Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History

by Ontario. Department of Education

Not till the closing years of the fifteenth century were the attempts to solve this problem successful. The discovery of the route to India by Vasco de Gama in 1497 first opened the way to the East, though the still earlier discovery by Columbus was to afford, in later years, a much more complete solution.

Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa in Italy. An eager student of geography, he became convinced that the earth was a sphere or globe and not a flat surface. He believed that he could reach India and Cathay by sailing west, as well as by going east through the Mediterranean—a route that had been closed since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. "This grand idea, together with his services in carrying it out, he offered first to his motherland of Genoa. But Genoa did not want a new route to the East. Then he turned, but in vain, to Portugal. The hopes of Portugal were set upon a passage around the south of Africa. To England and to France Columbus held out his wondrous offer; but these countries were slow and unbelieving. It was to Spain he made his most persistent appeal; and Spain, to his imperishable glory, gave ear." Through the self-denial and devotion of Queen Isabella of Castile he was enabled to put his dream to the test.

A special lesson should be given on the life of Columbus—his efforts, perseverance, courage, failures, successes. The teacher may add at will to the facts given here. Read Joaquin Miller's Poem, "Columbus," High School Reader, pp. 143-145.

When Columbus landed on the island-fringe of America in 1492, he thought he had found what he had set out to find—the eastern country of India; and he believed it all his life. This idea survived for several generations, partly because of the great wealth of Mexico and Peru. When Europeans were at last convinced that it was not India, they began again to seek a way to the East, and looked on the continent of America merely as an obstacle in their path. To find the road to Cathay was still their chief ambition.

In 1497, John Cabot, under a charter from Henry VII of England, set out to find a way to the East, and landed on North America; in 1498, his son, Sebastian Cabot, explored the coast from Labrador to South Carolina, with the same object.

In 1534, on his first voyage, Cartier thought, when he arrived at Gaspé and saw the great river coming from the west, that he had discovered the gateway to the East.

With the same object in view, Champlain, in 1609, explored the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain. In 1613, he listened, only to be deceived, to the story of Vignau about a way to the East up the Ottawa River to a large lake and into another river that would lead to the Western Sea.

Henry Hudson made four voyages in search of a way through or round the continent. On the first, second, and fourth, he tried to go round by a North-west or a North-east passage. On the third voyage, in 1609, he sailed up the Hudson River for 150 miles, only to find his way blocked. A curious fact is that on this voyage he must, at one time, have been only about twenty leagues from Champlain, when the latter was exploring Lake Champlain on the same errand. (Show this on the map.) On his fourth voyage, in 1610, Hudson discovered the bay that now bears his name, and he must have thought, when he saw that great stretch of water to the West, that he was at last successful. He wintered there, and when the ice broke up in the spring, his men mutinied and set him, his young son, and two companions, adrift in a boat, and they were never heard of again. (See The Story of the British People pp. 234-235.)

The Mississippi was long looked upon as a possible way to the Pacific Ocean. La Salle explored the great lakes and the Ohio, Illinois, and Mississippi Rivers. This last he found to flow south into the Gulf of Mexico, instead of west into the Pacific Ocean. His settlement on Montreal Island was called La Chine (the French word for China), in allusion to his desire to find the way to that country.

Later, others were led by the same desire to explore the western part of what is now Canada. Vérendrye, in 1731, travelled from Lake Nepigon by way of Rainy Lake, the Winnipeg River, and the Red River, to the junction of the latter with the Assiniboine, where Winnipeg now stands; also up the Saskatchewan River to the Forks. His son, in 1742, explored the Missouri River and came within sight of the Rocky Mountains.