Early European History

by Hutton Webster

222. TO THE INDIES WESTWARD: COLUMBUS AND MAGELLAN

THE GLOBULAR THEORY

Six years before Vasco da Gama cast anchor in the harbor of Calicut, another intrepid sailor, seeking the Indies by a western route, accidentally discovered America. It does not detract from the glory of Columbus to show that the way for his discovery had been long in preparation. In the first place, the theory that the earth was round had been familiar to the Greeks and Romans, and to some learned men even in the darkest period of the Middle Ages. By the opening of the thirteenth century it must have been commonly known, for Roger Bacon [15] refers to it, and Dante, in the Divine Comedy, [16] plans his Inferno on the supposition of a spherical world. The awakening of interest in Greek science, as a result of the Renaissance, naturally called renewed attention to the statements by ancient geographers. Eratosthenes, [17] for instance, had clearly recognized the possibility of reaching India by sailing westward on the same parallel of latitude. Especially after the revival of Ptolemy's [18] works in the fifteenth century, scholars accepted the globular theory; and they even went so far as to calculate the circumference of the earth.

MYTH OF ATLANTIS

In the second place, men had long believed that west of Europe, beyond the strait of Gibraltar, lay mysterious lands. This notion first appears in the writings of the Greek philosopher, Plato, [19] who repeats an old tradition concerning Atlantis. According to Plato, Atlantis had been an island continental in size, but more than nine thousand years before his time it had sunk beneath the sea. Medieval writers accepted this account as true and found support for it in traditions of other western islands, such as the Isles of the Blest, where Greek heroes went after death, and the Welsh Avalon, whither King Arthur, [20] after his last battle, was borne to heal his wounds. A widespread legend of the Middle Ages also described the visit made by St. Brandan, an Irish monk, to the "promised land of the Saints," an earthly paradise far out in the Atlantic. St. Brandan's Island was marked on early maps, and voyages in search of it were sometimes undertaken.

BEHAIM'S GLOBE

The ideas of European geographers in the period just preceding the discovery of America are represented on a map, or rather a globe, which dates from 1492 A.D. It was made by a German navigator, Martin Behaim, for his native city of Nuremberg, where it is still preserved. Behaim shows the mythical island of St. Brandan, lying in mid-ocean, and beyond it Japan (Cipango) and the East Indies. It is clear that he greatly underestimated the distance westward between Europe and Asia. The error was natural enough, for Ptolemy had reckoned the earth's circumference to be about one-sixth less than it is, and Marco Polo had given an exaggerated idea of the distance to which Asia extended on the east. When Columbus set out on his voyage, he firmly believed that a journey of four thousand miles would bring him to Cipango.

[Illustration: BEHAIM'S GLOBE The outlines of North America and South America do not appear on the original globe.]

COLUMBUS, 1446(?)-1506 A.D.

Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, where his father followed the humble trade of a weaver. He seems to have obtained some knowledge of astronomy and geography as a student in the university of Pavia, but at an early age he became a sailor. Columbus knew the Mediterranean by heart; he once went to the Guinea coast; and he may have visited Iceland. He settled at Lisbon as a map-maker and married a daughter of one of Prince Henry's sea-captains. As Columbus pored over his maps and charts and talked with seamen about their voyages, the idea came to him that much of the world remained undiscovered and that the distant East could be reached by a shorter route than that which led around Africa.

[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid)
The oldest known portrait of Columbus.]

RESEARCHES OF COLUMBUS

Columbus was a well-read man, and in Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other ancient authorities he found apparent confirmation of his grand idea. Columbus also owned a printed copy of Marco Polo's book, and from his comments, written on the margin, we know how interested he was in Polo's statements referring to Cathay and Cipango. Furthermore, Columbus brought together all the information he could get about the fabled islands of the Atlantic. If he ever went to Iceland, some vague traditions may have reached him there of Norse voyages to Greenland and Vinland. Such hints and rumors strengthened his purpose to sail toward the setting sun in quest of the Indies.

[Illustration: ISABELLA]

FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS, 1492 A.D.

All know the story. How Columbus first laid his plans before the king of Portugal, only to meet with rebuffs; how he then went to Spain and after many discouragements found a patron in Queen Isabella; how with three small ships he set out from Palos, August 3, 1492 A.D.; how after leaving the Canaries he sailed week after week over an unknown sea; and how at last, on the early morning of October 12, he sighted in the moonlight the glittering coral strand of one of the Bahama Islands. [21] It was the New World.

[Illustration: SHIP OF 1492 A.D.]

SUBSEQUENT VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS

Columbus made three other voyages to the New World, in the course of which he explored the Caribbean Sea, the mouth of the Orinoco River, and the eastern coast of Central America. He lived and died in the belief that he had actually reached the mainland of Asia and the realms of the Great Khan of Cathay. The name West Indies still remains as a testimony to this error.

NAMING OF AMERICA

The New World was named for a Florentine navigator, Amerigo Vespucci. [22] While in the Spanish service he made several western voyages and printed an account of his discovery of the mainland of America in 1497 A.D. Scholars now generally reject his statements, but they found acceptance at the time, and it was soon suggested that the new continent should be called America, "because Americus discovered it." The name applied at first only to South America. After it became certain that South America joined another continent to the north, the name spread over the whole New World.

[Illustration: THE NAME "AMERICA"
Facsimile of the passage in the Cosmographiae Introductio (1507), by
Martin Waldseemuller, in which the name "America" is proposed for the New
World.]

THE DEMARCATION LINE, 1493 A.D.

Shortly after the return of Columbus from his first voyage, Pope Alexander VI, in response to a request by Ferdinand and Isabella, issued a bull granting these sovereigns exclusive rights over the newly discovered lands. In order that the Spanish possessions should be clearly marked off from the Portuguese, the pope laid down an imaginary line of demarcation in the Atlantic, three hundred miles west of the Azores. All new discoveries west of the line were to belong to Spain; all those east of it, to Portugal. [23] But this arrangement, which excluded France, England, and other European countries from the New World, could not be long maintained.

[Illustration: Map, PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRES IN THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY]

FERDINAND MAGELLAN, 1480(?)-1521 A.D.

The demarcation line had a good deal to do in bringing about the first voyage around the globe. So far no one had yet realized the dream of Columbus to reach the lands of spice and silk by sailing westward. Ferdinand Magellan, formerly one of Albuquerque's lieutenants but now in the service of Spain, believed that the Spice Islands lay within the Spanish sphere of influence and that an all-Spanish route, leading to them through some strait at the southern end of South America, could be discovered.

CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE, 1519-1522 A.D.

The Spanish ruler, Charles V, grandson of the Isabella who had supported Columbus, looked with favor upon Magellan's ideas and gave him a fleet of five vessels for the undertaking. After exploring the east coast of South America, Magellan came at length to the strait which bears his name. Through this channel he sailed boldly and found himself upon an ocean which he called the Pacific, because of its peaceful aspect. Magellan's sailors now begged him to return, for food was getting scarce, but the navigator replied that he would go on, "if he had to eat the leather off the rigging." He did go on, for ninety-eight days, until he reached the Ladrone Islands. [24] By a curious chance, in all this long trip across the Pacific, Magellan came upon only two islands, both of them uninhabited. He then proceeded to the Philippines, where he was killed in a fight with the natives. His men, however, managed to reach the Spice Islands, the goal of the journey. Afterwards a single ship, the Victoria, carried back to Spain the few sailors who had survived the hardships of a voyage lasting nearly three years.

[Illustration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN
From a portrait formerly in the Versailles Gallery, Paris.]

MEANING OF THE CIRCUMNAVIGATION Magellan's voyage forms a landmark in the history of geography. It proved that America, at least on the south, had no connection with Asia; it showed the enormous extent of the Pacific Ocean; and it led to the discovery of many large islands in the East Indies. Henceforth men knew of a certainty that the earth was round and in the distance covered by Magellan they had a rough estimate of its size. The circumnavigation of the globe ranks with the discovery of America among the most significant events in history. In the company of great explorers Magellan stands beside Columbus.