[1515.] Juan Diaz de Solis sailed from Lepe October 8, 1515, with three vessels, and surveyed the eastern coast of South America from Cape San Roque to Rio Janeiro, where he was killed by the natives. Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. iii. pp. 48-50. Three vessels were fitted out at Seville, well manned and armed for a cruise against the Caribs, under command of Juan Ponce de Leon, but the Spaniards were defeated in their first encounter with the savages at Guadalupe, and the expedition was practically abandoned.
GRADUAL ENLARGEMENT OF THE TWO AMERICAS.
The adventures of Badajoz, Mercado, Morales, and others in 1515-16 and the following years, by which the geography of the Isthmus was more fully determined, are given elsewhere.
Schöner, Luculentissima quædã terræ totius descriptio, Nuremberg, 1515, and another edition of the same work under the title Orbis Typvs, same place and date, have a chapter on America 'discovered by Vespucci in 1497.' In Reisch, Margaritha Philosophica, Strasburg, 1515, an encyclopedia frequently republished, is a map which is almost an exact copy of that in the Ptolemy of 1513, except in its names. The main-land to the north-west of Cuba is called Zoana Mela, but the names of certain localities along the coast are omitted. Both Cuba and Española are called Isabela, and the southern continent is laid down as 'Paria seu Prisilia.' Harrisse, Bib. Am. Vet., nos. 80-2; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 130-1; Kohl, Die beiden ältesten Karten von Am., p. 33; Stevens' Notes, p. 52; fac-simile, pl. iv. no. 2.
[1516.] After Ponce de Leon's voyage in 1512 or 1513, and probably before that time, trips were made by private adventurers northward from Española and Cuba to the Islands and to Florida. Among these is that of Diego de Miruelo in 1516, who probably visited the western or gulf coast of Florida, and brought back specimens of gold. No details are known of the expedition. Garcilaso de la Vega, La Florida del Inca, Madrid, 1723, p. 5.
Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci, Florence, 1516, the second collection of the four voyages; Peter Martyr, Ioannes ruffus, De Orbe Decades, Alcala, 1516, the first edition of three decades; and Giustiniani, Psalterium, Genoa, 1516, which appends a life of Columbus to the nineteenth Psalm, are among the new books of the year.
[1517.] Eden, in his dedication of an English translation of Munster's Cosmography, in 1553, speaks of certain ships "furnished and set forth" in 1517 under Sebastian Cabot and Sir Thomas Pert; but so faint was the heart of the baronet that the voyage "toke none effect." On this authority some authors have ascribed a voyage to Cabot in 1517, to regions concerning which they do not agree. An expedition whose destination and results are unknown, can have had little effect on geographical knowledge; and Kohl, after a full discussion of the subject, seems to have proved against Biddle, its chief supporter, that there is not sufficient evidence of such a voyage. Navigatione di Sebastiano Cabota, in Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 212; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 54-5; Roux de Rochelle, in Bulletin, Soc. Géog., Apr. 1832, p. 209; Peter Martyr, dec. iii. cap. vi.
Francisco Hernandez de Córdoba, with three vessels and 110 men, sailed from La Habana February 8, 1517, sent by the governor of Cuba to make explorations toward the west. Touching at Cape Catoche, in Yucatan, he coasted the peninsula in fifteen days to Campeche, and six days later reached Potonchan, or Champoton, where a battle was fought with the natives, and the Spaniards defeated. Accounts indicate that the explorers were not unanimous in supposing Yucatan to be an island, as it was afterward represented on some maps. Failing to procure a supply of water in the slough of Lagartos, Córdoba sailed across the Gulf to Florida, and thence returned to Cuba, where he died in ten days from his wounds. I find nothing to show what part of Florida he touched. Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i. pp. 349-51; Peter Martyr, dec. iv. cap. i.; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i. pp. 497-8; Galvano's Discov., pp. 130-1; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 8-9; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii. lib. ii. cap. xvii.; Cogolludo, Hist. Yucathan, pp. 3-8; Prescott's Mex., vol. i. pp. 222-24; Viages Menores, in Navarrete, tom. iii. pp. 53-5; West-Indische Spieghel, p. 188; Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., tom. i. pp. 338-41.
[1518.] The following year Juan de Grijalva was sent from Cuba to carry on the explorations begun by Córdoba. Grijalva sailed from Santiago de Cuba April 8, 1518, with four vessels, reached the island of Santa Cruz (Cozumel) on the 3d of May, took possession on the 6th of May, and shortly after entered Ascension Bay. From this point he coasted Yucatan 270 leagues, by his estimate, to Puerto Deseado, entered and named the Rio de Grijalva (Tabasco), and took possession of the country in the vicinity of Vera Cruz about the 19th of June. Advancing up the coast to Cabo Rojo, he turned about and entered Rio Tonalá, engaged in a parting fight at Champoton, followed the coast for several weeks, and then turned for Cuba, arriving at Matanzas about the 1st of November. During his absence, Cristóbal de Olid had coasted a large part of Yucatan in search of Grijalva's fleet. Peter Martyr, dec. iv. cap. iii.-iv.; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i. pp. 351-8, Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i. pp. 502-37; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 8-11, 56-8; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. i. ix.; Robertson's Hist. Am., vol. i. pp. 240-4; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv. pp. 40-50; Cogolludo, Hist. Yucathan, pp. 8-16; Diaz, Itinéraire, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., série i. tom. x. pp. 1-47; Viages Menores, in Navarrete, tom. iii. pp. 53-64; Alaman, Disertaciones, tom. i. pp. 45-8; Reise des Johann Grijalva und allererste Entdeckung Neuspaniens, in Sammlung, tom. xiii. p. 258; Itinerario de Juan de Grijalva, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., tom. i. p. 281.
I may here remark that such manuscript maps, made generally by pilots for government use, as have been preserved are, as might be expected, far superior to those published in geographical works of the period. I give a copy of a Portuguese chart preserved in the Royal Academy at Munich.