History of Central America, Volume 1, 1501-1530 / The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 6

by Hubert Howe Bancroft

THE COLUMBIAN EPOCH.

Before striking out with Columbus in his bold venture to the west, let us sum up what we have learned thus far and see where we stand. First, the geographical knowledge of the ancients was restricted to a parallelogram extending north-west and south-east from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean, comprising one hundred and twenty degrees east and west by fifty degrees north and south; circumscribe this knowledge with legendary stories and hypothetical and traditional beliefs concerning the regions beyond; then add a true theory of the earth's sphericity, though mistaken as to its size. This is all they knew, and this knowledge they committed to the Dark Age, during which time it was preserved, and, indeed, little by little enlarged, as we have seen. During the latter part of the fifteenth century, particularly, a powerful impulse had been given to discovery, especially toward the south; so that now the limits of the ancients were moved eastward at least forty degrees, to the eastern coasts and islands of Asia, chiefly by the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. Toward the south, the true form of Africa had been ascertained, and its coasts had been explored by the Portuguese, except a space of about fifteen degrees on the south-west. Northward the old limit had been advanced but slightly, but within this limit much information had been gained by actual navigation about regions only vaguely described by Ptolemy. Westward, in what was still a Sea of Darkness, great discoveries had been made by the Northmen, but their results were now practically lost; while toward the south, several important groups of islands had been added to the known world. See [map on page 73], where the regions added during this period are lightly shaded. And now, within the old bound the world is much better known than at the beginning of the period, and many minor geographical errors of the ancients have been corrected by the Crusaders, and others who attempted on a smaller scale to extend the Catholic faith, as well as by commercial travellers in distant lands. Again, by the influx of Mahometans into Europe during five or six centuries, eastern luxuries had been introduced to an extent hitherto unknown, and had in fact become necessities in Christian courts, thus making the India trade the great field of commercial enterprise even by the tedious and uncertain overland routes where middle-men absorbed the profits, and rendering the opening of other and easier routes an object of primary importance. The almost exclusive possession of trade via the old routes by the Italians, furnished an additional motive to other European nations for explorations by sea. The art of printing, recently invented, facilitated the diffusion of learning, so that it was impossible for the world ever again to lapse into the old intellectual darkness. The astrolabe, the foundation of the modern quadrant, had been adapted by a meeting of cosmographers in Portugal to the observation of latitudes by the sun's altitude, and thus the chief obstacle to long sea-voyages was removed. The polarity of the magnet had long been known, but the practical adaptation of the magnetic needle to purposes of navigation occurred about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mariner's compass, however, only attained its highest purpose toward the close of the fifteenth century, when the Sea of Darkness was traversed. But before this, the greatest impediments to ocean navigation had been overcome by voyages actually made through the aid of the new inventions. Beside the coasts brought to light by these voyages, they had done much to dispel the old superstitions of burning zones, impassable capes, and unnavigable seas.

REAL AND IMAGINARY ISLANDS.

We have seen that, as a result either of the poetic fancy or of the actual discovery of the ancients, various islands were traditionally located in the Atlantic. Most of them undoubtedly owed their existence to the natural tendency of man to people unknown seas with fabulous lands and beings, "Il est si naturel à l'homme de rêver quelque chose au-delà de l'horizon visible," observes Humboldt. For a full account of the history and location of these islands, "dont la position est encore plus variable que le nom," and the important part played by them in ancient and middle-age geography, see Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 156-245, and Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 6 et seq., and 35-37. In the fifteenth century, with the revival of maritime enterprise, came a renewal and multiplication of the old fables. Monastic scholars, by their continued study of the old writers, by their attempts to reconcile ancient geography with fabulous events in the lives of the saints, and by their inevitable tendency to exaggeration, had contributed largely to their preservation. Still, throughout the preceding period, the belief in the existence of such islands had been vague and hypothetical; but when the actual existence of numerous islands in the western ocean was proved, and the Canary, Madeira, Azore, and Cape Verde groups were discovered and explored, the old ideas were naturally revived and confirmed, and with them rose a desire to rediscover all that had been known to the ancient voyagers. The reported wonders of the fabulous isles, having on them great and rich cities, were confidently sought in each newly found land, and not appearing in any of them, the islands themselves were successively located farther and farther to the west, out in the mysterious sea, to be surely brought to light by future explorations.

And of a truth, this wondrous western empire was subsequently brought to light; peoples and cities were found, but beyond the limits within which the wildest dreams of their discoverers had ever placed them. On this foundation not a few speculators build a theory that America was known to the ancients. The chief of the hypothetical isles were San Brandan, Antilia, and the Island of the Seven Cities; their existence was firmly believed in, and they were definitely located on maps of the period. San Brandan is said to have been visited by the saint whose name it bears in the sixth century. It was at first located far north and west of Ireland, but gradually moved southward until at the time of Columbus' first voyage it is found nearly in the latitude of Cape Verde. To the inflamed imagination mirage is solid earth, or sea, or a beautiful city; an island which was long supposed to be visible from Madeira and the Canaries had something to do with the location of this island of the saint, and of the others.

Antilia, and the Island of Seven Cities, according to Behaim's map, are identical. See [page 93 this volume]; also a reputed letter of Toscanelli, about the existence of which Humboldt thinks there may be some doubt. The only tangible point in the traditionary history is the migration of seven bishops, driven from the Peninsula by the Moorish invasion in the eighth century, who took refuge there and built the Seven Cities. The history and location of this Island of the Seven Cities in the fifteenth century are similar to those of San Brandan Island. Galvano says a Portuguese ship was there in 1447. Brazil, Bracie, or Berzil, was another of these wandering isles, whose name has been preserved and applied to a rock west of Ireland, to one of the Azore islands, and to a country in South America. This name has been the theme of much discussion, which, so far as I know, leads to no result beyond the fact that the name of a valuable dye-wood known to the ancients was afterward applied to lands known or conjectured to produce such woods. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 214-45; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 7-10, and 35 et seq. Kunstmann attaches greater geographical importance to the fabulous isles than Humboldt, connecting them in a manner apparently not quite clear to himself with the previous discoveries of the Northmen. Thus stood facts and fancies concerning the geography of the world, when the greatest of discoverers arose and achieved the greatest of discoveries.

Although in the chapters following I speak more at length of the deeds of the Genoese and his companions, yet in order to complete this Summary it is necessary to mention them here. I shall attempt no discussion concerning the country, family, date of birth, or early life of Christopher Columbus. For the differences of opinion on these points, with numerous references, see Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, New York, 1866, p. 2 et seq. Born somewhere in Italy, probably Genoa, about 1435, he received something more than a rudimentary education, went to sea at the early age of fourteen, and in 1470, which is about the date of his coming to Portugal, had already an extensive experience in the navigation of the Mediterranean, and was skilled in the theory as well as the practice of his profession. We have already seen him with the Portuguese on the African coast, and with the English in Iceland. In fact, before his first voyage westward in 1492, he was practically acquainted with all waters then navigated by Europeans.

The promptings which urged forward this navigator to the execution of his great enterprise may be stated as follows: The success of the Portuguese in long voyages down the African coast suggested to his mind, soon after 1470, that if they could sail so far south, another might sail west with the same facility and perhaps profit. Says his son: "Estando en Portugal, empeçó à congeturar, que del mismo modo que los Portugueses navegaron tan lejos al Mediodia, podria navegarse la buelta de Occidente, i hallar tierra en aquel viage." Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4; edition of Venetia, 1709, pp. 22-3; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 12; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. i. p. lxxix; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. i. lib. i. cap. 1-7. His ardent imagination once seized with this idea, every nook and corner of geographical knowledge was searched for evidence to support his theory. By intercourse with other navigators he learned that at different times and places along the western coasts of Europe and Africa, objects apparently from unknown western lands had been washed ashore, suppositionally by the wind, really by the Gulf Stream or other oceanic currents. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. p. 249. Though well aware of existing rumors of islands seen at different times in the western ocean, it was not upon these, if any such there were, that he built his greatest anticipations of success. In the writings of the ancients he found another stimulant. Filled with fervent piety and superstitious credulity, he pored over every cosmographical work upon which he could lay his hands, as well the compilations of antiquated notions, such as the Imago Mundi of Pierre D'Ailly, or the more modern travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville. Colon, Hist. del Almirante, in Barcia, tom. i. p. 4 et seq.; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 349, 352; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 46, 60; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 74-6.

EVOLUTION OF THE GRAND CONCEPTION.

The result of these studies was a complete acquaintance with the geographical knowledge of the day, with the greater part of what I have thus far epitomized, the doings of the Northmen excepted. From all this he knew of the earth's sphericity; he believed that the larger part of the world's surface was dry land; that the land known to Ptolemy extended over at least 180 degrees, or half the circumference of the globe, that is, from the Canaries to the Ganges; he knew that by later travels the eastern limit of geographical knowledge had been moved much farther east, even to Cathay; he believed that far out in the ocean lay the island of Zipangu; he knew that some eight or ten degrees had been added on the west by the discovery of the Azores; he believed that at most only one third of the circumference remained to be navigated; that this space might naturally contain some islands available as way stations in the voyage; that the explorations in the East were very indefinite, and consequently Asia might, and probably did, extend farther east than was supposed; that Ptolemy's figures were not undisputed—Marino making the distance from the Canaries to the Ganges 225 degrees instead of 180, while another geographer, Alfragano, by actual measurement, made each degree about one sixth smaller than Ptolemy, thus reducing the size of the earth, and with it the remaining distance to India; that several ancient writers—see quotations from Aristotle, Strabo, Seneca, et al., in Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. pp. 38, 61, 98 et seq.—had pronounced the distance to India very short, and had affirmed that it might be navigated in a few days; and finally that other scholars, as Toscanelli, had arrived at the same conclusions as himself, possibly before himself. Cartas de Pablo Toscanelli, Físico Florentin, á Cristobal Colon y al Canónigo Portugues Fernando Martinez, sobre el descubrimiento de las Indias, in Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 1-4; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 48-9. See also, on Columbus' motives, Irving's Columbus, vol. i. pp. 42-51, and vol. ii. p. 148; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 45-7; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. pp. 324-9; Stevens' Notes, p. 28; Major's Prince Henry, pp. 347-52; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 74. Many of these conclusions were erroneous, being founded on an incorrect idea of longitude; but this reduction of the earth's size was an error most fortunate for discovery, inasmuch as with a correct idea of the distance to be traversed, and with no suspicion of an intervening continent, such an expedition as that of the Genoese would not have been undertaken at the time.