In the time of Columbus enterprise was generally active, and men everywhere were eager to realize the prediction of Seneca, who declared that the Ultima Thule, the extreme bounds of the earth, would in due time be reached. But Columbus would win something more than beautiful islands. He aimed at a continent, and would reach the eastern border of Asia by sailing west, in accordance with the early philosophers, who had accepted the spherical form of the earth, not dreaming that, instead of a few islands, scattered like gems in the ocean, a mighty continent barred the way. Dominated by the antique notions of the classic writers, Columbus, after encountering and overcoming every discouragement, finally sailed towards the golden West, finding the voyage a pleasant excursion, interrupted only by the occasional fears of the sailors, lest the light breeze might prevent their return to Spain, by blowing all the time the one way. At a given point of the voyage Columbus met with an experience, and made a decision, that perhaps determined the destiny of North America. October 7, 1492, Martin Pinson saw flocks of parrots flying southwest, and argued that the birds were returning to land, which must lie in that direction. He accordingly advised the Admiral to change the course of the ship. Columbus realized the force of the argument and knew the significance of the flights of birds, the hawk having piloted the Portuguese to the Azores. He was now sailing straight for the coast of North Carolina, and must inevitably have discovered our continent, but the parrots were accepted as guides, the course was changed to the southwest, and in due time the Island of San Salvador rose before their expectant eyes. All his efforts, therefore, after this memorable voyage, were devoted to the West Indies, and in the fond belief that he had reached fair Cathay. Consequently John Cabot was left to discover North America at least one year before Columbus sighted the southern portion of the western continent. Even then Columbus held that South America was a part of India, and he finally died in ignorance of the fact that he had reached a new world.
His error proved a most fortunate one for the English-speaking people; since, if he had confined on the western course, the Carolinas would have risen to view, and the splendors and riches of the Antilles might have remained unknown long enough for Spanish enterprise to establish itself on the Atlantic coast. This done, the magnificent Hudson would have become the objective point of Spanish enterprise, and a Spanish fortress and castle would to-day look down from the Weehawken Heights, the island of New York yielding itself up as the site of a Spanish city.
The mistake of Columbus, however, was supplemented by what, perhaps, may properly be called a series of blunders, all of them more or less fortunate, or at least in the interest of a type of civilization very unlike that of Spain, especially as expanded and interpreted in Central and South America. It is, therefore, to the series of nautical adventures following the age Columbus, and extending down to the voyage of Henry Hudson, the Englishman, in 1609, that this article is mainly devoted, showing how this entire region was preserved from permanent occupation by Europeans, until it was colonized by the Walloons under the Dutch, who providentially prepared the way for the English.
ISABELLA OF SPAIN.
First, however, it may be interesting to glance at voyages made during the Middle Ages, considering whether they had any possible connection with the region now occupied by the city of New York.
That Northmen visited the shores of North America no reasonable inquirer any longer doubts. Even Mr. George Bancroft, who for about half a century cast grave reflections upon the voyages of the Northmen, and inspired disbelief in many quarters, finally abandoned all allusion to the subject, and subsequently explained that in throwing discredit upon the Icelandic narratives he had fallen into error.[2]
The probability now seems to be that the Irish had become acquainted with a great land at the west, and gave it the name of “Greenland,” which name was simply applied by Eric the Red to a separate region, when he went to the country now known as Greenland in the year 985. The next year Biarne Heriulfsson, following Eric, was blown upon the north Atlantic coast, and in the year 1000-1 Leif, son of Eric, went in quest of the land seen by Biarne, reaching what is generally recognized as New England. Others followed in 1002 and 1005, while from 1006 to 1009 Thorfinn Karlsefne visited the same region, then known as “Vinland the Good,” and made a serious but abortive effort to found a colony. Freydis, daughter of Eric the Red, visited New England in 1010 to 1012. Vague accounts in the Icelandic chronicles tell of a visit of one Are Marson to a region called White Man’s Land (Hvitrammanaland) in 983, ante-dating Eric’s appearance in Greenland. We also hear of Biörn Asbrandson in 999, and of the voyage of Gudlaugson in 1027. Certain geographical fragments refer to Bishop Eric, of Greenland, as searching for Wineland in 1121, while in 1357 a small Icelandic ship visited “Markland,” the present Nova Scotia. The voyages of Asbrandson and of Gudlaugson are generally viewed as standing connected with a region extending from New England to Florida, known as White Man’s Land, or Ireland the Great. In these accounts there is found no definite allusion to the region of the Hudson, though Karlsefne’s explorations may have extended some distance southwesterly from Rhode Island; while later adventurers, who came southward and followed the course of Are Marson, who was discovered in the country by Asbrandson, must have sailed along our shores. Still no record of such a visit now remains, which is not at all singular, since many a voyager went by, both before and afterwards, with the same failure to signalize the event for the information of posterity. “They had no poet and they died.”
Turning to the voyages of the Welsh, who, some think, reached the western continent about the year 1170, led by Madoc, Prince of Wales, there is the same failure to connect them with this region. Catlin, who visited the White or Mandan Indians, supposes that the Welch sailed down the coast to the Bay of Mexico and ascended the Mississippi; although there is just as much reason to hold, if the Mandans were their descendants, that they entered the continent and found their way westward from the region of Massachusetts or New York. The latter, however, might be favored, for the reason that our noble river forms to-day the most popular and certainly the most splendid gateway to the far West.
The voyages of the Zeno brothers, who are believed by most competent critics to have reached America about the close of the fourteenth century, and who left a chart, first published in 1558, show a country called “Drogeo,” a vast region which stretched far to the south, whose inhabitants were clothed in skins, and subsisted by hunting, being armed with bows and arrows, and living in a state of war. The description would apply to our part of the coast. At this period the Red Indians had come from the west, and dispersed the original inhabitants, known to the Northmen as Skraellings. The red man on this coast was an invader and conqueror, not the original proprietor of the land. In a very brief time, however, he forgot his own traditions and indulged in the belief that he was the first holder of this region, which was deeded to him by the Great Father in fee simple; and it was in this belief that, in turn, the simple savage conveyed vast tracts of territory to the white man, in consideration of trinkets and fire-water.