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A History of the United States. Charles Kendall Adams
Читать онлайн.Название A History of the United States
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isbn 4064066200824
Автор произведения Charles Kendall Adams
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Balboa.
11. Balboa’s Discovery of the Pacific.—Geographical knowledge was much advanced by the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa[11] in 1513. This brave Spaniard had sought the New World for the sake of wealth, but had met with many difficulties. Lured by tales told by the natives of Panama of a large ocean and lands abounding in gold beyond the mountains, he made his way to the top of the Cordilleras, and thence beheld a great sea to the south of him, which he called the South Sea, a name long retained by English writers. It is the irony of fate that in the best-known reference in English literature to this discovery—in the famous sonnet by Keats—the honor of making it should have been transferred to Cortez, who had celebrity enough of his own.
Magellan.
12. The Voyage of Magellan.—The name Pacific was given to the great ocean by the most glorious of Columbus’s successors, the Portuguese Fernãdo de Magalhães,[12] better known as Magellan. In 1519, while in the service of Spain, he followed the coast of South America, hoping to find a strait that might lead into the South Sea. Late in the next year he discovered the strait that bears his name, and sailed into the great ocean to which he gave the name Pacific, on account of its peaceful character. This name was ironical so far as his own career was concerned; for one of his five crews mutinied, one ship was cast away and another abandoned him, and he himself was killed in an encounter with the natives of the Philippine Islands. But he had won a glorious immortality, although it was really the survivors of his crews that finally made their way around the Cape of Good Hope and completed the first circumnavigation of the globe.
Ponce de Leon.
De Soto.
13. Spanish Conquests.—Meanwhile a Spaniard, Ponce de Leon,[13] had discovered Florida in 1512 and had found the perfect climate, but not the gold and silver and fountain of youth he sought. His attempt nine years later to establish a colony there was a complete failure. Success attended, however, the expedition of Hernando Cortez for the conquest of Mexico (1519–1521), and similar good fortune befell that of Francisco Pizarro for the subversion of Peru (1532). The New World was rapidly alluring the Spaniards, who made many explorations. For example, Cabeza de Vaca, an officer in Panfilo de Narvaez’s unfortunate expedition to the Gulf coast, wandered in the interior regions a long while, and finally emerged on the Mexican border, with marvelous tales of what he had seen and heard (1536). These tales caused the Viceroy of Mexico, Mendoza, to send a certain friar to investigate them; and, upon the facts and the numerous errors contained in the friar’s report, hopes were founded that induced the sending out of a large force under Francisco Vasquez Coronado (1540–1542). This expedition conquered many pueblo villages of the Southwest, but obtained no gold or silver, and, after struggling as far north as Kansas, ended in a disconsolate retreat. At about the same time another expedition was moving westward from Florida through the Gulf region, under the command of Hernando de Soto (1539–1542). This gallant man pushed northwest across the mountains and discovered the Tennessee River, and later the Mississippi; but he died soon after, and his followers abandoned their enterprise. Thus by the middle of the century no permanent Spanish settlement had been made in what is now the United States. Nor was Spain long to have things her own way.
THE FRENCH EXPLORERS.
Jacques Cartier.
14. French Discoveries.—As we have seen, French fishermen were among the first to reach Newfoundland. A little later the voyage of Giovanni da Verrazano, a native of Florence, under commission of Francis I., showed the dawning interest in the New World taken by the French court. In 1524 Verrazano explored much of the Northern coast as far as Newfoundland. In 1534 and 1535 Jacques Cartier[14] discovered Prince Edward Island, sailed up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and penetrated the great river as far as the present site of Montreal, fancying most of the time that he was rapidly nearing China.[15] A few years later he came again, bringing colonists with him; but the enterprise did not succeed, and in consequence was soon abandoned.
15. Arrival of Huguenots.—France was now torn with civil and religious discord, and, as a result, Admiral Coligny, the great leader of the Huguenots, determined to found a place of refuge for his co-religionists in a more tempting part of America than Canada. Accordingly, in 1562, Jean Ribaut, under his orders, sailed for the Southern coast and discovered the present St. John’s River in Florida. He left a small colony on Port Royal Sound, but it was soon scattered. Two years later, René de Laudonnière established another settlement on the St. John’s, but the colonists were disorderly. Some of them mutinied and attempted to plunder the Spaniards in the West Indies. Learning thus of the existence of the French settlement, the Spaniards under Menendez organized a strong expedition against it. The French had meanwhile been reënforced by a fleet under Ribaut and by Sir John Hawkins, the English slave-trader and famous fighter. But in spite of these reënforcements the French did not use their opportunities, and their vessels were soon scattered by a storm. Then Menendez, who had just established himself at St. Augustine (1565), destroyed the French fort and killed or captured nearly all the Frenchmen at that time in Florida. St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States, still stands to record this savage warfare. A little later a French soldier, Dominic de Gourges, partly avenged his countrymen; but St. Augustine was not taken, and the French crown relinquished all claims to Florida.
Champlain.
16. Champlain.—In the progressive reign of Henry IV. of France, attention was once more paid to Canada. After a colony had failed on the Isle of Sable, near Nova Scotia, and another had all but come to grief in Nova Scotia proper, Samuel de Champlain[16] succeeded in establishing a permanent post at Quebec in 1608. In a few years, owing to the zeal of the Jesuit missionaries and the enterprise of the fur-traders, the French had obtained a firm grip upon Canada and were rapidly pushing inland.
THE ENGLISH EXPLORERS.
Sir Francis Drake.
17. English Explorations during the Reign of Elizabeth.—The