The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525

by Arthur James Weise

While Jean Alphonse was exploring the coast of La Terre d’Anormée Berge (which at this time geographically included all the country between the Grande River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence), he ascended the Grande River to the height of its navigation, from which point he inferred that the stream extended to the St. Lawrence, as it is represented on the map made by Giacomo de Gastaldi, a Piedmontese cartographer, about the year 1553.[457] “I have been at a bay as far as forty-two degrees, between Norumbega and Florida, and I have not searched the end thereof, and I know not whether it [the river] pass through.... I doubt not but [the river] Norumbega entereth into the river of Canada, and unto the sea of Saguenay.”[458]

This opinion, that the Hudson was an outlet of the St. Lawrence, was held by the Dutch as late as the year 1625, for De Laet observes: “Judging from appearances this river extends to the great river of St. Lawrence, or Canada, since our skippers assure us that the natives come to the fort [on the site of Albany] from that river.”[459]

René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a French officer, commanding Fort Caroline, on the river May, in 1564, gives, in his notable history of Florida, a short account of Verrazanno’s discoveries in 1524.[460] He says that the French planted in the New Land “the ensigns and arms of the king of France, so that the Spaniards themselves, who were there afterward, have called this country French land (nõmé ce païs terre Francesque).... The east part of it is named by the moderns Terre de Norumberge, which ends at the Gulf of Gamas, which separates it from the island of Canada.”[461]

Not long after the discovery of Francesca by Verrazzano, French barques were making voyages to its coast, some to obtain cod-fish and others furs. As related by Jean Alphonse, the people of the village of L’Anormée Berge had “many peltries of all kinds of animals.” The large quantities of beaver, otter, and other skins obtained from the Manants, dwelling at the mouth of the Grande River, induced the speculative Frenchmen engaged in the traffic to erect at this point a small fort, where their factors might reside and more advantageously enlarge their purchases of furs. The Indian village, on the island on which the city of New York is built, was picturesquely situated on the border of the deep, limpid lake, then covering the sites of the plots of ground included between the lines of Elm, Baxter, Worth, and Franklin streets. Near the south end of the lake (which extended as far as the intersection of Centre and Duane streets and emptied into the Hudson at Canal Street) was a small island. Eligible, and opposite the tongue of land on which the Manants dwelt, the French fur factors selected it as the site of the fortified trading house which they erected and called Le Fort d’Anormée Berge (The Fort of the Grand Scarp).[462]

Copy of a part of a map of the city of New York made by James Lyne in 1728.

The French geographer, André Thevet, who sailed along the coast of La Terre d’Anormée Berge, in 1556, besides corroborating some of the preceding statements respecting the discovery of New France, and mentioning the fact that the Grande River was called by his countrymen the river of “Norombègue,” and by the Indians “Aggoncy,” says[463]: “Having left Florida on the left hand with a great number of islands, islets, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, one of the beautiful rivers that are in the world, which we named Norombègue, and the Indians Aggoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts Grande river.[464] Several other beautiful rivers enter this one, on which formerly the French had built a small fort about ten or twelve leagues up it, which fort was surrounded by fresh water that empties into the river, and this place was called the fort of Norombègue.”[465]

The site of the fort of L’Anormée Berge is indicated by Gerard Mercator on his celebrated map of the world, made at Duisburg, Germany, in 1569. The famous cartographer not only designates the situation of the French fort on the east side of the Grande River with a conventional sign used by map-makers, but also inscribes the name “Norombega” immediately over it. As is seen, he outlines the Grande River to the height of its navigation, at the confluence of the Mohawk, as far as the French had explored it.[466]

A part of Gerard Mercator’s map of the world, made in Duisburg in 1569; copied from “Les monuments de la géographie recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales, publiés en fac-similé.” par M. Jomard, Paris.