We may be thankful that no one has succeeded in the various attempts that have been made to call our part of the world by the relatively very weak name Columbia, which signifies Land of the Dove. We may be thankful that “America” means so much more than “Europe”—in respect to which Meredith Townsend says, “The people of the ‘setting sun’—that seems to be the most probable explanation of the word Europe.” The “setting sun” is precisely the wrong thing. And if we wish to get somewhat nearer to the time of the name-giving of the Old World Continents, we shall find that Herodotus says, “Nor can I conjecture why, as the earth is one, it has received three names, Asia, Europe, and Libya—the names of women; ... nor can I learn who it was that established these artificial distinctions, or whence were derived these appellations.”
We scarcely need to point out the appropriateness of a name which exactly fits the Saxon, Teutonic, and Latin conditions here. It is also clear that we need not ask whether Amerigo Vespucci was worthy to have his name given to a hemisphere. His name, it has been shown plainly, was but the cup that held the essence.
What it Cost to Discover America
As John Fiske remarks, “It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us.” Historians are inclined to accept the statement of Las Casas with regard to the amount of Queen Isabella’s contribution, whether it came from a pledge of the crown jewels, or from the Castile treasury, but the amount of the loan from Santangel, and of the levy upon the port of Palos, is open to question. The researches of Harrisse have been considered authoritative, but now comes the German investigator, Professor Ruge, whose estimates involve a large reduction from calculations heretofore made. He says,—
“The cost of the armament of the first fleet of Columbus, consisting of three small vessels, is given in all the documents as 1,140,000 maravedis. What this sum represents in our own money, however, is not so easy to determine, as the opinions upon the value of a maravedi vary greatly. The maravedi—the name is of Moorish origin—was a small coin used at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century. All prices were expressed in maravedis, even if they ran into the millions. It is, however, a fact well known that almost all coins which continue to bear one name decrease in value in the course of centuries. The Roman silver denarius sank finally to common copper coins, known in France as ‘dermer,’ in England as ‘d’ and in Germany as ‘pfennig.’ The original gulden-gold, as the name indicates—has long since become a silver piece which nowhere has the value of fifty cents. So, also, the value of the maravedi became less and less, until a century ago it was hardly equal to a pfennig (one-quarter of a cent). One may also reason backward that it was much more valuable four centuries ago.”
Ruge comes to the conclusion, after the examination of various decrees of Ferdinand, that the value of a maravedi was about 2.56 pfennig, or less than three-quarters of a cent in modern money. Therefore the contribution of 1,140,000 maravedis made by Queen Isabella was, he says, 29,184 marks, or about $7296, without taking into consideration the higher purchasing power of money in Columbus’s days. “The city of Palos also,” adds the article, “had to furnish out of its own means two small ships manned for twelve months. The cost to the State, therefore, of the journey of discovery was not more than 30,000 marks ($7500). Of this sum the admiral received an annual salary of 1280 marks ($320); the captains, Martin, Juan, and Anton Perez, each 768 marks ($192); the pilots, 542 to 614 marks each ($128 to $153), and a physician only 153 marks and 60 pfennigs ($38.50). The sailors received for the necessaries of life, etc., each month 1 ducat, valued at 375 maravedis, about 9 marks and 60 pfennigs ($2.45).”
The American Indians
With reference to the ancestors of the native tribes, and their probable origin, the following syllabus of Charles Hallock’s paper in the American Antiquarian is interesting:
The Indians, or Indigenes, of both North and South America, originated from a civilization of high degree which occupied the subequatorial belt some ten thousand years ago, while the glacial sheet was still on. Population spread northward as the ice receded. Routes of exodus diverging from the central point of departure are plainly marked by ruins and lithic records. The subsequent settlements in Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California indicate the successive stages of advance, as well as the persistent struggle to maintain the ancient civilization against reversion and the catastrophes of nature. The varying architecture of the valleys, cliffs, and mesas is an intelligible expression of the exigencies which stimulated the builders. The gradual distribution of population over the higher latitudes in after years was supplemented by accretions from Europe and Northern Asia centuries before the coming of Columbus. Wars and reprisals were the natural and inevitable results of a mixed and degenerated population with different dialects. The mounds which cover the midcontinental areas, isolated and in groups, tell the story thereof. The Korean immigration of the year 544, historically cited, which led to the founding of the Mexican empire in 1325, was but an incidental contribution to the growing population of North America. So also were the very much earlier migrations from Central America by water across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and Arkansas.