In this same year, 1524, Francisco Pizarro sailed from Panamá southward, and began the conquest of Peru, which, as related elsewhere in this volume, brought to light, before 1540, nearly the whole western coast of South America. For references to Pizarro's discovery see a later chapter of this volume.
A meeting of the leading pilots and cosmographers of Spain and Portugal, known as the Council of Badajoz, was convened for the purpose of settling disputed questions between the two governments. Failing in its primary purpose, the council nevertheless contributed largely to a better knowledge of New World geography. Indeed, from this time the European governments may be supposed to have had, and to have delineated on their official charts, tolerably accurate ideas of the general form of America and of its relation to Asia, except in the north-west, although the existence of a passage through the continent was still firmly believed in. Writers on cosmography and compilers of published maps did not, however, for a long time obtain the knowledge lodged in the hands of government officials.
[1525.] The man who accompanied Magellan in 1519, but left him after entering the strait and returned with one vessel to Spain, was named Estévan Gomez. In 1525 this captain was sent by Spain to search for a corresponding strait in the north. Although an official expedition, and the only one ever sent by Spain to northern parts, no journal has been preserved, and only slight particulars derived from the old chroniclers are known. Gomez expected to find a strait somewhere between Florida and Newfoundland, probably not knowing the result of Verrazano's voyage of the preceding year. Cabot was at the time piloto mayor in Spain, and if Verrazano had, as is claimed for him by some, reached the southern United States coasts, it is not likely that Gomez would have looked there so confidently for his strait. This voyage lasted about ten months, and in it Gomez is supposed to have explored the coast from Newfoundland to a point below New York—possibly to Georgia or Florida. Peter Martyr, dec. vi. cap. x.; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii. lib. viii. cap. viii.; Kohl's Hist. Discov., pp. 271-81; Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. iv. p. viii.; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 70-1. According to Harrisse, Fries, Auslegung der Mercarthen oder Cartha Marina, Strasburg, 1525, contains a map of the world, including America, but Kohl states that this map, although made in 1525, was not published till 1530. Other publications of the year are: Pietro Arias (Pedrarias Dávila), Lettere di Pietro Arias Capitano generale, della conquista del paese del Mar Occeano, written from Darien, and printed without place or date; Pigafetta, Le voyage et nauigation faict par les Espaignolz es Isles de Mollucques, an abridgment of the original account by the author, who was with Magellan; Cortes, La quarta Relacion, Toledo, 1525, dated October 15, 1524.
García de Loaisa sailed from Corunna July 24, 1525, to follow Magellan's track. Passing through the strait between January and May, 1526, he arrived at the Moluccas in October. Viages al Maluco, Segundo el del Comendador Fr. Garcia de Loaisa, in Navarrete, tom. v.; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. pp. 127-45; Relaciones del viaje hecho á las islas Molucas, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, tom. v. p. 5.
[1526.] One small vessel of Loaisa's fleet, under command of Santiago de Guevara, became separated from the rest June 1, 1526, after having reached the Pacific Ocean. Guevara decided to steer for the coast of New Spain, which was first seen in the middle of July; and on the 25th he anchored at Tehuantepec. Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. v. pp. 176-81, 224-5.
Cortés' exploring vessels, begun in 1522—the first having been burned on the stocks, others were built in their place—were now, after long delay, nearly ready to sail; and Guevara's vessel was brought up from Tehuantepec to join them. Cortés, Cartas, Letter of September, 1526.
Aillon, in 1523, was made adelantado of Chicora, the country discovered by him in 1520, and immediately prepared a new expedition with a view to colonize the country, explore the coasts, and to find, if possible, a passage to India. The preparations were not completed until July, 1526, when he sailed from Española with six vessels, 500 men, and ninety horses. He reached the Rio Jordan—perhaps St Helena Sound, South Carolina—and thence made a careful exploration northward, at least to Cape Fear, and probably much farther. Aillon died on the 18th of October, and after much internal dissension 150 men, all that remained alive, returned to Santo Domingo. Navarrete, Col. de Viages, tom. iii. pp. 71-4, 153-60; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., p. 71.
Oviedo, De la Natural hystoria de las Indias, Toledo, 1526, describes the New World, but this book is not the great historical work, lately printed, by the same author. It may be found also in Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos, and in Ramusio.
Sebastian Cabot attempted a voyage to India in 1526, sailing with four vessels in April, with the intention of bearing succor to Loaisa. Owing to insubordination among his officers, and other misfortunes, he reached only the Rio de la Plata, and after extensive explorations in that region, returned to Spain, having been absent four years. Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. ii. p. 169; Diccionario Universal, Mexico, apend., 'Viages,' tom. x. p. 807; Roux de Rochelle, in Bulletin de la Soc. Geog., April, 1832, p. 212.
[1527.] June 10, 1527, an English expedition—the last officially sent by that nation within the limits of my sketch—sailed from Plymouth, still in search of a north-west passage. The two vessels sailed in company to latitude 53°, and reached the coast, where, on the 1st of July, they were separated by a storm, and one of them was probably lost. The other, under John Rut, turned southward, followed the coast of New England, often landing, probably reached Chicora, and returned to England via the West India Islands, arriving early in October. Hakluyt's Divers Voy., pp. 27, 33; Biddle's Mem. Cabot, pp. 114, 275; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. i. p. 611; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii. lib. v. cap. iii.
Francisco Montejo, who had accompanied the expeditions of Grijalva and Cortés, and had since been sent by the latter as ambassador to Spain, obtained from the king in 1526 a commission as adelantado to conquer the "islands of Yucatan and Cozumel." He sailed from Seville in 1527, landed at Cozumel, penetrated the northern part of the peninsula, and during the following years fought desperately to accomplish its conquest, but failed. A small colony struggled for existence at Campeche for several years, but in 1535 not a single Spaniard remained in Yucatan. Cogolludo, Hist. Yucathan, pp. 59-94; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 62-3; Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, New York, 1858, vol. i. pp. 56-62.
La Salle, La Salade, Paris, 1527, contains references to Greenland and other northern parts of America.
In July, 1527, three of the vessels built by Cortés made a preliminary trip up the Pacific coast from Zacatula to Santiago in Colima and back—the first voyage along that coast. Relacion ó Derrotero, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., tom. xiv. pp. 65-9; Relacion de la Derrota, in Florida, Col. Doc., pp. 88-91. But an order from Spain required the fleet to be sent to India direct—instead of by the roundabout route proposed by Cortés—for the relief of Loaisa; and the three vessels sailed from Zacatula in October under Saavedra, arriving safely in India. Guevara's ship was too worm-eaten to accompany them; but several vessels were already on the stocks at Tehuantepec to replace those sent across the ocean. Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, introd. pp. vi.-xi.; Navarrete, Col. Viages, tom. v. pp. 95-114, 181, 440-86; Gil, Memoria, in Boletin de la Soc. Mex. Geog., tom. viii. p. 477 et seq.
In 1527 Robert Thorne, English ambassador to Charles V., wrote a book or memorial to Henry VIII. on cosmography, on the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries, and on the importance of exploring northward for a passage to Cathay. It was afterward printed as The booke made by the right worshipful M. Robert Thorne, in Hakluyt's Voy., vol. i. pp. 214-20.
In 1526 a commissioner was appointed to correct the Spanish charts. Fernando Colon was charged with the revision, and in 1527 a map was made called Carta universal en que se contiene todo lo que del mundo se ha descubierto fasta agora. This map has been preserved, and a fac-simile is given in Kohl, Beiden ältesten Karten von Am. It shows the whole eastern coast line from the strait of Magellan to Greenland, and the western coast from Panamá to the vicinity of Soconusco, and indicates that the information in possession of the Spanish government was remarkably accurate and complete. Yucatan is represented as an island, and the discoveries on the Pacific side of South America are not laid down; otherwise this map varies but little except in names from a map made by Diego Ribero, in 1529, of which I shall give a copy. Kohl, Beiden ältesten Karten von Am., pp. 1-24; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. ii. p. 184, and Preface to Ghillany.
[1528.] Bordone, Libro di Benedetto Bordone Nel qual si ragiona de tutte l'Isole del mondo, Vinegia, 1528, gives maps of the larger American islands, and also a map of the world, the American part of which I copy from the original. No part of the western coast is shown, although the New World is represented as distinct from Asia.
Kohl, Beiden ältesten Karten von Am., p. 34, mentions another work printed at Venice the same year, which has a map resembling that of Schöner in 1520.
Pánfilo de Narvaez sailed from Spain in 1527 with five ships and 600 men, to conquer the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and after losing some of his ships by storm, and many of his men by desertion, in cruising about Española, Cuba, and other islands, he landed in the vicinity of Tampa Bay April 14, 1528, and nearly all the company perished in an attempt to follow the coast toward Vera Cruz. Cabeça de Vaca's Relation, New York, 1871, pp. 13-20; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv. lib. iv. cap. iv.-vii.; lib. v. cap. v.
[1529.] Major, Prince Henry, pp. 440-52, entertains the opinion that Australia was discovered probably before 1529, and certainly before 1542.
In 1529 was made the before-mentioned Spanish official map by Diego Ribero, which may be supposed to show all that was known by European pilots at that time of New World geography. It contains some improvements and additions to Colon's map of 1527 with the same title, although criticised, perhaps justly, by Stevens as partisan in its distribution of the new regions among the European powers. I give a copy reduced from the full-sized fac-simile in Kohl, Beiden ältesten Karten von Am.
Greenland is called Labrador and is joined to the continent, as the separating strait had not at the time been explored. It will be noticed that Greenland is far less accurately laid down on this and other late maps than on some earlier ones which are supposed to have derived some of their details from northern sources. Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia have the general name of Bacallaos. Many of the numerous islands along the coast are named in the original. Corresponding perhaps to the New England and middle United States we have the 'Tiera de Estevã Gomez,' stated by an inscription to have been discovered by the Spaniards in 1525. From this land to Florida extends the 'Tiera de Ayllon,' between which and 'Nveva España' comes the 'Tiera de Garay,' thus dividing nearly all of the northern continent among the Spaniards. The West India Islands have here their true number, position, and names. Yucatan is given in its true proportions but is separated by a strait from the main-land. The South Sea coast is represented only to the limit of the voyage of Gil Gonzalez Dávila on the north, and extends southward to the port of Chinchax in about latitude 10° south, including, according to an inscription, the countries which had been reached by Pizarro in 1527. The form of South America is correctly laid down and the name 'Mvndvs Novvs' is applied to the whole, which is divided into the provinces of 'Castilla del Oro,' 'Perv,' 'Tiera del Brasil,' 'Tiera de Patagones,' and 'Tiera de Fernã de Magallaes,' or land of Magellan. South of the strait is the 'Tiera de los Fuegos,' whose true form and extent were not known until Schouten and Le Maire doubled Cape Horn in 1616.
Thus far I have copied or mentioned all maps which could throw any light on the progress of geographical knowledge, and have endeavored to give a statement of all the voyages by which this progress was made. Thus far we have seen the coasts of both North and South America, except in the south-west and the far north-west, more or less carefully explored by European voyagers; we have seen the New World recognized as distinct for the most part from Asia, a tolerably correct idea of its form and extent given by government pilots, and the name America applied, except on official maps, to the southern continent. Henceforth voyages to the parts already discovered become of common occurrence, and numerous maps, both in manuscript and print, are made, no one of which I shall attempt to follow. In the expeditions of the next and concluding ten years of this Summary I shall notice chiefly those by which a knowledge was acquired of the countries lying toward California and the great Northwest, presenting several maps to illustrate this part of the subject.
[1530.] During the absence of Cortés in Spain no progress had been made in maritime exploration; and by 1530 his ships on the stocks at Tehuantepec were ruined, but he made haste to build more. Cortés, Cartas, letters of Oct. 10, 1530, and April 20, 1532.
Nuño de Guzman, formerly president of the audiencia of New Spain, and the inveterate enemy of Cortés, undertook with a large force, recruited in Mexico, the conquest of the region lying to the north-west of that city. The northern limit of his conquest in 1530-1 was Culiacan, between which and Mexico the whole country was brought under Spanish control by expeditions sent by Guzman in all directions under different leaders. Relation di Nvnno di Gvsman, in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 331, and abridged in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1556; Jornada que hizo Nuño de Guzman á la Nueva Galicia, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. ii.; Primera relacion, p. 288; Tercera relacion, p. 439; Cuarta relacion, p. 461; Doc. para Hist. de Mex., serie iii. p. 669; Mota Padilla, Conquista de Nueva Galicia, MS. of 1742; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iii. pp. 559-77; Gil, Memoria, in Boletin de la Soc. Mex. Geog., tom. viii. p. 424 et seq.
Hakluyt, in his Voyages, vol. iii. p. 700, states that one William Hawkins, of Plymouth, made voyages, in a ship fitted out at his own expense, to the coast of Brazil in 1530 and 1532, bringing back an Indian king as a curiosity.
Peter Martyr, De Orbe novo, Cõpluti, 1530, is the first complete edition of eight decades; and Opus Epistolarum, of the same date and place, is a collection of over eight hundred letters written between 1488 and 1525, many of them relating more or less to American affairs.
In the Ptolemy of 1530, in several subsequent editions, and in Munster's Cosmography of 1572 et seq., is the map of which the following is a reduction.
I give this drawing, circulated for many years in standard works, to illustrate how extremely slow were cosmographers to form anything like a correct idea of American geography, and how little they availed themselves of the more correct knowledge shown on official charts. The following map, made in 1544, illustrates still further the absurdities circulated for many years under the name of geography. Scores of additional examples might be given.
[1532.] At last, in the middle of 1532, Cortés was able to despatch from Acapulco two vessels, under Hurtado de Mendoza and Mazuela, to make the first voyage up the coast beyond Colima. Mendoza touched at Santiago and at the port of Jalisco, near the later San Blas, discovering the islands of Magdalena, or Tres Marías. Then they took refuge from a storm in a port located only by conjecture, probably on the Sonora coast, where after a time the vessels parted. Mendoza went on up the coast. Having landed and ascended the Rio Tamotchala—now the Fuerte—he was killed, with most of his men, by the Indians. The rest were massacred a little later, when the vessel grounded and broke up at the mouth of the Rio Petatlan, or Sinaloa. Meanwhile, Mazuela with the other vessel returning down the coast was driven ashore in Banderas Bay, where all his men but two or three were killed by the natives. Authorities, being voluminous, complicated, and of necessity fully presented elsewhere, are omitted here.
Cortes, De Insvlis nvper inventis, Coloniæ, 1532, is a translation of Hernan Cortés' second and third letters, with Peter Martyr's De Insulis, and a letter from Fray Martin de Valencia, dated Yucatan, June 12, 1531, with some letters from Zumárraga, first bishop of Mexico.
Grynævs, Novvs Orbis, Paris and Basle, 1532, is a collection of the voyages of Columbus, Pinzon, Vespucci, and others. In this work the assertion is made that Vespucci discovered America before Columbus, which aroused the wrath of Las Casas, and seems to have originated the subsequent bitter attacks on Vespucci. About the maps originally published with this work there seems to be some doubt, most copies, like my own, having no map. According to Stevens' Notes, pp. 19, 51-2, pl. iii. no. 4, the Paris edition of Grynæus contained a map made by Orontius Fine in 1531. The following is a reduction from Stevens' fac-simile on Mercator's projection:
All of the New World, so far as explored, is represented with tolerable accuracy, but the unexplored South Sea coast is made to extend westward from the region of Acapulco, and to join the southern coast of Asia, which is laid down from the ancient chronicles. Instead of being, as Stevens terms it, a "culmination of absurdities," I regard this map as more consistent with the knowledge of the time than any other printed during the first half of the sixteenth century. North America when found was regarded as Asia; South America was at first supposed to be a large island, and later an immense south-eastern extension of Asia; subsequent explorations, chiefly that of Magellan, showed the existence of a vast ocean between southern America and southern Asia; official maps left unexplored regions blank, expressing no theory as to the northern extension of the Pacific Ocean; other maps, as we have seen, without any authority whatever, make that ocean extend north and completely separate Asia from the New World. The present map, however, clings to the original idea and makes North America an eastern extension of Asia, giving the name America to the southern continent.
The map in the Basle edition of Grynæus, also given in Stevens' Notes, pl. iv. no. 4, closely resembles Schöner's Globe of 1520 (see page 137).
[1533.] The expedition of Becerra, Grijalva, and Jimenez, sent out by Cortés to search for Hurtado de Mendoza and to continue north-western discoveries, sailed from Santiago in November. This voyage, like those following, will be fully treated elsewhere in this work. The only result, so far as the purposes of this chapter are concerned, was the discovery of the Revilla Gigedo group of islands and the southern part of the peninsula of Lower California, supposed then to be an island. Jimenez landed and was killed at Santa Cruz, now known as La Paz. The subsequent expedition of 1535-6, headed by Cortés in person, added only very slightly to geographical knowledge of the north-west. Many points were touched and named along the coast; but comparatively few can be definitely located except by the aid of information afforded by the earlier explorations of Guzman by land.
Schöner, Opvscvlvm Geographicvm, supposed to have been printed in 1533, maintains that the New World is part of Asia, and contains, so far as known, the first charge against Vespucci. Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. v. pp. 174-5. Other books of the year are: Franck, Weltbuch, Tübingen, 1533, which includes America in a description of the world; and Zummaraga, Botschafft des Grossmechtigsten Königs Dauid, n.p., n.d., containing a letter from Mexico dated in 1532.
[1534.] In 1534, 1535, and 1540, Jacques Cartier made three voyages for France, in which Newfoundland and the gulf and river of St Lawrence were carefully explored. Prima Relatione di Iacqves Carthier della Terra Nvova detta la Nuoua Francia, trouata nell'anno MDXXXIIII., in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 435; Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 201-36; Sammlung alter Reisebeschreibungen, tom. xv. p. 29.
Simon de Alcazaba sailed from San Lúcar in September, 1534, with two ships and 280 men, intending to conquer and settle the western coast of South America south of Peru. After spending a long time in the strait of Magellan, he was finally prevented by the mutiny of his men from proceeding farther. His explorations in the Patagonian regions were more extensive than had been made before. Seventy-five men, the remnant of his expedition, reached Española in September, 1535, one vessel having been wrecked on the coast of Brazil. Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. ii. pp. 155-65; Galvano's Discov., pp. 198-9; Herrera, dec. v. lib. vii. cap. v.; Diccionario Univ., app. tom. x. p. 807; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. p. 171.
The books of 1534 are, Francis of Bologna, La Letera, Venetia, n.d.; Chronica compendiosissima, Antwerp, 1534, containing letters from priests in Mexico; Vadianus, Epitome, Tigura, 1534, includes the Insulæ Oceani; Peter Martyr, Libro Primo Della Historia, Vinegia, 1534, which has joined to it a libro secondo by Oviedo, and an anonymous third book on the conquest of Peru; two anonymous works, Letera de la nobil cipta, and Copia delle Lettere del Prefetto della India, being letters from Peru, the latter describing the conquest; Honter, De cosmographiæ, Basileæ, 1534, with a chapter on the new islands; Xeres, Uerdadera relacion de la conquista del Peru, Seville, 1534; and an anonymous work on the same subject, La conquista del Peru, Seville, 1534.
[1535.] In this year appeared the first edition of the great historical work of Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, La Historia general de las Indias, Seville, 1535. Only nineteen of the fifty books which comprise the whole work appear in this edition; the work complete has since been published in Madrid, 1851-5. Steinhowel, Chronica Beschreibung, Franckenfort, 1535, has a chapter on 'America discovered in 1497.'
[1536.] In April, 1528, as we have seen, Pánfilo de Narvaez had landed on the west coast of Florida, probably at Tampa Bay, and attempted with three hundred men to reach Pánuco by land. The company gradually melted from famine, sickness, and battles with the savages, until only Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca with a few companions remained. They were held as slaves by the natives of the Gulf coast for six years; and then escaping, traversed Texas, Chihuahua, and Sonora, by a route which has not been very definitely fixed. Cabeza de Vaca with three companions reached the Spanish settlements in northern Sinaloa early in 1536, and their reports served as a powerful incentive to more extended exploration. Relatione che fece Alvaro Nvnez detto Capo di vacca, in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 310-30; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1499; Cabeça de Vaca's Relation, New York, 1871; Ternaux-Compans, Voy., série i. tom, vii.; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iii. p. 582 et seq.; Barcia, Historiadores Prim., tom. i.
Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, Paris, 1536, contains nine decades. This work, with Sacro Bosco, Sphera Volgare, Venetiis, 1537, and Nunez, Tratado da Sfera, Olisipone, 1537, closes the bibliographical part of this Summary, in which, following Harrisse as the latest authority, I have endeavored to mention all the original works by which the geographical results of voyages of discovery were made known prior to 1540.
[1537.] After the abandonment of California by the colony, Cortés sent two vessels under Hernando de Grijalva and Alvarado (not Pedro) to Peru with supplies and reinforcements for Pizarro. There are vague reports that Grijalva sailed westward from Peru and made a long cruise in the Pacific, visiting various islands which cannot be located. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. v. lib. viii. cap. x.; dec. vii. lib. v. cap. ix.; Galvano's Discov., pp. 202-3; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. p. 180.
[1538.] Fernando de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida, crossed the peninsula to that part discovered by Aillon in 1526, wandered four or five years in the interior of the southern United States and followed the course of the Mississippi, probably as far up as to the Ohio. Here Soto died, and the remnant of his company, after penetrating farther west to the buffalo country, floated down the Mississippi and returned to Mexico in 1543. Soto's travels are esteemed by Kohl as "the principal source of knowledge regarding these regions, for more than a hundred years." Discov. and Conq. of Terra Florida, Hakluyt Soc., London, 1851; Selection of Curious Voy., Sup. to Hakluyt, London, 1812, p. 689; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1532; Ferdinands von Soto Reise nach Florida, in Sammlung, tom. xvi. p. 395.
[1539.] In August, 1539, three vessels under Alonso de Camargo were despatched from Seville for India via the South Sea, and reached Cabo de las Vírgenes January 20, 1540. One of the vessels was wrecked in the strait of Magellan; another returned to Spain, and the third entered the Pacific, and finally, after touching Chile in 38° 30', arrived at Arequipa in Peru. This voyage is supposed to have afforded the first knowledge of the intermediate coast between the strait of Magellan and Peru. Diccionario Univ., app. tom. x. p. 807; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. vii. lib. i. cap. viii.; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. p. 186.
Cabeza de Vaca brought to Sinaloa and thence to Mexico accounts of wonderful towns in the northern regions traversed by him; and in March, 1539, Fray Marcos de Niza, accompanied by one of the men who had seen the reported wonders, set out from Culiacan and proceeded northward in search of the Seven Cities of whose existence other rumors were current besides those brought by Alvar Nuñez. Marcos de Niza reached the Pueblo towns of Zuñi and brought back greatly exaggerated reports of the wealth of the people and the magnificence of their cities. Relatione del Reverendo Fra Marco da Nizza, in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 356; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1560; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. de Doc., tom. iii. p. 325; Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 366-73; Ternaux-Compans, Voy., série i. tom. ix. p. 256. See also Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner, in Pacific R. R. Reports, vol. iii. pp. 104-8.
Niza's report prompted Cortés to renewed efforts in his Californian enterprise, and in July, 1539, Francisco de Ulloa was sent from Acapulco with three vessels to prosecute the discoveries by water. Ulloa spent some time in the port of Santiago for repairs, lost one vessel in a gale near the entrance to the gulf, visited Santa Cruz, and then followed the main coast to the mouth of the Colorado, and returned along the coast of the Peninsula to Santa Cruz, where he arrived on the 18th of October. From this place he doubled the southern point of California, and sailed up the western coast to Cedros Island, and somewhat beyond. During the whole voyage he touched and named many places, whose names have seldom been retained, but some of which may be with tolerable certainty identified. In April the vessels separated, one returning by a quick passage to Colima. Ulloa himself with the other vessel attempted to continue his explorations northward, with what success is not known. According to Gomara and Bernal Diaz, he returned after several months spent in fruitless endeavors to reach more northern latitudes; other authorities state that he was never heard from. Preciado, who accompanied the expedition, wrote of it a detailed but not very clear narrative or journal. Relatione dello scoprimento che nel nome di Dio va à far l'armata dell' illustrissimo Fernando Cortese, etc. (Preciado's Relation), in Ramusio, tom. iii. 339-54, and in Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 397-424; Gomara, Hist. Conq., fol. 292-3; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 234; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. vi. lib. ix. cap. viii. et seq.; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. v. p. 856; Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, pp. xxii.-vi.; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. pp. 193-210; Venegas, Noticia de la California, quoted from Gomara, tom. i. pp. 159-61; Clavigero, Storia della California, tom. i. p. 151.
[1540.] Also in consequence of Marcos de Niza's reports, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, who had succeeded Nuño de Guzman and Torre as governor of New Galicia, set out from Culiacan in April, 1540, penetrated to the Pueblo towns, or the Seven Cities of Cibola, and thence to the valley of the Rio Grande and far toward the north-east to Quivira, whose location, fixed by him in latitude 40°, has been a much disputed question. While in Sonora, he sent forth Melchor Diaz, who explored the head of the gulf, and the mouths of the rivers, Gila and Colorado, where he found letters left by Alarcon. See infra. From Cibola, Coronado sent Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas west, who passed through the Moqui towns and followed the Colorado for some distance. Coronado returned in 1542. Relatione che mando Francesco Vazquez di Coronado, in Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 359; Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. de Doc., tom. iii. p. 511. Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 373-82, has the same and Gomara's account. Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, série i. tom. ix., gives the relations of Coronado, Castañeda, and Jaramillo. See also Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner, in Pacific R. R. Reports, vol. iii. pp. 108-12; Simpson, in Report of Smithsonian Institution, 1869.
To coöperate with Coronado's land expedition, Hernando de Alarcon was despatched from Acapulco in May, 1540. Alarcon followed the coast to the head of the gulf, and ascended the Buena Guia (Colorado) some eighty-five leagues in boats, but hearing nothing from Coronado, he returned after burying letters, which, as we have seen, were found by Melchor Diaz. Beside the references given above, see Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, p. xxviii.; Burney's Discov. South Sea, vol. i. pp. 211-16; Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1560; Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. iv. p. 21 et seq.; vol. vi. p. 60; Doc. Hist. Mex., serie iii. p. 671.
I here present reductions of two maps of the time to illustrate the explorations on the north-west coast, with which I close this sketch. The first was made by the pilot Castillo in 1541, and is taken from Cortés, Hist. Nueva-España, edited by Lorenzana, Mexico, 1770, p. 325.
A similar chart is mentioned by Señor Navarrete as existing in the hydrographic archives in Madrid. The second, from the Munich Atlas, no. vi., is of uncertain date. Peschel places it between 1532 and 1540; and it was certainly made about that time, as Yucatan is represented as an island, and California as a peninsula, although later it came again to be considered an island, as at its first discovery.
This, then, was Discovery. And in the progress of discovery we may trace the progress of mind. We can but wonder now, when we see our little earth belted with steam and lightning, how reluctantly the infant intellect left its cradle to examine its surroundings. Wrapped in its Mediterranean swaddlings, it crept forth timidly, tremblingly, slowly gaining courage with experience, until, throwing off impediments, it trod the earth in the fearless pride of manhood. Like all science, philosophy, and religion, cosmography was at first a superstition. Walled within narrow limits, as we have seen, by imaginary frost and fire, shaken from fear of heaven above and hell beneath, there is little wonder that the ancients dared not venture far from home; nor that, when men began to explore parts unknown, there should appear that romance of geography so fascinating to the Greek mind, that halo thrown by the dimness of time and distance over strange seas and lands. From this time to that of the adaptation of the magnet to purposes of navigation, about a score of centuries, there was little progress in discovery.
Is it not strange how the secrets of nature, one after another, reveal themselves according to man's necessities? Who would have looked for the deliverance of pent-up humanity from certain mysterious qualities in magnetic iron ore, which floated toward the north that side of a cork on which it was placed? When Vasco da Gama and Columbus almost simultaneously opened to Europe oceanic highways through which were destined to flow the treasures of the eastern and the western Indies, then it was that a new quality was discovered in the loadstone; for in addition to its power to take up iron, it was found to possess the rare virtue of drawing gold and silver from distant parts into the coffers of European princes; then it was that paths were marked out across the Sea of Darkness, and ships passed to and fro bearing the destroyers of nations, and laden with their spoils.