of the seas, few would dare to attempt to cross the Atlantic in ships so small. The Canary Islands were reached and left behind in the first month. In the unknown seas beyond, the weather proved fair and the voyage easy; but the comforting land, the sight of which had been a constant solace to the Portuguese in their long southern voyages, receded farther and farther, perhaps thousands of miles, and in terror the sailors threw Columbus's theories to the winds, mutinied, and demanded to go back. Columbus alone kept faith in the quest, and he kept it bravely. Reward came one moonlight night in October, ten weeks after the expedition had set out. For several hours flocks of birds and floating objects in the sea had been noted, which seemed to indicate the near approach to land; and at two o'clock in the morning of Friday, October 12, a sandy beach hove in sight, which in devout gratitude Columbus named San Salvador, or Holy Savior. On account of the inaccurate nautical instruments in use and consequent mistakes in reckoning, the exact location of Columbus's San Salvador cannot now be determined. It was doubtless one of the Bahamas, but of these there are three thousand. Columbus believed that he was approaching India, and gave the name Indians to the strange peoples whom he found. From San Salvador he proceeded to Cuba, and there, thinking that he had reached Cipango, and that Cathay was near, he sent off an interpreter to find the Great Khan, the ruler of Cathay, and to deliver to him a letter from the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella.

After further explorations, in which Hispaniola (Haiti) and other West Indian islands were discovered, Columbus sailed back to Spain, His welcome where he received an enthusiastic welcome. As proof home and of his story, he exhibited to the astonished people of

other voyages, gp^jj^ gj^ natives from the new lands and many curious stuffed birds and mammals. On a second voyage in 1494 he founded a colony in Hispaniola; on a third in 1498 he explored a part of the coast of South America and the mouth of the Orinoco River, thus laying the foundation of Spain's claim to that continent; and on his fourth and last voyage in 1502 he passed along the coast of Central America.

On his second and third voyages hundreds of Spaniards flocked to his standard and freely invested their fortunes in what they be- . lieved would be a paying enterprise, for to them their of Columbus rivals, the Portuguese, seemed outdistanced in the race in his last ^q ^]^q East, and rich returns seemed sure. In point of fact, we know that the race after all went to the Portuguese, who brought back their spice-laden ships to Europe in 1499, while the Spanish hopes of gain were not so speedily realized. In

500 1000 2000 3000

CoLtTMBUs's First Voyage

their chagrin the Spaniards laid the blame for their losses on Columbus, whom they denounced as a cheat, and the last days of the great discoverer, until his death in 1506, were spent in poverty and disgrace.

Had not Columbus reached the new lands when he did, the western continent would probably have been discovered eight years later by Chance dis- mere chance, for in 1500 a Portuguese expedition of covery of thirteen ships, under the command of Pedro Alvarez de

America by Cabral, bound down the west coast of Africa for the Spice Cabral. Islands of the East, was driven from its course across the

Atlantic to the eastern shores of Brazil. Cabral named the country which he touched Vera Cruz or Santa Cruz, and by his voyage gave to the Portuguese a claim to a portion of the mainland of South America.

Between Columbus's first and second voyages, some, in doubt as to The Pooe's where he had really been, feared that possibly his disdemarcation covery lay in the regions off the west coast of Africa, which ^^^' had already by papal grant been recognized as belonging

to Portugal. In order to prevent dispute, appeal was made to the Pope for a decision marking off the respective possessions of the two powers, Spain and Portugal. By a bull, or proclamation, the Pope decreed that an imaginary demarcation line should be drawn, running north and south in the Atlantic one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands, and that all the newly discovered lands east of this line should fall to Portugal and all west of it to Spain. By a treaty in 1494 the line was placed at three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands, but even then the eastern part of Brazil was the only portion of the new continent that fell on Portugal's side of the line.

The honor of discovering the mainland of North America is usually ascribed to the Enghsh, as the result of the voyage of an English ship under an Italian captain, John Cabot, which arrived in the vicinity of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1497. Unlike ery of North Cabral in 1500, Cabot was consciously following in the r^^^^r^u\ paths of Columbus, but whereas Columbus sailed with three ships and ninety men, Cabot mustered only one ship and eighteen men. The one enjoyed calm sailing; the other was called upon to brave the storms of the north Atlantic. "Our Venetian, who went with a small ship from Bristol," wrote an Italian in London to his brothers in Italy, "has come back, and says that he has discovered, seven hundred leagues off, the mainland of the country of the Grau Cam (that is, China) and that he coasted along it for three hundred leagues and landed, but did not see any persons. But he has brought here to the King certain snares spread to take game, and a needle for making nets, and he found some notched trees, from which he judged that there were inhabitants. . . . His name is Zuam Talbot, and he is called the Great Admiral, great honor being paid to him, and he goes dressed in silk." Possibly Sebastian Cabot accompanied his father in 1497, and it is supposed by some that both father and son engaged in a second voyage to America in 1498, of which, however, nothing is definitely known. Although the single voyage of Cabot in 1497 laid the foundation for the claims of England to the mainland of North America, the English made no effort to follow up the discovery for more than seventy-five years. Internal and foreign politics were absorbing their energies.

The discovery of America was now only begun. Columbus had disclosed the West Indian Islands and a small part of the neighboring coast, Cabot a vague part of the coast farther north. Almost the whole continental coast line of North America cosa map of and South America remained to be traced, the interior fi^"^**° mountains, plains, and rivers had still to be visited, and the long way searched out to the Pacific. The earliest map of lO

America now in existence was drawn on a large parchment in 1500 by- Juan de la Cosa. On it are located the northern shores of South America, but with no suggestion of the great extent of the continental mass farther south; the Gulf of Mexico and the islands which shut it off from the Atlantic are in place, but Florida and the

Routes of Discoveries whole of the Atlantic coast north of it as far as Nova Scotia or possibly Newfoundland are not outlined. Two English flags, marking the "sea discovered by Englishmen," roughly locate Cabot's discovery. The Cantino map of the year 1502, while confirming that of La Cosa concerning the work of Columbus, is silent on the voyages of Cabot The Cantino and awards Newfoundland to the Portuguese, who map of 1502. reached the shores of this island in 1 500-1 502 under the leadership of the Corte-Real brothers. The twenty-two local names of

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION ii

bays and headlands in Florida placed upon this map show that this portion of the country had been visited and traced before 1502, though when and by whom cannot now be determined. It is possible that some unknown voyager set foot on the mainland of North America before John Cabot.

TRACING THE COAST LINE OF SOUTH AMERICA, 1500-1533

In a series of voyages, Americus Vespucius, an Italian in the service

of Spain, sailed along the east coast of South America and possibly

reached that part of North America which is now the ^^u

. . . . The voyages

United States. He described his explorations in certain of Americus letters, and in one of these, describing his voyage of 1501 V®sP"""sand published in Latin under the title "Mundus Novus," he boldly claimed that he had found a new world. "We found what may be called a new world," he wrote, speaking of what must have been the lands of South America. In another account Vespucius also claimed to have reached the mainland of America in 1497. In his letter describing his voyage of 1492 Columbus had indicated his belief that he had found Cathay and Cipango, but in writing of his voyage of 1498, on which he had touched the mainland of South America, he used language very much like that of Vespucius. He spoke of "a boundless land to the south of which hitherto there has been no knowledge," and he called it "another world." Columbus, therefore, as well as Vespucius, laid claim to the discovery of a new world; but while the claims of the great Genoese were not published in full till the nineteenth century and no reference to them was made by other writers till 1504, those of Vespucius were read extensively over all Europe in 1503.