INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORYBY HENRY ELDRIDGE BOURNE AND ELBERT JAY BENTON PROFESSORS OF HISTORY IN WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 1912INTRODUCTIONThis volume is the introductory part of a course in Americanhistory embodying the plan of study recommended by the Committeeof Eight of the American Historical Association.[[1]] [The plan]calls for a continuous course running through grades six, seven,and eight. The events which have taken place within the limits ofwhat is now the United States must necessarily furnish the mostof the content of the lessons. But the Committee urge that enoughother matter, of an introductory character, be included to teachboys and girls of from twelve to fourteen years of age that ourcivilization had its beginnings far back in the history of theOld World. Such introductory study will enable them to think ofour country in its true historical setting. The Committeerecommend that about two-thirds of one year's work be devoted tothis preliminary matter, and that the remainder of the year begiven to the period of discovery and exploration. The plan of the Committee of Eight emphasizes three or fourlines of development in the world's history leading up toAmerican history proper. First, there was a movement of conquest or colonization bywhich the ancient civilized world, originally made up ofcommunities like the Greeks and Phoenicians in the Aegean andeastern Mediterranean Seas, spread to southern Italy and adjacentlands. The Roman conquest of Italy and of the barbarian tribes ofwestern Europe expanded the civilized world to the shores of theAtlantic. Within this greater Roman world new nations grew up.The migration of Europeans to the American continent was thefinal step. Second, accompanying the growth of the civilized world inextent was a growth of knowledge of the shape of the earth, or ofwhat we call geography. Columbus was a geographer as well as theherald of an expanding world. A third process was the creation and transmission of all thatwe mean by civilization. Here, as the Committee remark, theeffort should be to "show, in a very simple way, the civilizationwhich formed the heritage of those who were to go to America,that is, to explain what America started with." The Committee also suggest that it is necessary "to associatethe three or four peoples of Europe which were to have a share inAmerican colonization with enough of their characteristicincidents to give the child some feeling for the name 'England,''Spain,' 'Holland,' and 'France.'" No attempt is made in this book to give a connected history ofGreece, Rome, England, or any other country of Europe. Such anattempt would be utterly destructive of the plan. Only thosefeatures of early civilization and those incidents of historyhave been selected which appear to have a vital relation to thesubsequent fortunes of mankind in America as well as in Europe.They are treated in all cases as introductory. Opinions maydiffer upon the question of what topics best illustrate therelation. The Committee leaves a wide margin of opportunity forthe exercise of judgment in selection. In the use of a textbookbased on the plan the teacher should use the same liberty ofselection. For example, we have chosen the story of Marathon toillustrate the idea of the heroic memories of Greece. Others mayprefer Thermopylae, because this story seems to possess a simplerdramatic development. In the same way teachers may desire to givemore emphasis to certain phases of ancient or mediaevalcivilization or certain heroic persons treated very briefly inthis book. Exercises similar to those inserted at the end of eachchapter offer means of supplementing work provided in thetext. The story of American discovery and exploration in the plan ofthe Committee of Eight follows the introductory matter as anatural culmination. In our textbook we have adhered to the sameplan of division. The work of the seventh grade will, therefore,open with the study of the first permanent Englishsettlements. The discoveries and explorations are told in more detail thanmost of the earlier incidents, but whatever is referred to istreated, we hope, with such simplicity and definiteness ofstatement that it will be comprehensible and instructive topupils of the sixth grade. At the close of the book will be found a list of references.From this teachers may draw a rich variety of stories anddescriptions to illustrate any features of the subject whichespecially interest their classes. In the index is given thepronunciation of difficult names. We wish to express gratitude to those who have aided us withwise advice and criticism.
INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORY[CHAPTER I]THE SCATTERED CHILDREN OF EUROPE The Emigrant and what he brings to America. Theemigrant who lands at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or anyother seaport, brings with him something which we do not see. Hemay have in his hands only a small bundle of clothing and enoughmoney to pay his railroad fare to his new home, but he iscarrying another kind of baggage more valuable than bundles orboxes or a pocket full of silver or gold. This other baggage isthe knowledge, the customs, and the memories he has brought fromthe fatherland. He has already learned in Europe how to do the work at whichhe hopes to labor in America. In his native land he has beentaught to obey the laws and to do his duty as a citizen. Thisfits him to share in our self-government. He also brings greatmemories, for he likes to think of the brave and noble deeds doneby men of his race. If he is a religious man, he worships Godjust as his forefathers have for hundreds of years. To understandhow the emigrant happens to know what he does and to be what heis, we must study the history of the country from which hecomes. All Americans are Emigrants. If this is true of thenewcomer, it is equally true of the rest of us, for we are allemigrants. The Indians are the only native Americans, and when wefind out more about them we may learn that they, too, areemigrants. If we follow the history of our families far enoughback, we shall come upon the names of our forefathers who sailedfrom Europe. They may have come to America in the early days whenthere were only a few settlements scattered along our Atlanticcoast, or they may have come since the Revolutionary War changedthe English colonies into the United States. Like the Canadians, the South Americans, and the Australians,we are simply Europeans who have moved away. The story of theEurope in which our forefathers lived is, therefore, part of ourstory. In order to understand our own history we must knowsomething of the history of England, France, Germany, Italy, andother European lands. What the early Emigrants brought. If we read the storyof our forefathers before they left Europe, we shall find answersto several important questions. Why, we ask, did Columbus seekfor new lands or for new ways to lands already known? How did thepeople of Europe live at the time he discovered America? What didthey know how to do? Were they skilful in all sorts of work, orwere they as rude and ignorant as the Indians on the westernshores of the Atlantic? The answers which history will give to these questions willsay that the first emigrants who landed on our shores broughtwith them much of the same knowledge and many of the same customsand memories which emigrants bring nowadays and which we alsohave. It is true that since the time the first settlers came menhave found out how to make many new things. The most important ofthese are the steam-engine, the electric motor, the telegraph,and the telephone. But it is surprising how many importantthings, which we still use, were made before Columbus sawAmerica.
For one thing, men knew how to print books. This art had beendiscovered during the boyhood of Columbus. Another thing, mencould make guns, while the Indians had only bows and arrows. Theships in which Columbus sailed across the ocean seemed very largeand wonderful to the Indians, who used canoes. The ships weresteered with the help of a compass, an instrument which theIndians had never seen. Some of the things which the early emigrants knew had beenknown hundreds or thousands of years before. One of the oldestwas the art of writing. The way to write words or sounds wasfound out so long ago that we shall never know the name of theman who first discovered it. The historians tell us he lived inEgypt, which was in northern Africa, exactly where Egypt is now.Some men were afraid that the new art might do more harm thangood. The king to whom the secret was told thought that thechildren would be unwilling to work hard and try to rememberbecause everything could be written down and they would not needto use their memories. The Egyptians at first used pictures toput their words upon rocks or paper, and even after they madeseveral letters of the alphabet their writing seemed like amixture of little pictures and queer marks.
Old and New Inventions. Those who first discover how tomake things are called inventors, and what they make are calledinventions. Now if we should write out a list of the most usefulinventions, we could place in one column the inventions whichwere made before the days of Columbus and in another those whichhave been made since. With this list before us we may ask whichinventions we could live without and which we could not spareunless we were willing to become like the savages. We should findthat a large number of the inventions which we use every daybelong to the set of things older than Columbus. This is anotherreason why, if we wish to understand our ways of living andworking, we must ask about the history of the countries where ourforefathers lived. It is the beginning of our own history.
A Plan of Study. The discovery of America was made in1492, at the beginning of what we call Modern Times. BeforeModern Times were the Middle Ages, lasting about a thousandyears. These began three or four hundred years after the time ofChrist or what we call the beginning of the Christian Era. Allthe events that took place earlier we say happened in AncientTimes. Much that we know was learned first by the Greeks orRomans who lived in Ancient Times. It is in the Middle Ages that we first hear of peoples calledEnglishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Italians, Spaniards,and many others now living in Great Britain and on the Continentof Europe. We shall learn first of the Greeks and Romans and ofwhat they knew and succeeded in doing, and then shall find outhow these things were learned by the peoples of the Middle Agesand what they added to them. This will help us to find out whatour forefathers started with when they came to live inAmerica.
[CHAPTER II]OUR EARLIEST TEACHERS Ancient Cities that still exist. In Ancient Times themost important peoples lived on the shores of the Mediterranean.The northern shore turns and twists around four peninsulas. Thefirst is Spain, which separates the Mediterranean Sea from theAtlantic Ocean; the second, shaped like a boot, is Italy; and thethird, the end of which looks like a mulberry leaf, is Greece.Beyond Greece is Asia Minor, the part of Asia which lies betweenthe Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. (See the [map[2].) The Italians now live in Italy, but the Romans lived there inAncient Times. The people who live in Greece are called Greeks,just as they were more than two thousand years ago. Many of thecities that the Greeks and Romans built are still standing.Alexandria was founded by the great conqueror Alexander.Constantinople used to be the Greek city of Byzantium. AnotherGreek city, Massilia, has become the modern French city ofMarseilles. Rome had the same name in Ancient Times, except thatit was spelled Roma. The Romans called Paris by the name ofLutetia, and London they called Lugdunum. Ruins which show how the Ancients lived. In many ofthese cities are ancient buildings or ruins of buildings, bits ofcarving, vases, mosaics, sometimes even wall paintings, which wemay see and from which we may learn how the Greeks and Romanslived. Near Naples are the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman citysuddenly destroyed during an eruption of the volcanoVesuvius. For hundreds of years the city lay buried under fifteen ortwenty feet of ashes. When these were taken away, the old streetsand the walls of the houses could be seen. No roofs were left andthe walls in many places were only partly standing, but thingswhich in other ancient cities had entirely disappeared were keptsafe in Pompeii under the volcanic ashes. The traveler who walks to-day along the ruined streets can seehow its inhabitants lived two thousand years ago. He can visittheir public buildings and their private houses, can handle theirdishes and can look at the paintings on their walls or themosaics in the floors. But interesting as Pompeii is, we must notthink that its ruins teach us more than the ruins of Rome orAthens or many other ancient cities. Each has something importantto tell us of the people who lived long ago. Ancient Words still in Use. The ancient Greeks andRomans have left us some things more useful than the ruins oftheir buildings. These are the words in our language which oncewere theirs, and which we use with slight changes in spelling.Most of our words came in the beginning from Germany, where ourEnglish forefathers lived before they settled in England. To thewords they took over from Germany they added words borrowed fromother peoples, just as we do now. We have recently borrowedseveral words from the French, such as tonneau and limousine,words used to describe parts of an automobile, besides the nameautomobile itself, which is made up of a Latin and a Greekword.
In this way, for hundreds of years, words have been cominginto our language from other languages. Several thousand havecome from Latin, the language of the Romans; several hundred fromGreek, either directly or passed on to us by the Romans or theFrench. The word school is Greek, and the word arithmetic wasborrowed from the French, who took it from the Greeks. Geographyis another word which came, through French and Latin, from theGreeks, to whom it meant that which is written about the earth.The word grammar came in the same way. The word alphabet is madeby joining together the names of the first two Greek letters,alpha and beta. Many words about religion are borrowed from the Greeks, andthis is not strange, for the New Testament was written in Greek.Some of these are Bible, church, bishop, choir, angel, devil,apostle, and martyr. The Greeks have handed down to us many wordsabout government, including the word itself, which in thebeginning meant "to steer." Politics meant having to do with apolis or city. Several of the words most recently made upof Greek words are telegraph, telephone, phonograph, andthermometer. Many Words borrowed from the Romans. Nearly ten timesas many of our words are borrowed from the Romans as from theGreeks, and it is not strange, because at one time the Romansruled over all the country now occupied by the Italians, theFrench, the Spaniards, a part of the Germans, and the English, sothat these peoples naturally learned the words used by theirconquerors and governors. Interesting Ancient Stories. In the poems and taleswhich we learn at home or at school are stories which Greek andRoman parents and teachers taught their children many hundredyears ago. We learn them partly because they are interesting, andbecause they please or amuse us, and partly because they appearso often in our books that it is necessary to know them if wewould understand our own books and language. Who has not heard ofHercules and his Labors, of the Search for the Golden Fleece, theSiege of Troy, or the Wanderings of Ulysses? We love modern fairystories and tales of adventure, but they are not more pleasingthan these ancient stories.
The Story of the Greeks. Our language and our books arefull of memories of Greek and Roman deeds of courage. The storyof the Greeks comes before the story of the Romans, for theGreeks were living in beautiful cities, with temples andtheaters, while the Romans were still an almost unknown peopledwelling on the hills that border the river Tiber. Memories of Greek Courage.[11] The most heroic deeds of the Greeks took placein a great war between the Greek cities and the kingdom of Persiaabout five hundred years before Christ. In those days there wasno kingdom called Greece, such as the geographies now describe.Instead there were cities, a few of which were ruled by kings,others by the citizens themselves. These cities banded togetherwhen any danger threatened them. Sometimes one city turnedtraitor and helped the enemy against the others. The mostdangerous enemy the Greeks had, until the Romans attacked them,was the kingdom of Persia, which stretched from the Aegean Seafar into Asia. In the war with the Persians the Greeks foughtthree famous battles, at Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis, thestories of which men have always liked to hear and remember. Preparing for Marathon, 490 B.C. To the Atheniansbelong the glories of Marathon. They lived where the modern cityof Athens now stands. The ruins of their temples and theatersstill attract students and travelers to Greece. The plain ofMarathon lay more than twenty miles to the northeast, and theroads to it led through mountain passes. When the Athenians heardthat the hosts of the Great King of Persia were approaching, theysent a runner, Pheidippides by name, to ask aid of Sparta, a cityone hundred and forty miles away, in the peninsula now called theMorea, where dwelt the sturdiest fighters of Greece. This runnerreached Sparta on the second day, but the Spartans said it wouldbe against their religious custom to march before the moon wasfull. The Athenians saw that they must meet the enemy alone--onesmall city against a mighty empire. They called their tenthousand men together and set out. On the way they were joined bya thousand more, the whole army of the brave little town ofPlataea.
How the Athenians were Armed. Although the Persians hadsix times as many soldiers as the Athenians, they were not sowell armed for hand to hand fighting. Their principal weapon wasthe bow and arrow, while the Greeks used the lance and a shortsword. The Greek soldier was protected by his bronze helmet,solid across the forehead and over the nose; by his breastplate,a leathern or linen tunic covered with small metal scales, withflaps hanging below his hips; and by greaves or pieces of metalin front of his knees and shins. He was also protected by ashield, often long enough to reach from his face to his knees.According to a strange custom the Athenians were led by tengenerals, each commanding one day in turn. The Battle-ground. Marathon was a plain about two mileswide, lying between the mountains and the sea. From it two roadsran toward Athens, one along the shore where the hills almostreached the sea, the other up a narrow valley and over themountains. The Athenians were encamped in this valley, where theycould attack the Persians if they tried to follow the shoreroad. The Persians landed from their ships and filled the plain nearthe shore. They wanted to fight in the open plain because theyhad so many more soldiers than the Athenians and because theymeant to use their horsemen. For some time the Athenians watchedthe Persians, not knowing what it was best to do. Half thegenerals did not wish to risk a battle, but Miltiades was eagerto fight, for he feared that delay would lead timid citizens ortraitors to yield to the Persians. He finally gained his wish,and on his day of command the battle was ordered. The Battle. The Persians by this time had decided tosail around to the harbor of Athens and had taken their horsemenon board their ships. When they saw the Greeks coming they drewup their foot-soldiers in deep masses. The Athenians and theircomrades--the Plataeans--soon began to move forward on the run.The Persians thought this madness, because the Greeks had noarchers or horsemen. But the Greeks saw that if they movedforward slowly the Persians would have time to shoot arrows atthem again and again. When the Greeks rushed upon the Persians the soldiers at thetwo ends of the Persian line gave way and fled towards the shore.In the center, where the best Persian soldiers stood, the Greekswere not at first successful, and were forced to retreat. Butthose who had been victorious came to their rescue, attacked thePersians in the rear, and finally drove them off. The Persiansran into the sea to reach the ships, and the Athenians followedthem. Some of the Greeks were so eager in the fight that theyseized the sides of the ships and tried to keep them from beingrowed away, but the Persians cut at their hands and made them letgo.
The News of the Victory. The Athenians had won avictory of which they were so proud that they meant it nevershould be forgotten. Their city had suddenly become great throughthe courage and self-sacrifice of her citizens. One hundred andninety-two Greeks had fallen, and on the battle-field theircomrades raised over their bodies a mound of earth which stillmarks their tomb. The victors sent the runner Pheidippides tobear the news to Athens. Over the hills he ran until he reachedthe market place, and there, with the message of triumph on hislips, he fell dead. Other Victories of the Greeks. Marathon was only thebeginning of Greek victories over the Persians, only the firststruggle in the long wars between Europe and Asia. Ten yearsafter Marathon the Spartans won everlasting glory by their heroicstand at the Pass of Thermopylae --three hundred Greeks againstthe mighty army of the Persian king Xerxes. The barbarian hordespassed over their bodies, took the road to Athens, burned thecity, but were soon beaten in the sea-fight which took place onthe waters lying between the mainland of Athenian territory andthe island of Salamis. This victory was also due to Atheniancourage and leadership, for the Athenians and their leader,Themistocles, were resolved to stay and fight, although the otherGreeks wanted to sail away. Why Marathon is remembered. The victories of Marathonand Salamis were great not only because small armies of Greeksput to flight the hosts of Persia, they were great because theysaved the independence of Greece. If the Greeks had become thesubjects and slaves of Persia, they would not have built thewonderful buildings, or carved the beautiful statues, or writtenthe books which we study and admire. When we think of the Greeksas our first teachers we feel as proud of their victories as ifthey were our own victories. The Wars of the Greek Cities. The Athenians had donethe most in winning the victory over the Persians, and thereforeAthens was for many years the most powerful city in Greece. TheSpartans were always jealous of the Athenians, and in less than acentury after the victory of Marathon they conquered and humbledAthens. The worst faults of the Greeks were such jealousies andthe desire to lord it over one another. Greek history is full ofwars of city against city, Sparta against Athens, Corinth againstAthens, and Thebes against Sparta. In these wars many heroicdeeds were done, of which we like to read, but it is moreimportant for us to understand how the Greeks lived.
[CHAPTER III]HOW THE GREEKS LIVED The Greek Cities. The Greeks lived in cities so much ofthe time that we do not often think of them as ever living in thecountry. The reason for this was that their government andeverything else important was carried on in the city. The citieswere usually surrounded by high, thick stone walls, which madethem safe from sudden attack. Within or beside the city there wasoften a lofty hill, which we should call a fort or citadel, butwhich they called the upper city or acropolis. There the peoplelived at first when they were few in number, and thither theyfled if the walls of their city were broken down by enemies. In Athens such a hill rose two hundred feet above the plain.Its top was a thousand feet long, and all the sides except onewere steep cliffs. On it the Athenians built their most beautifultemples. Private Houses. Unlike people nowadays the Greeks didnot spend much money on their dwelling-houses. To us these houseswould seem small, badly ventilated, and very uncomfortable. Butwhat their houses lacked was more than made up by the beauty andsplendor of the public buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, andespecially the temples. Temples. The temples were not intended to hold hundredsof worshipers like the large churches of Europe and Americato-day. Religious ceremonies were most often carried on in theopen air. The Parthenon, the most famous temple of Ancient Times,was small. Its principal room measured less than one hundred feetin length. Part of this room was used for an altar and for theivory and gold statue of the goddess Athena.
The Parthenon. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of asimilar temple, we notice the columns in front and along thesides. The Parthenon had eight at each end and seventeen on eachside. They were thirty-four feet high. A few feet within thecolumns on the sides was the wall of the temple. Before thevestibule and entrances at the front and at the rear stood sixmore columns. The beauty of the marble from which stones andcolumns were cut might have seemed enough, but the builderscarved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called thepediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting uponthe columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and abovethe columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called afrieze) ran around the top of the temple wall on the outside. Thetemple was not left a glistening white, but parts of it werepainted in blue, or red, or gilt, or orange.
Other Greek Temples. This beautiful temple is nowpartly ruined. Ruins of other temples are on the Acropolis, andone better preserved, called the Theseum, stands on a lower hill.There are also similar ruins in many places along the shores ofthe Mediterranean. The most interesting are [at][Paestum] in Italy, and at Girgenti in Sicily.Long before these temples were ruined they had taught the Romanshow to construct one of the most beautiful kinds of buildings,and this the Romans later taught the peoples of westernEurope.
Greek Methods of Building still used. If we look at ourlarge buildings, we shall see much to remind us of the Greekbuildings. Sometimes the exact form of the Greek building isimitated; sometimes this form is changed as the Romans changedit, or as it was changed by builders who lived after the time ofthe Romans. If the model of the whole building is not used, thereare similar pillars, or gables, or the sculpture in the pedimentand the frieze is imitated. The Greeks had three kinds ofpillars, named Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Doric is simpleand solid, the Ionic shows in its capital, or top, delicate andbeautiful curves, while the Corinthian is adorned with leavesspringing gracefully from the top of the pillar.
Theaters. The first Greek theater was only a smoothopen space near a hillside, with a tent, called askené, or scene, in which the actors dressed. Lateran amphitheater of stone seats was constructed on the hillside,and across the open end was placed the scene, which hadbeen changed into a stone building. On its front sometimes ahouse or a palace was painted, just as nowadays theaters arefurnished with painted scenery. In these open-air theatersthousands of people gathered. Plays were generally given as apart of religious festivals, and there were contests betweenwriters to see which could produce the best play. Sometimes theplays followed one another for three days from morning untilnight. Many of them are so interesting that people still readthem, after twenty-five hundred years. The Romans studied them,and so do modern men who are preparing themselves to writeplays.
The Stadium. A building which somewhat resembled thetheater was the stadium, where races were run. The difference wasthat it was oblong instead of half round. The most famousstadium, at Olympia, was seven hundred and two feet long, withraised seats on both sides and around one end of the runningtrack. The other end was open. About fifty thousand persons usedto gather there to watch the races. Porticoes. There were other buildings, some for meetingplaces, some for gymnasiums, and still others called porticoes,where the judges held court or the city officers carried on theirbusiness. The porticoes were simply rows of columns, roofed over,with occasionally a second story. As they stretched along thesides of a square or market place they added much to the beautyof a city. Greek Sculpture. We know that the Greeks were skilfulsculptors because from the ruins of their cities have been dugwonderful marble and bronze statues which are now preserved inthe great museums of the world, in Paris, London, Berlin, andRome, and here in America, in New York and Boston. Museums whichcannot have the original statues usually contain copies or castsof them in plaster. The statues are generally marred and broken,but enough remains to show us the wonderful beauty of theartist's work. Among the most famous are the Venus, of Melos (or"de Milo"), which stands in a special room in a museum called theLouvre in Paris; the Hermes in the museum of Olympia in Greece;and the figures from the Parthenon in the British Museum inLondon.
Artists nowadays, like the Roman artists long ago, study theGreek statues and the Greek sculpture, in order that they maylearn how such beautiful things can be made. They do not hope toexcel the Greeks, but are content to remain their pupils. Painting and Pottery. The Greeks were also painters,makers of pottery, and workers in gold and silver. Many pieces oftheir workmanship have been discovered by those who have dug inthe ruins of ancient buildings and tombs.
What the Boys were taught. The Greek boys were not verygood at arithmetic, and even grown men used counting boards ortheir fingers to help them in reckoning. In learning to writethey smeared a thin layer of wax over a board and marked on that.There was a kind of paper called papyrus, made from a reed whichgrew mostly in Egypt, but this was expensive. Rolls were made ofsheets of it pasted together, and these were their books. One ofthe books the boys studied much was the poems of Homer--the Iliadand the Odyssey--which tell about the siege of Troy and thewanderings of Ulysses. Boys often learned these long poems byheart. They also stored away in their memories the sayings ofother poets and wise men, so that they could generally know whatto think, having with them so many good and wise thoughts put insuch excellent words. Games and Exercises for Boys. It is not surprising thatGreek boys knew how to play, but it is surprising that theyplayed many of the games which boys play now, such ashide-and-seek, tug of war, ducks and drakes, and blind man'sbuff. They even "pitched pennies." In school the boys were taughtnot only to read and write, but to be skilful athletes, and toplay on the lyre, accompanying this with singing. The gymnasiumwas often an open space near a stream into which they couldplunge after their exercises were over. They were taught to box,to wrestle, to throw the discus, and to hurl the spear. Militarytraining was important for them, since all might be called tofight for the safety of their city. The Olympic Games. Boys and young men were trained asrunners, wrestlers, boxers, and discus throwers, not only becausethey enjoyed these exercises and the Greeks thought them animportant part of education, but also that they might bring backhonors and prizes to their city from the great games which allthe Greeks held every few years. The most famous of these gameswere held at Olympia. There the Greeks went from all parts of thecountry, carrying their tents and cooking utensils with them,because there were not enough houses in Olympia to hold so manypeople. Wars even were stopped for a time in order that the gamesmight not be postponed. The Rewards of the Victors. The principal contest was adash for two hundred yards, although there were longer races andmany other kinds of contests. Unfortunately the Greeks liked tosee the most brutal sort of boxing, in which the boxer's handsand arms were covered with heavy strips of leather stiffened withpieces of iron or lead. For the games men trained ten months,part of the time at Olympia. The prize was a crown of wild olive,and the winner returned in triumph to his city, where poets sanghis praises, a special seat at public games was reserved for him,and often artists were employed to make a bronze statue of him tobe set up in Olympia or in his own city.
The Government of Athens. The citizen of Athens, and ofother Greek cities, had more to do with his government than domost Americans with theirs. As nearly all work was done byslaves, he had plenty of time to attend meetings. All thecitizens could attend the great assembly, or ecclesia,where six thousand at least must be present before anything couldbe decided. By this assembly foreigners might be admitted tocitizenship or citizens might be expelled, or ostracized, fromAthens as hurtful to its welfare. There was a smaller council of five hundred which decided lessimportant questions without laying them before the generalassembly. This body was chosen by lot just as our juries are, butmembers of the council whose term had ended had a right to objectto any new member as an unworthy citizen A tenth of the councilruled for a tenth of the year, and they chose their president bylot every day, so that any worthy man at Athens had a chance tobe president for a day and a night. Many citizens also served in the courts, for there were sixthousand judges, and in deciding important cases as many as athousand and one, or even fifteen hundred and one, took part.Before such large courts and assemblies it was necessary to be agood speaker to be able to win a case or persuade the citizens.Some of the greatest orators of the world were Athenians, thebest known being Demosthenes.
Socrates. The Athenians were not always just, althoughso many of them acted as judges. One court, composed of fivehundred and one judges, condemned to death Socrates, the wisestman of the Greeks and one of the wisest in the world. He did notmake speeches, or write books, or teach in school. He went about,in the market place, at the gymnasium, and on the streets, askingmen, young and old, questions about what interested him most,that is, What is the true way to live? If people did not give himan answer which seemed good, he asked more questions, untilsometimes they went away angry. Many of them thought because heasked questions about everything that he did not believe inanything, not even in the religion of his city.
The Death of Socrates, 399 B.C. After a while theenemies of Socrates accused him of being a wicked man whopersuaded young men to be wicked. He was tried by an Atheniancourt, which made the terrible blunder of finding him guilty andcondemning him to death. According to the Athenian custom he wasobliged to drink a cup of poisonous hemlock. This he did, aftertalking to his friends cheerily about how a good man should live.As he wrote no books we have learned about him from his friends.The most famous of these was Plato, who is also counted among thewisest men that ever lived. The story of the lives of these menis another gift which the Greeks made to all who were to liveafter them, and it is quite as valuable as are the ways ofbuilding, artistic skill, or great poems and plays.
[CHAPTER IV]GREEK EMIGRANTS OR COLONISTS When the Atlantic was unknown. One of the mostimportant things done by the men of Ancient Times was to explorethe coasts and lands of Europe and to make settlements whereverthey went. At first they knew little of the western and northernparts of Europe. Herodotus, a Greek whom we call the "Father ofHistory," and who was a great traveler, said, "Though I havetaken vast pains, I have never been able to get an assurance fromany eye-witness that there is any sea on the further side ofEurope." By the "further side" he meant "western," and his remarkshows that he did not know of the Atlantic Ocean. He understoodthat tin and amber came from the "Tin Islands," which he calledthe "ends of the earth." As tin came from England, it is plainthat he had heard a little of that island.
Greek Emigrants. Long before Athens became a great andbeautiful city the Greeks had begun to make settlements ondistant shores. Those who lived on the western coast of AsiaMinor, as well as those who lived where the kingdom of Greece isnow, sent out colonists or emigrants. The Greek colonies werevery important, because by them the ancient civilized world wasmade larger, just as by the settlement of America the modernworld was doubled in size. The colonists sailed away from homefor the same reasons which led our forefathers to leave Englandand Europe for America. They either hoped to find it easier in anew land to make a living and obtain property, or they did notlike the way their city was ruled, and being unable to changethis, resolved to build elsewhere a city which they could manageas they pleased. How they located a New City. There were severaldifferent lands to which they could go, just as the European ofto-day may sail for the United States or South America orAustralia. They could attempt to settle on the shores of theBlack Sea, or cross over to northern Africa, or try to reachItaly and the more distant coasts of what are now France andSpain. In order to choose wisely, they generally asked the adviceof the priests of their god Apollo at his temple at Delphi. Thesepriests knew more about good places for settlements than mostother persons, because travelers from everywhere came to Delphiand the priests were wise enough to inquire about all parts ofthe world.
The story is told that one group of emigrants was advised tolocate their new colony opposite the "city of the blind." Theydiscovered that these words meant that an earlier band ofemigrants had passed by the wonderful harbor of the present cityof Constantinople and had settled instead on the other shore ofthe Bosphorus. Taught by the oracle they chose the better placeand began to build the city of Byzantium, which later becameConstantinople. Mother and Daughter Cities. Solemn ceremonies tookplace when colonists departed. They carried with them fire fromthe hearth of the mother city in order to light a similar fire ontheir new hearth, for every city had its hearthstone and on it afire that was never quenched. The ties between the mother and thedaughter city were close, and the enemies of one were the enemiesof the other. He who wished to visit the colony usually went tothe mother city to find a ship bound thither. Where the Settlements were made. When the Greek sailorsfirst entered the Black Sea, they thought it a boundless ocean,and called it the Pontus, a word which means "The Main." Untilthat time they had been accustomed to sail only from island toisland in the Aegean Sea. After a while they made settlements allaround the shores of the Black Sea, and in later times Athensdrew from this region her supply of grain. Still more importantsettlements were made in Sicily and southern Italy, for it wasthrough these settlements that some of the things the Greeksknew, like the art of writing, were taught to the Italian tribesand to the Romans. Dangers of the Voyage. At first Greek sailors fearedthe dangers of the western Mediterranean as much as those of theBlack Sea. They imagined that the huge, misshapen, and dreadfulmonsters Scylla and Charybdis lurked in the Straits of Messinawaiting to seize and swallow the unlucky passer-by. On the slopesof Mount Aetna dwelt, they thought, hideous, one-eyed giants, theCyclops, who fed their fierce appetites with the quivering fleshof many captives.
Greeks in the West.[(See map[7a].)] The earliest settlement of the Greeksin Italy was at Cumae, on a headland at the entrance of the Bayof Naples. Later these colonists entered the bay and founded the"new city," or Neapolis, which we call Naples. Finally there wereso many Greek cities in southern Italy that it was named "GreatGreece." The Greeks also made settlements in what is now southernFrance and eastern Spain. The principal one was Massilia, orMarseilles. Through the traders of this city the ancient worldobtained a supply of tin from Britain, a country which is nowcalled England. Greek Colonies as Centers of Civilization. The Greeksin these colonies traded with the natives whose villages werenear by, and many of the natives learned to live like the Greeks.In this way the Greeks became teachers of civilization, and theGreek world, which at first was made up of cities on the shoresof the Aegean Sea, was spread from place to place along thecoasts of the Mediterranean Sea.
Greek Ships. The ships of the Greeks were verydifferent from modern vessels. Of course they were not driven bysteam, nor did they rely as much on sails as modern sailing shipsdo. They had sails, but were driven forward mostly by their oars.The trireme, or ordinary war-ship, had its oars arranged in threebanks, fifty men rowing at once. After these had rowed severalhours, or a "watch," another fifty took their places, and finallya third fifty, so that the ships could be rowed at high speed allthe time. With the aid of its two sails a trireme is said to havegone one hundred and fifty miles in a day and a night. Theseboats were about one hundred and twenty feet long and fifteenfeet wide. They could be rowed in shallow water, but were nothigh enough to ride heavy seas safely. They had a sharp beak,which, driven against an enemy's ship, would break in its sides.The Greek grain ships and freight boats were heavier and morecapable of enduring rough weather.
Alexander the Great, King of Macedon from 336 to 323B.C. Greek ways of living were also carried eastward as wellas westward. The enlargement of the Greek world in this directionwas due to Alexander the Great, the most skilful soldier and theablest leader of men among all the Greeks. Alexander was king ofMacedon, and like the earlier Greeks he regarded the Persians ashis enemies, and made war upon them. After conquering thePersians he marched across western Asia until he had reached theIndus River in India. He was a builder of cities as well as aconqueror. He founded seventy cities, and sixteen of them werenamed for him. The most important was the Alexandria which isstill the chief seaport of Egypt. Greek became the languagecommonly spoken throughout the lands near the easternMediterranean. This is the reason why in later times the NewTestament was written in Greek. Alexandria. Of this Greek world Athens ceased to be thecenter and Alexandria took its place. At Alexandria there was agreat library which contained over five hundred thousand volumesor rolls. There also was the museum or university, in which manylearned men were at work. The best known of these men was Euclid,who perfected the mathematics which we call geometry, andPtolemy, whose ideas about geography and the shape and size ofthe globe Columbus carefully studied before he set out on hisgreat voyage. Alexandria was also a center of trade and commerce.From Alexandria, because its ships were the first foreign shipsto be admitted to a Roman port, the Romans gained their likingfor many of the beautiful things which the Greeks made.
[CHAPTER V]NEW RIVALS OF THE GREEKS The Greek Colonies and the Carthaginians. The Greekcolonies were sometimes in danger of being attacked by the nativetribes whose lands they had seized or by the wilder tribes thatdwelt further from the coast. In Sicily their most dangerousneighbors were the Carthaginians at the western end of theisland. The chief town of these people was Carthage, situatedopposite Sicily in northern Africa in what is now Tunis. TheCarthaginians were emigrants from Tyre and other cities ofPhoenicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and becauseof their many ships held control of a large part of the westernMediterranean. They had colonies even in Spain, where in veryearly times Phoenician traders had gone to obtain gold andsilver. The Greeks and the Romans. In Italy the most dangerousneighbors of the Greek colonists were the Romans, who livedhalf-way up the western side of the peninsula along the riverTiber. The history of the Romans, like the history of the Greeks,is full of interesting and wonderful tales. Some of them arelegends, such as every people likes to tell about its earlyhistory. They relate how the city was founded by two brothers,Romulus and Remus; how Horatius defended the bridge across theTiber against the hosts of the exiled Tarquin king; how thefarmer Cincinnatus, having been made leader or dictator, insixteen days drove off the neighboring tribes which wereattacking the Romans and then went back to his plough. The Gauls burn Rome, 390 B.C. The Romans told storiesof their defeats as well as of their victories. One of thesetells how hosts of Gauls, a people of the same race as theforefathers of the French, streamed southward from the valley ofthe Po. The Romans were alarmed by such tall men, with fierceeyes, and fair, flowing hair, whose swords crashed through thefrail Roman helmets. They sent a large army to stop the invaders,but in the battle, which was fought only twelve miles from Rome,this army was destroyed.
The few defenders that were left withdrew to the Capitoline,the steepest of the hills over which the city had spread. Some ofthe older senators and several priests scorned to seek a refugefrom the fury of the barbarians, and took their seats quietly inivory chairs in the market place or Forum at the foot of theCapitoline hill. The Gauls at first gazed in wonder at thestrange sight of the motionless figures. When one of themattempted to stroke the white beard of a senator, the senatorstruck him with his staff; then the Gauls fell upon senators andpriests and slew them. The sides of the Capitoline hill were so steep that for a longtime the Gauls were baffled in their attempts to seize it. Atlast they discovered a path, and one dark night were on the pointof scaling the height when some geese, sacred to the goddessJuno, cackled and flapped their wings until the garrison wasaroused and the Gauls hurled headlong down the precipice. Thegarrison was saved, but the city was burned. This happened inRome just one hundred years after the battle of Marathon inGreece. The Caudine Forks. Another adventure did not have sohappy an ending. The Romans were at war with the Samnites, atribe living on the slopes of the Apennines, who were continuallyattacking the Greek cities on the coast. The war was caused bythe attempt of the Romans to protect one of the Greek cities. TheRoman generals, with a large army, in making their way into theSamnite country attempted to march through a narrow gorge whichbroadened out into a plain and then was closed again at thefarther end by another gorge. When they reached this second gorgethey found the road blocked by fallen trees and heaps of stones.They also saw Samnites on the heights above them. In alarm theyhastened to retrace their steps, only to find the other entranceclosed in the same way. After vain attempts to force a passage orto scale the surrounding heights they were obliged tosurrender.
The Samnites compelled the Roman army, both generals andsoldiers, each clad in a single garment, to pass "under the yoke"made of two spears set upright with one laid across, while theystood by and jeered. If any Roman looked angry or sullen at hisdisgrace, they struck or even killed him. This was called thedisaster of the Caudine Forks, from the pass where the Romanswere caught.
The Romans and the Greek Cities. Not many years afterthis the Romans quarreled with the Greek cities of southernItaly. The Greeks of Tarentum, situated where Taranto is now,called to their aid Pyrrhus, who ruled a part of Alexander's oldkingdom. Pyrrhus was a skilful general, and he had with him,besides his foot-soldiers and horsemen, many trained elephants. Acharge of these elephants was too much for the Romans, who werealready hard pressed by the long spears of the soldiers ofPyrrhus. But the Romans were ready for another battle, and inthis they fought so stubbornly and killed so many of the Greeksoldiers that Pyrrhus cried out, "Another victory like this andwe are ruined." In a third battle, which took place 275 B.C., hewas defeated, and returned to Greece, leaving the Romans mastersof the Greek cities in Italy. The Romans Conquerors of Italy. By this time there werefew tribes south of the river Po which did not own the Romans astheir masters. All Italy was united under their rule. This wasthe first step in the conquest of the world that lay about theMediterranean Sea and in the extension of that ancient world tothe shores of the Atlantic and to England. Before we read thestory of the other conquests we must inquire who the Roman peoplewere and how they lived. How the Romans lived. In early times most of the Romanswere farmers or cattle raisers. A man's wealth was reckonedaccording to the number of cattle he owned. Their manner ofliving was simple and frugal. Like the Greek, the Roman had hisgames. He enjoyed chariot-races, but used slaves or freedmen asdrivers. He also went to the theater, although he thought itunworthy of a Roman to be an actor. Such an occupation was forforeigners or slaves.
Roman Boys at School. The boys at school did not learnpoems, as did the Greek boys, but studied the first set of lawsmade by the Romans, called the Twelve Tables. This they read,copied, and learned by heart. Their interest in laws was thefirst sign that they were to become the world's greatestlawmakers. Roman Women. In their respect for women the Romans weresuperior to the Greeks. The Roman mother did not remain in thewomen's apartments of the house, as she was expected to do atAthens, but was her husband's companion, received his guests,directed her household, and went in and out as she chose. Patricians and Plebeians. The men of the families whichfirst ruled Rome were called patricians or nobles, while the restwere plebeians or common people. There were also many slaves, butthey had no rights. At first only the patricians knew exactlywhat the laws were, because the laws were not written in a book.When disputes arose between patricians and plebeians aboutproperty, the plebeians believed the patricians changed the lawsin order to gain an advantage over their poorer neighbors. The story is told that twice the plebeians withdrew from thecity and refused to return until their wrongs were removed. Thenthey compelled the nobles to draw up the laws in a roll calledthe [Twelve Tables.] At thistime messengers were sent to Athens to examine the laws of theGreeks. The richer plebeians were also gradually admitted to allthe offices of the Roman republic, and so became noblesthemselves. Government at Rome. The Romans had once been ruled bykings, but now their chief officers were consuls. Two consulswere chosen each year because the Romans feared that a singleconsul might make himself a king, or, at least, gain too muchpower. The real rulers of Rome, however, were the senators, themen who had held the prominent offices. There were assemblies ofthe people, but these generally did what the senators or otherofficers told them to do. Among the interesting officers of Rome was the censor, whodrew up a list or census of the citizens and of their property.Another officer was the tribune, chosen in the beginning by theplebeians to protect them against the patricians. The tribune wasnot at first a member of the senate, but he was given a seatoutside the door, and if a law was proposed that would injure theplebeians, he cried out, "Veto," which means "I forbid," and thelaw had to be dropped. This is the origin of our word "veto." How the Romans treated the Italians. The Romans werewise in their dealings with the cities or tribes which theyconquered. They not only sent out colonies of theirfellow-citizens to occupy a part of the lands they had seized,but they also gave the conquered peoples a share in theirgovernment, and in some cases allowed them to act as citizens ofRome. These new Roman citizens helped the older Romans in theirwars with other tribes. In this way Roman towns gradually spreadover Italy.
[CHAPTER VI]THE MEDITERRANEAN A ROMAN LAKE Rome in Peril. The conquest of Italy by the Romans tookabout two hundred and fifty years. The conquest of the peoplesliving in the other lands on the shores of the Mediterranean tooknearly as long again. Only twice in these four or five hundredyears was Rome in serious danger of destruction. Once it was bythe Gauls, as we have read, who captured all the city except thecitadel. The second time it was by the Carthaginians, who livedon the northern coast of Africa. The Romans were finallyvictorious over all their enemies because they were patient andcourageous in misfortune and refused to believe that they couldbe conquered. Cause of War with Carthage. The Carthaginians wereangry at the way the Romans treated them. They watched with alarmthe steady growth of the Roman power, and feared that the Romans,if masters of Italy, would attack their trade with the cities ofthe western Mediterranean. A quarrel broke out over a city inSicily. At first the Carthaginians seemed to have the best of it,because they had a strong war fleet while the Romans had only afew small vessels. But the Romans hurriedly built ships andplaced upon each a kind of drawbridge, fitted with great hookscalled grappling-irons. These they let down upon the enemy'sdecks as soon as the ships came close enough, and over thesedrawbridges the Roman soldiers rushed and captured theCarthaginian ships. When the Carthaginians asked for peace, the Romans demanded agreat sum of money and a promise that the Carthaginians wouldleave the cities in Sicily which they occupied. Soon afterwardthe Romans took advantage of a mutiny in the Carthaginian army todemand more money and to seize Sardinia and Corsica. No wonderthe Carthaginians were angry. The result was a new and moreterrible war. Hannibal. The Carthaginians in the new war were led byHannibal, who understood how to fight battles better than any ofthe generals whom the Romans sent against him. The story is toldthat when he was a boy his father made him promise, at the altarof his city's gods, undying hatred to Rome. Even the Romansthought him a wonderful man. Their historians said that toil didnot wear out his body or exhaust his energy. Cold or heat werealike to him. He never ate or drank more than he needed. He sleptwhen he had time, whether it was day or night, wrapping himselfin a military cloak and lying on the ground in the midst of hissoldiers. He did not dress better than the other officers, buthis weapons and his horses were the best in the army. War carried into Italy, 218 B.C. Hannibal decided thatthe war should be carried into Italy to the very gates of Rome.He started from Spain, half of which the Carthaginians ruled,marched across southern Gaul, and came to the foot-hills of theAlps. To climb the Alps was the most difficult part of his longjourney. Crossing the Alps. There were no roads across themountains, only rough paths used by the mountaineers, whoconstantly attacked Hannibal's soldiers, bursting out suddenlyupon them from behind a turn in the trail, or rolling huge rocksupon them from above. The elephants, the horses, and the baggageanimals of the army were frightened, and in the tumult many ofthem slipped over the precipices and were dashed on the rocksbelow. For five days the army toiled upward, and then rested twodays on the summit of the pass.
Although the road down into Italy was short, it was steep, andthe paths were slippery with ice and with snow trodden into slushby thousands of men and animals. In one place there had been alandslide, and the road along the rocky slope was cut away for athousand feet. In order to build a new road it was necessary tocrack the rocks. This the soldiers did by making huge fires andpouring wine over the heated surface. At last, worn out, ragged,and half starved, the army reached the plains of Italy, but witha loss of half its men. How Hannibal won a Victory. The first great battle withthe Romans was fought on the river Trebia in northern Italy, andin it Hannibal showed how easily he could outwit and destroy aRoman army. It was a winter's day and the river was swollen byrains. The two camps lay on opposite banks. In the early morningHannibal sent across the river a body of horsemen to attack theRoman camp and draw the Romans into a battle. At the same time heordered his other soldiers to eat breakfast, to build firesbefore their tents to warm themselves, and to rub their bodieswith oil, so that they might be strong for the coming fight. The Romans were suddenly roused by the attack of theCarthaginian horsemen, and, without waiting for food, moved outof camp, chasing the horsemen toward the river. Into its icywaters the Romans waded breast-high, and when they came up on theopposite bank they were benumbed with cold. As soon as Hannibalknew that the Romans had crossed the river he attacked themfiercely with all his troops. Two thousand men whom he had placedin ambush fell upon the rear of their line. Their allies werefrightened by a charge of elephants. Seeing that destruction wascertain, ten thousand of the best soldiers broke through theCarthaginian line and marched away. All the rest of the army wasdestroyed. Roman Endurance. This was not the last of the Romandefeats. Two other armies were destroyed by Hannibal during thenext two years. In the battle of Cannae nearly seventy thousandRomans, including eighty senators, were slain. The news filledthe city with weeping women, but the senate did not think ofyielding. When their allies deserted them, they besieged thefaithless cities, took them, beheaded the rulers, and sold theinhabitants into slavery. They did not dare to fight Hannibal in the open field, buttried to wear him out by cutting off all small bodies of histroops and by making it difficult for him to get food for hisarmy. They carried the war into Spain and finally into Africa,and when, with a weakened army, Hannibal faced them there, theydefeated him. His defeat was the ruin of Carthage, for theunhappy city was compelled to see her fleet destroyed, to pay theRomans a huge sum of money, and to give up Spain to them.
Other Roman Triumphs. The war with Carthage ended twohundred and two years before the birth of Christ. In the warsthat followed, Roman armies fought not only in Spain and Africa,but also in Greece and Asia. Carthage was destroyed; as was alsoCorinth, a Greek city. Roman generals enriched themselves andsent great treasures back to Rome. Roman merchants grew richbecause their rivals in Carthage and Corinth were ruined orbecause the conquered cities were forbidden to trade with anycity but Rome. All this took a long time and many wars, but inthe end the Romans became masters of every land along the shoresof the Mediterranean. This was not wholly a misfortune, for theRomans had learned that the Greeks were superior to them in somethings and they took the Greeks as their teachers in most of thearts of living. The ancient world became a sort of partnership,and we call its civilization Graeco-Roman, that is, both Greekand Roman. The Romans as Rulers. The Romans at first treated thelands in Sicily, Spain, Africa, Greece, and Asia as conqueredterritories, or provinces, sending to rule over them officers whowere to act both as governors and judges. With these men wentmany tax-collectors or "publicans." The Romans were obliged toleave in most provinces a large body of soldiers to put down anyattempt at rebellion. Often the officers and the publicans robbedthe country instead of ruling it justly. Evil Results of Conquest. During the wars the Romanshad lost many of their simple ways of living. Some had grown richin the business of providing for the armies and navies, and theywere eager for new wars in order to make still bigger fortunes.Hannibal's marches up and down Italy had driven thousands offarmers from their homes, and they had wandered to Rome forsafety and food. When the war was over many of them did not goback to their homes. Those who did found that they could nolonger get fair prices for their crops because great quantitiesof wheat were shipped to Rome from the conquered lands. Wealthymen bought the little farms and joined them, making great estateswhere slaves raised sheep and cattle or tended vineyards andolive groves. There was not much work for free men in Rome, forslaves were very cheap. One army of prisoners was sold at abouteight cents apiece. In this way the poor were made idle, whilethe rich sent everywhere for new luxuries.
Cruel Sports. To amuse the idle crowds, office-seekersand victorious generals provided cruel sports. Savage animalswere turned loose to tear one another to pieces. What was worse,human prisoners were compelled to fight, armed with swords orspears. These men were called gladiators, and often werespecially trained to fight with one another or with wildbeasts. Some Things the Romans learned. But the successes ofthe Romans brought them other things which were good. They tookthe buildings of the Greeks as models and built similar templesand porticoes in Rome, especially about the old market place orForum. Their own houses, which in earlier times were nothing butcabins, they enlarged, and if they were rich enough, builtpalaces, adorned with paintings and with statues. Unfortunatelymany of these came from the plunder of Greek cities, for theRomans were great robbers of other peoples. The poorer Romanscontinued to live in wretched hovels. The Theater. The Romans learned more about the theatersof the Greeks. Their plays were either translated into Latin fromGreek or retold in a different manner from the original Greek.The Romans did not succeed in writing any plays of their ownwhich were as good as the plays of the Greeks.
The New Education of the Romans. The Greeks also taughtthe Romans how to write poems and histories. The first historieswere written in Greek, but later the Romans learned how to writein Latin prose and poetry as good as much that had been writtenby the Greeks. Greek became the second language of every educatedRoman, and thus he could enjoy the books of the Greeks as well asthose written by Romans. The education of the Roman boy now beganwith the poems of Homer, and the young man's education was notthought to be finished until he had traveled in Greece and thelands along the eastern Mediterranean.
[CHAPTER VII]THE ANCIENT WORLD EXTENDED TO THE SHORES OF THE ATLANTIC New Conquests of the Romans. The Romans had as yetconquered only civilized peoples like themselves, with theexception of the tribes in Spain and southern Gaul. Now the Romanarmies were to push northward over the plains and through theforests of Gaul, across the Rhine into unknown Germany, and overthe Channel into Britain, equally unknown. They were to beexplorers as well as conquerors. In this way they were to carrytheir civilization to the Rhine and the Atlantic, and so increasegreatly the part of the earth where men lived and thought as theRomans did and as the Greeks had before them. The ancientcivilized world was beginning to move from its older center, theMediterranean, toward the shore of the Atlantic. Ancestors of the French and the Germans. The tribesliving in Gaul were not at that time called French, but Gallic.The Gauls were like the Britons who lived across the Channel inBritain. The German ancestors of the English had not yet crossedthe North Sea to that land. Beyond the Rhine lived the Germans,who had but little to do with the Romans and the Greeks and werestill barbarians. The Gauls living farthest away from the Romansettlements were not much more civilized. The principal difference between the Germans and the Gauls wasthat the Gauls lived in villages and towns and cultivated theland or dug in mines or traded along the rivers, while theGermans had no towns and dwelt in clearings of the forest. Theirwealth, like that of the early Romans, was their cattle. The landthey cultivated was divided between them year after year, so thata German owned only his hut and the plot of ground or gardenabout it. Some of the towns of the Gauls were placed on highhills and were protected by strong walls. The Terrible Germans. The Romans had at first beenafraid of the Gauls, because they had never forgotten howterribly these people had once defeated them. But since that timethey had fought the Gauls so often that they were losing thisfear. They now dreaded more to meet the Germans, who seemed likegiants because they were taller even than the Gauls.
Gallic and German Warriors. The leaders of the Germanswere sometimes kings and sometimes nobles whom the Romans calledduces, from which comes our word duke. The Gallicchieftains were adorned with gold necklaces, bracelets, andrings. When they went out to battle, they wore helmets shapedlike the head of some ravenous beast, and their bodies wereprotected by coats of chain armor made of iron rings. Theirprincipal weapon was a long, heavy sword. Both German and Gallicnobles were accompanied by bands of young men, their devotedfollowers, who shared the joys of victory or died with them incase of defeat. It was a disgrace to lose one's sword or tosurvive if the leader was killed. How the Germans lived. When the Germans were notfighting they were idle, for all work was done by women andslaves. They were great drinkers and gamblers, and often in theirgames a man would stake his freedom upon the result. If he lost,he became the slave of the winner. The Germans respected theirwives, even if they compelled them to do the hard work. The womensometimes went with the men to battle, and their cries encouragedthe warriors, or if the warriors wavered, the fierce reproachesof the women drove them back to the fight. Religion of the Germans. We remember the religion ofthe Germans because four days of the week are named for theirgods or the gods of their neighbors across the Baltic. Theirprincipal god was Wodan, or Odin, god of the sun and the tempest.Wodan's day is Wednesday. Thursday is named for Thor, theNorthmen's god of thunder. The god of war, Tiw, gave a name toTuesday, and Frigu, the goddess of love, to Friday. The German,like his northern neighbors, thought of heaven as the place wherebrave warriors who had died in battle spent their days infeasting. Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar was the great Romangeneral who conquered the Gauls and led the first expeditionsacross the Rhine into Germany and over the Channel into Britain.He was a wealthy noble who, like other nobles, held one officeafter another until he became consul. He was also a greatpolitical leader, and with two other men controlled Rome. Weshould call them "bosses," but the Romans called them"triumvirs."
Caesar in Gaul. As soon as Caesar became governor ofthe province of southern Gaul, he showed that he was a skilfulgeneral as well as a successful politician. He interfered in thewars between the Gauls, taking sides with the friends of theRomans. When a large army of Germans entered Gaul, he defeated itand drove it back across the Rhine. One war led to another untilall the tribes from the country now called Belgium to theMediterranean coast professed to be friends of the Roman people.His campaigns lasted from 58 B.C. for nine years. Two or threetimes Caesar was very close to ruin, but by his courage andenergy he always succeeded in gaining the victory. Vercingetorix, Gallic Hero. The great hero of the Gaulsin their struggle with the Romans was Vercingetorix. He was ayoung noble who lived in a mountain town of central Gaul. Hisfather had been killed in an attempt to make himself king of hisnative city. Vercingetorix believed that if the Gauls did notunite against the Romans they would soon see their lands becomeRoman provinces. As he knew his army was no match for the Romansin open fight, he persuaded the Gauls to try to starve the Romansout of the country. He planned to destroy all village stores ofgrain, and to cut off the smaller bands of soldiers whichwandered from the main army in search of food. Caesar and Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix found the workof conquering Caesar in this way too difficult. He was finallydriven to take refuge in Alesia, on a hilltop in eastern Gaul.Here the Romans prepared to starve him into surrender. They dugmiles of deep trenches about the fortress so that the imprisonedGauls could not break through. They dug other trenches to protectthemselves from the attacks of a great army of Gauls which cameto rescue Vercingetorix. These trenches were fifteen or twentyfeet wide; they were strengthened by palisades and ramparts, andfilled with water where this was possible. Several times theGauls nearly succeeded in breaking through, but the quickness andstubborn courage of Caesar always saved the day. Death of Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix now proved thathe was a real hero. He offered to give himself up to Caesar, ifthis would save the town. But Caesar demanded the submission ofall the chiefs. When they had laid down their arms before theconqueror, Vercingetorix appeared on a gaily decorated horse. Herode around the throne where Caesar sat, dismounted in front,took off his armor, and bowed to the ground. His fate was hard.He was sent to Rome a prisoner, was shown in the triumphalprocession of the victorious Caesar, and was then put to death ina dungeon. On the site of Alesia stands a monument erected by theFrench to the memory of the brave Gallic hero. The defeat ofVercingetorix ended the resistance of the Gauls, and not manyyears afterward their country was added to the long list of Romanprovinces.
Caesar in Germany. Caesar crossed the Rhine intoGermany on a bridge which his engineers built in ten days. Helaid waste the fields of the tribes near the river in order tomake the name of Rome feared, and then returned to Gaul anddestroyed the bridge. Twice he sailed over to Britain, the lasttime marching a few miles north of where London now stands. Hispurpose was to keep the Britons from stirring up the Gauls toattack him. Other generals many years later conquered Britain asfar as the hills of Scotland. The German Hero Hermann. The Romans were not fortunatein their later attempts to conquer a part of Germany. WhenCaesar's grandnephew Augustus was master of Rome, he sent an armyunder Varus into the forests far from the Rhine. Hermann, aleader of the Germans, gathered the tribes together and utterlydestroyed the army of Varus. Whenever Augustus thought of thisdreadful disaster, he would cry out, "O Varus, give me back mylegions!" The Rhine and the Danube became the northern boundariesof the Roman conquests. Gauls and Britons become Roman. Although the Gauls hadfought stubbornly against Caesar they soon became as Roman as theItalians themselves. They ceased to speak their own language andbegan to use Latin. They mastered Latin so thoroughly that theirschools were sometimes regarded as better than the schools inItaly, and Roman youths were sent to Gaul to learn how best tospeak their own language. The Britons also became very goodRomans. Even the Germans frequently crossed the Rhine andenlisted in the Roman armies. When they returned to their owncountry they carried Roman ideas and customs with them. The Interest of Americans in Roman Successes. ForAmericans the influence the Romans exerted in Spain, Gaul,Germany, and Britain is more important than their work in theeastern Mediterranean, because from those countries came theearly settlers of America. The civilization which the Romanstaught the peoples of western Europe was to become a valuablepart of the civilization of our forefathers.
Size of the Roman World. We may realize how large theworld of the Romans was by observing on a modern map that withinits limits lay modern England, France, Spain, Portugal, thesouthern part of Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, theTurkish Empire both in Europe and Asia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis,Algeria, and Morocco. For a time they also ruled north of theDanube, and the Rumanians boast that they are descended fromRoman colonists. The peoples in southern Russia were influencedby the Greeks and by the Romans, although the Romans did not tryto bring them under their rule.
No modern empire has included so many important countries. Ifwe compare this vast territory with, the scattered colonies ofthe Greeks, we shall understand how useful it was that the Romansadopted much of the Greek civilization, for they could carry itto places that the Greeks never reached.
[CHAPTER VIII]THE CIVILIZATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD Strife at Rome. While the Romans were conquering theancient world they had begun to quarrel among themselves. Certainmen resolved that Rome should not be managed any longer by thenoble senators for their own benefit or for the benefit of richcontractors and merchants. They wished to have the idle crowds ofmen who packed the shows and circuses settled as free farmers onthe unused lands of Italy. Among these new leaders were two brothers, Tiberius and CaiusGracchus, sons of one of Rome's noblest families. The othernobles looked upon them with hatred and killed them, firstTiberius and afterward Caius. These murders did not end thetrouble. The leaders on both sides armed their followers, andbloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals led theirarmies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an armyinto Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on therepublic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city thesegenerals put to death hundreds of their enemies. Caesar rules Rome. The strife in the city had ceasedfor a time when Pompey, a famous general, who had once sharedpower with Caesar as a "triumvir," joined the senators inplanning his ruin. Caesar led his army into Italy to the bordersof the Rubicon. Exclaiming, "The die is cast,'" he crossed thesacred boundary and marched straight to Rome. Pompey and hisparty fled, and civil war divided the Roman world into those whofollowed Caesar and those who followed Pompey, Caesar waseverywhere victorious, in Italy, Africa, Spain, and the East. Hebrought back order into the government of the city and of theprovinces, but in the year 44 B.C. he was murdered in thesenate-house by several senators, one of whom, Marcus Brutus, hadbeen his friend. Origin of the Title "Emperor." Caesar had not beencalled "emperor," though the chief power had been his. One of histitles was "imperator," or commander of the army, a word fromwhich our word "emperor" comes. He was really the first emperorof Rome. In later times the very word Caesar became an imperialtitle, not only in the Roman Empire, but also in modern Germany,for "Kaiser" is another form of the word "Caesar." Beginnings of the Empire. Caesar's successor was hisgrandnephew Octavius, usually called Augustus, which was one ofhis titles. Augustus carried out many of Caesar's plans forimproving the government in Rome and in the provinces. The peoplein the provinces were no longer robbed by Roman officers. Many ofthem became Roman citizens. After a time all children born withinthe empire were considered Romans, just as if they had been bornin Rome. The Roman Empire. The Roman Empire carried on the workwhich the republic had begun. It did some things better than therepublic had done them. Within its frontiers there was peace fortwo or three hundred years. Many people had an opportunity toshare in all the best that the Greeks and Romans had learned.Unfortunately the peoples imitated the bad as well as thegood. Roman Roads. As builders the Romans taught much tothose who lived after them. Their great roads leading out fromRome have never been excelled. In Gaul these roads served,centuries later, to mark out the present French system ofhighroads and showed many a route to the builders of railroads.They were made so solid that parts of them still remain after twothousand years.
How these Roads were built. In planning their roads theRomans did not hesitate before obstacles like hills or deepvalleys or marshy lands. They often pierced the hills withtunnels and bridged the valleys or swamps. In building a roadthey dug a trench about fifteen feet wide and pounded the earthat the bottom until it was hard. Upon this bottom was placed alayer of rough stones, over which were put nine inches of brokenstone mixed with lime to form a sort of concrete. This wascovered by a layer six inches deep of broken bricks or brokentiles, which when pounded down offered a hard, smooth surface. Onthe top were laid large paving stones carefully fitted so thatthere need be no jar when a wagon rolled over the road. Such roads were necessary for the traders who passed to andfro throughout the empire, but especially for troops orgovernment messengers sent with all speed to regions where therewas danger of revolt or where the frontiers were threatened bythe barbarians.
Aqueducts. Next to their roads the most remarkableRoman structures were the aqueducts which brought water to thecity from rivers or springs, some of them many miles away. Hadthey known, as we do, how to make heavy iron pipes, theiraqueducts would have been laid underground, except where theycrossed deep valleys. The lead pipes which they used were notstrong enough to endure the force of a great quantity of water,and so when the aqueducts reached the edge of the plain whichstretches from the eastern hills to the walls of Rome, thestreams of flowing water were carried in stone channels restingupon arches which sometimes reached the height of over ninetyfeet. The Claudian Aqueduct. The Claudian aqueduct, which isthe most magnificent ever built, is carried on such arches forabout seven miles and a half. Although broken in many places, andthough the water has not flowed through its lofty channels forsixteen hundred years, it is one of the grandest sights in theneighborhood of Rome. If we add together the lengths of theaqueducts, underground or carried on arches, which provided Romewith her water supply, the total is over three hundred miles.They could furnish Rome with a hundred million gallons of water aday.
Public Baths. The Romans used great quantities of waterfor their public baths, which were large buildings with roomsespecially made for bathing in hot or cold water and for plunges.They were also, like the Greek gymnasiums, places for exercise,conversation, and reading. Many were built as monuments bywealthy men and by emperors. A very small fee was charged forentrance, and the money was used to pay for repairs and the wagesof those who managed the baths.
Two Famous Buildings. Many of the Roman temples,porticoes, and theaters were copied from Greek buildings, but theRomans used the arch more than did the Greeks, and in this thebuilders of later times imitated them. Among their greatestbuildings were the amphitheaters, from the benches of whichcrowds watched gladiators fighting one another or struggling withwild beasts. The largest of these amphitheaters was theColosseum, the ruins of which still exist. Its outer walls wereone hundred and sixty feet high. In one direction it measured sixhundred and seventeen feet and in another five hundred andtwelve. There were seats enough for forty-five thousand persons.The lowest seats were raised fifteen feet above the arena orcentral space where men or wild beasts fought. Through anarrangement of underground pipes the arena could be flooded sothat the spectators might enjoy the excitement of a real navalbattle. Another great building was the Circus Maximus, built to holdthe crowds that watched the chariot-races, and at one time havingseats for two hundred thousand persons. In their amusements theRomans became more and more vulgar, excitable, and cruel. Someequally splendid buildings were used for better things.
The Pantheon. One of these was the Pantheon, a templewhich was afterward a Christian church. It still stands, and isnow used as the burial-place of the Italian kings. The mostremarkable part of it is the dome, which has a width of a littleover one hundred and forty-two feet. No other dome in the worldis so wide. The Romans were very successful in covering largespaces with arched or vaulted ceilings. All later builders ofdomes and arches are their pupils.
Basilicas. The Romans had other large buildings calledbasilicas. These were porticoes or promenades, with the space inthe center covered by a great roof. They were used as places forpublic meetings. One of them had one hundred and eight pillarsarranged in a double row around the sides and ends of thiscentral space. The name basilica is Greek and means "royal." Someof these basilicas were used as Christian churches when theRomans accepted the Christian religion. The central space wasthen called the "nave," and the spaces between the columns theaisles. Triumphal Arches. The Romans built beautiful arches tocelebrate their victories. Several of these still remain, withsentences cut into their stone tablets telling of the triumphs oftheir builders. Modern people have taken them as models forsimilar memorial arches.
Roman Law. The Romans did much for the world by theirlaws. They showed little regard for the rights of men captured inwar and were cruel in their treatment of slaves, but theyconsidered carefully the rights of free men and women. Under theemperors the lawyers and judges worked to make the laws clearerand fairer to all. Finally the Emperor Justinian, who ruled atthe time when the empire was already half ruined by the attacksof barbarian enemies, ordered the lawyer Tribonian to gather intoa single code all the statutes and decrees. These laws lastedlong after the empire was destroyed, and out of them grew many ofthe laws used in Europe to-day. They have also influenced ourlaws in America.
[CHAPTER IX]CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE The Religion of the Jews. Among the cities captured bythe Romans was Jerusalem, about which cluster so many storiesfrom the Old Testament. There, hundreds of years before, livedDavid, the shepherd boy who, after wonderful adventures, becameking of his people. There his son Solomon built a temple ofdazzling splendor. Among this people had arisen greatpreachers,--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah,--who declared that religiondid not consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but injustice, in mercy, and in humility. They had a genius forreligion, just as the Greeks had a genius for art, and the Romansa genius for government. The Jews conquered by the Romans. When the Jews firstheard of the Romans they admired these citizens of a republic whomade and unmade kings. In later years they learned that theRomans were hard masters and they feared and hated them. TheJewish kingdom was one of the last countries along the shores ofthe Mediterranean which the Romans conquered, but like all theothers it finally became a Roman province. Jesus of Nazareth. A few years before the Jewishkingdom became a Roman province there was born in a village nearJerusalem a child named Jesus. After he had grown to manhood inNazareth he gathered about him followers or disciples whom hetaught to live and act as is told in the books of the NewTestament.
This was the beginning of the Christian religion. It was firstheld by a little band of Jews, but Paul, a Jew born in Tarsus, acity of Asia whose inhabitants had received the rights of Romancitizenship, believed that the message of the new religion wasmeant for all nations. He taught it in many cities of Asia Minorand Greece, and even went as far west as Rome. Several of theepistles or letters in the New Testament were written by Paul tochurches which he had founded or where he had taught. So ithappens that from Palestine came religious teachings whichmultitudes consider even more important than the art andliterature of the Greeks or the laws and political methods of theRomans. Why the Christians were persecuted. The Romans at firstrefused to permit any one in their empire to call himself aChristian. They disliked the Jews because the Jews denied thatthe Roman gods were real gods, asserting that these gods weremere images in wood and stone. The Christians did this also, butin the eyes of the Roman rulers the worst offense of theChristians was that they appeared to form a sort of secretsociety and held meetings to which other persons were notadmitted. The emperor had forbidden such societies. The Romans also disliked the Christians because of theirrefusal to join in the public ceremonies which honored theemperor as if he were a god who had given peace and order to theworld and who was able to reward the good and punish the evil.The Christians believed it to be wrong to join in the worship ofan emperor, whether he were alive or dead. Christians put to Death. The Romans were cruel in theirmanner of punishing disobedience, and many Christians suffereddeath in its most horrible forms. Some were burned, others weretortured, others were torn to pieces by wild animals in the greatamphitheaters to satisfy the fierce Roman crowd. Nero, the worstof the Roman emperors, who, many thought, set Rome on fire inorder that he might enjoy the sight of the burning city, tried toturn suspicion from himself by accusing the Christians of thecrime. He punished them by tying them to poles, smearing theirbodies with pitch, and burning them at night as torches. The Christians allowed to Worship. The new religionspread rapidly from province to province in spite of thesepersecutions. At first the Christians worshiped secretly, butlater they ventured to build churches. Finally, three centuriesafter the birth of Christ, the emperors promised that thepersecutions should cease and that the Christians might worshipundisturbed.
The Roman Empire becomes Christian about 325 A.D.Constantine was the first emperor to become Christian. He was theone who made the Greek city Byzantium the capital of the empireand for whom it was renamed Constantinople. For a time both theold Roman religion and the Christian religion were favored by theemperors, but before the fourth century closed the old religionwas forbidden. In later days worshipers of the Roman gods weremostly country people, called in Latin pagani, andtherefore their religion was called "paganism." How the Church was ruled. One of the reasons why theChristians had been successful in their struggle with the Romanemperors was that they were united under wise and brave leaders.The Christians in each large city were ruled by a bishop, and thebishops of several cities were directed by an archbishop. In thewestern part of the empire the bishop of Rome, who was called thepope, was honored as the chief of the bishops and archbishops,and the successor of the Apostle Peter. In the eastern part thearchbishops or patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria andJerusalem honored the pope, but claimed to be equal in authoritywith him. There were also two kinds of clergy, parish priests and monks.The priests were pastors of ordinary parishes, but the monkslived in groups in buildings called monasteries. Sometimes theirpurpose was to dwell far from the bustle and wrongs of ordinarylife and give themselves to prayer and fasting; sometimes theyacted as a brotherhood of teachers in barbarous communities,teaching the people better methods of farming, and carrying thearts of civilized life beyond the borders of the empire.
[CHAPTER X]EMIGRANTS A THOUSAND YEARS AGO The Middle Ages. It was more than a thousand years fromthe time of Constantine to the time of Columbus. This period iscalled "Mediaeval," or the "Middle Ages." During these longcenturies the ancient civilized world of the Roman Empire wasmuch changed. The Roman or Greek cities on the southern shores ofthe Mediterranean were captured by Arabs or Moors. The Moorsconquered the larger part of Spain. The eastern lands ofPalestine and Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Turks. TheTurks, the Moors, and the Arabs were followers of the "prophet"Mohammed, who died in the year 632. The Mohammedans were enemiesof the Christians. Western Europe. The other part of the European worldwas also changed. The countries on the shores of the Atlanticwere now more important than those on the shores of theMediterranean. The names of the different countries were changed.Instead of Gallia or Gaul, there was France; instead ofBritannia, England; for Hispania, Spain; for Germania,Deutschland or Germany. Italy, the center of the old empire, wasfinally divided into several states--city republics like Genoaand Venice, provinces ruled by the pope, and other territoriesruled by dukes, princes, or kings. Fate of Civilization. The most important question toask is, How much of the manner of living or civilization of theGreeks and the Romans did the later Europeans still retain? Theanswer is found in the history of the Middle Ages. In thishistory is also found what men added to that which they hadlearned from the Greeks and the Romans. The emigrants to Americawere to carry with them knowledge which not even the wisest menof the ancient world had possessed.
Mediaeval German Emigrants. The first part of thehistory of the Middle Ages explains how the German peoples fromwhom most of our forefathers were descended began to move fromthe northern forests towards the borders of the Roman Empire.Many thousand men had already crossed the Rhine and the Danube toserve in the Roman armies. Sometimes an unusually strong andskilful warrior would be made a general. Germans had also crossedthe Rhine to work as farmers on the estates of the rich Gallicnobles. Other Germans, called Goths, worked in Constantinople andthe cities of the East as masons, porters, and water-carriers.The Romans had owned so many slaves that they had lost the habitof work and were glad to hire these foreigners. Story of Ulfilas. Many of the Goths who lived north ofthe Danube had forsaken their old gods and become Christians.They were taught by Bishop Ulfilas, once a captive among them,afterward a missionary. He translated the Bible into the Gothiclanguage, and this translation is the most ancient specimen ofGerman that we possess. Many of the other German tribes learnedabout Christianity from the Goths, and although they might beenemies of the Roman government, they were not enemies of theChurch. The Goths invade the Roman Empire. The Roman emperorstried to prevent the northern tribes from crossing the frontierin great numbers, because, once across, if they did not find workand food, they became plunderers. Not many years afterConstantine's death, a million Goths had passed the Danube andhad plundered the country almost to the walls of Constantinople.This was not like the invasion of a regular army, which comes tofight battles and to arrange terms of peace. The Goths, and the Germans who soon followed their example,moved as a whole people, with their wives and children, theircattle, and the few household goods they owned. Wherever theywished to settle they demanded of the Romans one third, sometimestwo thirds, of the land. They soon learned to be good neighborsof the older inhabitants, although at first they were littlebetter than robbers. Alaric, one of the leaders of the Goths, ledthem into Italy and in the year 410 captured Rome. Alaric did notinjure the buildings much, and he kept his men from robbing thechurches. Some of the other barbarous tribes who roamed aboutplundering villages and attacking cities did far greater damage.The Roman government grew weaker and weaker, until one by one theprovinces fell into the hands of German kings. Beginnings of England, France, and Germany. Britain wasattacked by the Angles and Saxons from the shores of Germanyacross the North Sea. (See map[12]) They drove away the inhabitants or made slavesof them and settled upon the lands they had seized. The countrywas then called Angle-land or England, and the peopleAnglo-Saxons or Englishmen. The Roman provinces in Gaul were gradually conquered by theFranks from the borders of the Rhine, and they gave the nameFrance to the land. At about the same time the other German tribes that hadremained in Germany united under one king. The Result of Barbarian Attacks. The part of theancient world which lay about Constantinople was less changedthan the rest during the Middle Ages. The walls of Constantinoplewere high and thick, and they withstood attack after attack until1453. Within their shelter men continued to live much as they hadlived in Ancient Times. A few delighted to study the writings ofthe ancient Greeks. In Italy and the other countries of westernEurope most of the cities were in ruins. The ancient baths,amphitheaters, aqueducts, and palaces of Rome crumbled and fell.The mediaeval Romans also used huge buildings like the Colosseumas quarries of cut stone and burned the marble for lime. This wasdone in every country where Roman buildings existed.
The amphitheater at Arles in southern France had a stillstranger fortune. It was used at one time as a citadel, atanother as a prison and gradually became the home of hundreds ofthe criminals and the poor of the city. "Every archway held itsnest of human outcasts. From stone to stone they cast theirrotting beams and plaster and burrowed into the very entrails ofthe enormous building to seek a secure retreat from the pursuitof the officers of the law." Few persons traveled from Constantinople to Italy or France,and few from western Europe visited Constantinople. The men ofItaly and France and England did not know how to read Greek. Manyof them also ceased to read the writings of the ancientRomans.
The English become Christians, 597 A.D. Christianityhad spread throughout the Roman Empire, and it became thereligion of all the tribes who founded kingdoms of their own uponthe ruins of the Empire. The Angles and Saxons, when they invadedBritain, were still worshipers of the gods Wodan and Thor. Theyhad never learned from the Goths of Ulfilas anything aboutChristianity. One day in the slave market at Rome three fair-haired boyswere offered for sale. Gregory, a noble Roman, who had become amonk and was the abbot of his monastery, happened to be passingand asked who they were. He was told they were Angles. "Angels,"he cried, "yes, they have faces like angels, and should becomecompanions of the angels in heaven." When this good abbot becamepope, he sent missionaries to Angle-land and they establishedthemselves at Canterbury.
Missionaries to the Germans and the Slavs. Theconversion of the English helped in the spread of Christianity onthe Continent, for Boniface, an English monk, was the greatestmissionary to the Germans. He won thousands from the worship oftheir ancient gods and founded many churches. The Slavs, wholived east of the Germans, were taught by missionaries fromConstantinople instead of from Rome. The Educated Men of the Middle Ages. The missionariesand teachers of the Church had been educated like the olderRomans. They read Roman books, and tried to preserve theknowledge which both Greeks and Romans had gathered. Influencedby them, the emigrants and conquerors from the north also triedto be like the Romans. Educated men, and especially the priestsof the Church, used Latin as their language. In this way someparts of the old Roman and Greek civilization were preserved,although the Roman government had fallen and many beautifulcities were mere heaps of ruins. The Vikings. The emigration of whole peoples from onepart of Europe to another did not stop when the Roman Empire wasoverrun. New peoples appeared and sought to plunder or crowd outthe tribes which had already settled within its boundaries andwere learning the ways of civilization. One of these peoples came from the regions now known asNorway, Sweden, and Denmark. They were called Danes by theEnglish, and Northmen or Normans by other Europeans. They hadanother name, Vikings, which was their word for sea-rovers. It was their custom to sail the seas and rivers rather thanmarch on the land. They were a hardy and daring people, who likednothing better than to fight and conquer and rob in othercountries. There was not a land in western Europe, even as farsouth as Sicily, that they did not visit. Wherever they went theyplundered and burned and murdered, leaving a blackened trail. The Danes in England. The Danes ravaged the eastern andsouthern shores of England, and after they were tired of robbery,partly because there was little left to take, they began tosettle in the land. Alfred, the greatest of the early Englishkings, was driven by them into the swamps for a while, but in theyear 878 A.D. he conquered an army of them in battle andpersuaded one of their kings to be baptized as a Christian.Alfred was obliged to allow them to keep the eastern portion ofEngland, a region called Danelaw, because the law of the Daneswas obeyed there.
The Danes become Normans. No more Danes or Northmencame to trouble England for a time, but instead they crossed theChannel to France and rowed up the Seine and tried to captureParis. A few years later a Frankish king gave them the city ofRouen, further down the Seine, and the region about it which wascalled Normandy. These Normans also accepted Christianity. The Vikings become Discoverers. Before another hundredyears had passed the Northmen performed a feat more difficultthan sailing up rivers and burning towns. They were the first toventure far out of sight of land, though their ships were nolarger than our fishing boats. These bold sailors visited theOrkney and the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland, and finallyreached Iceland. In Iceland their sheep and cattle flourished,and a lively trade in fish, oil, butter, and skins sprang up withthe old homeland and with the British islands. Before long one of the settlers, named Eric the Red, led acolony to Greenland, the larger and more desolate island furtherwest. He called it Greenland because, he said, men would be moreeasily persuaded to go there if the land had a good name. Thiswas probably in the year 985.
Discovery of Vinland. Eric had a son, called LeifEricson, or Leif the Lucky, who visited Norway and was wellreceived at the court of King Olaf. Not long before missionarieshad persuaded Olaf and his people to give up their old gods andaccept Christianity, and Leif followed their example. Leif setout in the early summer of the year 1000 to carry the newreligion to his father, Eric the Red, to his father's people, andto his neighbors. The voyage was a long one, lasting all thesummer, for on the way his ship was driven out of its course andcame upon strange lands where wild rice and grape-vines and largetrees grew. The milder climate and stories of large trees usefulfor building ships aroused the curiosity of the Greenlanders. They sent exploring expeditions, and found the coast of NorthAmerica at places which they called Helluland, that is, the landof flat stones; Markland, the land of forests; and Vinland, wherethe grape-vines grow. Helluland was probably on the coast ofLabrador, Markland somewhere on the shores of Newfoundland, andVinland in Nova Scotia. The Settlement in Vinland. Thornfinn Karlsefni, asuccessful trader between Iceland and Greenland, attempted toplant a colony in the new lands. Karlsefni and his friends, tothe number of one hundred and sixty men and several women, setout in 1007 with three or four ships, loaded with supplies andmany cattle. They built huts and remained three or four wintersin Vinland, but all trace of any settlement disappeared longago. They found, their stories tell us, swarthy, rough-lookingIndians, with coarse hair, large eyes, and broad cheeks, withwhom they traded red cloth for furs. Trouble broke out betweenthe Northmen and the Indians, who outnumbered them. So manyNorthmen were killed that the survivors became alarmed andreturned to Greenland.
Vinland forgotten. The voyages to Vinland soon ceasedand the discoveries of Leif and his followers were onlyremembered in the songs or "sagas" of the people. They thought ofVinland mainly as a land of flat stones, great trees, and fiercenatives. Nor did the wise men of Europe who heard the Northmen'sstory guess that a New World had been discovered. It was probablyfortunate that five hundred years were to go by before Europeanssettled in America, for within that time they were to learn agreat deal and to find again many things which the Romans hadleft but which in the year 1000 were hidden away, either in theruins of the ancient cities or in libraries and treasure-houses,where few knew of them. The more Europeans possessed before theyset out, the more Americans would have to start with.
[CHAPTER XI]HOW ENGLISHMEN LEARNED TO GOVERN THEMSELVES Heroes of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, likeAncient Times, are recalled by many interesting tales. Some ofthem, such as the stories of King Arthur and his Knights, thestory of Roland, and the Song of the Niebelungs, are only talesand not history. Others tell us about great kings, Charlemagneand St. Louis of France, Frederick the Redbeard of Germany, orSt. Stephen of Hungary. The hero-king for England was Alfred, whofought bravely against the pirate Danes and finally conquered andpersuaded many of them to live quietly under his rule. King Alfred began to reign in 871. King Alfred was askilful warrior, but he was also an excellent ruler in time ofpeace. When he was a boy he had shown his love of books. Hismother once offered a beautifully written Saxon poem as a prizeto the one of her sons who should be the first to learn it.Alfred could not yet read, but he had a ready memory, and withthe aid of his teacher he learned the poem and won the prize. At that time almost all books were written in Latin and feweven of the clergy could read. During the long wars with theDanes many books had been destroyed. Men found battle-axes moreuseful than books and ceased to care about reading. King Alfredfeared that the Saxons would soon become ignorant barbarians, andsent for priests and monks who were learned and were able toteach his clergy. He sent even into France for such men. Early English Books. As it would be easier for peopleto learn to read books written in the language they spoke ratherthan in Latin, Alfred helped to translate several famous Latinbooks into English. Among these was a history written by a Romanbefore the Germans had overthrown the Roman Empire. This historytold about the world of the Greeks and the Romans.
Alfred commanded some of his clergy to keep a record from yearto year of things which happened in his kingdom. This record wascalled the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and was the first historywritten in the English language. It was carefully kept for manyyears after Alfred's death. Another wise thing Alfred did was tocollect the laws or "dooms" of the earlier kings, so that everyone might know what the law required. The Beginning of a Navy. Alfred has been called thecreator of the English navy. He thought that the only way to keepthe Danes from plundering his shores was to fight them on thesea. He built several ships which were bigger than the Danishships, but they were not always victorious, for they could notfollow the Danish ships into shallow water. Nevertheless, theDanes could not plunder England as easily as before. The New Army. Alfred organized his fighting men in abetter way. In times past the men had been called upon to fightonly when the Danes were near, but now he kept a third of his menready all the time, and another third he placed in forts, so therest were able to work in the fields in safety. There are goodreasons why Englishmen regard Alfred as a hero. William the Conqueror began to rule England in 1066.About a hundred and fifty years after Alfred died, William, dukeof Normandy, crossed the Channel with an army, killed the Englishking in battle, and seized the throne. This was not altogether amisfortune to the English, for they came under the same ruler asthe Normans and they shared in all that the men of the Continentwere beginning to learn. For one thing, builders from theContinent taught the English to construct the great Normanchurches or cathedrals which every traveler in England sees.Besides, William the Conqueror was a strong king and put down thechiefs or lords that were inclined to oppress the commonpeople. Henry II. Henry II, one of William's successors, ruledover most of western France as well as over England. His officersand nobles were tired out by his endless traveling in his lands,which extended from the banks of the river Loire in France to theborders of Scotland. All Englishmen and Americans should rememberhim with gratitude because of the improvements he made in theways of discovering the truth when disputes arose and werecarried into courts.
Ordeals and Trials by Battle. Before Henry's reign itwas the custom when a man was accused of a crime to find out thetruth by arranging a wager of battle or what were called ordeals.The two most common ordeals were the ordeal by fire and theordeal by water. In the ordeal by fire an iron was heatedred-hot, and after it had been blessed by a priest it was putinto the hand of the man the truth of whose word was beingtested, and he had to carry it a certain number of feet. His handwas then bound up and left for three days. If at the end of thattime the wound was healing, men believed he was innocent, forthey thought God would keep an innocent man from beingpunished. In the ordeal by water the man was tied and thrown into waterwhich had been blessed by the priest. If he was guilty, thepeople thought the water would not receive him. If he sank atonce, he was pulled out and treated as if he had told thetruth.
A wager of battle was a fight between the two men whosedispute was to be settled, or between a man and his accuser. Eachwas armed with a hammer or a small battle-axe, and the one whogave up lost his case. Trial by Jury. King Henry introduced a better way offinding out the truth. He called upon twelve men from aneighborhood to come before the judges, to promise solemnly totell what they knew about a matter, and then to decide whichperson was in the right. They were supposed to know about thefacts, and they were allowed to talk the matter over with oneanother before they made a decision. Later these men from the neighborhood were divided into twogroups, one to tell what they knew and the other to listen anddecide what was true. Those who told what they knew were calledthe witnesses, and those who listened and decided were calledjurors. The name jurors came from a Latin word meaning to take anoath. Richard the Lionhearted. King Henry had two sons,Richard and John. Richard was the boldest and most skilfulfighter of his time. When the news was brought to England thatJerusalem had been captured by the Mohammedans, he led an army toPalestine to recapture it. He failed to take the city, but hebecame famous throughout the East as a fearless warrior and wasever afterwards called the "Lionhearted." At his death hisbrother John became king. He was as cowardly and wicked asRichard was brave and generous. The Great Charter. The leaders of the people, thenobles and the clergy, soon grew tired of John's wickedness. In1215 they raised an army and threatened to take the kingdom fromJohn and crown another prince as king. John was soon ready topromise anything in order to obtain power once more, and thenobles and bishops met him at Runnymede on the river Thames, afew miles west of London, and compelled him to sign a list ofpromises. As the list contained sixty-three separate promises, itwas called the Great Charter or Magna Charta. If John did notkeep these promises, the lords and clergy agreed to make war onhim, and he even said that this would be their duty. Promises of the Charter. Many of the articles of theGreat Charter were important only to the men of King John's day,but others are as important to us as to them. In these the kingpromised that every one should be treated justly. He said hewould not refuse to listen to the complaints of those who thoughtthey were wronged. The king also promised that he would notdecide in favor of a rich man just because the rich man mightoffer him money. He would put no one in prison who had not beentried and found guilty by a jury. By another important promisethe king said he would not levy new taxes without the consent ofthe chief men of the kingdom. This opened the way for the peopleto have something to say about how their money should be spent.This right is a very important part of what we callself-government.
Promises of the Great Charter renewed. In after timeswhenever the English thought a king was doing them a wrong theyreminded him of the promises made by King John in the GreatCharter and demanded that the promises be solemnly renewed. In 1265 a great noble named Simon de Montfort asked many townsto send a number of their chief men to meet with the nobles andclergy to talk over the conduct of the king. Others, even kings,soon followed Simon's example by asking the townsmen for adviceabout matters of government. After a while this became thecustom. Occasionally the king wanted the advice of the clergy,the nobles, and the townsmen at the same time and called themtogether. The meeting was called a parliament, that is, anassembly in which talking or discussion goes on.
The English Parliament. Only the most important noblesor lords could go in person to the assemblies, otherwise themeeting would be too large to do any business. The other lordschose certain ones from their number to go in place of all therest. We call such men representatives. In this way, besides themen who represented the towns, there were present these nobleswho represented the landowners of the counties. Gradually thesenobles and the townsmen formed an assembly of their own, whilethe greater lords, the bishops, and abbots sat together inanother assembly. The two assemblies were called the House ofCommons and the House of Lords, and the two made up theparliament. An Assembly of Representatives. This parliament was agreat invention. The English had discovered a better way ofgoverning themselves than either the Greeks or the Romans. Wecall it the representative system. If a Roman citizen who livedfar from Rome wanted to take part in the elections, he wasobliged to leave his farm or his business and travel to Rome, foronly the citizens who were at Rome could have a share in makingthe laws. It never occurred to the Romans that the citizensoutside of Rome could send some of their number asrepresentatives to Rome. The formation of the English parliamentwas an important step towards what we mean in America by"government of the people, for the people, and by thepeople."
[CHAPTER XII]THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES What the English owed to their European Neighbors. Ifthe English succeeded better than other Europeans in learning howto govern themselves, one reason was that the Channel protectedthem from attack, and they could quarrel with their king withoutrunning much risk that their enemies in other countries wouldtake advantage of the quarrel to seize their lands or attempt toconquer them. The French were not so well placed. France also was not unitedlike England, and whole districts called counties or duchies werealmost independent of the king, being ruled by their counts anddukes. In France it would not have been wise for the people toquarrel with the king, for he was their natural protector againstcruel lords. Germany and Italy were even more divided, with notonly counties and duchies, but also cities nearly as independentas the ancient cities of Greece. The Europeans on the Continent did many things which theEnglish were doing, and some of these were so well done that theEnglish were ready to accept these Europeans as their teachers.The memory of what the Greeks and the Romans had done remainedlonger in southern France and Italy because so many buildingswere still standing which reminded Frenchmen and Italians of thepeople who built them.
Classes of People. The people of Europe, as well as ofEngland, were divided into two classes, nobles and peasants. Theclergy seemed to form another class because there were so many ofthem. Besides the parish priests and the bishops there werethousands of monks, who were persons who chose to dwell togetherin monasteries under the rule of an abbot or a prior, rather thanlive among ordinary people where men were so often tempted to dowrong or were so likely to be wronged by others. The monks workedon the farms of the monasteries, or studied in the libraries, orprayed and fasted. For a long time the men who knew how to readwere nearly always monks or priests. Outside of the monasteriesor the bishops' houses there were few books. The Nobles. The nobles were either knights, barons,counts, or dukes. In England there were also earls. Manymediaeval nobles ruled like kings, but over a smaller territory.They gained their power because they were rich in land and couldsupport many men who were ready to follow them in battle, orbecause in the constant wars they proved themselves able to keepanything they took, whether it was a hilltop or a town. Timid andpeaceable people were often glad to put themselves under theprotection of such a fighter, who saved them from being robbed byother fighting nobles.
In this way the nobles served a good purpose until the kings,who were at first only very successful nobles, were able to bringnobles as well as peasants under their own rule and to compelevery one to obey the same laws. After this the nobles becamewhat we call an aristocracy, proud of their family history,generally living in better houses and owning more land than theirneighbors, but with little power over others.
Castles. For safety, kings and nobles in the MiddleAges were obliged to build strong stone forts or fortified housescalled castles. They were often placed on a hilltop or on anisland or in a spot where approach to the walls could be madedifficult by a broad canal, or moat, filled with water. Atdifferent places along the walls were towers, and within theouter ring of walls a great tower, or keep, which was hard tocapture even after the rest of the castle had been entered by theenemy. These castles were gloomy places to live in until,centuries later, their inner walls were pierced with windows.Many are still standing, others are interesting heaps ofruins. Knighthood. The lords of the castles were occupiedmostly in hunting or fighting. They fought to keep other lordsfrom interfering with them or to win for themselves more landsand power. They hunted that they might have meat for theirtables. In later times, when it was not so necessary to killanimals for food, they hunted as a sport. Fighting also ceased tobe the chief occupation, although the nobles were expected toaccompany the king in his wars. From boyhood the sons of nobles, unless they entered theChurch as priests or monks, were taught the art of fighting. Aboy was sent to the castle of another lord, where he served as apage, waiting on the lord at table or running errands. He wastrained to ride a horse boldly and to be skilful with the swordand the lance. When his education was finished he was usuallymade a knight, an event which took place with many interestingceremonies. The young man bathed, as a sign that he was pure. The weaponsand arms for his use were blessed by a priest and laid on thealtar of the church, and near them he knelt and prayed all night.In the final ceremony a sword was girded upon him and he receiveda slight blow on the neck from the sword of some knight, orperhaps of the king. His armor covered him from head to foot inmetal, and sometimes his horse was also covered with metalplates. When he was fully armed, he was expected to show hisskill to the lords and ladies who were present. The Duties of a Knight. The duties of the knight wereto defend the weak, to protect women from wrong, to be faithfulto his lord and king, and to be courteous even to an enemy. Aknight true to these duties was called "chivalrous," a word whichmeans very much what we mean by the word "gentlemanly." Therewere many wicked knights, but we must not forget that the goodknights taught courtesy, faithfulness in keeping promises,respect for women, courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.
The Peasants. Most of the people were peasants ortownsmen. There were few towns, because many had been burned bythe barbarian tribes which broke into the Roman Empire, or hadbeen destroyed in the later wars. The peasants were crowded invillages close to the walls of some castle or monastery. Theypaid dearly for the protection which the lord of the castle orthe abbot of the monastery gave them, for they were obliged towork on his lands three days or more each week, and to bring himeggs, chickens, and a little money several times a year. Theyalso gave him a part of their harvest. The Townsmen. At first the towns belonged to lords, orabbots, or bishops, but many towns drove out their lords andruled themselves or received officers from the king. When theyruled themselves, their towns were called communes. The citizensagreed that whenever the town bell was rung they would gathertogether. Any one who was absent was fined. For them "eternalvigilance was the price of liberty." Some of the belfries ofthese mediaeval towns are still standing, and remind the citizensof to-day of the struggles of the early days.
The men of each occupation or trade were organized intosocieties or guilds, with masters, journeymen, and apprentices.There were guilds of goldsmiths, ironmongers, and fishmongers,that is, workers in gold and iron and sellers of fish. Themerchants also had their guilds. In many towns no one was allowedto work at a trade or sell merchandise who was not a member of aguild. Old Cities which still exist. Many of the towns whichgrew up in the Middle Ages are now the great cities of Englandand Europe. Their citizens can look back a thousand years andmore over the history of their city, can point to churches, totown halls, and sometimes to private houses, that have stood allthis time. They can often show the remains of mediaeval walls orbroad streets where once these walls stood, and the moats thatsurrounded them. The traveler in York or London, in Paris, inNuremburg, in Florence, or in Rome eagerly searches for therelics about which so many interesting stories of the past aretold. Venice and Genoa. One of the most fascinating of theseold cities is Venice, built upon low-lying islands two miles fromthe shore of Italy and protected by a sand bar from the waters ofthe Adriatic. Venice was founded by men and women who fled from aRoman city on the mainland which was ruined by the barbarians inthe fifth century after Christ. In many places piles had to bedriven into the loose sands to furnish a foundation for houses.The Venetians did not try to keep out the water but used it asstreets, and instead of driving in wagons they went about inboats. They grew rich in trade on the sea, as the Greeks had donein those same waters hundreds of years before. Farther down the coast of Italy were the cities Brindisi andTaranto, the Brundusium and Tarentum of the Romans. Across thepeninsula to the west was another trading city called Genoa,which was the birthplace of Columbus. Modern Languages. While the people of mediaeval timeswere building city walls and towers to protect themselves theywere also doing other things. Almost without knowing it theyformed the languages which we now speak and write--English,German, French, Italian, and Spanish. The English and German languages are closely related becausethe forefathers of the English emigrated to England from Germany,taking their language with them. This older language wasgradually changed, but it still remained like German. Dutch isanother language like both English and German. There are many words in these languages borrowed from otherpeoples. Englishmen, because of their long union with westernFrance, borrowed many words from the French. The French did notinvent these words, for the French language grew out of the Latinlanguage which the French learned from the Romans. How Modern Languages were formed. In English we havetwo sets of words and phrases: one is used in writing books orspeeches, the other in conversation. When the Gauls learnedLatin, the language of Rome, most of them learned the words usedin conversation and did not learn the words of Roman books.Before long spoken words differed so much from the older writtenwords that only scholars understood that the two had belonged tothe same language. This new language was French. In the same wayItalian and Spanish grew out of the ordinary Latin spoken inItaly and Spain. When men began to write books in the new languages, thechanges went on more slowly because the use of words in bookskept the spelling the same. Men wrote less in Latin, but it wasstill used in the religious services of the Church and in theschools and universities.
Schools in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages mostboys and girls did not go to school. Education was principallyfor those who expected to become priests or monks. The schoolswere in the monasteries or in the houses or palaces of thebishops. The students were taught a little Latin grammar, towrite or speak Latin, and to debate. They also learnedarithmetic; enough astronomy to reckon the days on which thefestivals of the Church should come; and music, so much as wasthen known of it. Printing had not been invented, so there wereno text-books for them to study, and written books or manuscriptswere too costly. Students listened to the teacher as he read fromhis manuscripts and copied the words or tried to rememberthem. The Beginning of Universities. If students remained inthe schools after these things had been learned, they studied thelaws of the Romans, or the practise of medicine, or the religiousquestions which are called theology. Some teachers talked in suchan interesting way about such questions that hundreds of studentscame to listen. Like other kinds of workers, who were organizedin societies or guilds, the teachers and students formed a guildcalled a university. The teachers were the master-workmen, andthe students were the apprentices. Where the Students lived. In the beginning theuniversities had no buildings of their own, and the teacherstaught in hired halls, the students boarding wherever they couldfind lodgings. Partly to help students who were too poor to payfor good lodgings, and partly to bring the students under thedirect rule of teachers, colleges were built. These were notseparate institutions like the American colleges, but simplyhouses for residence, although later some teaching was done inthem. Some Famous Universities. The oldest university was inBologna in Italy, and teachers began to explain the laws of theRomans to its students eight hundred years ago. The University ofParis was called the greatest university in the Middle Ages. Itsstudents numbered sometimes between six and seven thousand. Aboutthe same time the English universities of Oxford and Cambridgewere formed, and there, many years later, a large number of themen who settled in America were educated. The Wisdom of the Arabs. Students in these universitiesobtained several of the writings of the Greeks through the Arabs,the followers of Mohammed, who had conquered most of Spain. Longbefore Europeans thought of founding universities the Arabs hadflourishing schools and universities in Spain. The capital of theMohammedan Empire was first at Bagdad on the Euphrates, whereonce ruled Haroun-al-Raschid, the hero of the tales of theArabian Nights.
What Europeans borrowed from the Arabs. The Arabs hadlearned much of geography and mathematics from the Greeks, andthey also found out much for themselves. The numerals which weuse are Arabic; and algebra, one of our principal studies inmathematics, was thought out by the Arabs. Their learned men weredeeply interested in the books of Aristotle, an ancient Greek,who had been a teacher of Alexander the Great. They translatedhis books into Arabic, and Christian students in Spain translatedthe Arabic into Latin. The great scholars at the University ofParis believed that Aristotle reasoned better than otherthinkers, and took as their model the methods of reasoning foundin this Latin translation of an Arabic translation of whatAristotle had written in Greek. [Illustration 128: THE ALCAZAR AT SEVILLE Built by the Moorsin the twelfth century. Note the elaborate decoration of theMoorish architecture.] Builders in the Middle Ages. The Greeks and the Romanshad been great builders, but the men of the Middle Ages succeededin building churches, town halls, and palaces or castles whichequaled in grandeur and beauty the best that the ancient buildershad made. The large churches or cathedrals seem wonderful becausetheir builders were able to place masses of stone high in the airand to cover immense spaces with beautiful vaulted roofs.Builders nowadays imitate, but not often, if ever, equal them.Fortunately the original buildings are still standing in manyEnglish and European cities: in Canterbury, Durham, andWinchester; in Paris, Chartres, and Rheims; in Cologne, Erfurt,and Strasbourg; in Barcelona and Toledo; in Milan, Venice, andRome.
Church Building. The Italians began by buildingchurches like Roman basilicas. Roman arches and domes, supportedby heavy walls, were also used north of the Alps, and the methodof building was named Romanesque, or in England, Norman. Thearchitects or builders of western France discovered a way ofroofing over just as large spaces without using such heavy walls,so that the interior could be lighted by larger windows. Insteadof having rounded arches they used pointed arches. The wallsbetween the windows were strengthened by masses of stone calledbuttresses. The peak of the roof of these cathedrals wassometimes more than one hundred and fifty feet above the floor.The glass of the windows showed in beautiful colors scenes fromthe Bible or from lives of sainted men and women. The outerwalls, especially the western front, the doorways and the towers,were richly carved and adorned with statues, and often with thefigures of strange birds and beasts which lived only in theimagination of the builders. This method of building was namedGothic, and it was used not only for churches but for town hallsand private houses. Architects use similar methods of buildingnowadays.
The Renaissance. Men who could build and adorn greatchurches and town halls and who were eager to study in the newuniversities should be called civilized. The barbarous days weregone, but men still had much to learn from the ancient Greeks andRomans. Many of the ancient buildings were in ruins, the statueshalf buried or broken, the paintings destroyed, and the bookslost. Men began to search for what was left of these things andto study them carefully to learn what the Graeco-Roman world hadbeen like. After a while students could think of nothing else,and tried to imitate, if they could not surpass, what the Romansand the Greeks had done. The age in which men were firstinterested in these things is called the Renaissance or"rebirth," because men were so unlike what they had been thatthey seemed born again. With the beginning of the Renaissance theMiddle Ages came to an end.
Petrarch. One of the earliest of these "new" men wasPetrarch, an Italian poet who lived in the fourteenth century, ahundred years before Columbus. He wished above all things toread, copy, and possess the writings of the Romans, andespecially of Cicero, an orator and writer who lived in the daysof Julius Caesar. Petrarch and his friends searched for themanuscripts of Roman authors which had been preserved, hiddenaway in monastery libraries. The same love of Roman books seized others, and princes spentlarge sums of money in collecting and copying ancient writings.At this time a beginning of the great libraries of Europe wasmade, Petrarch tried to learn Greek, but could find no one inItaly able to teach him. Greek Books brought again to Italy. Shortly afterPetrarch died some Greeks came from Constantinople seeking theaid of the pope and the kings of the West in an attempt to driveback the Turks, who had already crossed into Europe and settledin the lands which they now occupy. Unless help should be sent toConstantinople, the city would certainly fall into their hands.With these Greeks was one of those men who still loved to readthe writings of the ancient authors. He was persuaded to remain afew years in Florence and other Italian cities and teach Greek tothe eager Italian scholars. He was also persuaded to write agrammar of the Greek language, in order that after he hadreturned to Constantinople others might be able to continue histeaching. Collectors of books now searched for Greek writings as eagerlyas they had searched for Latin writings. Merchants sent theiragents to Constantinople to buy books. One traveler and scholarbrought back to Italy over two hundred. Soon Italy was the landto which students from Germany, France, and England went to learnGreek and to obtain copies of Greek books. It was fortunate thatso many books had been brought from Constantinople, for at last,in 1453, the Turks captured that city and no place in the Eastwas left where the books of the Greeks were studied as they hadbeen at Constantinople.
The Invention of Printing. After collectors of Greekand Roman writings had made several good libraries, partly bypurchase, partly by copying manuscripts belonging to others, agreat invention was made which enabled these writings to bespread far and wide and placed in the hands of every student.This invention was the method of printing with movable types. Itis not quite certain who made the invention, although JohnGutenberg, of Mainz, in Germany, has generally been called theinventor. Probably several men thought of the method at about thesame time, that is, about 1450. Different Kinds of Type. In forming their type theGerman printers imitated the lettering made by copyists with aquill. Their type is called Gothic, and it is still widely usedin German books. The Italian printers made their letters moreround and simple in shape, imitating the handwriting of the bestItalian copyists. This is the Roman type, in which many Europeanpeoples, as also the English and the Americans, print theirbooks. The Italians also prepared a kind of lettering which,because they were the inventors, is named italic. The Aldine Press. One of the most famous printers ofthis early time was a Venetian named Aldus Manutius or Manucci.He gathered about him a number of Greeks and planned to print allthe Greek manuscripts that had been discovered. This he did inbeautiful type, imitated from the handwriting of one of his Greekfriends. He sold the books for a price per volume about equal toour fifty cents, so that few scholars were too poor to buy. Some Early Printed Books. Another great printer was theEnglishman William Caxton, who learned the art in theNetherlands. Among the books he printed was Chaucer's CanterburyTales. The first book printed by Gutenberg was the Bible inLatin. Early in the sixteenth century, through the labors of aDutch scholar, Erasmus, and of his printer, the German Froben,the New Testament in Greek was printed. Architecture and Sculpture. The artists and thearchitects of this time began to imitate the buildings they foundor that they unearthed. They used round arches and domes morethan the pointed arches and vaulted roofs of the Gothic builders.Sculptors pictured in stone the stories of the Greek and Romangods and heroes. Statues long buried in ancient ruins were dugup, and great artists like the Italian Michel Angelo studied themand rivaled them in the beautiful statues they cut. On every handmen's minds were awakened by what they saw of the work of thefounders of the civilized world.
[CHAPTER XIII]TRADERS, TRAVELERS, AND EXPLORERS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES The Perils of Traders. There was a time in the MiddleAges when merchants scarcely dared to travel from one town toanother for fear of being plundered by some robber lord or commonthief. If they traveled by sea they might also be attacked byrobbers. Some of these robbers, like the Northmen, came fromafar, but others were ordinary sailors who put out from near-byports when there seemed nothing better to do. This state of things gradually changed. The kings or greatlords succeeded in protecting merchants on land, and themerchants armed vessels of their own to drive the pirates fromthe sea. As trade grew greater the towns became richer andstronger and the robbers and pirates fewer, so that the number ofmerchant ships increased rapidly and long voyages wereattempted. Fairs. At first trade was carried on at great fairs,held in places convenient for the merchants of England andwestern Europe. The fairs lasted about six weeks, and one fairfollowed another. As soon as the first was over the merchantspacked their unsold wares and journeyed to the next. At the fairswere found drugs and spices, cottons and silks from the East,skins and furs from the North, wool from England, and otherproducts from Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. The Treasures of the East. Men in the Middle Ages weredependent for luxuries upon the lands of Asia which are commonlycalled the East. By this name we may mean Persia, Arabia, India,China, or the Molucca Islands, where the choicest spices stillgrow. Spices were a great luxury, and were needed to flavor thefood, because the manner of cooking was poor and there was littlevariety in the kinds of food. Most of the cotton cloth, thesilks, the drugs, and the dyes were also procured from theEast.
Routes to the East. No one knew that it was possible toreach Asia by sailing around the southern point of Africa orthrough what is called the Strait of Magellan. The products ofthe East were brought to Europe by several routes, two reachingthe Mediterranean at Alexandria, in Egypt, a third at Antioch, inSyria, and a fourth on the southeastern shore of the BlackSea. The loads were carried by camels in long caravans across thedeserts from the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, or from northernIndia. Ships from the Italian cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venicestruggled with one another for the right to bring back theseprecious wares and sell them to the merchants of Europe, who wereready to pay high prices.
Venetian Traders. Merchants from Germany came to Veniceto trade the products of the North for spices, drugs, dyes, andsilks, which they carried back across the Alps. Once a year theVenetians sent a fleet of vessels westward through the straits ofGibraltar and along the Atlantic shore as far as Bruges andLondon. The voyage was long and dangerous, and the Venetianstraded in ports on the way. Spices in Bruges sold for two orthree times what they cost in Venice. The Crusades. One event that brought to the Venetiansan opportunity to enrich themselves was the Crusades. TheMohammedans had long held a large part of Spain, and towards theend of the eleventh century they threatened France and Italy.They also attacked what was left of the Roman Empire in the East,and the emperors sent to the pope and the western kings franticappeals for help. Thousands of Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen,and Italians were suddenly seized with the desire to go toPalestine and drive the Mohammedans from Jerusalem, the HolyCity, and from the tomb of Christ. For the next two centurieslarge armies were sent there, sometimes gaining victories,sometimes being defeated in battle or overcome by disease. What the Venetians gained from the Crusades. Most ofthe Crusaders went to the Holy Land by sea, and when they had noships of their own they often took passage in Venetian ships. TheVenetians asked large sums for this, and also succeeded inobtaining all the rights of trade in many of the seaports whichwere captured. Sometimes the Venetians undertook to governislands like Cyprus and Crete, or territories along the coasts,but their main aim was to increase their trade rather than tobuild up an empire. The new Venetian Ships. The Crusaders who returned toEurope brought back a liking for the luxuries of the East, andtheir tales made other men eager for them. For this reason moreships were built to sail in the Mediterranean. The shipownersattempted to make their ships larger and stronger. They werelarger than those built by the English or by other peoples alongthe Atlantic coast, but they would seem small to us. There is anaccount of Venetian ships in the thirteenth century which tellsus that they were one hundred and ten feet long and carried crewsof one thousand men. They relied mainly upon the use of oars, buthad a mast, sometimes two masts, rigged with sails, which theycould use if the wind was favorable.
Dangers of the Sea. One difficulty about sailing wasthe lack of any means in cloudy weather, and especially at night,of telling the direction in which they were going. The sailorsdid not like to venture far from shore, although the open sea issafer during a storm than a wind-swept and rocky coast. At thetime when the sailors of the Mediterranean were building up theirtrade to Alexandria, Antioch, and the Black Sea, two instrumentscame into use which enabled them to tell just where theywere. The Compass. One of these instruments was the compass,which the Chinese had long used, and which was known to the Arabsbefore the Europeans heard of it. If a boy will take a needle,rub its point with a magnet, and lay the needle on a corkfloating in water, he will have a rough sort of compass. Thepoint of the needle wherever it may be turned will swing backtowards the north, thus guiding the sailors.
The compass was known in Europe about 1200. There is a storythat at first sailors thought its action due to magic and refusedto sail under a captain who used it. But a century later it wasin general use, and had been so much improved that even in theseverest storms the needle remained level and pointed steadilytowards the north.
The Astrolabe. The other instrument, called theastrolabe, was a brass circle marked off into 360 degrees. Tothis circle were fastened two movable bars, at the ends of whichwere sights, or projecting pieces pierced by a hole. Theastrolabe was hung on a mast in such a way that one bar washorizontal and the other could be moved until through its sightssome known star could be seen. The number of degrees marked onthe circle between the two bars told how high the star was abovethe horizon, and the sailors could reckon the latitude of theplace where they were. In a similar way their longitude could befound out. The astrolabe was not so useful as the compass, for it couldbe used only on clear days or nights. With these two instrumentsit was possible to sail far out into the Atlantic. By the middleof the fourteenth century ships from Genoa and Portugal hadvisited the Madeira and the Canary Islands, and even the Azoreswhich are a thousand miles from the mainland. What Men thought about a Sea Route to the East. Menlearned more about other strange lands through a Venetiantraveler, Marco Polo, who wrote an account of his wonderfuljourney to the court of the Grand Khan, or Emperor of theMongols, of his travels through China, and of his return toPersia by sea. Many men in the Middle Ages had believed that east of Asia wasa great marsh, and that because of it even if they succeeded insailing around Africa it would be impossible to reach the regionof the spices and silks and jewels which they so much desired.They also thought that the heat in the tropics was so intensethat at a certain distance down the coast of Africa they wouldfind the water of the ocean boiling. These things and the talesof strange monsters that inhabited the deep sea had terrifiedthem. The news which Marco Polo brought changed this feeling. The Mongols. The way Marco Polo happened to visit thecourt of the Mongol emperor was this. The Mongol Tartars weregreat conquerors, and they not only subdued the Chinese butmarched westward, overrunning most of Russia and stopping onlywhen they were on the frontiers of Italy. For a long timesouthern Russia remained under their rule. Their capital was justnorth of the Great Wall of China. The Mongol emperor did not hate Europeans, and even sent tothe pope for missionaries to teach his people. Marco Polo'sfather and uncle while on a trading expedition had found theirway to his court, and on a second journey, in 1271, they tookwith them Marco, a lad of seventeen years. The emperor was muchinterested in his western visitors and took young Marco into hisservice.
Marco Polo's Travels. Marco Polo traveled over China onofficial errands, while his father and uncle were gatheringwealth by trade. After many years they desired to return toItaly, but the emperor was unwilling to lose such able servants.It happened, however, that the emperor wished to send a princessas a bride to the Khan or Emperor of Persia, also a Mongolsovereign, and the three Polos, who were known to be trustworthyseamen, were selected to escort the princess to her royalhusband. After doing this they did not return to China, but wenton to Italy. They had been absent twenty-four years, and they found thattheir relatives had given them up for dead and did not recognizethem. It was like the old story of Ulysses, who, when he returnedto his native Ithaca after his wanderings, was recognized bynobody. The Polos proved the truth of what they said by showingthe great treasures which they had sewed into the dresses ofcoarse stuff of a Tartar pattern which they wore. They displayedjewels of the greatest value, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, andsapphires.
What Marco Polo told. In the account Marco Polo wroteof his travels and of the countries he had visited he described awonderful palace of the Great Emperor. Its walls were coveredwith gold and silver, the dining hall seated six thousand people,and its ceiling was inlaid with gold. This palace seemed to MarcoPolo so large, so rich, and so beautiful that no man on earthcould design anything to equal it. The robes of the emperor andhis twelve thousand nobles and knights were of silk and beatengold, each having a girdle of gold decorated with preciousstones. Marco Polo told of great cities in China where men traded inthe costly wares of the East, and where silk was abundant andcheap. He described from hearsay Japan as an island fifteenhundred miles from the mainland. Its people, he said, were white,civilized, and wondrously rich. The palace of the emperor ofJapan was roofed with gold, its pavements and floors were ofsolid gold, laid in plates two fingers thick. Reasons for finding a Sea Route to the East. Tales ofsuch great wealth made Europeans more eager than ever to reachthe East. Marco Polo had shown that it was possible to sail pastIndia, through the islands, to the eastern coast of Asia. Whenprinting was invented his account was printed, and the copy ofthat book which Columbus owned is still preserved. Upon itsmargins Columbus wrote his own opinions about geography. Other travelers besides the Polos returned with similar talesof the East. Soon, however, all chance to go there by way of theland was lost, because the Mongol emperors were driven out ofChina and the new rulers would not permit Europeans to enter thecountry. The ordinary caravan routes to the East were also closednot long afterwards. In 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople,drove away the Italian merchants, and prevented European sailorsfrom reaching the Black Sea. Fifty years later the Turks seizedEgypt and closed that route also. Fortunately before thishappened a better route had been discovered. The Portuguese Sailors. During the Middle Ages thePortuguese princes fought to recover Portugal from the Moors.When this was done they were eager to cross the straits andattack the Moors in Africa. Prince Henry of Portugal made anexpedition to Africa and returned with the desire to know moreabout the coast south of the point beyond which European sailorsdared not venture. Sailors were afraid of being lost in the Seaof Darkness or killed by the heat of the boiling tropics.
From his love of exploring the seas Prince Henry has beencalled "The Navigator." He took up his residence on a lonelypromontory in southern Portugal, and gathered about him learnedmen of all peoples, Arabian and Jewish mathematicians, andItalian mapmakers. Captains trained in this new school ofseamanship were sent into the southern seas. Each was to sailfarther down the western coast of Africa than other captains hadgone. Before Prince Henry died in 1460 his captains had passedCape Verde, and ten years later they crossed the equator withoutsuffering the fate which men had once feared. But they werediscouraged when they found that beyond the Gulf of Guinea thecoast turned southward again, for they had hoped to sail eastwardto Asia.
Cape of Good Hope discovered. At last in 1487 the endof what seemed to be an endless coast was reached. The fortunatecaptain who accomplished this was Bartholomew Diaz, who came of afamily of daring seamen. He had been sailing southward along thecoast for nearly eight months, when a northerly gale drove himbefore it for thirteen days. The weather cleared and Diaz turnedeastward to find the coast. As he did not see land he turnednorthward and soon discovered land to the west. This showed thathe had passed the southern point of Africa. His crew wereunwilling to go farther and he followed the coast around to thewestern side again. The southern point he called the Cape ofStorms, but the king of Portugal, when the voyagers returned,named it the Cape of Good Hope, for now he knew that anexpedition could be sent directly to the Indies. Diaz had sailed thirteen thousand miles, and his voyage wasthe most wonderful that Europeans had ever heard about. The Sea Route to India. Eleven years later thePortuguese king sent Vasco da Gama, another captain, to attemptto reach the coast of India by sailing around the Cape of GoodHope which Diaz had discovered. Da Gama was successful and landedat Calicut on the south-western coast of India. He returned toPortugal in 1499, and his cargo was worth sixty times the cost ofthe voyage. This was the beginning of a trade with the East whichenriched Portugal and especially the merchants of Lisbon.
[CHAPTER XIV]THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD Christopher Columbus. Six years before Vasco da Gamamade his famous voyage to India around Africa and opened a newtrade route for the Portuguese merchants, another seaman hadformed and carried out a much bolder plan. This was ChristopherColumbus, and his plan was to sail directly west from Europe intothe unknown ocean in search of new islands and the coast of Asia.Columbus, who was a native of Genoa in Italy, had followed hisyounger brother to Portugal. Both were probably led there by thefame of Prince Henry's explorations. The brothers became very skilful in making maps and charts forthe Portuguese. They also frequently sailed with them on theirexpeditions along the coast of Africa. All the early associationsof Columbus were with men interested in voyages of discovery, andparticularly with those engaged in the daring search for a searoute to India. How Columbus formed his Plan. Columbus gathered all theinformation on geography which he could from ancient writers andfrom modern discoverers. Many of them believed that the world wasshaped like a ball. If such were its shape, Columbus reasoned,why might not a ship sail around it from east to west? Or,better, why not sail directly west to India, and perhaps findmany wonderful islands between Europe and Asia? His imaginationwas also fired by Marco Polo's description of the marvelousriches of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. But the idea ofgoing directly west into the midst of the unknown and seeminglyboundless waste of water, and on and on to Asia, appeared to mostmen of the fifteenth century to be madness.
His Notion of the Distance to Asia. Columbus made twofortunate errors in reckoning the distance to the Indies. Heimagined that Asia extended much farther eastward than itactually does, making it nearer Europe, and estimated the earthto be smaller than it is. His figures placed Japan less than3,000 miles west of the Canary Islands, instead of the 12,000miles which is the real distance. He accordingly thought Japanwould be found about where Mexico or Florida is situated. How he secured Help. Even so, many years passed beforeColumbus was able to undertake a voyage. He was too poor himself,and needed the help of some government to fit out such anexpedition. He may have tried to get his native city, Genoa, tohelp him. There is such a story. If he did, it was withoutsuccess. He tried to obtain the help of Portugal, where he liveda long time, and whose princes were greatly interested in thediscovery of new trade routes. His brother visited England in thesame cause. Neither of these countries, however, was willing toundertake this expensive and doubtful enterprise. The King and Queen of Spain, to whom Columbus turned, kept himwaiting many years for an answer. They thought that they had moreimportant work in hand. There was another king in Spain at thetime, the king of the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella, theChristian king and queen, were trying to conquer the Moors, andthus to end the struggle between Christians and Mohammedans forthe possession of Spain, which had lasted nearly eight centuries.This war required all the strength and revenue of Spain. Fortunately, just as Columbus was becoming thoroughlydiscouraged, the war with the Moors came to an end. Granada, theseat of their former power, was finally taken in January, 1492.Now was a good time to ask favors of the sovereigns of Spain, andto plan large enterprises for the future. Powerful friends aidedColumbus to renew his petition, and Queen Isabella was persuadedto promise him all the help that he needed. The Ships of Columbus. Three ships, or caravels as theywere called, were fitted out. The Santa Maria was thelargest of the three, but it was not much larger than the smallsailing yachts which we see to-day. It was about ninety feet longby twenty feet broad, and had a single deck. This was Columbus'sprincipal ship or flagship. The second caravel, the Pinta,was much swifter, built high at the prow and stern, and furnishedwith a forecastle for the crew and a cabin for the officers, butwithout a deck in the center. The third and smallest caravel,called the Niña, the Spanish word for baby, wasbuilt much like the Pinta. Ninety persons made up thethree crews.
The ships were the usual size of those which coasted along theshores of Europe in the fifteenth century. Expeditions had nevergone far out into the ocean. Columbus preferred the smallervessels in a voyage of discovery, because they would be able torun close to the shores and into the smaller harbors and up therivers. Beginning of the Voyage. The expedition set sail fromPalos in Spain, August 3, 1492. It went directly to the CanaryIslands. These were owned by Spain, and were selected by Columbusas the most convenient starting-point. The little fleet wasdelayed three weeks at the islands making repairs. On September 6Columbus was off again. He struck due west from the Canaries. The Terrors of the Voyage. While the little fleet wasstill in sight of the Canary Islands a volcanic eruption nearlyfrightened the sailors out of their wits. They deemed such anevent an omen of evil. But the expedition had fine weather dayafter day. Steady, gentle, easterly winds, the trade winds of thetropics, wafted them slowly westward. But the timid sailors beganto wonder how they would ever be able to return against windswhich seemed never to change from the east. Then they came to an immense field of seaweed, larger in areathan the whole of Spain. This terrified the sailors, who fearedthey might be driven on hidden rocks or be engulfed inquicksands. They imagined, too, that great sea-monsters werelurking beyond the seaweed waiting to devour them.
The first Signs of a New Land. In spite of fears andcomplaints, and threats of resistance, Columbus kept a westwardcourse for more than four weeks. Then as he began to see so manybirds flying to the southwest, he concluded that land must benearer in that direction. He had heard that most of the islandsheld by the Portuguese were discovered by following the flight ofbirds. So on October 7 the westward course was changed to oneslightly southwest. From this time on the signs of land grew frequent. Floatingbranches, occasionally covered with berries, pieces of wood, bitsof cane, were encouraging signs. Birds like ducks and sandpipersbecame common sights. The Queen had promised a small pension tothe one who should first see land. Columbus had offered to give asilken doublet in addition. With what eagerness the sailors musthave kept on the lookout! The great Discovery. At last as the fleet was sailingonward in the bright moonlight Columbus saw a light moving as ifcarried by hand along a shore. A few hours later, about twoo'clock on the morning of October 12, a sailor on thePinta saw land distinctly, and soon all beheld, a fewmiles away, a long, low beach. The vessels hove to and waited fordaylight. Early the same day, Friday, October 12, 1492, theyapproached the land, which proved to be a small island. Columbusnamed it San Salvador, which means Holy Saviour. We do not knowwhich one of the Bahama islands he first saw, but we believe itwas the one now called Watling Island. Columbus went ashore withthe royal standard and banners flying to take possession of theland in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Where Columbus thought he was. The astonishedinhabitants of the island soon gathered to see the strangesight--the landing of white men in the West Indies. They lookedupon the ships as sea-monsters, and the white men as gods. Norwas Columbus less puzzled by what he saw. The people were astrange race--cinnamon colored, naked, greased, and painted tosuit each one's fancy. They had only the rudest means ofself-defense, and were almost as poor as the parrots thatchattered in the trees above them. Such savages bore littleresemblance to the people whom Marco Polo said inhabited theSpice Islands. Columbus thought that he had reached some outlying island notfar from Japan. A cruise of a few days among the Bahamassatisfied him that he was in the ocean near the coast of Asia,for had not Marco Polo described it as studded with thousands ofspice-bearing islands? He had not found any spices, but the airwas full of fragrance and the trees and herbs were strange inappearance. Of course if the islands were the Indies, the peoplemust be Indians. Columbus called them Indians, and this nameclung to the red men, although their islands were not the trueIndies.
The Search for the Golden East. Columbus thought thatthe natives meant to tell him in their sign language of a greatland to the south where gold abounded. He set off in search ofthis, and came upon a land the natives called Cuba. Its largesize convinced him that he had at last found the Asiaticmainland, and he sent two messengers, one a Jew knowing manylanguages, in search of the Emperor of China. They found neithercities nor kingdoms, neither gold nor spices. This was a greatdisappointment to Columbus, but he patiently kept up his searchfor the riches which he expected to find. The Misfortunes of Columbus. While on the coast ofCuba, Pinzon, the commander of the Pinta, deserted him.Pinzon, whose ship was swifter than the others, probably wishedto be the first to get home, in order to tell a story which wouldgain him the credit of the discovery of the Indies. A few dayslater Columbus discovered a large island which the natives calledHayti, and which he called Española or "Spanish Land." Atevery island he searched for the spices and gold which Marco Polohad given him reason to expect. In a storm off EspañolaColumbus's own ship, the Santa Maria, was totally wrecked.Such disasters convinced him that it was high time to return toSpain with the news of his discovery. Preparations for Return to Spain. As there was not roomfor both crews on the tiny Niña, his one remainingship, it became necessary to leave about forty sailors inEspañola. A fort was built, and supplies were left for ayear. Columbus with the rest set off on the return to Spain. TenIndians were captured and taken with them to show to his friendsin Europe. Besides, Columbus hoped that they would learn thelanguage of Spain, and carry Christianity back to theirpeople. The Search for China renewed. There was rejoicing inPalos when the voyagers returned. Great honors were bestowed uponColumbus. It was now easy to get men and money for anothervoyage. In September, 1493, Columbus started to return to hisislands, this time with seventeen ships and fifteen hundred men,all confident that they would soon see the marble palaces ofChina, and secure a share in the wealth of the Spice Islands. Noone yet realized that a new world--two great continents--laybetween them and their coveted goal in Asia. Columbus wentdirectly to Española, where he found that his colony ofthe previous year had been murdered by the Indians. A newsettlement was quickly started. A little town called Isabella wasbuilt, with a fort, a church, a market place, public granary, anddwelling-houses. Isabella was the first real settlement in theNew World.
Other Voyages to the New World. Columbus made two othervoyages. He continued to search for the coast of Asia, which hebelieved to be near. He made a third voyage from Spain to theWest Indies in 1498. He sailed farther south, and came upon themainland which later was called South America. A fourthexpedition in 1502 touched on the coast that we call CentralAmerica. He died soon after this voyage, still believing that hehad discovered a new route to the Indies and new lands on thecoast of Asia. The sad End of Columbus's Life. The close of his lifewas a sad one. The lands he had found did not yield the richeswhich he had expected. The colonists whom he had sent out to theislands had rebelled, and jealous enemies had accused him falselybefore the king and queen of misgovernment in his territories.Once his opponents had him carried to Spain chained like a commonprisoner. He was given his liberty on reaching Spain, but thepeople had become prejudiced against him. Ferdinand, the son of Columbus, tells us that as he and hisbrother Diego, who were pages in the queen's service, happened topass a crowd of his father's enemies, the latter greeted themwith hoots: "There go the sons of the Admiral of Mosquitoland,the man who has discovered a land of vanity and deceit, the graveof Spanish gentlemen." Hardships and disappointments broke downthe great discoverer, and he died neglected and almost forgottenby the people of Spain.
[CHAPTER XV]OTHERS HELP IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD The Race to the Indies. The discovery of all the landswhich make what we call the New World came very slowly. It wasthe work of many different explorers. Most of the expeditionssent out to the new islands went in search of a passage to India.It was a fine race. Each nation was eager to see its ships thefirst to reach India by the westward route. All were disappointedat finding so much land between Europe and Asia. It seemed tothem to be of little value and to block the way to the richercountries of the East. Gradually, however, they discovered thegreat continents which we know as North and South America.Columbus had done more than he dreamed, and his discovery was aturning-point in history. John Cabot. John Cabot, an Italian mariner at this timein the service of England, left Bristol in 1497 on a voyage ofdiscovery. This was five years after Columbus discovered the WestIndies. Cabot had heard that the sailors of Portugal and of Spainhad occupied unknown islands. He planned to do the same for KingHenry VII of England. For his voyage he had a single vessel nolarger than the Niña, the smallest ship in thefleet of Columbus. Eighteen men made up his crew. He passedaround the southern end of Ireland, and sailed north and westuntil he came to land, which proved to be the coast of NorthAmerica somewhere between the northern part of Labrador and thesouthern end of Nova Scotia. Cabot's Discovery. John Cabot saw no inhabitants, buthe found notched trees, snares for game, and needles for makingnets, which showed plainly that the land was inhabited by humanbeings. Like Columbus, Cabot thought he was off the coast ofChina. The Cabot Voyages forgotten. Before the end of 1497John Cabot was back in Bristol. It is almost certain that he andhis son, Sebastian Cabot, made a second voyage to the new foundlands in the following year. The Cabot voyages, however, weresoon almost forgotten by the people of England.
The Naming of the New Lands. Why was our country namedAmerica rather than Columbia or New India? Both the southern andnorthern continents which we call the Americas were named forAmericus Vespucius rather than for Christopher Columbus. Thisseems the more strange since we know so little about the life ofAmericus. Americus Vespucius was born in Florence, Italy, andlike many other young Italians of that day entered the service ofneighboring countries. He went to Spain and accompanied severalSpanish expeditions sent to explore the new continent whichColumbus had discovered on his third voyage. Perhaps Americus went as a pilot; he certainly was not theleader in any expedition. But he seems to have written to hisfriends interesting accounts of what he had seen. In one of theseletters Americus seems to have written boastfully of how he hadfound lands which might be called a new world. He said that thenew continent was more populous and more full of animals thanEurope, or Asia, or Africa, and that the climate was even moretemperate and pleasant than any other region. This was clearly anew world. Why Americus was regarded as the Discoverer of America.The statement of Americus was scattered widely by the help of thenewly invented printing press. It was written in Latin, and socould be read by the learned of all countries. They wereimpressed by the belief of Americus that he had seen a new worldand not simply the Indies. This was especially true of men livingoutside of Spain who had heard little of Columbus or hisdiscovery. Columbus for his part had written as if his great discoverywas a way to the Indies and the finding of islands on the waythither less important. Besides, when he saw what we call SouthAmerica he had no idea that it was a new world. The people ofEurope either never knew that he had discovered the mainland orhad forgotten it altogether. But they heard a great deal aboutAmericus and his doings. It is not strange that Americus ratherthan Columbus was long regarded as the true discoverer ofAmerica. Two Names for the New Lands. Even then the newcontinent might not have been called America but for thesuggestion of a young scholar of the time. MartinWaldseemüller, a professor of geography at the college ofSt. Dié, now in eastern France, wrote a book on geography.In his description of the parts of the world unknown to theancients, he suggested naming the continent stretching to thesouth for Americus.
Waldseemüller thought Americus had been the realdiscoverer of this continent. He said, "Now, indeed, as theseregions are more widely explored, and another fourth part hasbeen discovered by Americus Vespucius, I do not see why any onemay justly forbid it to be named Amerige--that is, Americ's Land,from Americus, the discoverer." Others adopted Waldseemüller's suggestion and the nameAmerica came into general use outside of Spain. But the Spaniardscontinued to call all the new lands by the name which Columbushad given them--the Indies. America was at first the name forSouth America only, but later was also used by writers for theother continent which was soon found to the north. It was naturalto distinguish the two continents as South and North America. Balboa. The successors of Columbus kept up a ceaselesssearch for the real Indies, but the more they explored the morethey saw that a great continental barrier was lying across thesea passage to Asia. A few began to suspect that after allAmerica was not a part of Asia. Vasco Nuñez Balboa was oneof these. Balboa was a planter who had settled inEspañola. He fell deeply into debt, and to escape hiscreditors had himself nailed up in a barrel and put aboard avessel bound for the northern coast of South America. From therehe went to the eastern border of Panama with a party of goldseekers. The Indians told him of a great sea and of an abundanceof gold on its shores to be found a short distance across theisthmus. It is probable that the Indians wished to get rid of theSpaniards as neighbors.
Balboa's Discovery of the Pacific. Balboa resolved tomake a name for himself and to be the discoverer of the othersea. He set off in 1513. The land is not more than forty-fivemiles wide at Panama, but it is almost impassable even to thisday. For twenty-two days the hardy adventurers advanced through aforest, dense with thickets and tangled swamps and interlacingvines--so thick that for days the sun could not be seen--and overrough and slippery mountain-sides until they came to an open seastretching off to the south and west. Balboa called it the SouthSea, but it is usually called the Pacific Ocean, the name givenit afterward. Balboa had made the important discovery that the barrier ofland was comparatively narrow. This gave the impression thatNorth America, too, was narrower than it proved to be, and thesearch for the passage to the Indies was pushed with greatervigor. Magellan. A Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, hadreally won the race begun by Prince Henry's navigators andColumbus for India, the land of cloves, pepper, and nutmegs. Hehad won in 1497 by going around the Cape of Good Hope. Anotherexplorer, Ferdinand Magellan, finally, reached the Indies in along westward voyage lasting two years, from 1519 to 1521.
The Beginning of Magellan's Voyage. Magellan, himself aPortuguese, tried in vain like Columbus to persuade the king ofPortugal to aid him in his project. He succeeded better in Spain,and sailed from there in 1519 with a small fleet given him by theyoung king Charles. The five ships in his fleet were old and inbad repair, and the crews had been brought together from everynation. They sailed directly to South America, and spent thefirst year searching every inlet along the coast for apassage.
They found that the natives of South America used for foodvegetables that "looked like turnips and tasted like chestnuts."The Indians called them "patatas." In this way the potato, one ofthe great foods of to-day, was found by Europeans. A whole winterwas passed on the cold and barren coast of Patagonia. Magellancalled the natives "Patagones," the word in his language meaningbig feet, from the large foot-prints which they left on thesand. The Strait of Magellan. Magellan finally found astrait, since named for him the Strait of Magellan, and sailedhis ships through it amid the greatest dangers. The change fromthe rough waters of the strait to the calm sea beyond made theword Pacific or Peaceful Sea seem the most suitable name for thevast body of water which they had entered. The First Voyage across the Pacific. From the westerncoast of South America Magellan struck boldly out into thePacific Ocean on his way to Asia. The crews suffered untoldhardships. The very rats which overran the rotten ships became aluxurious article of food which only the more fortunate membersof the crews could afford. The poorer seamen lived for days onthe ox-hide strips which protected the masts. These were soakedin sea-water and roasted over the fire. Magellan was fortunate enough to chance upon the Isle of Guam,where plentiful supplies were obtained. He called the group ofsmall islands, of which Guam is one, the Ladrones. This was hisword for robbers, used because the natives were such robbers. Theexpedition discovered a group of islands afterwards called thePhilippines. There Magellan fell in with traders from the Indiesand knew that the remainder of the voyage would be throughwell-known seas and over a route frequently followed. PoorMagellan did not live to complete his remarkable voyage. He waskilled in the Philippine Islands in a battle with thenatives.
Only one of the five ships found its way through the SpiceIslands, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope,and so back to Spain; but this one carried home twenty-six tonsof cloves, worth more than enough to pay the whole cost of theexpedition. Such was the value of the trade Europe was so eagerlyseeking. What Magellan had shown the People of Europe.Magellan's voyage had, however, been a great event. Historiansare agreed that it was the greatest voyage in the history ofmankind. It had shown in a practical way that the earth is aglobe, just as Columbus and other wise men had long taught, for aship had sailed completely around it. But Magellan had also proved some things that they had notdreamed. He had shown that two great oceans instead of one laybetween Europe and Asia; he had made clear that the Indies whichthe Spanish explorers had found, and which other people werebeginning to call the Americas, were really a new world entirelyseparate from Asia, and not a part of Asia as Columbus hadthought.
[CHAPTER XVI]EARLY SPANISH EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS ON THE MAINLAND The Civilization of the Mexican Indians. Early Spanishexplorers on the coast of Mexico found the Indians of themainland more highly civilized than the natives of the WestIndies. Some of these, especially the Aztecs, lived in largevillages or cities and were ruled by powerful chiefs or kings.They built to their gods huge stone temples with towers severalstories in height. Their houses, quite unlike those of the other Indians theSpanish had seen, were made of stone or sun-dried brick andcoated with hard white plaster. Some of them were of immense sizeand could hold many families. Doors had not been invented, buthangings of woven grass or matting of cotton served instead.Strings of shells which a visitor could rattle answered fordoor-bells. The streets of the towns were narrow, but were often pavedwith a sort of cement. Aqueducts in solid masonry somewhat likethe old Roman aqueducts, although not so large, carried waterfrom the neighboring hills for fountains and rude publicbaths. The women wove cotton and prepared clothing for theirfamilies. Workmen made ornaments of gold and copper, and utensilsand dishes of pottery for every-day use. The people cultivatedthe fields around the cities, raising a great variety of foods,and even built ditches to carry water for irrigating the fields.All this was in striking contrast with the simple habits of theWest Indians.
Cruel Customs of the Aztecs. With all the good featuresof Mexican life, with all the superiority of the Mexicans overthe other Indians, there was much that was hideous and cruel. TheAztecs, the most powerful tribes, were continually at war withtheir neighbors. They lived mainly upon the plunder of theirenemies and the tribute which they took from those they hadconquered. Like all Mexicans, they worshiped great ugly idols asgods and to these their priests offered part of the captivestaken in war as human sacrifices. Spanish Ideas of Mexico. The reports of the Azteccivilization and of the treasures of gold, mostly untrue, excitedthe interest and greed of the Spaniards. Mexico seemed like theChina which Marco Polo had described, and might offer a chance ofimmense wealth for those who should conquer it. In truth, Mexicancivilization did resemble that of Asia more than anything thatthe Spaniards had seen. Montezuma, a powerful chief or king ofthe Aztecs, lived somewhat like a Mongol Emperor of Persia orChina.
Cortés. In 1519 the governor of Cuba sentHernando Cortés to explore and conquer Mexico. Theexpedition landed where Vera Cruz is now situated. The ships werethen sunk in order to cut off all hope of retreat for thesoldiers. "For whom but cowards," said Cortés, "were meansof retreat necessary!" Cortés, with great skill, worked upthe zeal of his soldiers to the fury of a religious crusade. Allthought it a duty to destroy the idols they saw, to end thepractice of offering human sacrifices, and to force the Christianreligion upon the natives. The small army marched slowly inland towards the City ofMexico, which was the capital of Montezuma's kingdom.Cortés and his men had learned the Indian mode of fightingfrom ambush, and also how successfully to match cunning andtreachery with those villagers who tried to prevent his invasionof their country. How the Spaniards and the Aztecs fought. The Mexicanwarriors, though they fought fiercely, were no match for theSpaniards. The Mexicans were experts with the bow and arrow,using arrows pointed with a hard kind of stone. They carried forhand-to-hand fighting a narrow club set with a double edge ofrazor-like stones, and wore a crude kind of armor made fromquilted cotton. But such things were useless against Spanishbullets shot from afar.
The roaring cannon, the glittering steel swords, the thickarmor and shining helmets, the prancing horses on which theSpanish leaders were mounted, gave the whole a strange, unearthlyappearance to the simple-minded Indians. The story is told thatthe Mexicans believed that one of their gods had once floated outto sea, saying that, in the fulness of time, he would return withfair-skinned companions to begin again his rule over his people.Many Aztecs looked upon the coming of the white men as the returnof this god and thought that resistance would be useless. Suchnatives sent presents, made their peace with Cortés, andso weakened the opposition to the conquerors. Cortés in Peril. Cortés easily enteredthe City of Mexico, and forced Montezuma to resign. But here thenatives attacked his army in such numbers that he had to retreatto escape capture. The Spaniards fled from the city at night amidthe onslaught of the inhabitants fighting for their religion andtheir homes.
The retreat cost the Spaniards terrible losses. Cortésstarted in the evening on the retreat with 1,250 soldiers, 6,000Indian allies, and 80 horses. There were left in the morning 500soldiers, 2,000 allies, and 20 horses. Cortés is said tohave buried his face in his hands and wept for his lostfollowers, but he never wavered in his purpose of taking Mexico.He was able to defeat the Indians in the open country, and toreturn to the attack on the capital city. Capture of the City of Mexico. The siege whichfollowed, lasting nearly three months, has rarely been matched inhistory for the bravery and suffering of the natives. Thefighting was constant and terrible. The fresh water supply wascut off from the inhabitants in the city, and famine aided theinvaders. At length the defenders were exhausted andCortés entered. It had taken him two years to conquer theAztecs. A greater task remained for him to do. He was to cleanseand rebuild the City of Mexico, make it a center of Spanishcivilization, and Mexico a New Spain. By such work Cortésshowed that he could be not only a great conqueror, but also anable ruler in time of peace.
Pizarro. A few years after Cortés conqueredMexico a second army conquered another famous Indian kingdom.Francisco Pizarro commanded this expedition, which set out fromPanama in 1531. Pizarro had been with Balboa at the discovery ofthe South Sea or Pacific Ocean, and, like his master, had becomeinterested in the stories the Indians told of a rich kingdom farto the south. The golden kingdom which the Indians described wasthat of the Incas, who lived much as the Aztecs. The Spaniardscalled the region of the Incas the Biru country or, by softeningthe first letter, the Peru country, from Biru, who was a nativeIndian chieftain.
Conquest of Peru. Pizarro found the Incas divided asusual by civil wars and incapable of much resistance. One oftheir rival chiefs was outwitted when he tried to capture Pizarroby a trick, and was himself made a prisoner instead. He offeredto give Pizarro in return for his freedom as much gold as wouldfill his prison room as high as he could reach. The offer wasaccepted, and gold, mainly in the shape of vases, plates, images,and other ornaments from the temples for the Indian idols, wasgathered together. The Spaniards soon found themselves in possession of almost$7,000,000 worth of gold, besides a vast quantity of silver. Asmuch more was taken from the Indians by force. The whole wasdivided among the conquerors. Pizarro's share was worth nearly amillion dollars. But the poor chief who had made them suddenlyrich was suspected of plotting to have his warriors ambush themas they left the country, was tried by his conquerors, and put todeath. The bloody work of conquest was soon over. Peru, likeMexico, rapidly became a center of Spanish settlement. Emigrants,instead of stopping in the West Indies, had the choice of goingon into the newer regions which Cortés and Pizarro hadwon. Emigrants to Spanish America. It was much harder in thesixteenth century to leave Spain and settle in America than it istoday. The first and sometimes the greatest difficulty was ingetting permission to leave Spain. No one could go who had notsecured the king's consent. The emigrant must show that neitherhe nor his father nor his grandfather had ever been guilty ofheresy, that is, that he and his forefathers had been steadfastCatholic Christians. His wife, if he had one, must give herconsent. His debts must all be paid. The Moors and the Jews ofSpain could not secure permits to move to the New World.Foreigners of whatever nation were not wanted in the colonies andwere usually kept out. Spain tried to keep its colonies whollyfor Spaniards. Hardships of the Sea Voyage. Those who did go to thecolonies found the voyage dangerous and costly. One traveler hasrelated that it cost him about one hundred and eighty dollars forthe passage, and that he provided his own chickens and bread. Thedanger to sailing ships from storms was much greater than it istoday for steamships. The voyage required three or four weeks andnot uncommonly as many months. The Need of Laborers. The hardships and dangers of thevoyage and the reports of suffering from famine and disease keptmost people from going to the New World. Emigration was slow,amounting to about a thousand a year. There were always fewercapable white laborers than the landowners in the colonies neededfor their work, for there was much to do in clearing the land andpreparing it for use. The landowners were usually well-to-doSpaniards who did not like to work in the fields themselves. Agreat many of the laborers who migrated to America served in thearmy or went to the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru. Thecraze for gold constantly robbed the older colonies of their farmlaborers. The landowners in the islands of the West Indies,during the early history of the colonies, made slaves of theIndians and compelled them to take the place of the laborers theyneeded and could not obtain. Indian Slavery. The people of Europe thought that thewhole world belonged to the followers of Christ. Non-Christians,whether Indian or negro, had the choice of accepting Christianityor of being made slaves. The choice of Christianity did notalways save them from the fate of slavery. In this the Spaniardswere no more cruel than their neighbors the English or theFrench. The Spanish planters from the beginning forced theIndians to work their farms. The gold seekers made them work intheir mines. The labor in every case was hard, and specially hard for theIndian unused to work. The overseers were brutal when the slavesdid not do the tasks set for them. Hard usage and the unhealthfulquarters rapidly broke down the natives. The white men alsobrought into the island diseases which they, with their greaterexperience, could resist, but from which, one writer says, theIndians died like sheep with a distemper.
Slavery destroys the West Indians. When the number ofthe Indians in Española and Cuba had decreased so muchthat there were not enough left to meet the needs of theplanters, slave-hunters searched the neighboring islands forothers. Finally, when the Indians were nearly gone, and theplanters began to look to the mainland for their slaves, the kingof Spain forbade making slaves of the Indians. Unfortunately hedid not forbid them to capture negroes in Africa for the samepurpose, and the change merely meant that negroes took the placeof Indians as slaves. The story of the change is in great partthe story of the life of Bartholomew de Las Casas. Las Casas. The father of Las Casas was a companion ofColumbus on his second voyage in 1493. He returned to Spain,taking with him a young Indian slave whom he gave to his son.This youth became greatly interested in the race to which hisyoung slave belonged. In 1502 he went to Española to takepossession of his father's estate. The planter's life did notlong satisfy him and finally he became a priest. He moved fromEspañola to Cuba, the newer colony. Las Casas became convinced that Indian slavery was wrong, andgave his own slaves their freedom. In his sermons he attacked theabuses of slavery. He visited Spain in order to help the slaves,and secured many reforms which lessened the hardships of theirlot. Since the planters demanded more laborers and Las Casasthought the negro would be hardier than the Indian, he advocatednegro slavery in place of Indian slavery as the less of twoevils. Finally, in 1542, Las Casas persuaded his king, Charles V,to put an end to Indian slavery of every form. His success came too late to benefit the natives of the WestIndies. They had decreased until almost none were left. It issaid that there were two hundred thousand Indians inEspañola in 1492, and that in 1548 there were barely fivehundred survivors. The same decrease had taken place in the otherislands. But the work of Las Casas came in time to save theIndians on the mainland from the fate of the lucklessislanders. Negro Slavery. Las Casas later regretted that he hadadvised the planters to obtain negroes to take the place of theIndians. Some negroes had been captured by the Portuguese on thecoast of Africa during their explorations and taken to Europe asslaves. Columbus carried a few of these to the West Indies withhim, and others had followed his example, but negro slavery hadgrown very slowly until after Las Casas stopped Indian slavery,when it increased rapidly in Spanish America.
The Missions of the Mainland. Las Casas became at onetime a missionary to a tribe of the most desperate warriorslocated on the southern border of Mexico, in a region called bythe Spaniards the "Land of War." Three times a Spanish army hadinvaded the country, and three times it had been driven back bythe native defenders. Las Casas wished to show the Spaniards thatmore could be accomplished by treating the Indians kindly than bybloody warfare and conquest. He and the monks whom he took with him learned the language ofthe Indians, and went among them not as conquerors but asChristian teachers. Their gentle manners and endless patience wonthe friendship of the Indians in time and changed the land ofconstant warfare into one of peace. They led the natives todestroy their idols and to give up cannibalism. The missionestablished among them and kept up by the monks who wereattracted to it was only one of a great number which sprang up onthe mainland. The Work of the Missions. Influenced by the work of LasCasas against Indian slavery and for Indian missions, theSpaniards bent their efforts to preserve and Christianize thenatives wherever they came upon them in America. Catholic priestsgathered the Indians into permanent villages, which were calledmissions. Within about one hundred years after the death ofColumbus, or by 1600, there were more then 5,000,000 Indians insuch villages under Spanish rule. Priests taught them to buildbetter houses, checked their native vices, and suppressed heathenpractices. Every mission became a little industrial school for childrenand parents alike, where all might learn the simpler arts andtrades and the customs and language of their teachers. EachIndian cultivated his own plot of land and worked two hours a dayon the farm belonging to the village. The produce of the villagefarm supported the church. The monks or friars who had charge ofthe mission cared for the poor, taught in the schools, preservedthe peace and order of the village, and looked after thereligious welfare of all.
Gradually Spanish emigrants settled in the mission stations,and planters established farms around them, and they becameSpanish villages in every respect like those in the islands or inthe Old World, except that many inhabitants in the towns on themainland were Indians. The emigrants freely intermarried with theIndians and a mixed race took the place of the old inhabitants.The customs, language, religion, and rule of Spain prevailed inthis New Spain, though in some ways the new civilization was notso good as that of the Old World.
[CHAPTER XVII]THE SPANISH EXPLORERS OF NORTH AMERICA Ponce de Leon. While men like Cortés wereexploring and conquering the countries on the west shore of theGulf of Mexico, others began to search the vast regions to thenorth. One of these explorers was Ponce de Leon, who had come toEspañola with Columbus in 1493. He afterwards spent manyyears in the West Indies capturing Indians, and understood fromsomething they said that a magic fountain could be found beyondthe Bahamas which would restore an old man to youth and vigor, ifhe bathed in it.
As Ponce de Leon was beginning to feel aged he went in searchof this wondrous fountain, but he found instead a coast whereflowers grew in great abundance. It was the Easter season in1513. Since the Spanish call this season Pascua Florida orFlowery Easter, Ponce called the new flowery country Florida. Hewent ashore near the present site of St. Augustine, and later,while trying to establish a settlement, lost his life in a battlewith the Indians. Explorations of North American Coast. Other Spanishexplorers between 1513 and 1525 followed the whole Gulf coastfrom Florida to Vera Cruz, and the Atlantic coast from Florida toLabrador. They sought continually for a passage to India. Everylarge inlet was entered, for it might prove to be thelong-looked-for strait. Slowly the coast of North America tookshape on the maps of that time. Two famous expeditions into theinterior of the country did much to enlarge this knowledge. Onewas made by De Soto through the region which now forms sevensouthern states of the United States, and the other was byCoronado through the great southwest.
De Soto. Hernando de Soto, a noble from Seville inSpain, had won fame and fortune with Pizarro in Peru. The King ofSpain, to reward his bravery and skill in conquering Indians,made him Governor of Cuba. In those days the Governor of Cubacontrolled Florida. It was a larger Florida than the presentstate of that name, for Spanish Florida included the whole northcoast of the Gulf of Mexico running back into the continentwithout any definite boundary. The Story of the Gilded Man. De Soto had heard afanciful story of a country so rich in gold that its king wassmeared every morning with gum and then thickly sprinkled withpowdered gold, which was washed off at night. De Soto thoughtthis country might be somewhere in Florida, and prepared tosearch for the Gilded Man, or in the Spanish language ElDorado. The Comrades of De Soto. More than six hundred men,some of them from the oldest families of the nobility of Spainand Portugal, flocked to De Soto's banner. They sold theirpossessions at home and ventured all their wealth in the hope ofobtaining great riches in Florida. De Soto's Route through the South of North America. DeSoto crossed from Cuba to the west coast of Florida in 1539, andadvanced northward by land to an Indian village near ApalacheeBay. Here he spent the first winter. A white man, whom theIndians had taken captive twelve years before and finallyadopted, joined De Soto and became very useful as aninterpreter.
In the spring De Soto renewed his explorations. It was like ajourney into the interior of Africa. The expedition passednortheasterly through the country now within Georgia and SouthCarolina, as far, perhaps, as the border of North Carolina. Fromhere it passed through the mountains, and turned southwesterlythrough Tennessee and Alabama until a large Indian village calledMauvilla was reached. This was near the head of Mobile Bay.Mobile was named from the Indian village Mauvilla. The AlabamaIndians, whose name means "the thicket clearers," were near by.Here again De Soto changed his course to the northwest into theunknown interior. The Hardships of the Journey. His army was almostexhausted by the difficulties of the journey. A road had to becut and broken through thickets and forest, paths had to be madethrough the many swamps, and fords found across the rivers. Itfrequently became necessary to stop for months at a time, to letthe horses, worn out from travel and starving because of thescarcity of fodder, fatten on the grass. The stores which thearmy brought with them soon gave out. The men were forced to livelike Indians, and were often reduced to using the roots of wildplants for food. Where they could, they robbed the Indians oftheir scanty stores of corn and beans.
Cruel Treatment of the Indians. De Soto was cruel inhis treatment of the conquered natives along his route. Many ofhis officers came with him really for the purpose of obtainingIndian slaves for their plantations in Cuba. Indian women weremade to do the work of the camp. Indian men were chained togetherand forced to carry the baggage. The chiefs were held as hostagesfor the good behavior of the whole tribe. The Indians who triedto shirk work or offered resistance were killed withoutmercy.
De Soto's cruelties made the Indian of the South hate thewhite men, and left him the enemy of any who should come to thoseregions in after-years. More than once De Soto narrowly escapeddestruction at the hands of the enraged savages. They attackedthe Spaniards with all their strength at Mauvilla, and againwhile they were in camp in northern Mississippi for the winter of1540-1541. These two battles with the Indians cost the Spaniardstheir baggage, which was destroyed in the burning villages. Newclothing, however, was soon made from the skins of wild animals.Deerskins and bearskins served for cloaks, jackets, shirts,stockings, and even for shoes. The great army must have lookedmuch like a band of Robinson Crusoes. The Discovery of the Mississippi. De Soto marched onnorthwesterly until May 8, 1541, when he was somewhere near thesite of the present city of Memphis. There he came upon a greatriver. One of his officers tells us that the river was so wide atthis point that if a man on the other side stood still, it couldnot be known whether he were a man or not; that the river was ofgreat depth, and of a strong current; and that the water wasalways muddy. De Soto called it, in his own language, the Rio Grande orGreat River, but the Indians called it the Mississippi. Americanshave adopted the Indian name. Other Spanish explorers hadprobably passed the mouth of the Mississippi River before DeSoto, and wondered at its mighty size, but De Soto was the firstwhite man to approach it from the land and to appreciate theimportance of his discovery. Wanderings west of the Mississippi. The Spaniards cutdown trees, made them into planks and built barges on which theycrossed the Mississippi. Then they wandered for another yearthrough the endless woods and marshes of the low-lying lands nowwithin the state of Arkansas. They probably went as far west asthe open plains of Oklahoma or Texas. In these border regionsbetween the forests and the prairies they met Indians who usedthe skins of the buffalo for clothing.
Death and Burial of De Soto. The severe winter of1541-1542 discouraged the hardy travelers, who had now spentnearly three years in a vain search. The natives whom they hadfound made clothing from the fiber in the bark of mulberry treesand from the hides of buffaloes, and stored beans and corn forfood, but such things seemed of little value to the seekers forthe Gilded Man. De Soto returned to the Mississippi and prepared to establisha colony somewhere near the mouth of the Red River. It was hispurpose to send to Cuba for supplies, and, with this settlementas a base, make a farther search in the plains of the great West.He did not live to carry out his plan. Long exposure and anxietyhad weakened him. The malaria of the swamps attacked him, and hedied within a few days. His body was wrapped in mantles weightedwith sand, carried in a canoe, and secretly lowered in the midstof the great river he had discovered. His successor tried to conceal De Soto's death from theIndians. The Spaniards had called their leader the Child of theSun, and now he had died like any other mortal. They were afraidif the Indians found his body they would cease to believe thatthe strangers were immortal and would massacre them all. TheIndians were told that the great leader had gone to Heaven, as hehad often done before, and that he would return in a fewdays. Results of De Soto's Journey. The weary survivors builtboats, floated down the Mississippi into the Gulf, and sailedcautiously along the coasts to Mexico. They had been gone fouryears and three months, and half of the army which set out hadperished. However, the expedition of De Soto will always remainone of the most remarkable journeys in the history of NorthAmerica. It had extended the Spanish claims far into theinterior. With it had begun the written history of the countrynow composing at least eight states in the United States,Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama,Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. It had perhaps reached thepresent Oklahoma and Texas, and had certainly passed down theMississippi River through Louisiana. The Story of the Seven Cities. While De Soto wasexploring the southeastern part of North America a secondexpedition searched the southwest. Both were looking for richIndian kingdoms like Mexico and Peru. The second expedition cameabout in this manner. Some of the Indians from northern Mexicotold the Spaniards a strange tale of how in the distant pasttheir ancestors came forth from seven caves.
The Spaniards, however, confused the tale with a story oftheir own about Seven Cities. They believed that at the timeSpain was overrun by the Moors in the eighth century, sevenbishops, flying from persecution, had taken refuge, with a greatcompany of followers, on an island or group of islands far out inthe Atlantic Ocean, and that they had built Seven Cities.Wonderful stories were told in Spain of these cities, of theirwealth and splendor, though nobody ever pretended to haveactually seen them. The Spaniards thought the Indians meant totell them of these Seven Cities instead of seven caves. The mistake was natural, as the Spanish explorers had muchtrouble in understanding the Indian languages. They had longexpected to find the Seven Cities in America. Indeed there wasrumor that white travelers had seen them north of Mexico. The Journey of Friar Marcos. In 1539 the Viceroy ofMexico sent a frontier missionary, Friar Marcos by name, togetherwith a negro, Stephen, and some Christianized Indians to look forthem. Friar Marcos traveled far to the north. He inquired his wayof the Indians, always asking them about Seven Cities. Hedescribed them as large cities with houses made of stone andmortar. The Indians, half-understanding him, directed him toseven Zuñi villages or pueblos. The first of these theycalled Cibola. Friar Marcos henceforth spoke of them as the SevenCities of Cibola. The good friar himself never entered even the first of them.His negro, Stephen, had been sent on in advance to prepare theway, but this rough, greedy fellow offended the Indians, whopromptly murdered him. When the friar approached he found theIndians so excited and hostile that he dared not enter theirvillage. He did, however, venture to climb a hill at a distance,from which he had a view of one of the cities of Cibola. Thehouses, built of light stone and whitish adobe, glistened in thewonderfully clear air and bright sunlight of that region, andgave him the idea of a much larger and richer city than reallyexisted. Friar Marcos, by this time thoroughly frightened,hurriedly retraced his steps. Coronado. There was great excitement in Mexico over thestory Friar Marcos told. The account of what had been seen grew,as such stories always do, in the telling and retelling. Nothingelse was thought of in all New Spain. The Viceroy of Mexico madeready a great army for the conquest of the Seven Cities ofCibola. He gave the command to his intimate friend, Francisco deCoronado. Everybody wanted to accompany him, but it was necessaryto have the consent of the viceroy. Sons of nobles, eager to go,traded with their more fortunate neighbors for the viceroy'spermit. Some men who secured these sold them as special favors totheir friends. Whoever obtained one of them counted it as good asa title of nobility. So high were the expectations of greatwealth when the Seven Cities should be discovered!
The Army of Coronado. In the early part of 1540,Coronado set forth from his home in western Mexico near the Gulfof California. He had an army of three hundred Spaniards, nearlyall the younger sons of nobles. They were fitted out withpolished coats of mail and gilded armor, carried lances andswords, and were mounted on the choicest horses from the largestock-farms of the viceroy. There were in the army a few footmenarmed with crossbows and harquebuses. A thousand negroes andIndians were taken along, mainly as servants for the whitemasters. Some led the spare horses. Others carried the baggage,or drove the oxen and cows, the sheep and swine which would beneeded on the journey. A small fleet carried part of the baggageby way of the Gulf of California, prepared also to help Coronadoin other ways, and to explore the Gulf to its head.
The Route of Coronado to Cibola. The large army marchedslowly through the wild regions of the Gulf coast. Coronado soonbecame impatient and pushed ahead of the main body with a smallfollowing of picked horsemen. They went through the mountainouswilderness of northern Mexico and across the desert plains ofsoutheastern Arizona. After a march lasting five months, over adistance equal to that from New York to Omaha, Coronado came uponthe Seven Cities of Cibola; but the real Seven Cities of Cibolaas Coronado found them bore little resemblance to what he hadexpected.
The real Seven Cities of Cibola. The first city ofCibola was an Indian pueblo of about two hundred flat-roofedhouses, built of stone and sun-dried clay. The houses wereentered by climbing ladders to the top and then passing down intothe rooms as we enter ships through hatches. The people wore onlysuch clothes as could be woven from the coarse fiber of nativeplants, or patched together from the tanned skins of the cat orthe deer. They cultivated certain plants for food, but only smalland poor varieties of corn, beans, and melons. They had someskill in making small things for house and personal decoration,mainly in the form of pottery and simple ornaments of greenstone. The kingdom of rich cities dwindled to a small province ofpoor villages inhabited by an unwarlike people. We know now thatCoronado had found the Zuñi pueblos in the western part ofNew Mexico. The conquest of these was a wofully small thing forso grand and costly an expedition. No gold or silver or preciousjewels had been found.
The Canyon of the Colorado. Yet the wonders of thenatural world about them astonished and interested the Spaniards.Some of their number found the Grand Canyon of the Colorado Riverand vividly described it to their comrades. As they looked intoits depths it seemed as if the water was six feet across,although in reality it was many hundred feet wide. Some triedwithout success to descend the steep cliff to the stream below orto discover a means of crossing to the opposite side. Those whostaid above estimated that some huge rocks on the side of thecliff were about as tall as a man, but those who went down as faras they could swore that when they reached these rocks they foundthem bigger than the great tower of Seville, which is two hundredand seventy-five feet high. Coronado in New Mexico. Coronado marched from theCities of Cibola eastward to the valley of the Rio Grande River,and settled for the winter in an Indian village a short distancesouth of the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. TheSpaniards drove the natives out, only allowing them to take theclothes they wore. A Winter in an Indian Village. The soldiers passed thesevere winter of 1540-1541 comfortably quartered in the besthouses of the Indian village. A plentiful supply of corn andbeans had been left by the unfortunate owners. The live stockbrought from Mexico furnished an abundance of fresh meat.Coronado required the Indians to furnish three hundred pieces ofcloth for cloaks and blankets for his men, to take the place oftheir own, now worn out. Nor did the officers give the Indianstime to secure the cloth that was demanded, but forced them totake their own cloaks and blankets off their backs. When asoldier came upon an Indian whose blanket was better than his, hecompelled the unlucky fellow to exchange with him without moreado. Coronado's strenuous efforts to provide well for the comfortsof his men made him much loved by them, but much hated by theIndians. It is no wonder that such treatment drove the Indiansinto rebellion, and that Coronado was obliged to carry on a cruelwar of reconquest and revenge. The Tale of Quivira. An Indian slave in one of thevillages cheered Coronado and his followers with a fabulous taleabout a wonderful city, many days' journey across the plains tothe northeast, which he called Quivira. The king of Quivira, hesaid, took his nap under a large tree, on which were hung littlegold bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the air.Every one in the city had jugs and bowls made of wrought gold.The slave was probably tempted by the eagerness of his hearers tomake his tale bigger. He perhaps made it as enticing as he couldin order to lead the strangers away to perish in the pathlessplains where water would be scarce and corn unknown. The Search for Quivira. The slave's story deceived theSpaniards. Coronado grasped eagerly at the only hope left offinding a rich country and marched away in search of Quivira. Hetraveled to the northeast for seventy-seven days. There were noguiding land marks. Soldiers measured the distance traveled eachday by counting the footsteps. The plains were flat, save for anoccasional channel cut by some river half buried in the sand;they were barren, except for a short wiry grass and a small rimof shrubs and stunted trees along the watercourses. Quivira. The most marvelous sight of the long journeywas the herds of buffaloes in countless numbers. The Indiansguided Coronado in the end to a cluster of Indian villages whichthey called Quivira. This was somewhere in what is now centralKansas near Junction City. The Indians were in all probabilitythe Wichitas. Here again the great explorer met with a bitterdisappointment.
Instead of a fine city of stone and mortar, he found scatteredIndian villages with mere tent-like houses formed by fasteninggrass or straw or buffalo skins to poles. The people were thepoorest and most barbarous which he had met. Coronado was,however, fortunate in securing a supply of corn and buffalo meatin Quivira for his long return journey. Coronado's Opinion of the West. A year later acrestfallen army of half-starved men clad in the skins of animalsstumbled back homeward through Mexico in straggling groups. Greatsadness prevailed in Mexico, for many had lost their fortunesbesides friends and relatives in the enterprise. Coronado seemedto the people of the time to have led a costly army on awild-goose chase. He himself thought that the regions he hadcrossed were valueless. He said they were cold and too far awayfrom the sea to furnish a good site for a colony, and the countrywas neither rich enough nor populous enough to make it worthkeeping. Results of Coronado's Explorations. We know betterto-day the value of Coronado's great discoveries. He had solvedthe age-long mystery of the Seven Cities, and explored thesouthwest of the United States of our day. The rich region nowincluded in the great states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas,Oklahoma, and Kansas had been seen, and it was soon afterdescribed for the European world. His men had explored the Gulfof California to its head, and the Colorado River toward itssource for two hundred miles. They had proved that lowerCalifornia was not an island but a part of the mainland. Otherssoon explored the entire coast of California to the limits of thepresent state of Oregon. How De Soto and Coronado came near meeting. De Soto andCoronado together pushed the Spanish frontier far northward tothe center of North America. A story which was told by De Soto'smen shows how close together the two great explorers were at onetime. While Coronado was in Quivira, De Soto was wandering alongthe borders of the plains west of the Mississippi River, thoughneither knew of the nearness of the other. An Indian woman whoran away from Coronado's army fell in with De Soto's, nine dayslater. If De Soto and Coronado had met on the plains there wouldhave been a finer story to tell, almost as dramatic as themeeting of Stanley and Livingstone in central Africa. One cannotrefrain from wondering how different would have been the endingwith the two great armies united and encouraged to continue theirexplorations.
[CHAPTER XVIII]RIVALRY AND STRIFE IN EUROPE The Rivals of Spain. When the early voyages to Americaand Asia were ended, the French, the English, and the othernorthern peoples of Europe seemed to be beaten in the race fornew lands and for new routes to old lands. The French had sent afew fishermen to the Banks of Newfoundland, and that was all. TheEnglish had made one or two voyages and appeared to be no longerinterested. (See 166.gif, Cabot) The Dutch seemed to be onlysturdy fishermen, thrifty farmers, or keen traders, occupied muchof the time in the struggle against the North Sea, whichthreatened to burst the dikes and flood farms and cities. The Trade-Winds. The Portuguese and the Spaniards had agreat advantage in living nearer the natural starting-point forsuch voyages. To go to Asia ships went by way of the Cape of GoodHope. To go to America a southern route was taken, for in theNorth Atlantic the prevailing winds are from the southwest, whilesouth of Spain the trade-winds blow towards the southwest, makingit easy to sail to America. To take the northern route, which wasthe natural one for French and English sailors, would be tobattle against head winds and heavy seas. The Spaniards and the Portuguese divide the World. TheSpaniards and the Portuguese believed that their discoveries gavethem the right to all new lands which should be found and to alltrade by sea with the Golden East. Two years after the firstvoyage of Columbus the Spaniards agreed with the Portuguese thata line running 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands shouldseparate the regions claimed by each. The Spaniards were to holdall lands discovered west of that line, and the Portuguese alleast of it. This left Brazil within the region claimed by thePortuguese. The rest of North and South America lay within theSpanish claims. It is the future history of this region thatespecially interests us as students of American history.
The Main Question. Were the Spaniards to keep what theyclaimed and continue to outstrip their northern rivals? Theanswer to this question is found in the history of Europe duringthe sixteenth century. Unfortunately for the Spaniards they weredrawn into quarrels in Europe which cost them many men and muchmoney. The consequence was that they were unable to make full useof their discoveries, even if they had known how. Before thecentury was ended their rivals, the English and the French, werestronger than they; and the Dutch, their own subjects, hadrebelled against them. The English and the French desire a Share. Men had suchgreat ideas of the immense wealth of the Indies that thesuccesses of one nation made the other nations eager for somepart of the spoil. Englishmen and Frenchmen were not likely toallow the Portuguese to take all they could find by sailingeastward around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spaniards to keepwhatever they discovered by sailing directly westward or byfollowing the route marked out by Magellan. Both would search fornew routes to the East, and both would lay claim to lands theysaw by the way, regardless of any other nation. Many quarrelscame from this rivalry, but quarrels arose also from othercauses. King Charles and King Francis. About the timeCortés conquered Mexico, his master, King Charles ofSpain, began a war against Francis, the king of France. As longas these two kings lived they were either fighting or preparingto fight. Had Charles been king of Spain only, there might havebeen no trouble, but he ruled lands in Italy and claimed otherswhich the French king ruled. He also ruled all the region northof France which is now Belgium and Holland, and he owned adistrict which forms part of eastern France near Switzerland. Ashe was the German emperor besides, the French king thought himtoo dangerous to be left in peace. These wars have little to dowith American history, except that they helped to weaken the kingof Spain and to prevent the Spaniards from making the most oftheir early successes in colonizing. Religion a Cause of Strife. Religion was the mostserious cause of quarrel in the sixteenth century, and the kingof Spain was the prince most injured by the struggle. At the timeof Prince Henry of Portugal and of Columbus all peoples inwestern Europe worshiped in the same manner, taught theirchildren the same beliefs, and in religious matters they allobeyed the pope. But by 1521 this had changed. The troubles beganin Germany when Charles V was emperor. Before they were overPhilip II, son of Charles, lost control of the Dutch, whorebelled and founded a republic of their own. The English finallybecame the principal enemies of Spain. The French, most of whomwere of the same religion as the Spaniards, came to hate Spanishmethods of defending religion, especially after the Spaniards hadmassacred a band of French settlers in America.
The "Reformers." Many men became discontented at theway the Church was managed. At first all were agreed that theevils of which they complained could be removed if priests,bishops, and pope worked together to that end. After a while someteachers in different countries not only complained of evils, butrefused to believe as the Church had taught and as most peoplestill believed. They did not mean to divide the Christian Churchinto several churches, but they thought they understood the wordsof the Bible better than the teachers of the Church. The Reformation. At that time people who were notagreed in their religious beliefs did not live peaceably in thesame countries. The princes and kings who were faithful to theChurch ordered that the new teachers and their followers shouldbe punished. Other princes accepted the views of the "reformers,"and soon began to punish those of their subjects who continued tobelieve as the Church taught. In Germany these princes werecalled "Protestants," because they protested against the effortsof the Emperor Charles and his advisers to stop the spread of thenew religion. This name was afterwards given to all who refusedto remain in the older Church, subject to the bishops and thepope. Catholic and Protestant Leaders. The most famousleaders of the Roman Catholics at this time were Ignatius Loyola,a Spaniard, Reginald Pole, an Englishman, and Carlo Borromeo, anItalian. Loyola had been a soldier in his youth, but whilerecovering from a serious wound, resolved to be a missionary.With several other young men of the same purpose he founded theSociety of Jesus or the Jesuit Order. Of the Protestants thegreatest leaders were Martin Luther, a German, and John Calvin, aFrenchman. Luther was a professor in the university at Wittenbergin Saxony, which was ruled by the Elector Frederick the Wise.Calvin had lived as a student in Paris, but when King Francisresolved to allow no Protestants in his kingdom, Calvin wasobliged to leave the country. He settled in the Swiss city ofGeneva. The Lutheran Church. Luther's teachings were acceptedby many Germans, especially in northern Germany. He translatedthe Bible into German. After a while his followers formed aChurch of their own which was called Lutheran. It differed fromthe Roman Catholic Church in the way it was governed as well asin what it taught. The French Huguenots. Calvin lived in Geneva, but mostof those who accepted his teachings continued to live in France.The nickname Huguenots, or confederates, was given to them. Theywere not permitted by the French king to worship as Calvintaught, but by 1562 so many nobles had joined them that it was nolonger possible to treat them as criminals. They were permittedto hold their meetings outside the walled towns. The leader whomthey most honored was Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Both he andthey, as we shall see, soon had reason to fear and hate theSpaniards. But we must first understand the difficulties whichthe king of Spain had in dealing with his Dutch subjects. The King of Spain and the Netherlands. Philip IIinherited from his father Charles seventeen duchies, counties,and other districts north of France in what is now Belgium andHolland. Charles had known how to manage these people, because hewas brought up among them. The task of managing them was noteasy. Each district or city had its own special rights and itspeople demanded that these should be respected by the rulingprince. Charles had remembered this, but Philip wished to rulethe Netherlanders, as these people were called, just as he ruledthe people of Spain.
Protestants in the Netherlands. The trouble was madeworse because many of the Netherlanders became followers ofLuther or Calvin, and brought their books into the country. NowPhilip, like his father Charles, was faithful to the teachings ofthe Church, and thought it was his duty to punish such persons.The result was that Philip soon had two kinds of enemies in hisNetherland provinces, those who did not like the way he ruled andthose who refused to believe as the Church taught, and the twounited against him. After a while most of the Lutherans weredriven away, but the Calvinists kept coming in over the borderfrom France. The Netherlands. The Netherlands, or Low Countries, arewell named, especially the northern part where the Dutch live,because much of the land is below the level of the sea at hightide, and some of it at low tide. For several hundred years theDutch built dikes to keep back the sea, or pumped it out where itflowed in and covered the lower lands. Occasionally great stormsbroke through the dikes and caused the Dutch months or years oflabor. A people so brave and industrious were not likely tosubmit to the will of Philip II. The chances that they wouldrebel were increased by the spread of the new religious views,which the Dutch accepted more readily than their neighbors, thesouthern Netherlanders. The southern Netherlanders who becameCalvinists generally emigrated to the northern cities, likeAmsterdam, where they were safer.
William of Orange. William, Prince of Orange, was theleader of the Dutch against Philip II. He had been trusted byCharles, Philip's father, who had leaned on his shoulder at thegreat ceremony held in Brussels when Charles gave up his throneto Philip. William was called the "Silent," because he wascareful not to tell his plans to any except his nearest friends.When Philip returned to Spain, William was made governor orstadtholder of three of the Dutch provinces--Holland,Zealand, and Utrecht. Philip was angry because William and othergreat nobles in the Netherlands opposed his way of dealing withthe heretics and of ruling the Netherlands. In this both thesouthern Netherlanders and the northern Netherlanders wereunited, although the southern Netherlanders remained faithful tothe Roman Catholic religion. Spain and England. The English at first had no reasonto quarrel with the king of Spain. They were friendly to theNetherlanders, who were his subjects. During the Middle Ages theysold great quantities of wool to the Netherland cities of Bruges,Brussels, and Ghent, and bought fine cloth woven in those towns.The friendship of the ruler of the Netherlands seemed necessary,if this trade was to prosper. It was the trouble about religionwhich finally made the English and the Spaniards enemies. Henry VIII. During the reign of Henry VIII, King ofEngland, the king, the parliament, and the clergy decided torefuse obedience to the pope. The king called himself the head ofthe Church in England. Lutheran views crept into the country asthey had done into the Netherlands, but King Henry at firstdisliked the Lutherans quite as much as he grew to dislike thepope. The English Church. So long as Henry lived not muchchange was made in the beliefs or the manner of worship in theChurch. During the short reign of his son, the English Churchbecame more like the Protestant Churches on the Continent, exceptthat in England there were still archbishops and bishops, and thegovernment of the Church went on much as before. When Henry'sdaughter Mary was made queen she tried to stop these changes, andfor a few years her subjects were again obedient to the pope, butshe died in 1558 and her half-sister, Elizabeth, becamequeen.
The English Church and the Catholics. In religiousmatters Queen Elizabeth did much as her father and her brotherhad done. All persons were forced to attend the religiousservices carried on in the manner ordered in the prayer-book.Roman Catholics could not hold any government office. They werepunished if they tried to persuade others to remain faithful tothe older Church. Philip did not like this, but for a time hepreferred to be on friendly terms with the English.
Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth ruled England forforty-five years. The English regard her reign as the mostglorious in their history. Before it was over they provedthemselves more than a match for the Spaniards on the sea. Theyalso began to seek for routes to the East and to attemptsettlements in America. Their trade was increasing. The Greek andRoman writers were studied by English scholars at Oxford andCambridge. Books and poems and plays were written which were tomake the English language the rival of the languages of Greeceand Rome. This was the time when Shakespeare wrote his firstplays.
[CHAPTER XIX]FIRST FRENCH ATTEMPTS TO SETTLE AMERICA Cartier. During the reign of Francis I, the French madethe first serious attempts to find a westward route to the FarEast and to settle the new lands that seemed to lie directlyacross the pathway. In 1534 Jacques Cartier was sent with twoships in search of a strait beyond the regions controlled bySpain or Portugal which would lead into the Pacific Ocean.Cartier passed around the northern side of Newfoundland and intothe broad expanse of water west of it. This he called the Gulf ofSt. Lawrence. Cartier at Montreal. Cartier made a second voyage inthe following year, exploring the great river which he called theSt. Lawrence. He went up the river until the heights of MountRoyal or Montreal, as he called them, appeared on his right hand,and swift rapids in the river blocked his way in front. The nameLachine rapids, or the China rapids, which was afterwards givento these, remains to remind us that Cartier was searching for apassage to China. The First Winter in Canada. Cartier spent the severewinter which followed at the foot of the cliffs which mark thesite of the modern city of Quebec. The expedition returned toFrance with the coming of spring. Attempts to plant a Colony at Quebec. Several yearslater, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish apermanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to getgood colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, theleaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors andcriminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected theneighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535,where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable place for theircolony. But the settlers were ill-fitted for the hardships of anew settlement in so cold and barren a country. Diseases and thehostility of the Indians completely discouraged them, and allgladly returned to France.
The zeal of the French for American discovery and settlementon the St. Lawrence ceased with Cartier. His hope that the St.Lawrence would prove the long-sought passage to China had to begiven up, but the river which he had discovered and so thoroughlyexplored proved to be a great highway into the center of NorthAmerica. Coligny's Plan for a Huguenot Colony. Nearly thirtyyears later the French Protestant leader, Coligny, formed theplan of establishing a colony in America, which would be a refugefor the Huguenots if their enemies got the upper hand in France.An expedition left France in 1564, and selected a site for asettlement near the mouth of the St. Johns river in Florida. Itseemed a good place. A fort, called Fort Caroline, was quicklybuilt. But the first colonists were not well chosen. They werechiefly younger nobles, soldiers unused to labor, or discontentedtradesmen and artisans. There were few farmers among them. The Misdeeds of the Colonists. They spent their timevisiting distant Indian tribes in a vain search for gold andsilver, or plundering Spanish villages and ships in the WestIndies. No one thought of preparing the soil and planting seedsfor a food supply. It seemed easier to rob neighbors. Theprovisions which they had brought with them gave out. Game andfish abounded in the woods and rivers about them, but they werewithout skill in hunting and fishing. Before the first year hadpassed the miserable inhabitants of Fort Caroline were reduced todigging roots in the forest for food. Starvation and the revengeof angry Indians confronted them. Relief sent to the Colony. In August, 1565, just as thehalf-starved colonists were preparing to leave the country, anexpedition with fresh settlers--mostly discharged soldiers, a fewyoung nobles, and some mechanics with their families, threehundred in all--arrived in the harbor. It brought an abundance ofsupplies and other things needed by a colony in a new country. Itlooked then as though these Frenchmen would succeed in their planand establish a permanent colony in America.
Fort Caroline and the Spaniards. The French had,however, settled in Florida. Indeed, it would have been difficultto settle in America at any place along the Atlantic coastwithout doing so. The Spaniards regarded all North America fromMexico to Labrador as lying within Florida. The attempt of theFrench to settle on the lands claimed by the king of Spain wassure to bring on a war, sooner or later. The conduct of theFrench at Fort Caroline in plundering the Spanish colonies in theWest Indies made all Spaniards anxious to drive out such a nestof robbers and murderers. Besides, the Spaniards hated Coligny'sfollowers more than ordinary Frenchmen, because they wereHuguenots. Menendez. At the time the news reached Spain ofColigny's settlement at Fort Caroline, a Spanish nobleman, PedroMenendez, was preparing to establish a colony in Florida, andthus after a long delay carry out the task which De Soto hadvainly attempted. Menendez was naturally as eager as the king todrive out the French intruders. So an expedition larger than wasplanned at first was hurried off. Menendez was to do threethings: drive the French out, conquer and Christianize theIndians, and establish Spanish settlements in Florida. The Defeat of the French Fleet. Menendez with a part ofhis fleet arrived before Fort Caroline just one week after therelief expedition which Coligny had sent over came into harbor.His ships attacked and scattered those of the French. The vesselsof the French for the most part sought refuge on the high seas.They were too swift to be overtaken, but no match for the Spanishin battle. Menendez decided to wait for the rest of his shipsbefore making another attack on Fort Caroline. Meanwhile hesailed southward along the coast for fifty miles till he came toan inlet. He called the place St. Augustine. St. Augustine founded. A friendly Indian chief readilygave his dwelling to the Spaniards. It was a huge, barn-likestructure, made of the entire trunks of trees, and thatched withpalmetto leaves. Soldiers quickly dug a ditch around it and threwup a breastwork of earth and small sticks. The colonists who camewith Menendez landed and set about the usual work of founding asettlement. Such was the beginning of the Spanish town of St.Augustine, founded in 1565, and the oldest town in the UnitedStates.
French sail to attack St. Augustine. Both sidesprepared for a terrible struggle, the French at Fort Caroline andthe Spaniards in their new quarters at St. Augustine. The Frenchstruck the first blow. A few of the weaker and the sick soldierswere left at Fort Caroline to stand guard with the women andchildren. The main body aboard the ships advanced by sea toattack St. Augustine, but a furious tempest scattered and wreckedthe French fleet before it arrived. Menendez destroys Fort Caroline. Menendez now tookadvantage of the storm to march overland to Fort Caroline, wadingthrough swamps and fording streams amid a fearful rain and gale.His drenched and hungry followers fell like wild beasts upon thefew French left in the fort. About fifty of the women andchildren were spared to become captives. As many men escaped inthe forests around the fort, but the greater part werekilled. Capture of the shipwrecked French. The French fleet hadbeen wrecked off the coast of Florida a dozen miles south of St.Augustine. A few days later Menendez discovered some survivorswandering along the coast, half starved, trying to live on theshell-fish they found on the beach, and slowly and painfullyworking their way back toward Fort Caroline. The Frenchmen beggedMenendez to be allowed to remain in the country till ships couldbe sent to take them off, but he was unwilling to make any termswith them. Murder of the Captives. The unhappy Frenchmen weretaken prisoners, and, a few hours later, put to death. Othershipwrecked refugees were captured a few days later, and thesesuffered the same fate. Nearly three hundred perished in thiscold-blooded manner. It was a merciless deed, and yet such wasthe character of all warfare at the time. Menendez believed thathe was doing his duty. Nor did the king of Spain think Menendezunduly cruel, for when he heard the story of the fate of theFrenchmen of Fort Caroline he sent this message to Menendez: "Sayto him that, as to those he has killed, he has done well; and asto those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys."
[CHAPTER XX]THE ENGLISH AND THE DUTCH TRIUMPH OVER SPAIN Cruel Treatment of the Netherlanders. Two years afterthe cruel massacre of the Huguenot colony in Florida, Philip II,the King of Spain, decided to put an end to the obstinacy of theNetherlanders, and sent an army from Spain commanded by the Dukeof Alva, who was as pitiless as Menendez. Alva began by seizingprominent nobles, and he would have arrested the Prince ofOrange, but he escaped into Germany. A court was set up whichcondemned many persons to death, including the greatest nobles ofthe land. The people nicknamed it the Council of Blood. Alva alsoturned the merchants against him by compelling them to pay the"tenth penny," that is, one tenth of the price of the goods everytime these were either bought or sold. Alva made himself sothoroughly hated that even Philip decided to call him back toSpain. The Beggars of the Sea. Just then something happenedwhich gave Coligny and the Huguenots their chance for vengeance.The men who were resisting the king's officers in the Netherlandshad been nicknamed the "Beggars." When they were driven from thecities they took to the sea. The "Beggars of the Sea" sometimesfound a port of refuge in La Rochelle, a Huguenot town on thewestern coast of France, and sometimes they put into friendlyEnglish harbors. From these places they would sail out and attackSpanish vessels. When Queen Elizabeth in 1572 ordered a fleet ofthese "Beggars" to leave, they crossed over to their own shoresand drove the Spanish garrison out of Brille. This successencouraged the Dutch and many of the southern Netherlanders torise and expel the Spanish soldiers from their towns. The French promise Aid. As soon as Coligny heard thenews he urged the French king to send an army into theNetherlands and take vengeance not only for the massacre at FortCaroline, but also for all the wrongs that he and his father andhis grandfather had ever received at the hands of the Spaniards.The French king agreed and wrote a letter to the Netherlanderspromising aid.
Massacre of Huguenots in Paris. The plan was nevercarried out. While Coligny and many other Huguenots were inParis, his enemies attempted to kill him. When the attempt failedthese enemies, including the king's mother, persuaded the kingthat Coligny and the Huguenots were plotting against him, andgoaded the king into ordering the murder of all the Huguenots inParis and the other cities of France. Thousands of Huguenotsperished. When the Netherlanders heard of what had befallenColigny and his followers, they were crushed with grief. Colignyhad missed the chance of vengeance. But the Spanish king was soonto have other enemies besides the Huguenots who were ready tohelp the Dutch. These new enemies were the English. The English drawn into the Conflict. The religioustroubles in England had been growing more serious. Two or threeplots were made to assassinate Elizabeth in order to put on thethrone Queen Mary of Scotland, who was the next heir. Philipbegan to encourage these plotters, especially after the pope in1570 had excommunicated Elizabeth and forbidden her subjects toobey her as queen. She was sure to be dragged into the strugglein the Netherlands sooner or later. We have seen that she hadonce sheltered the "Beggars of the Sea." The murder of Colignyand his followers frightened the English and made many of themanxious to join in the conflict before their friends on theContinent, the French Huguenots and the Dutch Calvinists, wereutterly destroyed. Growth of English Trade. If England should be drawninto war, her safety would depend mainly upon her ships.Englishmen had always taken to the sea, as was natural for menwhose shores were washed by the Atlantic, the Channel and theNorth Sea, but they were slow in building fleets of ships eitherfor trade or for war. The trade of the country with other peoplesin the Middle Ages was carried on mostly by foreigners. Yet sincethe days of Elizabeth's father and grandfather a change had takenplace. English merchants found their way to all markets. Theyalso made new things to sell. Refugees driven by the religioustroubles from France and the Netherlands brought their skill toEngland and taught the English how to weave fine woolens andsilks. The new English Navy. The English navy was growing. Oneof the new ships, The Triumph, carried 450 seamen, 50gunners, and 200 soldiers. Besides harquebuses for the soldiers,there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such asculverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four ofthe cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inchesin diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her menrather than upon the size of her ships that England relied forvictory.
Sir Francis Drake. One of these men was Francis Drake.He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in therigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in thestreets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of asmall trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life.His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who hadserved him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake becamethus a shipmaster on his own account, and in time the mostpopular of Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains. Slave-Traders. He often went with his cousin, JohnHawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves fromslave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom theyfound, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the WestIndies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other menof their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslavingthe heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wildlife of the slave-trader with its dangers and rich rewards. Why Drake hated the Spaniards. The king of Spain triedto keep the trade in slaves for his own merchants, and attemptedto prevent the trade of the English slavers with the West Indies.Spanish ships-of-war ruined one of the voyages from which Hawkinsand Drake hoped for large profits. The Spaniards won thereby theundying hatred of Drake. The Dragon of the Seas. It was a time, too, whenDrake's countrymen at home shared his intense hatred of theSpaniard. While England and Spain were not at war with oneanother, English and Spanish traders fought whenever they met onthe high seas. The English made the Spanish settlements inAmerica their special prey. At certain times of the year Spanishships, called government ships, carried to Spain gold andsilver--the royal share of the products of America. Drake, likemany another of his countrymen, lay in wait to rob these ships oftheir precious cargoes. He managed to gather a fortune by hiscunning and courage. More than once he was forced to bury histreasures in the sand to lighten his ships that they might sailthe faster, and escape his pursuers. The Spaniards came to knowand to fear Drake as the Dragon of the Seas.
Drake's Venture. Drake once formed the plan to take afleet into the Pacific Ocean in order to plunder the treasureships where they would be less on their guard. A fleet of fiveships was made ready. Contributions from wealthy merchants andpowerful nobles, perhaps a gift from Queen Elizabeth herself,gave him the means for unusual luxuries in the equipment of hisfleet. Skilful musicians and rich furniture were taken on boardDrake's own ship, the Pelican, or the Golden Hindas he afterwards christened it. The brilliant little fleet leftPlymouth in 1577. One after another of the ships turned back orwas destroyed on the long voyage of twelve months across theAtlantic and through the Strait of Magellan. Beyond the Strait of Magellan. The Golden Hindalone remained to carry out the original project. As it enteredthe Pacific Ocean a furious storm drove the little vesselsouthward beyond Cape Horn to the regions where the oceans meet.No one before had sailed so far south. The first Prizes. Drake regained control of his shipwhen the storm had passed, and sailed northward along the coast,plundering and robbing as he went. Once, as a land-party wassearching along the shore for fresh water, it came upon aSpaniard asleep with thirteen bars of silver beside him. His napwas disturbed long enough to take away his burden. Further onthey met another Spaniard and an Indian boy driving a train ofPeruvian sheep laden with eight hundred pounds of silver. TheEnglishmen took their place, and merrily drove the sheep to theirboats. A treasure ship, nicknamed the Spitfire, on the wayto Panama, was captured after a long chase of nearly eighthundred miles. Drake obtained from it unknown quantities of goldand silver. With such a rich load, his thoughts turned to thehomeward voyage. Drake's Voyage around the World. By this time a host ofSpanish war-ships were on Drake's track. They expected to capturehim on his return through the Strait of Magellan. Drake, nowconfronted with real danger, cunningly outwitted his enemies. Heand many other Englishmen of his day were sure a passage would befound somewhere through North America between the Atlantic andthe Pacific. Spanish, French, and English explorers had allcarried on the search for this passage. Drake decided to returnby such a route, if it were possible. He followed the coast ofCalifornia, and probably passed that of Oregon and Washington asfar as Vancouver.
When it grew colder and the coast turned to the westward, hegave up the search. After making some needed repairs in a small harbor a few milesabove the modern San Francisco, Drake set out boldly across thePacific to return home, as Magellan's men had done before him, bygoing around the world. He touched at the Philippines, visitedthe Spice Islands, and slowly worked his way around the Cape ofGood Hope. The Golden Hind, long since given up as lost,reached England in the fall of 1580, after nearly three years'absence. For a second time a ship had sailed around the world.Drake was the first Englishman to gain the honor. Drake's Reward. Queen Elizabeth liked the story Draketold of outwitting and plundering Spaniards. Arrayed in her mostgorgeous robes she visited his ship, where a banquet had beenprepared. While Drake knelt at her feet she made him a knight.And so it was that the man whom the Spaniards called with goodreason the Master Thief of the Seas, the English called by a newtitle, Sir Francis Drake, and praised as the greatest sea-captainof the age. His ship, the Golden Hind, was ordered to bepreserved forever. The Dutch Struggle against Spain. A few years afterDrake returned the English took a deeper interest in the strugglebetween Philip and the Dutch. Although the Dutch had lost hope ofhelp from the French Huguenots, they resisted Philip's generalsmore boldly than ever. The Spanish soldiers treated the townswhich surrendered so savagely that the other towns decided it wasbetter to die fighting than to yield. The siege of Leyden becamefamous because, after food had given out and the inhabitants werestarving their friends cut the great dikes in order that theboats of the "Beggars of the Sea" loaded with provisions might befloated up to the very walls of the city. This unexpected floodalso drove away the Spaniards. Fortunately after the rescue ofthe city a strong wind arose and drove back the waves so that thedikes could again be replaced.
The Death of William of Orange. King Philip had come tothe conclusion that unless William of Orange were killed theDutch could not be conquered, and so he put a price on PrinceWilliam's head, offering a large sum of money to any one whoshould kill him. The first attempts failed, but finally in 1584he was shot. Sir Philip Sidney. The murder of William alarmed theEnglish for Elizabeth's life, especially as Philip had alreadyaided men who were plotting against her. She sent an army intothe Netherlands to aid the Dutch, although she had not made upher mind to attack Philip directly. The army did not give muchhelp to the Dutch, but it is remembered because a noble Englishpoet, Sir Philip Sidney, was mortally wounded in one of thebattles. The story is told that while Sidney was riding back,tortured by his wound, he became very thirsty, as wounded menalways do, and begged for a drink of water. Looking up when itwas brought to him he saw on the ground a common soldier moresorely wounded than he. He immediately sent the water to thesoldier saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." The Invincible Armada. The king of Spain now decidedthat he could not subdue the Dutch until he had thoroughlypunished the English. He even planned to put himself upon theEnglish throne, claiming that he was the heir of one of the earlykings of England. Months were spent in preparing a great fleet,an "Invincible Armada" which was to sail up the Channel, take onboard the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and cross over toEngland. While these preparations were being made with Philip'susual care, Sir Francis Drake swooped down on Cadiz and burnt somuch shipping and destroyed so many supplies that the voyage hadto be postponed a year. This Drake called "singeing the king ofSpain's beard." The Armada in the Channel. It was July, 1588, beforethe "Invincible Armada" appeared off Plymouth in the EnglishChannel. Many of the Spanish ships were larger than the Englishships, but they were so clumsy that the English could outsailthem and attack them from any direction they chose. Moreover, theSpaniards needed to fight close at hand in order that thesoldiers armed with ordinary guns might join in the fray. TheEnglish kept out of range of these guns and used their heavycannon.
Destruction of the Armada. With the English shipsclinging to the flanks and rear of the Armada, the Spaniardsmoved heavily up the Channel. In the narrower waters betweenDover and Calais the English attacked more fiercely, and sankseveral Spanish vessels. Soon the others were fleeing into theNorth Sea, driven by a furious gale. Many sought to reach Spainby sailing around Scotland and Ireland, and some of these shipswere dashed on the rocky shores. Only a third of Philip's proudfleet returned to Spain. Effect of the Defeat of the Armada on Spain. This wasthe last attempt Philip made to attack the English, because Spainhad been exhausted in the effort to collect money and suppliesfor the Invincible Armada. The war dragged on for many years, andthe English attacked and plundered Spanish vessels wherever theyfound them. The Independence of the Dutch. The ruin of the Armadaalso meant that the Dutch would succeed in becoming independentof the Spanish king. Seven of the northern provinces had alreadyformed a union and had begun to call themselves the UnitedNetherlands. They were growing richer while their neighboringprovinces on the south, which had decided to return to theirallegiance to Spain, grew poorer. First Voyage of the Dutch to the East. Even while thefight was going on the Dutch traded in places where Philip hadnot permitted them to trade while he could control them. One ofthese places was Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Here the Dutchobtained spices which the Portuguese brought from the EastIndies. But in 1580 Philip seized Portugal, and the Dutch couldno longer go to Lisbon. This made them anxious to find their wayto the East. In 1595 the first fleet set out. This voyage wasunsuccessful, but other fleets followed, until soon the Dutch hadalmost driven the Portuguese, now subjects of the king of Spain,from the Spice Islands. Soon also Dutch sailors ventured acrossthe Atlantic to the shores of America.
[CHAPTER XXI]THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA English Interest in America Awakened. Voyages likethose made by Sir Francis Drake awakened a desire throughoutEngland to learn more about the New World. Until this time eventhe great discoveries of Columbus and the Cabots had failed tostir the English people to take part in the exploration andsettlement of the Americas. The principal reason was becausetheir attention was occupied by the struggle between theirmonarchs and the popes to decide whether king or pope shouldgovern the English Church. This continued until Queen Elizabethhad been on the throne some years. Other sea-captains, hearing of Drake's success, now turnedtheir ships toward the Americas. Many went to the West Indies, ashe had done, mainly to seize the rich plunder to be found onboard the ships of Spain bound homeward. Some of them exploredthe coast of North America, hoping to find valuable regions thathad not fallen into the possession of the Spaniards. The Northwest Passage. Martin Frobisher made threevoyages, the last in 1578, in search of a passage through NorthAmerica to China. He entered the bay which bears his name, andthe strait which was later called after Hudson, but failed tofind a passage. Drake attempted to find the western entrance tosuch a passage in 1579 as a short cut homeward when he tried toavoid his Spanish pursuers. Gilbert. A grander scheme was planned by HumphreyGilbert. He wished to build up another England across the sea,just as the people of Spain were building up another Spain. Heplanned to do this by establishing farms to which he and othersmight send laborers who could not find work at home. QueenElizabeth liked this plan, and to encourage him, and to repay himfor the expense of carrying the emigrants over, she promised himthe land for six hundred miles on each side of hissettlements.
Failure of Gilbert's Expedition. Gilbert tried twice toplant a colony in the neighborhood of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, was one of his captains inthe expedition of 1578. He would have been in the disastroussecond attempt in 1583 had not Queen Elizabeth, full offorebodings of danger to her favorite, refused to let him go. Asit was he sent a ship at his own cost. Gilbert took a largesupply of hobby-horses and other toys with which to please thesavages. Mishap, desertion, and shipwreck pursued the lucklesscommander. The second expedition left Plymouth with five vessels in 1583.The ship that Raleigh sent, the best in the fleet, desertedbefore they were out of sight of England. One was left inNewfoundland. The wreck of the largest ship, with most of theprovisions, off Cape Breton, so discouraged the crews that theyprevailed upon Gilbert to abandon the plan to settle on suchbarren and stormy shores, Gilbert attempted to return on theSquirrel, the smaller of the two remaining vessels. Thiswas a tiny vessel of scarcely ten tons burden. What was left ofthe little fleet voyaged homeward by the southern way, and raninto a fearful storm as it approached the Azores. Although Gilbert was urged to go aboard the larger vessel, herefused to desert his companions, with whom he had passed throughso many storms and perils, and tried to calm the fears of all byhis reply, "Do not fear, Heaven is as near by water as by land."One night the Squirrel suddenly sank. All on board werelost. Such was the sad ending of the first efforts to establishan English colony in North America. Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh took up the interesting planwhich his kinsman, Gilbert, had at heart. Raleigh was now at theheight of his favor with Queen Elizabeth. She had made himwealthy, especially by the gift of large estates which she hadtaken from others. She readily promised him the same privilegesin America which she had offered to Gilbert. Raleigh doubtlessthought that he might increase his fortune and win glory forhimself and for his country by planting English colonies in theNew World. No man of the age was better fitted for theundertaking. He had shown himself a fearless soldier and an ablecommander in the war against Spain in the Netherlands. He hadfortune, skill, and powerful friends. Like Gilbert, he was afriend of poets and scholars and a student of books; like Drake,he was a natural leader of men.
Virginia. Raleigh began in 1584 by sending anexpedition to explore the coast for a suitable site for a colony.His men sailed by way of the Canaries, and came upon NorthAmerica in the neighborhood of Pamlico Sound, avoiding the stormyroute directly across the Atlantic which Gilbert had followed.They found, therefore, instead of the bleak shore of Newfoundlandand Prince Edward Island, the genial climate of North Carolinaand Virginia. They carried home glowing reports of the country. They wereparticularly pleased with an island in Pamlico Sound called bythe Indians Roanoke Island. They noted with wonder theoverhanging grape-vines loaded with fruit, the fine cedar treeswhich seemed to them the highest and reddest in the world, thegreat flocks of noisy white cranes, and the numberless deer inthe forests. The Indians appeared gentle and friendly, Elizabethwas so pleased with the accounts of the country that she allowedit to be called Virginia after herself, the Virgin Queen, andmade Raleigh a knight. The first English Colonists. Raleigh made severalattempts to plant a colony in Virginia. The most famous one wasled by John White in 1587. White had visited Virginia on anearlier voyage, and painted more than seventy pictures of Indianlife, representing their dress and their manner of living. Thesemay still be seen in the British Museum in London. His interestin the country and its Indian population made his appointment asgovernor seem a wise choice. Care was taken in the selection ofcolonists in order to secure farmers rather than gold-seekers.Twenty-five women and children were included in the colony ofabout one hundred and fifty persons. Roanoke. White and his followers settled on RoanokeIsland. They found that the fort, which one of Raleigh's officershad built some years earlier, was leveled to the ground. Severalhuts were still standing, but they were falling to pieces. Thefirst task was to rebuild the huts and move into them from theirships. A baby girl was born a few days after the landing, thefirst child born of English parents in the New World. Her father,Ananias Dare, was one of White's councilors; her mother, EleanorDare, was the daughter of Governor White. The baby was given thename Virginia, the name of the country which was to be herhome.
The Colonists in Danger. The little colony must haveforeseen the hostility of the Indians and a scarcity of food, forbefore Governor White had been in America two months, he was sentback to England to obtain more provisions, White, from his ownaccount, did not wish to leave his daughter andgranddaughter. White's Search for Aid. White returned to England inthe fall of 1587 at the wrong moment to ask for aid. All Englandwas alarmed by the rumor that a great Spanish fleet was about toland an invading army. The friends of Virginia in England weretoo busy protecting their own homes from the invader to give heedto the needs of the farmer colonists across the sea. Whitetraveled through England, seeking aid for his friends and family,but was disappointed everywhere. Why Raleigh gave no Help. Raleigh had by no meansforgotten his colonists, but his queen and his country had thefirst claim on him through the long war with Spain. Twice duringthis period, he found time and means to prepare reliefexpeditions for Virginia. The queen stopped the first one just asit was ready to sail, because all the ships were needed at thatmoment for service in the war. A second expedition was attackedby the Spaniards and forced to return. The lost Colony. White finally secured passage forhimself on a fleet going to the West Indies, not with a fleet andrelief supplies of his own, but as a passenger on another man'sship. It was the summer of 1591 when he arrived at Roanoke, fouryears after his departure. The colonists were not to be found.Their houses were torn down. The chests which they had evidentlyburied in order to hide them from the Indians had been dug up andransacked of everything of value. White's own papers which he hadleft behind were strewn about. His pictures and maps were tornand rotten with the rain. His armor was almost eaten through withrust. One trace of the fate of the settlers was left. The largeletters CROATOAN were carved on a tree near the entrance to theold fort. White recalled the agreement made when he left fouryears before. If the colonists should find it necessary to leaveRoanoke, they were to carve on a tree the name of the place towhich they were going. If they were in danger or distress whenthey left, they were to carve a cross over the name of the place.White found no cross. The word Croatoan was the name of a smallisland lying south of Cape Hatteras, where Indians lived who wereknown to be friendly. White believed his friends to be safe amongthe Indians at Croatoan, but he could not go farther in searchfor them because the captains of the ships which brought him overrefused to delay longer. They gave many excuses, but wereevidently more eager to attack the Spaniards than to find a fewluckless emigrants.
The fate of Raleigh's colony is one of the puzzles of history.It is believed that they took refuge with friendly Indians, andlived with them until they lost their lives in war or had adoptedthe ways of their protectors. Value of the Efforts of the English and the French.Raleigh had failed to carry out his great plan to plant a newEngland in America, but he had awakened in his countrymen aninterest in America, and made known the advantages of its soiland climate. The French had apparently made no greater headway.Cartier's colony on the St. Lawrence had broken up, and theSpaniards had driven the French colony from Florida. The historyof Coligny's colony at Fort Caroline, Cartier's at Quebec,Gilbert's on the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Raleigh'sat Roanoke, had shown how useless were attempts to settle inAmerica which were not strongly supported by friends or by thehome government. These attempts to plant colonies in America werenot, however, as bad failures as they appeared. Both nations hadlearned much about the country and about the preparations neededfor permanent settlements. What the Spanish had accomplished. In 1600 Spain seemedto have achieved much more than either of her rivals. The map ofthat time shows Spain in possession of vast territories in Northand South America. The English had a small tract, Virginia, inwhich they had some interest but no colonists. The Frenchregarded the St. Lawrence valley as theirs by right of discovery,but they could point to no settlements to clinch that claim. The Spaniards, on the other hand, counted more than twohundred cities and towns which they had planted in theirterritories. About two hundred thousand Spaniards, farmers,miners, traders, soldiers, and nobles, had either migrated fromSpain to America or had been born there of emigrants sinceColumbus's discovery. Five million Indians had come under theirrule, and most of them were living as civilized men, and calledthemselves Christians. One hundred and forty thousand negroslaves had been carried from Africa to the plantations and minesin Spanish America.
The City of Mexico, the largest in all America, was much likethe cities of Spain. Well-built houses of wood, stone, andmason-work abounded. Churches, monasteries, a university, higherschools for boys and girls, four hospitals, of which one was forIndians, and public buildings, similar to those in the cities ofold Spain, already existed. Spanish life and Spanish culture hadspread over a large area in the New World, and the mostremarkable fact was that the Old World civilization had beenbestowed on the Indian population. As Roman culture went intoSpain and Gaul, so Spanish culture went into a New Spain in a newworld. The Prospects of the Spanish Colonies. But the outlookfor Spain in America was not wholly bright. Her struggle with herDutch subjects and the war with England, which grew out of thatquarrel, left her completely worn out. She no longer had thepeople to spare for American settlements. These ceased to grow asthey once had. Negroes and Indians outnumbered the Spaniards inmost of them. The three races mingled together and intermarrieduntil a new people, the Spanish American, differing in color andblood from either of the old races, was formed. The later Story of Colonization. Spain's rivals--theDutch, the English, and the French--were just reaching the heightof their power. They had settled their most serious religiousdifferences. Their merchants were eagerly looking about forcommercial opportunities. A considerable population in each ofthem, but more especially in England, was discontented and readyto try its fortunes in a new world. The Spaniards had passed bythe best parts of North America as worthless. The people and theunoccupied land were both ready for the formation of colonies ona larger scale. In many ways a greater story of Americancolonization remains to be told. This will be the story of theDutch, the French, and the English colonization of NorthAmerica.
[REFERENCES FORTEACHERS]The following references are given in the hope that they willbe helpful to the teacher. The list is by no means exhaustive,but enough are given so that one or more books for each subjectshould be found in any fairly equipped school or public library.Some of these books may be assigned to the brighter or moreambitious members of the class for home readings. Extracts fromothers may be read to the class directly. Still others willfurnish the teacher a variety of stories or fuller statements offact upon matters treated briefly in the text. A Bibliography ofHistory for Schools and Libraries by Andrews, Gambrill and Tail(Longmans, 1911), will give many more references and furtherinformation regarding those that are given here.
[INDEX]
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[1][The Study of History in Elementary Schools. Scribner's, 1909.]
QUESTIONS
1. What does the emigrant from Europe bring to America besides his baggage?
2. Why are all Americans emigrants?
3. What did the earliest emigrants from Europe to America bring with them?
4. Which do you think the more useful invention--the telephone or the art of writing? Who invented this art? Find Egypt on the map. How did Egyptian writing look?
5. Why was it a help to Columbus that gunpowder and guns were invented before he discovered America?
6. When did the Christian Era begin? What is meant by Ancient Times? By the Middle Ages? By Modern Times? In what Times was the art of writing invented? In what Times was the compass invented? In what Times was the telephone invented?
EXERCISES
1. Collect from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising folders, pictures of ocean steamships. Collect pictures of sailing ships, ships used now and those used long ago.
2. Collect from persons who have recently come to this country stories of how they traveled from Europe to America, and from ports like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to where they now live.
3. Let each boy and girl in the schoolroom point out on the map the European country from which his parents or his grandparents or his forefathers came.
4. Let each boy and girl make a list of the holidays which his forefathers had in the "fatherland" or "mother country." Let each find out the manner in which the holidays were kept. Let each tell the most interesting hero story from among the stories of the mother country or fatherland. Let each find out whether the tools used in the old home were like the tools his parents use here.
QUESTIONS
1. What ancient cities still exist? Find them on the [map[3].] (For each difficult name find the pronunciation in the index.)
2. What things do we find in the ruins of ancient cities which tell us how the people lived?
3. From what country did most of our words come in the beginning? Why are they now called English? What peoples used the word geography before we did? About how many words do we get from the Greeks, and how many from the Romans?
4. Which people became famous earlier, the Greeks or the Romans? Point out on the map the peninsula where each lived.
5. Why do we like to remember the brave deeds of the Greeks?
6. Find the city of Athens on the [map[4].] Find Sparta. Where was Marathon? What city won glory at Marathon?
7. What were the worst faults of the Greeks?
EXERCISES
1. Collect pictures of ruined cities in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising folders. Collect postal cards giving such pictures.
2. Choose the best one of the Greek stories mentioned [11] and tell it.
3. Find out how differently soldiers now are clothed and armed from the way the Greek soldiers were.
4. Find out why a long distance run is now called a "Marathon."
QUESTIONS
1. Why do we wish to know how the Greeks lived?
2. What was an Acropolis? How does the Acropolis at Athens look?
3. On the picture of the Parthenon point out the pediment. Show where the frieze was placed. Find on a [map[5] Paestum.
4. What did the Greeks first mean by a scene? Why do we still study Greek plays? What is left of the Greek theaters?
5. What was a stadium, a portico, a gymnasium? Do we have such buildings?
6. How do we know that the Greeks made beautiful statues?
7. What games for Greek boys were like our games? Tell about the great public games of the Greeks.
8. How were the Greek rolls or books made?
9. Tell the story of Socrates.
EXERCISES
1. Are there any buildings in your town which are like Greek buildings?
2. Find in your town Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.
3. Get from a wall-paper dealer a sample of a frieze for a papered room.
4. What is the difference between the government of Athens and the government of your town?
5. What is the difference between the courts at Athens and the courts in your town?
6. Are Olympic games held now? Where?
7. Which prizes would you prefer, the prizes given to winners at Greek games or the prizes given to winners in our athletic games?
QUESTIONS
1. Why were the Greek colonies important? Why did the Greeks emigrate to the colonies?
2. Point out on the [map[1], the lands to which they might go. Name several cities which they built.
3. What were the ties between the daughter and the mother city?
4. Why was a part of southern Italy called Great Greece?
5. Describe a Greek trireme and the way it was managed.
6. Of what country was Alexander the Great king? When did he reign? How far east did he march? What did he do besides winning victories?
7. Why was the city of Alexandria famous in Ancient Times?
8. Of what help was Ptolemy to Columbus?
EXERCISES
1. Find out the colonies we have. For what purpose do Americans go to these colonies? Is it as hard to reach them as it was for the Greeks to reach their colonies?
2. What country now has the most colonies?
3. Learn and tell the story of Ulysses and the Cyclops.
4. Find out what is meant at Constantinople by "the Golden Horn?" Who now live at Constantinople, at Naples, at Marseilles?
5. Collect pictures of these cities.
REVIEW
(Chapters II, III, and IV)
Ten things we owe to the Greeks:
1. Many useful words.
2. Many interesting tales.
3. Many examples of heroism.
4. Knowledge of how to construct beautiful buildings.
5. How to carve beautiful statues, reliefs, and friezes.
6. How to write great plays.
7. How to speak before large audiences.
8. Wise sayings of men like Socrates and Plato.
9. Knowledge of geography and mathematics.
10. Their work as colonists in teaching other peoples to live, and think and act as they did.
Two important dates:
Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Death of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C.
QUESTIONS
1. What was the name of the dangerous neighbors of the Greeks in Sicily? Find Carthage on the [map[8]. Where did the Carthaginians come from originally? Find Phoenicia on the [map[6]
2. Who were the dangerous neighbors of the Greeks in Italy? Find the Tiber and Rome on the [map[9].
3. Tell the story of the capture of Rome by the Gauls. How long was this after the battle of Marathon? How long after the death of Socrates? How long before Alexander became king of Macedon?
4. Find the land of the Samnites on the [map[10]. Tell the story of the Caudine Forks.
5. What Greek king did the people of Tarentum call to Italy to help them against the Romans? What did he say after his second battle with the Romans?
6. After the defeat of Pyrrhus how much of Italy owned the Romans as masters? How did the Romans treat the Italians?
7. Explain how the early Roman ways of living differed from the ways of the Greeks.
8. How differently did the Romans and the Greeks govern themselves?
EXERCISES
1. Read the story of Horatius in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome."
2. Collect pictures of Rome and Italy.
3. Is there a modern city of Carthage? What country rules over Tunis? Are there now any Phoenicians?
4. Read the description of Tyre in the Bible, Ezekiel xxvii. 3-25, and tell what is said there about the riches of the Tyrians. Find out who destroyed Tyre.
QUESTIONS
1. How long did it take the Romans to conquer Italy? How long to conquer the lands about the Mediterranean? In what "Times" did all this happen?
2. Why did the Carthaginians and the Romans fight? What did Hannibal promise his father? What sort of a leader was Hannibal?
3. How did Hannibal reach Italy? How did he win the battle of the Trebia?
4. Why was he unable to force the Romans to yield?
5. How long before the beginning of the Christian Era did this war with Hannibal close? How long after the battle of Marathon, and after the death of Alexander the Great?
6. What other lands did the Romans conquer? How did they rule these colonies?
7. Were they better for the wealth and power they gained? What became of many of the Italian farmers? Where did the Romans get their slaves?
8. What good things did they learn from the Greeks? What was the Graeco-Roman world?
EXERCISES
1. On an outline map of the lands around the Mediterranean mark on each land, Spain, Greece, northern Africa, Asia Minor, and Egypt, the dates at which the Romans conquered each, finding these dates in any brief Roman or Ancient History--Botsford, Myers, Morey, West, Wolfson.
QUESTIONS
1. After the Romans had conquered the lands about the Mediterranean, into what other countries did they march?
2. Who once lived where the French now live? Tell how the Gauls lived.
3. How did the manner of living of the Germans differ from that of the Gauls? Were the Britons similar to the Germans or to the Gauls?
4. What names do we get from the names of the German gods?
5. Who was Julius Caesar? Why did he go among the Gauls? What was the result of his wars with the Gauls? Tell the story of Vercingetorix.
6. After the conquest of the Gauls, into what countries did Caesar go?
A ROMAN COIN WITH THE HEAD OF JULIUS CAESAR 7. What was the fate of the Roman army in Germany in the time of Augustus?
8. In which of these countries did the peoples become much like the Romans?
9. Why have Americans a special interest in the Roman conquest of Gaul and Britain?
EXERCISES
1. Caesar and Alexander were two of the greatest generals who ever lived. How many years after Alexander died did Caesar begin his wars in Gaul? What difference was there between what these two generals did? Whose work is the more important for us?
2. Plan a large map of the Graeco-Roman world, pasting on each country a picture of some interesting Greek or Roman ruin. This will take a long time, but many pictures may be found in advertising folders of steamship lines and tourist agencies.
REVIEW
(Chapters IV, V, VI, and VII)
How the Graeco-Roman world was built up:
1. The Greeks drive back the Persians.
2. The Greeks settle in many places on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
3. Alexander conquers the countries about the eastern Mediterranean.
4. The Romans conquer the Greeks in Italy, but learn their ways of living.
5. The Romans conquer the Carthaginians and seize their colonies.
6. The Romans conquer all the lands around the Mediterranean.
7. The Romans conquer Gaul and Britain.
Important dates in this work of building a Graeco-Roman world:
Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Work of Alexander ended, 323 B.C. Romans become masters of Italy, 275 B.C. Romans conquer Hannibal, 202 B.C. Caesar's conquest of Gaul complete, 49 B.C.
QUESTIONS
1. In the political strife at Rome what did the brothers Tiberius and Caius Gracchus try to do?
2. What did Julius Caesar do when a party of senators tried to ruin him? What was the result of his war with the other Roman leaders?
3. From what Roman word does "Emperor" come? What is the origin of the word "Kaiser"? How did Caesar die?
4. Who was Caesar's successor and the first one who organized the Roman Empire?
5. Why were the Romans such great builders of roads? How were their roads built? Do any traces of them still remain?
6. How did the Romans provide the city with a supply of pure water?
7. What was a Roman bath?
8. Were the Romans as famous as the Greeks for their buildings? Name the largest buildings in Rome. What was a basilica? Of what use were basilicas to the Christians later?
9. Do you remember the earliest form of the [Roman law?] What did Justinian do with the laws in his day? Are these laws important to us?
EXERCISES
1. What emperors are there now? Are they like Caesar and Augustus?
2. Find out if our roads are built as carefully as the Roman roads and if they are likely to last as long. What different kinds of roads do we have? Can any one in the room construct a small model of a Roman road?
3. Find out how water is now carried to cities. Are cities provided with great public baths like those of the Romans?
4. Ask a librarian or a lawyer to show you a copy of the revised statutes of your state. This is a code somewhat like the code of Justinian, only not so brief.
TEMPLUM JOVIS CAPITOLINI (Medallion)
QUESTIONS
1. Where did the Jews live in Ancient Times?
2. Do you remember any of the stories of David?
3. What finally became of the kingdom over which David ruled?
4. What era in the history of the world begins with the birth of Jesus Christ?
5. Why did the Romans forbid the Christians to worship? How did the Romans punish them? How long after the birth of Christ before the emperors allowed the Christians to worship undisturbed?
A MONASTERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Abbey of Saint-Germain des Prés
as it appeared in 1361 with wall, towers, and moat or ditch6. What is the name of the first Roman emperor who became a Christian? What name was soon given to the worshipers of the old Roman gods?
7. By what titles were the leaders of the Christians named? What two kinds of clergy were there?
Important date: 325 A.D., when the Roman Empire became Christian.
QUESTIONS
1. What is meant by the "Middle Ages" or the "Mediaeval" period?
2. Show on the [map[13], what part of the Roman Empire was conquered by the Mohammedans.
3. Mention the Roman names of England, France, Germany, and Spain, Why were they changed to what they are now?
4. What people early in the Middle Ages began to emigrate from their homes to the Roman Empire? What did they do for a living?
5. Where did the Goths live? Who taught them the Christian religion? When the Goths entered the Roman Empire what did they ask of the inhabitants? Did they destroy much? How many years separated the capture of Rome by Alaric from its capture by the Gauls?
6. What tribes conquered England or Britain? What tribes conquered Roman Gaul or France? How long before Constantinople was captured?
7. What was the effect of these raids and wars upon many cities? Who tried to keep fresh the memory of what the Greeks and the Romans had done? Who used the language of the Romans?
8. Tell the story of the way the English became Christians. Who taught the Christian religion to many Germans? From what city did the Slavs receive missionaries?
9. What different names are given to the inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden who became rovers over the seas? Where did they make settlements?
10. Tell the story of how Leif the Lucky discovered America. Why did the Northmen leave Vinland?
EXERCISES
1. Point out on the map all the places mentioned in this chapter.
2. On an outline map mark the names of the peoples mentioned in the chapter on the countries where they settled.
3. Ask children in school who know some other language than English what are their names for England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
Important dates:
Alaric's capture of Rome, 410 A.D.
Discovery of America by the Northmen, 1000 A.D.
QUESTIONS
1. Mention the names of heroes or hero-kings of the Middle Ages. What stories have you learned about these heroes?
2. Who was the hero-king of the English? How did he early show his love of books? What did he do to help his people to a knowledge of books?
3. How did he succeed better than other kings in driving back the Danes? Why has he been called the creator of the English navy?
4. What was the name of the Norman duke who conquered the English and ruled over them? Did this conquest hinder or help them?
5. Why should we remember Henry II gratefully? Explain an ordeal and a trial by battle. How were the first juries formed and what did they do? How were they afterwards divided?
6. For what was King Richard most celebrated? What sort of a king was his brother John?
7. Why was the Charter which John was forced to grant called "Great"? Repeat some of its promises. Did the English soon forget these promises?
8. Who asked the townsmen to send several of their number to talk over affairs with the clergy and the nobles? What was this body finally called? Into what two bodies was it divided?
9. What is a "representative system"? Why was it an invention? What did the Romans do when they lived in towns distant from Rome and wanted to take part in elections or help make the laws?
EXERCISES
1. Learn and tell one of the King Arthur stories and a part of the story of the Niebelungs. Find a story about Charlemagne, Frederick the Redbeard, St. Louis, or St. Stephen.
2. Collect pictures of war vessels, those of old times and those of to-day, and explain their differences.
3. Find out how men nowadays decide whether an accused man is guilty.
4. What is the name of the assembly in your state which makes the laws? What assembly at Washington makes the laws for the whole country?
QUESTIONS
1. Why did the memory of the Greeks and Romans remain longer in France and Italy than in Germany and England?
2. What different classes of people were there in the Middle Ages? What was the difference between a parish priest and a monk?
3. How did the nobles gain a living? Were they useful? In what sorts of houses did they live? Describe a castle. What was the "keep"?
4. How were the sons of nobles trained? What was a page? How was a young man made a knight? What were the duties of a knight?
5. Were the farmers or peasants prosperous and happy in the Middle Ages? How did the townsmen learn to protect themselves? What was a guild? Why are many Europeans proud of their cities?
6. Why is Venice especially interesting? Why do we remember Genoa?
7. From what language did French, Italian, and Spanish grow? How were the changes made in the old language? Where did the English get their language? Was it just like the English we speak?
8. What did the boys study in the Middle Ages? What did the word "university" mean then? Name two or three universities founded then which still exist. What did the Arabs teach Christian students?
9. What sort of buildings did men in the Middle Ages especially like to build? Are these buildings still standing? Why do we admire these great churches?
10. What do we call the time when men began to study once more Roman and Greek books, and began to imitate the ways of living and thinking common in the Graeco-Roman world? Who was the first of these "new" men? Where especially did men search for Greek books?
11. What invention helped men spread far and wide this new knowledge? How do the Germans come to have "Gothic" type? Where do we get our Roman and italic type? What books did the Venetian printer Aldus print? Name a famous English and a famous German printer.
12. What besides ancient books did the men of the Renaissance like to study and imitate?
EXERCISES
1. Find out what titles of noblemen are used now in different European countries. In what country are men often knighted? Why are they knighted? What title shows that a man is a knight?
2. Collect pictures of armor and of castles, especially of castles still standing. Collect pictures of old town walls.
3. Collect pictures of Venice and Genoa, especially from advertising folders.
4. Find the names of several large American universities. Do the students live in "colleges" as students did in the Middle Ages?
5. Tell one or two stories from the Arabian Nights. Collect pictures of Arabian costumes and of Arabian buildings in Spain, or Africa, or Asia.
6. Collect pictures of English and European cathedrals. Find pictures of churches in America which resemble them.
REVIEW
How ancient civilization was preserved
1. What ruined so many ancient cities?
2. Who tried to preserve the memory of what the Greeks and the Romans had done?
3. What language did the churchmen continue to use?
4. How did the missionaries help?
5. How did Alfred teach the English some of the things the Romans had known?
6. What did the Arabs teach the Christians which the Greeks had known?
7. What was studied at Bologna? How did the universities help in preserving the ancient knowledge?
8. What did Petrarch do to find lost books? What did other men of Petrarch's time do?
9. What help came from the invention of printing?
10. From what besides books did the men of the Renaissance learn about the Greeks and the Romans?
HUSBANDMAN AND COUNTRY WOMAN OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY
QUESTIONS1. What dangers threatened traders in the Middle Ages who traveled by sea or land? What was a fair?
2. What products were brought from the East? By what routes? Point these out on a map. What rival trading cities were in Italy? How did the Venetians get their wares to London?
3. Who were the Crusaders? Why did they attack the Mohammedans? What did the Venetian traders gain by these wars? Describe a large Venetian ship of this time.
4. When was the compass invented? Why was it dangerous to sail great seas and oceans without a compass? Tell how an astrolabe was made.
5. What at first kept men from attempting to sail to eastern Asia? Who was Marco Polo? Describe his adventures. How did he return to Venice? How did people learn about the lands he had visited?
6. Why after 1453 was it necessary to find a sea route to Asia? What did Prince Henry the Navigator succeed in doing? How was the Cape of Good Hope discovered? Who went with Diaz on this voyage?
7. Who first sailed to India by the Cape of Good Hope? Was the voyage profitable? What city was made rich by the new trade?
EXERCISES1. Find from a map in the geography how many miles goods must have been carried to reach Venice from Persia, India, the Moluccas, or China. How far is it from Venice by sea to Bruges or London?
2. Where and how do we now obtain cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?
3. What line of emperors has been recently ruling over China? Where has been their capital? Find out about the present Mongols. Collect pictures of China and Japan.
4. Read a longer account of Marco Polo.
5. Study the geography of Portugal. Collect pictures of Portugal. Find out if many Portuguese are living in the United States.
REVIEWSTEPS TOWARDS THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
Greek colonies in Italy, Gaul, and Spain.
Roman conquest of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
Viking voyages to Greenland and Vinland.
Venetian trade in spices with the East, and Venetian voyages to London and Bruges.
Marco Polo's travels in China and the East.
Portuguese voyages down the coast of Africa and about the Cape of Good Hope.
QUESTIONS
1. What plan did Columbus form? Why was it bolder than the plan Diaz had carried out in 1487, or even than that Da Gama carried out a few years later? Why did men like Columbus and Diaz desire to find a sea route to India? Had anybody before Columbus believed the earth round?
2. What mistake did Columbus make in estimating the size of the earth? Why was this a fortunate error?
3. From what countries did Columbus try to obtain help? Why did he find it so hard to secure this? What event in Spain finally favored his cause? Who were the Moors?
4. Why was Columbus surprised when he saw the natives in the West Indies? Why were the Indians on their side surprised?
5. What islands did Columbus find and claim for Spain on his first voyage? How many other voyages did he make? What new lands did he find on his later voyages? What did he think he had found?
6. Why did the enemies of Columbus in Spain call him the Admiral of Mosquitoland, the man who discovered a land of vanity and deceit, the grave of Spanish gentlemen? What did they mean by this?
EXERCISES
1. Find pictures of the ships of Columbus or of the sailing ships of other explorers of that day. How does the deck arrangement on those differ from the ocean steamships of to-day? What advantage would ships like those of Columbus have over present steamships in exploring strange coasts? What disadvantages?
2. Draw up a list of reasons why Columbus's sailors were afraid to go on and wished to turn back to Spain.
3. Trace on an outline map the voyage of Columbus. Mark where Columbus found land, and where he expected to find Japan and China. What great mass of land was really very near the island he first discovered? [(See map[15].)]
4. Find from the maps on [(Greek World)[7], [(Roman World)[14], [(The world after Polo's journey[16])], and [(The world as known after Columbus[17])], how much more the Romans knew of the world than the Greeks had known, the Europeans after Marco Polo's journey than the Romans, and the Europeans after Columbus's voyage than after Marco Polo's journey.
Important Date--1492. The discovery of America by Columbus.
The facsimile's transcription reads as follows:
Nunc Vero et hae partes sunt latius lustratae, et alia quarta pars per Americum Vesputium (ut in sequentibus audietur) inventa est quam non video cur quis jure vetet ab Americo inventore sagacis ingenii viro Amerigen quasi Americi terram, sive Americam dicendam: cum et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint nomina. Ejus situm et gentis mores ex bis binis Americi navigationibus quae sequuntur liquide intelligidatur.
QUESTIONS
1. Why were the early American explorers disappointed at finding two continents between Europe and Asia?
2. What land did John Cabot discover? Where did he think this land was? Why did the English people take little interest in this voyage?
3. Why was our country named America? Do you think that Americus Vespucius deserved so great an honor? By what name did the Spaniards continue to call the new region? Why did the Spaniards have one name and the other Europeans another name for a long time?
4. How did Balboa come to find the Pacific Ocean? Why did men search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific more vigorously after Balboa's expedition?
5. Why has Magellan's voyage been called the greatest one in history? What three things had Magellan shown the European world?
EXERCISES
1. Make out a list of the explorers mentioned in this chapter who helped in the discovery of the New World, and place opposite the name of each the name of the land he discovered.
2. Trace Magellan's voyage on the map,[173.gif], and make a list of the lands or countries he passed. Look at the map of North America on this old map, and at the one on [229.gif]. How do you account for the queer shape of North America on the old map?
Important date
1519-21. Magellan's ship made the first voyage around the world.
QUESTIONS
1. In what ways did the Aztecs resemble the Europeans? How did they differ from them? Why were the Spaniards particularly anxious to conquer Mexico?
2. Why did many of the Mexicans refuse to fight the Spaniards? How many soldiers and Indian allies did Cortés lose in one battle? How long did it take Cortés to conquer Mexico?
3. What other Indian people was conquered a few years later? By whom? What seemed to be the main object of these conquerors, Cortés and Pizarro, in their expeditions?
4. Why did the Spaniards make slaves of the Indians in the West Indies? Why did they later cease making slaves of Indians and begin making slaves of negroes? What share had Las Casas in this change?
5. What good work did the priests and monks in the Spanish Missions accomplish? What became of the Aztecs or other Indian tribes in Mexico?
EXERCISES
1. Find all you can about the houses, food, clothing, and occupations of any Indians living in your part of the United States, or if none are there now, learn this from your parents or from some neighbor who knew the Indians. Did they resemble the Aztecs in these respects or the West Indians?
2. Review the account of emigrating to Spanish America four hundred years ago. Who could not go to Spanish America then? Find out who may not come into the United States to-day. What did it cost one traveler to get to America in the sixteenth century? Find out the cost of a voyage from Europe to America to-day. How long did it take to make such a voyage? Find out the usual length of a voyage from Europe to-day.
QUESTIONS
1. What story had Ponce de Leon heard in the West Indies? What did he find? Why did he call the new country which he discovered Florida? What was included in Florida as the Spaniards understood it?
2. What was De Soto looking for in North America? How long did he search? What did he find? Was he disappointed? What was he planning to do when he died? Why was his journey very remarkable? Through what present states of the United States did he pass?
3. Where did the Spaniards expect to find the Seven Cities? Why did he expect to find them there? What was the story of the Seven Cities? Of the Seven Caves?
4. What did Coronado expect to find at the Seven Cities of Cibola? What did he find there? Why did he go far on into North America in search of Quivira? What did he find on the way to Quivira? What did he find Quivira to be?
5. What did Coronado think of his own discoveries? What had he found out of interest or value to the rest of the world? Which of the present states of the United States did his route touch?
REVIEW
1. Review the effect of the discoveries of Columbus (map, 161.gif), Magellan (map, 173.gif), De Soto (map, 195.gif), Coronado (map, 202.gif), on the knowledge of the new world.
Important date--1541. The discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto.
QUESTIONS
1. Why was it easier to sail toward America from Spain or Portugal than from England?
2. What peoples divided the new world between them? Where did they draw the line of division?
3. Why were the kings of France and Spain rivals? Over what countries did King Charles rule?
4. When did religion become a cause of strife? What king was chiefly injured by such struggles?
5. Who were called "reformers?" By what other names were they called?
6. Who were the leaders of the Catholics? of the Protestants? Who were the Huguenots? What was their leader's name?
7. Why did Philip II and his subjects in the Netherlands quarrel?
8. What was strange about the land in which the Dutch lived? Who was the hero of the Dutch?
9. Why were the English and the Spaniards at first friendly? What king of England refused to obey the pope?
10. Why do Englishmen think Queen Elizabeth a great ruler? How did Elizabeth settle the question of religion?
EXERCISES
Collect pictures of the Dutch, of their canals, dikes, and towns.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was the leader in the first French efforts to explore and settle in North America? Find as many reasons as possible why France had not tried to settle in America before. What parts of the continent did Cartier become interested in? Why was he specially interested in St. Lawrence region?
2. How did Montreal get its name? Why was the name, Lachine rapids, given to the rapids above Montreal on the St. Lawrence river?
3. Why did Cartier fail in his attempts to plant a French colony in North America? How much had he and his friends accomplished for France in North America?
4. Why did Coligny later wish to establish a colony in America? Where did his people try to settle? Find the place on the map on 230.gif. Give several reasons why they soon got into trouble with the Spaniards.
5. What did the king of Spain send Menendez to Florida to do? What things did he accomplish? Why do we specially remember St. Augustine? Find it on the map, 230.gif.
EXERCISES
1. Examine the map of North America in 1541 on 229.gif. What parts of North America were known? What parts were unknown? Can you see why the explorers would search each bay or inlet or great river?
2. Find how far into the continent of North America the French explored the St. Lawrence river, that is, the distance from Newfoundland to Montreal by using the scale of miles on a map in one of your geographies.
Important Date: 1565. The founding of St. Augustine.
QUESTIONS
1. What country in northern Europe did Spain rule? What name was given to those who resisted the Spanish officers in the Netherlands? Why were they given this name?
2. What promise did Coligny make to the people of the Netherlands? Why was he unable to carry it out? What other people were ready to help the Dutch? Can you give one reason at least why the English were willing to help the Dutch against Spain?
3. Why had English trade grown important? Did this help to make a navy?
4. Why did English sailors like Drake specially hate the Spaniards? What was Drake's method of making a living? How did he come to go around the world in 1577-1580? How long was it since Magellan made his voyage?
5. What did the English think of Drake? What did the Spaniards think of him? Why did each people think as it did?
6. Why did Philip of Spain have William of Orange killed? Why did this make the conquest of the Dutch even harder?
7. Why did Philip, king of Spain, try to conquer England and make himself king of that country? How did he try to carry out his plan? Why were the English victorious in the great battle with the Armada? Where was the battle fought?
8. How did the defeat of the Armada affect Spain's war in the Netherlands? Did all of the Netherlands become independent of Spain?
9. What trade did the Dutch begin to carry on before their war with Spain ended?
10. What new people became rivals of the Spaniards and French for trade and settlements in America?
EXERCISES
1. What parts of North America did Drake visit on his famous voyage around the world? See the map on 239.gif.
2. What effect did the quarrels in Europe described in Chapters 19 and 20 have upon the progress in exploring and settling America?
3. Find out whether the people of the northern Netherlands and the southern Netherlands are still separate countries to-day.
QUESTIONS
1. Why had the English people not taken more interest in America before Drake's time? What finally, made the English sea-captains turn to American adventure and exploration?
2. What did Gilbert attempt to do? How many reasons can you find for his failure?
3. Why was Raleigh specially fitted to begin the task of planting English colonies in America? What part of North America did his men select for a settlement? Why did it seem a suitable place? What name was given to the country?
4. Why did Raleigh fail to help his colony at Roanoke? What did White think had happened to them? Why didn't he go in search of them?
5. Why had the French and the English been unsuccessful in their efforts to settle North America? Had they really gained anything from all their efforts?
6. What had Spain accomplished since the voyage by Columbus? Why were the prospects of Spain not so bright as they had been? What rivals were ready to begin colonies in America?
EXERCISES
1. How much territory was Queen Elizabeth willing to give Gilbert for his plan in North America? Was there this much (twelve hundred miles) of the Atlantic coast of North America unclaimed by the French and the Spaniards?
2. Find Roanoke Island on the map, 251.gif.
3. Name the regions in the New World and the East claimed by the English, French, Portuguese, and Spaniards after a century of discovery and exploration (1492-1600). See the map, 255.gif. What parts of North America were still unknown? With the use of some map of the world to-day make a list of the colonies of the same countries now.
REVIEW
1. Prepare a list of the men who took the chief part in discovering the New World, and give for each the name of the region he found.
2. What had the Greeks learned to do, the knowledge of which they carried into Italy? What more had the Romans learned to do, the knowledge of which they carried into Spain and Gaul and Britain? What more had the Spaniards, the French, and the English learned to do, the knowledge of which they either were already, as in the case of Spain, carrying into Spanish America, or, in the case of England and France, were prepared to carry into North America?
A. ANCIENT TIMES. THE GREEK PEOPLE. (For use with chapters ii, iii, and iv.)
(a) Histories of the Greeks.
Holm, History of the Greeks, 4 volumes, is the most trustworthy history of the Greeks. Bury, A History of Greece, 2 volumes; Botsford, History of the Ancient World; Goodspeed, History of the Ancient World; Myers, Ancient History; Wolfson, Essentials in Ancient History; and West, Ancient World, have brief accounts of the Greeks.
(b) Versions of some famous old Greek stories, especially the story of Hercules and his Labors, the Search for the Golden Fleece, the Trojan War, and the Wanderings of Ulysses.
A. J. Church, Stories from Homer; C. M. Gayley, Classical Myths; H. A. Guerber, Myths of Greece and Rome; and the same author's The Story of the Greeks; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of Greece; C. H. and S. B. Harding, Stories of Greek Gods, Heroes and Men; Charles Kingsley, Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales. Hawthorne, in Tanglewood Tales, has retold the story of the Search for the Golden Fleece in a specially interesting manner. Bryant's translation of the Odyssey is one of the best known versions of that story and may generally be found in public libraries.
(c) Short Biographies of some Greek Heroes. Short accounts of the lives of such heroes as Miltiades, Themistocles, Socrates, Alexander, and Demosthenes will be found in Cox, Lives of Greek Statesmen; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of Greece; Jennie Hall, Men of Old Greece; Harding, Stories of Greek Gods, Heroes and Men; E.M. Tappan, The Story of the Greek People; and Plutarch's Lives. There are several abridged editions of the latter, but those by C.E. Byles, Greek Lives from Plutarch, and Edwin Ginn, Plutarch's Lives, are best adapted to the use of schools.
(d) Various features of Greek Life, as the home, the schools, food, clothing, occupations, amusements, or government have been described in the books on Greek Life.
Among these are Blümner, Home Life of the Ancient Greeks (translated by Alice Zimmern); C.B. Gulick, The Life of the Ancient Greeks; Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece; and T.G. Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens.
(e) Descriptions of Athens and Alexandria. Descriptions of these great centers of Greek civilization will be found in any history of Greece; that in Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, ch. 2, or Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, for Athens, and in Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, 1. pp. 187-204, for Alexandria, will serve the purpose.
(f) A description of the battle of Marathon, abridged from the History of the World by Herodotus, will be found in F.M. Fling's Source Book of Greek History. This little book gives many incidents in Greek History as the Greek writers told them.
(g) A description of the materials, methods of building, decoration of public buildings, and the uses of the temples, theaters, gymnasia, and stadia in Fowler and Wheeler's Greek Archaeology, ch. 2; and Tarbell's History of Greek Art.
(h) Some may wish to read the careful statement in Holm's History of the Greeks, Vol. I, pp. 103-121, on the Truth about the Old Greek Legends, or the same author's account, Vol. I, pp. 272-295, of Emigration to the Colonies in the Olden Day.
B. ANCIENT TIMES. THE ROMAN PEOPLE. (For use with chapters v, vi, vii, viii and ix.)
(a) Histories of the Romans.
Either Botsford, History of Rome; Pelham, Outlines of Roman History; How and Leigh, History of Rome; or Schuckburgh, History of Rome; though the last two do not cover the entire period of Roman history. Duruy, History of Rome, 8 volumes, is attractive in style and supplied with a great variety of pictures and other illustrative matter.
Botsford, History of the Ancient World; Goodspeed, History of the Ancient World; Myers, Ancient History; Wolfson, Essentials in Ancient History; and West, Ancient World, give short accounts of the chief events in Roman history.
(b) Versions of famous old Roman stories, especially the wanderings of Aeneas, the Story of Romulus and Remus, of the Sabine Women, Horatius at the Bridge, and Cincinnatus.
A.J. Church, Stories from Virgil; C.M. Gayley, Classical Myths; H.A. Guerber, Myths of Greece and Rome; the same author's Story of the Romans; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of Rome; and Harding, City of Seven Hills. Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, gives the story of Horatius at the Bridge, together with several other stories from early Roman history.
(c) Versions of the German myths about Odin (Wodan), Thor, Freya, and Tyr (Tiw). C.M. Gayley. Classical Myths; Guerber, Myths of Northern Lands; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of the Middle Ages; Mary E. Litchfield, The Nine Worlds; H.W. Mabie, Norse Stories; Eva March Tappan, European Hero Stories; Alice Zimmern, Gods and Heroes of the North.
(d) The Story of Hermann (or the struggle between the Romans and Germans) is told by Arthur Gilman, Magna Charta Stories, pp. 139-155; and by Maude B. Dutton, Little Stories of Germany.
(e) Short Biographies of some famous Romans. Short accounts of the lives of Romulus, the Gracchi, Caesar, Cicero, and Constantine are given in Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of Rome; Harding, The City of Seven Hills; and several of them in Plutarch's Lives. A simple account of the Life of Hannibal, the Carthaginian enemy of Rome, will also be found in these books.
(f) Interesting phases of Roman Life: for example, the Roman boy, country life in Italy, the Roman house, traveling, amusements, etc. See W.W. Fowler, Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero; H.W. Johnston, The Private Life of the Romans; S.B. Platner, Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome; T.G. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul. Many phases of Roman life are described in F.M. Crawford's Ave Roma.
(g) For descriptions of incidents in Roman history and phases of Roman life as the Greek and Roman writers told them, see Botsford, Story of Rome, and Munro, Source Book of Roman History.
C. THE MIDDLE AGES. (For use with chapters x, xi, xii, and xiii.)
(a) Histories of the people of Europe in the Middle Ages. G.B. Adams, Growth of the French Nation; U.R. Burke, A History of Spain from the Earliest Times to the Death of Ferdinand the Catholic; J.R. Green, Short History of the English People; E.F. Henderson, A Short History of German; H.D. Sedgwick, A Short History of Italy.
(b) Collection of stories adapted to children of the grades: The Story of Beowulf, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Treasure of the Niebelungs, and of Roland. These stories have all been written many times, and any librarian can give the reader copies of them as told by several writers. The following is a partial list only:
A.J. Church, Heroes and Romances; E.G. Crommelin, Famous Legends Adapted for Children; H.A. Guerber, Legends of the Middle Ages; Louise Maitland, Heroes of Chivalry; and Eva March Tappan, European Hero Stories; James Baldwin, The Story of Roland; Frances N. Greene, Legends of King Arthur and His Court; Florence Holbrook, Northland Heroes (Beowulf); Sidney Lanier, The Boy's King Arthur; Stevens and Allen, King Arthur Stories from Malory.
(c) Famous Men of the Middle Ages; for example, Charlemagne, King Alfred, Rollo the Viking, William the Conqueror, Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lion-Hearted, King John, Saint Louis of France, Marco Polo, and Gutenberg.
See A.F. Blaisdell, Stories from English History; Louise Creighton, Stories from English History; Maude B. Dutton, Little Stories of Germany; H.A. Guerber, The Story of the English; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of the Middle Ages; Harding, The Story of the Middle Ages; S.B. Harding and W.F. Harding, The Story of England; M.F. Lansing, Barbarian and Noble; A.M. Mowry, First Steps in the History of England; L.N. Pitman, Stories of Old France; Eva March Tappan, European Hero Stories; H.P. Warren, Stories from English History; Bates and Coman, English History as told by the Poets. Edward Atherton, The Adventures of Marco Polo, the Great Traveler, is a convenient modernized version of Polo's own story of his travels. Marco Polo's description of Japan and Java has been reprinted in Old South Leaflets, Vol. II, No. 32.
(d) Viking Tales. The interesting stories of the Northern discoveries and explorations have been told many times. Jennie Hall, Viking Tales, includes the story of Eric the Red, Leif the Lucky, and the attempt to settle in Vinland (Wineland).
(e) The Trial of Criminals in the Middle Ages--Ordeals. Other kinds of Ordeals than those described in this book will be obtained in Ogg, Source Book of Mediaeval History, pp. 196-202; Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 4. pp. 7-16; or in Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book, pp. 401-412. See Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 79-81, for excellent explanation of mediaeval methods of trial.
(f) Famous accounts of how the People of England won the Magna Charta.
Use either Cheyney, Readings in English History, pp. 179-181; Kendall, Source Book of English History, pp. 72-78; Robinson, Readings in European History, Vol. I, pp. 231-333; or Ogg, Source Book of Mediaeval History, pp. 297-303.
(g) Simple descriptions of Mediaeval Life. Maude B. Dutton, Little Stories of Germany; for example, the chapters on How a Page became a Knight, and A Mediaeval Town. S.B. Harding, The Story of the Middle Ages, especially the chapters describing life in castle, life in village, and life in monastery. Eva March Tappan, European Hero Stories, especially the topic, Life in Middle Ages, p. 118, the Crusades, p. 136, and Winning the Magna Charta, p. 111.
D. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN TIMES. The Discovery of America. (For use with chapters xiv to xxi inclusive.)
(a) Histories of American Discoveries and Explorations. E.G. Bourne, Spain in America; Fiske, Discovery of America, 2 volumes; and Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World.
(b) Short, easy biographies of famous explorers. (Da Gama, Columbus, Magellan, De Soto, Coronado, Cartier, Drake, and Raleigh.)
Foote and Skinner, Explorers and Founders of America; W.F. Gordy, Stories of American Explorers; W.E. Griffis, The Romance of Discovery; Haaren and Poland, Famous Men of Modern Times; Higginson, Young Folks' Book of American Explorers; Jeannette B. Hodgdon, A First Course in American History, Book I; W.H. Johnson, The World's Discoverers, 2 volumes; Lawyer, The Story of Columbus and Magellan; Lummis, The Spanish Pioneers; Mara L. Pratt, America's Story for America's Children, Book 2; Gertrude V.D. Southworth, Builders of our Country, Book I; Rosa V. Winterburn, The Spanish in the Southwest.
(c) Stories of explorations as told by the explorers themselves.
Columbus' own account of his discovery of America is in Hart, Source Readers in American History, No. 1, pp. 4-7. Early accounts of John Cabot's discovery and of Drake's Voyage in Hart, Source Readers, No. 1, pp. 7-10, 23-25. The Death and Burial of De Soto as described by one of his followers, in Hart, Source Readers, pp. 16-19. The Old South Leaflets, No. 20, Coronado; Nos. 29 and 31, Columbus; No. 31, the Voyages to Vinland; No. 35, Cortés' Account of the City of Mexico; No. 36, The Death of De Soto; Nos. 37 and 115, the Voyages of the Cabots; No. 89, The Founding of St. Augustine; No. 92, The First Voyage to Roanoke; No. 102, Columbus' Account of Cuba; No. 116, Sir Francis Drake on the Coast of California; No. 118, Gilbert's Expedition; No. 119, Raleigh's Colony at Roanoke.
(d) The Stories of Indian Life in Spanish America, of Cortés, Coronado, and the Seven Cities of Cibola, and of the Missions. (See Rosa V. Winterburn, The Spanish in the Southwest.)