South American Fights and Fighters, and Other Tales of Adventure
E-text prepared by Al Haines
The first part of this new volume of the American Fights and Fighters Series needs no special introduction. Partly to make this the same size as the other books, but more particularly because I especially desired to give a permanent place to some of the most dramatic and interesting episodes in our history—especially as most of them related to the Pacific and the Far West—the series of papers in part second was included.
The Yarn of the Essex , Whaler is abridged from a quaint account written by the Mate and published in an old volume which is long since out of print and very scarce. The papers on the Tonquin , John Paul Jones, and The Great American Duellists speak for themselves. The account of the battle of the Pitt River has never been published in book form heretofore. The last paper On Being a Boy Out West I inserted because I enjoy it myself, and because I have found that others young and old who have read it generally like it also.
Thanks are due and are hereby extended to the following magazines for permission to republish various articles which originally appeared in their pages: Harper's , Munseys , The Cosmopolitan , Sunset and The New Era .
I project another volume of the Series supplementing the two Indian volumes immediately preceding this one, but the information is hard to get, and the work amid many other demands upon my time, proceeds slowly.
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY. ST. GEORGE'S RECTORY, Kansas City, Mo., February, 1910.
The publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to The Cosmopolitan Magazine and Munsey's Magazine for permission to use several of the illustrations in this volume.
One of the commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is the Spanish Main. To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in Othello, makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail, and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, main really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, Hispaniola and the other islands, because it was on the main land.
Cyrus Townsend Brady
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"The Poor Little Governor . . . Distanced His Fierce Pursuers at Last"
AMERICAN FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS SERIES
South American Fights and Fighters
AND OTHER TALES OF ADVENTURE
PREFACE
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I
II. The Don Quixote of Discoveries and His Rival
"Ojeda Galloped Off with His Astonished Captive"
"The Indians Poured a Rain of Poisoned Arrows"
III. The Adventures of Ojeda
IV. Enter One Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
V. The Desperate Straits of Nicuesa
I. The Coming of the Devastator
"Balboa . . . Engaged in Superintending the Roofing of a House"
II. The Greatest Exploit since Columbus's Voyage
"The Expedition Had to Fight Its Way Through Tribes of Warlike and Ferocious Mountaineers"
"He Took Possession of the Sea in the Name of Castile and Leon"
"He Threw the Sacred Volume to the Ground in a Violent Rage"
III. "Furor Domini"
IV. The End of Balboa
I. The Chief Scion of a Famous Family
II. The Terrible Persistence of Pizarro
III. "A Communistic Despotism."
IV. The Treacherous and Bloody Massacre of Caxamarca.
V. The Ransom and Murder of the Inca
"They Burst Upon the Ranks of the Unarmed Indians."
"The Three Pizarros . . . Sallied Out to Meet Them"
VI. The Inca and the Peruvians Strike Vainly for Freedom
"He Threw His Sole Remaining Weapon in the Faces of the Escaladers"
VII. "The Men of Chili" and the Civil Wars
Fernando Cortes. From a Picture in the Florence Gallery
VIII. The Mean End of the Great Conquistador
IX. The Last of the Brethren
IV
I. The Chief of all the Soldiers of Fortune
II. The Expedition to Mexico.
III. The Religion of the Aztecs
IV. The March to Tenochtitlan
V. The Republic of Tlascala
VII. The Meeting with Montezuma
VIII. The Seizure of the Emperor
IX. The Revolt of the Capital
X. In God's Way
The Death of Montezuma. From an old engraving.
"He Defended Himself With His Terrible Spear"
XI. The Melancholy Night
XII. The Siege and Destruction of Mexico
XIII. A Day of Desperate Fighting
XIV. The Last Mexican
XV. The End of Cortes
I
"The Ship Came to a Dead Stop"
"The Killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, New Jersey, July 11, 1804"
I. A Tragedy of Old New York
II. Andrew Jackson as a Duellist
III. The Killing of Stephen Decatur
IV. An Episode in the Life of James Bowie
V. A Famous Congressional Duel
VI. The Last Notable Duel in America
A Forgotten Tragedy in Early American History
IV
I. The Birth of the American Navy
II. Jones First Hoists the Stars and Stripes
IV. A Hero's Famous Sayings
V. What Jones Did for His Country
VI. Why Did He Take the Name of Jones?
VII. Search for Historical Evidence
VIII. The Joneses of North Carolina
IX. Paul Jones Never a Man of Wealth
V
INDEX
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z