HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
DISCOVERIES.
The mighty hemisphere of the West lay for countless ages shrouded from the knowledge of the rest of the world, as by the darkness of night, waiting for the appointed time of its revelation. That appointed time was the close of the fifteenth century, for although upwards of four hundred years earlier, after the reign of Alfred of England, and Charlemagne in France, America was discovered by some of those adventurous Scandinavian Vikings—the true ancestors of the so-called Anglo-Saxons, who, in their stout-built little ships, traversed all seas—still the knowledge of this discovery produced so little effect on the rest of the world, that afterwards, when America was rediscovered, the history of the Scandinavian colonisers was regarded as mythical. The antiquarian researches, however, of Rafn and others, leave no doubt of the fact. These bold adventurers, at home on the most perilous seas, having colonised Iceland, Greenland, and afterwards Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, came at length, in the year 1000, to the coast of America, where a colony was formed under the name of Vinland hin Goda, or Vineland the Good—so called from the abundance of wild grapes which grew there, and because the mildness of the climate and the fertility of the soil delighted the discoverers, accustomed as they were to the savage sterility and severe cold of Greenland and Iceland, and even of their native north.
The tract of country first explored by these earliest European discoverers is supposed to extend down the coast from about where Boston is now situated to New York. According also to the antiquarians, Rask and Finn Magnusen, boundary pillars were discovered by them, in the year 1824, on the eastern shore of Baffin’s Bay, exhibiting Runic inscriptions, and the date 1135. The generally uncivilised state of the rest of Europe prevented these early Scandinavian discoveries from producing any permanent or important effect. The time when this great discovery of a second world could be availing was not yet come. The precursors of knowledge had yet to be born; society lay under a night of barbarous ignorance, and glimpses of light, coming from whatever quarter they might, were lost in the density of its shadow.
The important thirteenth century arrived: Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Vicentius of Beauvais, lived. A breath of true life awakened the general mind, and geographical, as well as other knowledge began to be studied. In the meantime, Iceland, which must be regarded as the mother of colonisation, had lost her noble independent spirit with her republican form of government, and become a fief of the crown of Norway. In consequence, however, of her remote position, as well as her high reputation for learning, she was made the depository of the most ancient records of Europe, which was then agitated by internal convulsions, and here they were carefully preserved for ages. In this remote Ultima Thule lay sealed up, as it were, the keys of a mighty knowledge, which would unlock a second world. Here, accordingly, in the month of February, 1477, came Christopher Columbus, “the sea,” says he, “not being at that time covered with ice, and being resorted to by traders from Bristol.” This is singular. Some historians doubt whether Columbus heard any tidings here of the early discovery and colonisation of America. No doubt he did; no doubt, in his conversations with Bishop Skalholt and other learned men, he would hear the extraordinary fact of a great country having been discovered by their ancestors beyond the Western Ocean. They had found land where he had believed it to exist, whether a part of Asia or not was of no consequence, and this information would not be lost on a mind like his. No doubt, also, hither came the Cabots, merchants of Bristol, who, in their process of discovery, sailed northward, as if following the guidance of Icelandic tradition, and arrived on the dreary coasts of Labrador, before Columbus discovered the mainland of America.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Columbus having, at the age of twenty-one, sailed, as we have said, to Iceland, “to see if it were inhabited,” returned to Spain resolved to navigate the great Western Sea, and discover the land which lay beyond. He was one of the elect of Providence, men of the time and the hour, whose work is appointed them to do, and spite of impediment, discouragement, and adversity, who must succeed in doing it. The history of his eventful life is well known; with inflexible resolution and deep religious ardour, he pursued his object, and finally won the ear of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. On August 3rd, 1492, he set sail as Admiral of the Seas and Lands which he expected to discover, and on October 11, after a tedious voyage and long anxiety, stepped on shore of one of the Bahama Islands with tears of joy and fervent thanksgiving; and after kissing the soil of the New World, he planted here the cross, in token of Christian possession.
Gold dust and Japan, or Cipango, as it was called, were the objects of search, and Columbus, after twelve days, again set sail in the hope of finding them. He found several other of the West India Islands, and finally the beautiful Cuba, the most beautiful island in the world. He believed that now indeed he had found the long-sought-for Cipango; and San Domingo, which he next discovered, he imagined to be the ancient Ophir, the source of all the riches of Solomon.
Columbus’s discoveries were confined principally to the West India Islands; nor was it till his third voyage that he touched the mainland, near the mouth of the river Oronoco.