The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada

by Stephen Leacock

Thus at the moment when the Spaniards were taking possession of the western world the Portuguese were establishing their trade in the rediscovered East. The two nations agreed to divide between them these worlds of the East and the West. They invoked the friendly offices of the Pope as mediator, and, henceforth, an imaginary line drawn down the Atlantic divided the realms. At first this arrangement seemed to give Spain all the new regions in America, but the line of division was set so far to the West that the discovery of Brazil, which juts out eastward into the Atlantic, gave the Portuguese a vast territory in South America. At the time of which we are now speaking, however, the Portuguese were intent upon their interests in the Orient. Their great aim was to pass beyond India, already reached by da Gama, to the further empires of China and Japan. Like other navigators of the time, they thought that these places might be reached not merely by southern but also by the northern seas. Hence it came about that the Portuguese, going far southward in Africa, went also far northward in America and sailed along the coast of Canada.

We find, in consequence, that when King Manoel of Portugal was fitting out a fleet of twenty ships for a new expedition under da Gama, which was to sail to the Indies by way of Africa, another Portuguese expedition, setting out with the same object, was sailing in the opposite direction. At its head was Gaspar Corte-Real, a nobleman of the Azores, who had followed with eager interest the discoveries of Columbus, Diaz, and da Gama. Corte-Real sailed from Lisbon in the summer of 1500 with a single ship. He touched at the Azores. It is possible that a second vessel joined him there, but this is not clear. From the Azores his path lay north and west, till presently he reached a land described as a 'cool region with great woods.' Corte-Real called it from its verdure 'the Green Land,' but the similarity of name with the place that we call Greenland is only an accident. In reality the Portuguese captain was on the coast of Newfoundland. He saw a number of natives. They appeared to the Portuguese a barbarous people, who dressed in skins, and lived in caves. They used bows and arrows, and had wooden spears, the points of which they hardened with fire.

Corte-Real directed his course northward, until he found himself off the coast of Greenland. He sailed for some distance along those rugged and forbidding shores, a land of desolation, with jagged mountains and furrowed cliffs, wrapped in snow and ice. No trace of the lost civilization of the Norsemen met his eyes. The Portuguese pilot considered Greenland at its southern point to be an outstanding promontory of Asia, and he struggled hard to pass beyond it westward to a more favoured region. But his path was blocked by 'enormous masses of frozen snow floating on the sea, and moving under the influence of the waves.' It is clear that he was met not merely by the field ice of the Arctic ocean, but also by great icebergs moving slowly with the polar current. The narrative tells how Corte-Real's crew obtained fresh water from the icebergs. 'Owing to the heat of the sun, fresh and clear water is melted on the summits, and, descending by small channels formed by the water itself, it eats away the base where it falls. The boats were sent in, and in that way as much was taken as was needed.'

Corte-Real made his way as far as a place (which was in latitude 60 degrees) where the sea about him seemed a flowing stream of snow, and so he called it Rio Nevado, 'the river of snow.' Probably it was Hudson Strait.

Late in the same season, Corte-Real was back in Lisbon. He had discovered nothing of immediate profit to the crown of Portugal, but his survey of the coast of North America from Newfoundland to Hudson Strait seems to have strengthened the belief that the best route to India lay in this direction. In any case, on May 15, 1501, he was sent out again with three ships. This time the Portuguese discovered a region, so they said, which no one had before visited. The description indicates that they were on the coast of Nova Scotia and the adjacent part of New England. The land was wooded with fine straight timber, fit for the masts of ships, and 'when they landed they found delicious fruits of various kinds, and trees and pines of marvellous height and thickness.' They saw many natives, occupied in hunting and fishing. Following the custom of the time, they seized fifty or sixty natives, and crowded these unhappy captives into the holds of their ships, to carry home as evidence of the reality of their discoveries, and to be sold as slaves. These savages are described by those who saw them in Portugal as of shapely form and gentle manner, though uncouth and even dirty in person. They wore otter skins, and their faces were marked with lines. The description would answer to any of the Algonquin tribes of the eastern coast. Among the natives seen on the coast there was a boy who had in his ears two silver rings of Venetian make. The circumstance led the Portuguese to suppose that they were on the coast of Asia, and that a European ship had recently visited the same spot. The true explanation, if the circumstance is correctly reported, would seem to be that the rings were relics of Cabot's voyages and of his trade in the trinkets supplied by the merchants.

Gaspar Corte-Real sent his consort ships home, promising to explore the coast further, and to return later in the season. The vessels duly reached Lisbon, bringing their captives and the news of the voyage. Corte-Real, however, never returned, nor is anything known of his fate.

When a year had passed with no news of Gaspar Corte-Real, his brother Miguel fitted out a new expedition of three ships and sailed westward in search of him. On reaching the coast of Newfoundland, the ships of Miguel Corte-Real separated in order to make a diligent search in all directions for the missing Gaspar. They followed the deep indentations of the island, noting its outstanding features. Here and there they fell in with the natives and traded with them, but they found nothing of value. To make matters worse, when the time came to assemble, as agreed, in the harbour of St John's, only two ships arrived at the rendezvous. That of Miguel was missing. After waiting some time the other vessels returned without him to Portugal.

Two Corte-Reals were now lost. King Manoel transferred the rights of Gaspar and Miguel to another brother, and in the ensuing years sent out several Portuguese expeditions to search for the lost leaders, but without success. The Portuguese gained only a knowledge of the abundance of fish in the region of the Newfoundland coast. This was important, and henceforth Portuguese ships joined with the Normans, the Bretons, and the English in fishing on the Grand Banks. Of the Corte-Reals nothing more was ever heard.

The next great voyage of discovery was that of Juan Verrazano, some twenty years after the loss of the Corte-Reals. Like so many other pilots of his time, Verrazano was an Italian. He had wandered much about the world, had made his way to the East Indies by the new route that the Portuguese had opened, and had also, so it is said, been a member of a ship's company in one of the fishing voyages to Newfoundland now made in every season.

The name of Juan Verrazano has a peculiar significance in Canadian history. In more ways than one he was the forerunner of Jacques Cartier, 'the discoverer of Canada.' Not only did he sail along the coast of Canada, but did so in the service of the king of France, the first representative of those rising ambitions which were presently to result in the foundation of New France and the colonial empire of the Bourbon monarchy. Francis I, the French king, was a vigorous and ambitious prince. His exploits and rivalries occupy the foreground of European history in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. It was the object of Francis to continue the work of Louis XI by consolidating his people into a single powerful state. His marriage with the heiress of Brittany joined that independent duchy, rich at least in the seafaring bravery of its people, to the crown of France. But Francis aimed higher still. He wished to make himself the arbiter of Europe and the over-lord of the European kings. Having been defeated by the equally famous king of Spain, Charles V, in his effort to gain the position and title of Holy Roman Emperor and the leadership of Europe, he set himself to overthrow the rising greatness of Spain. The history of Europe for a quarter of a century turns upon the opposing ambitions of the two monarchs.