The voyage of Verrazzano

by Henry Cruse Murphy

In its incidents of Indian life it recalls the experiences of Columbus. When the great discoverer first came to the island of Hispaniola it is related, "they saw certaine men of the Islande who perceiving an unknowen native comming toward them, flocked together and ran into the thicke woodes, as it had bin hares coursed with greyhoundes. Our men pursuing them took only one woman, whom they brought, to the ships, where filling her with meate and wine, and apparrelling her, they let her depart to her companie." Also, "their boates are made only of one tree made hollow with a certain sharpe stone, for they have no yron, and are very long and narrow." And again, "when our men went to prayer, and kneeled on their knees, after the manner of the Christians, they did the like also. And after what manner soever they saw them pray to the crosse, they followed them in all poyntes as well as they could." [Footnote: Peter Martyr, Dec. LL in Eden.]. The Verrazzano letter tells us, in like phrase, that when they landed at the end of fifty leagues from the landfall, "we found that the people had fled to the woods for fear. By searching around we discovered in the grass a very old woman and a young girl of about eighteen or twenty, who had concealed themselves for the same reason. We gave them a part of our provisions, which they accepted with delight, but the girl would not touch any." At the same place, it is added, "we saw many of their boats made of one tree, without the aid of stone or iron or other kind of metal." And to make the parallel complete, the letter asserts of the natives, "they are very easy to be persuaded and imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all which they saw us do as Christians in our acts of worship." While they were taking in their supplies and interchanging civilities with the Indians in the harbor of the great bay, the following scene of royalty is described as having occurred. "One of the two kings often came with his queen and many gentlemen (gentili uomini) to see us for his amusement, but he always stopped at the distance of about two hundred paces, and sent a boat to inform us of his intended visit, saying they would come and see our ship. This was done for safety, and as soon as they had an answer from us, they came off and remained awhile to look around; but on hearing the annoying cries of the sailors, the king sent the queen with her maids (demizelle) in a very light boat to wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant from us while he remained a long time on board." This hyperbolical description of the visit of the sachem of Cape Cod accompanied by the gentlemen of his household and of his squaw queen with her maids of honor, has its prototype in the visit paid to Bartholomew Columbus, during the absence of his brother, the admiral, by Bechechio the king or cacique of Xacagua and his sister, the queen dowager, Anacoana, who are represented as going to the ship of the Adelantado in two canoes, "one for himself and certayne of his gentlemen, another for Anacoana and her waiting women." The astonishment which the natives manifested at the appearance of the Dauphiny and her crew; their admiration of the simple toys and little bells which were offered them by the strangers; their practice of painting their bodies, adorning themselves with the gay plumage of birds, and habiting themselves with the skins of animals, seem all analogized, in the same way, from the accounts given by Peter Martyr of the inhabitant of the islands discovered by Columbus, and of the northern regions by Sebastian Cabot. These traits of Indian life and character, therefore, not having been peculiar to the natives of the country described in the letter, and having been already mentioned in earlier accounts of the adjoining parts of America, the description of them here furnishes no proof of originality or of the truth of the letter for that reason.

On the other hand objects which historically belong to the inhabitants of the places declared to have been visited, and characterize them distinctly from those previously discovered, and which were of such a marked character as to have commanded attention, are not mentioned at all. Of this class perhaps the most prominent is the wampum, a commodity of such value and use among them that, like gold among the Europeans, it served the double purpose of money and personal adornment. The region of the harbor where the voyagers spent, according to the letter, fifteen days in familiar intercourse with the inhabitants, was its greatest mart, from which it was spread among the tribes, both north and east. Wood, describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they "are the most curious minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels. The northerne, easterne, and westerne Indians fetch all their coyne from these southern mint- masters. From hence they have most of their curious pendants and bracelets; hence they have their great stone pipes which will hold a quarter of an ounce of tobacco." And in regard to their practice of ornamentation, he remarks again: "although they be poore, yet is there in them the sparkes of naturall pride which appeares in their longing desire after many kinde of ornaments, wearing pendants in their eares, as formes of birds, beasts and fishes, carved out of bone, shels, and stone, with long bracelets of their curious wrought wampompeage and mowhackees which they put about their necks and loynes; which they count a rare kinde of decking." The same writer adds a description of an Indian king of this country in his attire, which is somewhat less fanciful than that in the letter. "A sagamore with a humberd (humming-bird) in his eare for a pendant, a blackhawke in his occiput for his plume, mowhackees for his gold chaine, good store of wampompeage begirting his loynes, his bow in his hand, his quiver at his back, with six naked Indian spatterlashes at his heeles for his guard, thinkes himselfe little inferiour to the great Cham. [Footnote: New England Prospect, pp. 61, 65-6.] Roger Williams confirms this account of the importance of the wampum among these same Indians. "They hang," he states "these strings of money about their necks and wrists, as also about the necks and wrists of their wives and children. Machequoce, a girdle, which they make curiously of one, two, three, four and five inches thickness and more, of this money, which sometimes to the value of tenpounds and more, they weare about their middle, and a scarfe about their shoulders and breasts.

The Indians prize not English gold,
Nor English, Indians shell:
Each in his place will passe for ought,
What ere men buy or sell."
[Footnote: Key into the Language of America, pp. 149-50.]

Another important article in universal use among the Indians of the main land, north and south, was the tobacco pipe. Tobacco was used by the natives of the West India islands, made up in rolls or cigars; but by the Indians of the continent it was broken up, carried in small bags attached to a girdle round the body, and smoked through clay, stone or copper pipes, sometimes of very elaborate workmanship. Smoking the pipe was of universal use among them, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. It was a tender of hospitality to strangers; and a sign of peace and friendship between the nations. [Footnote: For a full and interesting account of the importance of the tobacco-pipe among the Indians of North America, upon cited authorities, we refer the reader to Antiquities of the Southern Indians. By Charles C. Jones Jr., p. 382. (New York, 1873.)] When Captain Waymouth ran along the coast of the great bay of Massachusetts, in 1605, he repeatedly encountered this custom. On one occasion the natives came from the shore in three canoes, and Rosier remarks of them: "they came directly aboord us and brought us tobacco, which we tooke with them IN THEIR PIPE which was made of earth very strong, but blacke and short, containing a great quantity. When we came at shoare they all most kindely entertained us, taking us by the hands, as they had observed we did to them aboord in token of welcome, and brought us to sit downe by their fire, where sat together thirteene of them. They filled their tobacco pipe, which was then the short claw of a lobster, which will hold ten of our pipes full and we dranke of their excellent tobacco, as much as we would with them." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1662.] No notice is taken of this custom, either of tobacco or the pipe in the Verrazzano letter.

The most remarkable omission of all is of the bark canoe. This light and beautiful fabric was peculiar to the Algonkin tribes. It was not found among the southern Indians, much less in the West India islands. Its buoyancy and the beauty of its form were such as to render it an object of particular observation. Though so light as to be capable of being borne on a man's shoulders, it would sometimes carry nine men, and ride with safety over the most stormy sea. It was always from the first a great object of interest with the discoverers of the northerly parts of the coast, which they manifested by taking them back to Europe, as curiosities. Aubert carried one of them to Dieppe in 1508, and Captain Martin Fringe, who was one of the first to visit the shores of Cape Cod, took one, in 1603, thence to Bristol, which he thus describes, as if he saw no other kind.

"Their boats whereof we brought one to Bristoll, were in proportion like a wherrie of the river of Thames, seventeene foot long and foure foot broad, made of the barke of a birch tree, farre exceeding in bignesse those of England: it was sowed together with strong and tough oziers or twigs, and the seames covered over with rozen or turpentine little inferiour in sweetnesse to frankincense, as we made triall by burning a little thereof on the coales at sundry times after our comming home: it was also open like a wherrie, and sharpe at both ends, saving that the beake was a little bending roundly upward. And though it carried nine men standing upright, yet it weighed not at the most, above sixtie pounds in weight, a thing almost incredible in regard of the largenesse and capacitie thereof. Their oares were flat at the end like an oven peele, made of ash or maple, very light and strong, about two yards long wherewith they row very swiftly." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1655.]

The silence of the letter in regard to this species of the canoe is the more remarkable, as it is in connection with the natives of the harbor where they spent fifteen days, that mention is made in it a second time of the manner of making their boats out of single logs, as if it were a subject of importance, and worthy of remark. The inference is most strongly to be drawn therefore, from this circumstance, that the writer knew nothing about the bark canoe, or the people who used them.

The absence of all allusion to any of the peculiar attributes, especially of the essential character just described, of the natives of the great bay leads to the conclusion that the whole account is a fabrication. But this end is absolutely reached by the positive statement of a radical difference in complexion between the tribes, which they found in the country.

The people whom they saw on their first landing, and who are stated to have been for the most part naked, are described as being black in color, and not very different from Ethiopians, (di colore neri non molto dagli Etiopi disformi) and of medium stature, well formed of body and acute of mind. The latter observation would imply that the voyagers had mixed with these natives very considerably in order to have been able to speak so positively in regard to their mental faculties, and therefore could not have been mistaken as to their complexion for want of opportunity to discover it. The precise place where they first landed and saw these black people is not mentioned further than that the country where they lived was situated in the thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they proceeded further along the coast northwardly, and again coming to anchor attempted to go ashore in a boat without success, when one of them, a young sailor, attempted to swim to the land, but was thrown, by the violence of the waves, insensible on the beach. Upon recovering he found himself surrounded by natives who were black like the others. That there is no mistake in the design of the writer to represent these people as really black, like negroes, is made evident by his account of the complexion of those he found in the harbor of the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40", who are described as essentially different and the finest looking tribe they had seen, being "of a very white complexion, some inclining more to white, and others to a yellow color" (di colore bianchissimo; alcuni pendano piu in bianchezza, altri in colore flavo). The difference between the inhabitants of the two sections of country, in respect to color, is thus drawn in actual contrast.

This is unfounded in fact. No black aborigines have ever been found within the entire limits of North America, except in California where some are said to exist. The Indians of the Atlantic coast were uniformly of a tawny or yellowish brown color, made more conspicuous by age and exposure and being almost white in infancy. The first voyagers and early European settlers universally concur in assigning them this complexion. Reference need here be to such testimony only as relates to the two parts of the country where the distinction is pretended to have existed. The earliest mention of the inhabitants of the more southerly portion is when the vessels of Ayllon and Matienzo carried off sixty of the Indians from the neighborhood of the Santee, called the Jordan, in 1521, and took them to St. Domingo. One of them went to Spain with Ayllon. They are described by Peter Martyr, from sight, as semifuscos uti nostri sunt agricolae sole adusti aestivo, half brown, like our husbandmen, burnt by the summer sun. [Footnote: Dec. VII, 2.] Barlowe, in his account of the first expedition of Raleigh, which entered Pamlico sound, within the region now under consideration, describes the Indians whom he found there as of a "colour yellowish." [Footnote: Hakluyt, III. 248.] Captain John Smith, speaking of those of the Chesapeake, remarks, that they "are of a color brown when they are of age, but they are born white." [Footnote: Smith, Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 19.] On the other hand the natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in latitude 4l Degrees 40' are described by the first explorers of that region in substantially the same terms. Brereton, who accompanied Gosnold in his first voyage to the Elisabeth islands and the main land opposite, in 1602, mentions the natives there, as being of a complexion or color "much like a dark olive." [Footnote: Purchas, IV. 1652.] Martin Fringe who visited Martha's Vineyard the next year and constructed there a barricade where the "people of the country came sometimes, ten, twentie, fortie or three score, and at one time one hundred and twentie at once," says, "these people are inclined to a swart, tawnie or chesnut colour, not by nature but accidentally." [Footnote: Ibid, IV, 1655.] And Roger Williams, partaking of the same idea as Pringe, that the swarthy color was accidental, testifies, almost in the same language as Captain Smith, that the Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred miles of them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they were born white." [Footnote: Roger Williams's Key, 52.] Thus the authorities flatly contradict the statement of black Indians existing in North Carolina, and a difference of color between the people of the two sections claimed to have been visited in this voyage.