Supposed voyage of Vespucius.
There have been students of these early explorers who have contended that, while Columbus was harassed in Spain with these delays in preparing for his third voyage, the Florentine Vespucius, whom we have encountered already as helping Berardi in the equipment of Columbus's fleets, had, in a voyage of which we have some confused chronology, already in 1497 discovered and coursed the northern shores of the mainland south of the Caribbean Sea.
EARLIEST REPRESENTATION OF SOUTH AMERICAN NATIVES, 1497-1504.
[From Stevens's reproduction in his American Bibliographer.]
Bernaldez tells us that, during the interval between the second and third voyages of Columbus, the Admiral "accorded permission to other captains to make discoveries at the west, who went and discovered various islands." Whether we can connect this statement with any such voyage as is now to be considered is a matter of dispute.
Who discovered South America?
This question of the first discovery of the mainland of South America,—we shall see that North America's mainland had already been discovered,—whether by Columbus or Vespucius, is one which has long vexed the historian and still does perplex him, though the general consensus of opinion at the present day is in favor of Columbus, while pursuing the voyage through which we are soon to follow him. The question is much complicated by the uncertainties and confusion of the narratives which are our only guides. The discovery, if not claimed by Vespucius, has been vigorously claimed for him. Its particulars are also made a part of the doubt which has clouded the recitals concerning the voyage of Pinzon and Solis to the Honduras coast, which are usually placed later; but by Oviedo and Gomara this voyage is said to have preceded that of Columbus.
Claimed for Vespucius.
The claim for Vespucius is at the best but an enforced method of clarifying the published texts concerning the voyages, in the hopes of finding something like consistency in their dates. Any commentator who undertakes to get at the truth must necessarily give himself up to some sort of conjecture, not only as respects the varied inconsistencies of the narrative, but also as regards the manifold blunders of the printer of the little book which records the voyages. Muñoz had it in mind, it is understood, to prove that Vespucius could not have been on the coast at the date of his alleged discovery; but in the opinions of some the documents do not prove all that Muñoz, Navarrete, and Humboldt have claimed, while the advocacy of Varnhagen in favor of Vespucius does not allow that writer to see what he apparently does not desire to see. The most, perhaps, that we can say is that the proof against the view of Varnhagen, who is in favor of such a voyage in 1497, is not wholly substantiated. The fact seems to be, so far as can be made out, that Vespucius passed from one commander's employ to another's, at a date when Ojeda, in 1499, had not completed his voyage, and when Pinzon started. So supposing a return to Spain in order for Vespucius to restart with Pinzon, it is also supposable that the year 1499 itself may have seen him under two different leaders. If this is the correct view, it of course carries forward the date to a time later than the discovery of the mainland by Columbus. It is nothing but plausible conjecture, after all; but something of the nature of conjecture is necessary to dissipate the confusion. The belief of this sharing of service is the best working hypothesis yet devised upon the question.
If Vespucius was thus with Pinzon, and this latter navigator did, as Oviedo claims, precede Columbus to the mainland, there is no proof of it to prevent a marked difference of opinion among all the writers, in that some ignore the Florentine navigator entirely, and others confidently construct the story of his discovery, which has in turn taken root and been widely believed.