Stories of Exploration
Columbus 1492 - 1502 Exploring for Spain
  
Christopher
Columbus, Letter to Luis de Sant’ Angel (1493)
In this letter to one of his leading supporters in the Spanish court,
Christopher Columbus describes his reaction to the sights of the New World. He
is describing the island of Hispaniola, present-day Haiti and the Dominican
Republic.
Early Years
Columbus spent some of his early years at his father’s trade of weaving
and later became a sailor on the Mediterranean. Shipwrecked near the
Portuguese coast in 1476, he made his way to Lisbon, where his younger
brother, Bartholomew, an expert chart maker, lived. Columbus, too, became a
chart maker for a brief time in that great maritime center during the golden
era of Portuguese exploration. Engaged as a sugar buyer in the Portuguese
islands off Africa (the Azores, Cape Verde, and Madeira) by a Genoese
mercantile firm, he met pilots and navigators who believed in the existence of
islands farther west. It was at this time that he made his last visit to his
native city, but he always remained a Genoese, never becoming a naturalized
citizen of any other country. Returning to Lisbon, he married (1479?) the
well-born Dona Filipa Perestrello e Moniz.
By the time he was 31 or 32, Columbus had become a master mariner in the
Portuguese merchant service. It is thought by some that he was greatly
influenced by his brother, Bartholomew, who may have accompanied Bartholomew
Diaz on his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and by Martín Alonso Pinzón,
the pilot who commanded the Pinta on the first voyage. Columbus was but
one among many who believed one could reach land by sailing west. His
uniqueness lay rather in the persistence of his dream and his determination to
realize this “Enterprise of the Indies,” as he called his plan. Seeking
support for it, he was repeatedly rebuffed, first at the court of John II of
Portugal and then at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Finally,
after eight years of supplication by Columbus, the Spanish monarchs, having
conquered Granada, decided to risk the enterprise.
Voyages to the New World
First Expedition
On Aug. 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small ships,
the Santa María, commanded by Columbus himself, the Pinta under
Martín Pinzón, and the Niña under Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. After
halting at the Canary Islands, he sailed due west from Sept. 6 until Oct. 7,
when he changed his course to the southwest. On Oct. 10 a small mutiny was
quelled, and on Oct. 12 he landed on a small island (Watling Island; see San
Salvador) in the Bahama group. He took possession for Spain and, with
impressed natives aboard, discovered other islands in the neighborhood. On
Oct. 27 he sighted Cuba and on Dec. 5 reached Hispaniola.
On Christmas Eve the Santa María was wrecked on the north coast of
Hispaniola, and Columbus, leaving men there to found a colony, hurried back to
Spain on the Niña. His reception was all he could wish; according to
his contract with the Spanish sovereigns he was made “admiral of the ocean
sea” and governor-general of all new lands he had discovered or should
discover.
Second Expedition
Fitted out with a large fleet of 17 ships, with 1,500 colonists aboard,
Columbus sailed from Cádiz in Oct., 1493. His landfall this time was made in
the Lesser Antilles, and his new discoveries included the Leeward Islands and
Puerto Rico. The admiral arrived at Hispaniola to find the first colony
destroyed by Native Americans. He founded a new colony nearby, then sailed off
in the summer of 1494 to explore the southern coast of Cuba. After discovering
Jamaica he returned to Hispaniola and found the colonists, interested only in
finding gold, completely disorderly; his attempts to enforce strict discipline
led some to seize vessels and return to Spain to complain of his
administration. Leaving his brother Bartholomew in charge at Hispaniola,
Columbus also returned to Spain in 1496.
Third Expedition
On his third expedition, in 1498, Columbus was forced to transport convicts as
colonists, because of the bad reports on conditions in Hispaniola and because
the novelty of the New World was wearing off. He sailed still farther south
and made his landfall on Trinidad. He sailed across the mouth of the Orinoco
River (in present Venezuela) and realized that he saw a continent, but without
further exploration he hurried back to Hispaniola to administer his colony. In
1500 an independent governor arrived, sent by Isabella and Ferdinand as the
result of reports on the wretched conditions in the colony, and he sent
Columbus back to Spain in chains. The admiral was immediately released, but
his favor was on the wane; other navigators, including Amerigo Vespucci,
had been in the New World and established much of the coast line of NE South
America.
Fourth Expedition
It was 1502 before Columbus finally gathered together four ships for a
fourth expedition, by which he hoped to reestablish his reputation. If he
could sail past the islands and far enough west, he hoped he might still find
lands answering to the description of Asia or Japan. He struck the coast of
Honduras in Central America and coasted southward along an inhospitable shore,
suffering terrible hardships, until he reached the Gulf of Darién. Attempting
to return to Hispaniola, he was marooned on Jamaica. After his rescue, he was
forced to abandon his hopes and return to Spain.
Historical Perspective
Although Columbus was not the first European mariner to sail to the New
World—the Vikings set up colonies (c.1000) in Greenland and Newfoundland
(see Leif Ericsson
and Thorfinn Karlsefni)—his
voyages mark the beginning of continuous European efforts to explore and
colonize the Americas. During the 1980s and 90s, the image of Columbus as a
hero was tarnished by criticism from Native Americans and revisionist
historians. With the 500th anniversary of his first voyage in 1992,
interpretations of his motives and impact varied. Although he was always
judged to be vain, ambitious, greedy, and ruthless, traditional historians
viewed his voyages as opening the New World to Western civilization and
Christianity. For revisionist historians, however, his voyages symbolize the
more brutal aspects of European colonization and represent the beginning of
the destruction of Native American peoples and culture. One point of agreement
among all interpretations is that his voyages were one of the turning points
in history.
Bibliography
See J. M. Cohen, comp., The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus
(1969); biographies by S. E. Morison (1942), E. D. S. Bradford (1973), H.
Koning (1982), and F. Fernández-Armesto (1991); C. Ryan, Columbus in
Poetry, History, and Art (1976); J. Axtell, Beyond 1492 (1992); W.
D. and C. R. Philips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (1992).
From The
Columbia Encyclopedia,
John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) 1497 Exploring for England
John Cabot fl. 1461–98, English
explorer, probably b. Genoa, Italy. He became a citizen of Venice in 1476 and
engaged in the Eastern trade of that city. This experience, it is assumed, was
the stimulus of his later explorations. Like Columbus (though there is no
evidence that either influenced the other), he apparently believed that the
riches of East Asia might be more easily reached by sailing west. He went to
England, probably in the 1480s, and resided chiefly at Bristol, a port then
promising as a base for discovery. Under a patent granted by Henry VII
(Mar. 5, 1496), Cabot sailed from Bristol in 1497 and discovered the North
American coast, touching at Cape Breton Island or Newfoundland. In 1498 he
again sailed for America to explore the coast. The fate of the expedition is
unknown, although there is presumptive evidence that it reached America and
that some of its members returned. The English claims in North America were
based on his discovery. His son was Sebastian Cabot.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Portuguese Exploration along the Northeast Coast
of N America
Although numerous countries and individuals were
involved in the exploration and mapping of the Americas, it was the Portuguese
who set the stage during the fifteenth century for the ensuing discoveries in
the New World. Portuguese-born and sponsored explorers played a significant
role, especially in charting a route around the southern tip of South America;
in exploring and exploiting the waters bordering the northeast coast of North
America; and in exploring the Pacific Coast of North America, particularly the
area that today is the state of California.
During the first quarter of the sixteenth
century, Portuguese sailors were active in exploring and exploiting the cod
fisheries found in the North Atlantic and along the northeast coast of North
America. Possibly the first of these was the Azorean sailor João Fernandes,
who was known by his rank, lavrador (i.e., small landowner or
peasant). In 1499 and again during the next few years, he joined with several
Bristol merchants in sailing to Greenland and possibly Labrador (which bears
his name). In 1500 and 1501, Gaspar Corte-Real and his brother Miguel, members
of the Portuguese royal household, sailed to Greenland, Labrador, and possibly
Newfoundland, which was subsequently labeled "Terra del Rey de Portuguall"
on several early maps. During the next twenty years, there is scattered
evidence to suggest that Portuguese fishermen were also visiting the Grand
Banks and the coastal waters of Newfoundland to exploit the cod (bacalhau)
fisheries. Around 1520, a Portuguese nobleman, João Álvares Fagundes,
explored the southern coast of Newfoundland and may have reached the mouth of
the St. Lawrence River and the Nova Scotia coast. Four years later, Estêvão
Gomes, sailing for Spain, reached Nova Scotia and sailed south along the North
American coast, possibly as far as the Chesapeake Bay. Gomes, who was a native
of Porto in northern Portugal, had served as a pilot for Fernão de Magalhães
in 1519.
Although few detailed accounts or maps have
survived from these voyages, the accomplishments were incorporated into
several early sixteenth-century maps including a 1529 world map prepared for
the Spanish crown by Diogo Ribeiro. Portuguese by birth, Ribeiro was
responsible for revising and updating the official world map (padron real)
as news of discoveries was received. Because only two copies of the Ribeiro
map are extant, a tracing of the western hemisphere portion made by the
nineteenth-century German historical geographer Johann Georg Kohl from the
original copy in Weimar, Germany, is displayed here. Documenting the
Portuguese discoveries in the North Atlantic are several prominently displayed
place names -- "Tierra del Labrador," "Tierra de los Bacallaos"
(actually listed as "Tierra Nueva de los Bacallaos" -- the
Newfoundland of the cod fisheries -- on a 1532 map), and "Tierra de
Estevan Gomez."
 |
Johann Georg Kohl. Map of America, by Diego
Ribero, 1529. [1850?]. Pen, ink, and watercolor. Geography and
Map Division, Kohl Collection no. 41 (4).
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/coast.html
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Hernán Cortés 1519 Exploring for Spain
see Conquistadors:
The Fall of the Aztecs -- PBS
Hernán Cortés, 1485–1547, Spanish conquistador,
conqueror of Mexico. Cortés went (1504) first to Hispaniola and later
(1511) accompanied Diego de Velázquez to Cuba.
In 1518 he was chosen to lead an expedition to Mexico. Although Velázquez
later sought to recall his commission, Cortés sailed in Feb., 1519. In
Yucatán he rescued a Spaniard who had learned the Mayan language; after a
victory over the native people of Tabasco, Cortés acquired the services of
a female slave Malinche—baptized Marina—who knew both Maya and Aztec.
Having proceeded up the coast, Cortés founded Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz
and was chosen captain general by the cabildo; thus he discarded Velázquez’s
authority and became responsible only to Charles V.
Fall of the Aztec Empire Cortés, learning that the Aztec empire
of Montezuma was
honeycombed with dissension, assumed the role of deliverer and rallied the
coastal Totonacs to his standard; he also began negotiations with Montezuma.
Scuttling his ships to prevent the return of any Velázquez sympathizers to
Cuba, he began his famous march to Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City),
capital of the Aztec empire. He defeated the Tlaxcalan warriors and then
formed an alliance with the so-called republic of Tlaxcala; practically
destroyed Cholula;
and arrived at Tenochtitlán in Nov., 1519. There
Montezuma received the Spanish as descendants of the god Quetzalcoatl. Cortés
seized his opportunity, took Montezuma hostage, and attempted to govern
through him.
In the spring of 1520, Cortés went to the coast, where he defeated a force
under Pánfilo de Narváez.
Pedro de Alvarado,
left in command, impetuously massacred many Aztecs, and soon after Cortés’s
return the Aztecs besieged the Spanish. In the ensuing battle, Montezuma was
killed. The Spanish, seeking safety in flight, fought their way out of the
city with heavy losses on the noche triste [sad night] (June 30,
1520). Still in retreat, they defeated an Aztec army at Otumba and retired
to Tlaxcala.
The next year Cortés attacked the capital, and after a three-month siege
Tenochtitlán fell (Aug. 13, 1521). With it fell the Aztec empire. As
captain general, Cortés extended the conquest by sending expeditions over
most of Mexico and into N Central America. In 1524–26, Cortés himself
went to Honduras, killing Cuauhtémoc, the
Aztec emperor, in the course of the expedition.
Later Career In Cortés’s absence his enemies at home gradually
triumphed, and after his return his power was made more fictitious than real
by the audiencia. Although on his visit to Spain (1528–30) Cortés was
made marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, Charles V refused to name him governor.
Returning to Mexico, he vainly sent out maritime expeditions, frustrated
more than once by Nuño de Guzmán. Subsequently
he quarreled with the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, and in 1540
he again sought justice in Spain. There, neglected by the court, he died.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1527 - 1536 Exploring for Spain
See article on al-Zemmouri Estevanico - the
first Moorish Explorer in the New World.
Alvar
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, "Indians of the Rio Grande" (1528-1536)
an essay on this site translated from Cabeza de Vaca's account.
In 1528, half of the crew of the Spanish explorer Panfilo de Navarez
was stranded in Florida. After sailing in makeshift vessels across the Gulf of
Mexico, the crew was shipwrecked and enslaved by coastal peoples. After six
years, Cabeza de Vaca, a black slave, Estevancio the Moor (referred to as
"the negro" in this excerpt), and two others escaped and made the
overland journey from Texas through the Southwest and south to Mexico City. In
this selection from his journal, Cabeza de Vaca describes the native peoples
and environment of what is now Texas and northern Mexico.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca c.1490–c.1557, Spanish explorer. Cabeza
de Vaca [cow’s head] was not actually a surname but a hereditary title in
his mother’s family; he is frequently called simply Álvar Núñez.
North American Adventures Cabeza de Vaca came to the New World as
treasurer in the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez that reached
Florida (probably Tampa Bay) in 1528. When hardship and native hostility
caused the end of the expedition, he was one of the survivors whose barges
were shipwrecked on an island off the Texas coast, possibly Galveston or
Mustang Island. Their story is one of the most remarkable in the annals of
exploration.
After suffering considerably as slaves of the Native Americans inhabiting
the island, Cabeza de Vaca and three other survivors escaped and started a
long journey overland. His companions were Alonso del Castillo Maldonado,
Andrés Dorantes, and Estevanico
(al-Zemmouri). They gained great repute among the Native
Americans as healers since remarkable cures were attributed to their
Christian prayers. Their route westward is as disputed as is the identity
the island of the shipwreck, but after much wandering they did reach W
Texas, then probably New Mexico and Arizona, and possibly (some argue)
California before, turning south in 1536, they arrived in Culiacán in
Mexico and told their story to Spaniards there.
They were almost certainly the first Europeans to see bison, and their
stories about the Pueblo gave rise to the legend of the Seven Cities of
Cibola, later magnified by Fray Marcos de Niza, and
brought explorers in search of El Dorado. Cabeza de Vaca’s own account, Los
naufragios [the shipwrecked men] (1542), is the chief document of the
startling adventures of his party. An English translation (1851) by Thomas
Buckingham Smith is reprinted in I. R. Blacker and H. M. Rosen’s The
Golden Conquistadores (1960). See also
A rare complete copy of the 1555 Relación is a central text
in the Southwestern
Writers Collection of the Southwest Texas State University's Library.
Probably the earliest text about exploration of the Americas, the Relación
introduces themes to which later American history and texts return again and
again: the meeting and, often, clashing of cultures; slavery; captivity;
wonder and fear at the vastness of the American landscape. The narrative
provides an opportunity to examine the assumptions and responses of an early
European among native peoples of the Southwest, struggling (he claims) to be
a good Spanish subject, to be a Christian, and simply to survive. Cabeza de
Vaca's observations on native bands' cultural practices, child-rearing,
eating, religious beliefs, and interactions with the landscape provide
anthropologists, biologists, historians, political scientists, geologists,
and literary scholars with a wealth of information and suggest his story's
historical, anthropological, and literary significance.
South American Career: After returning to Spain, Cabeza de Vaca was
appointed governor of the Río de la Plata region and reached Asunción
after an overland journey from the Brazilian coast in 1542. His South
American career was sadly different from that in North America. He got into
trouble with the popular Domingo Martínez de Irala, and after he
returned from a journey up the Paraná River to Bolivia, he was arrested,
accused of high-handed practices, imprisoned for two years, and sent back to
Spain. There he was found guilty but was pardoned by the king. Cabeza de
Vaca wrote his own account of the South American events in his Comentarios
(1555).
Bibliography
See M. Bishop, The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca (1933); J. U.
Terrell, Journey into Darkness (1962); H. Long, The Marvelous
Adventures of Cabeza de Vaca (1973).
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia and Southwestern
Writers Collection
Estevanico de Azamor ( al-Zemmouri Stephen the Moor)
Hernando de Soto 1539 -1542 Exploring for Spain
Hernando de Soto c.1500–1542, Spanish explorer. After serving under
Pedrarias in Central America and under Francisco Pizarro in Peru, the
dashing young conquistador was made governor of Cuba by Emperor Charles V,
with the right to conquer Florida (meaning the North American mainland).
He led an expedition that left Spain in 1538 and landed on the Florida
coast, probably near Tampa Bay, in 1539. That was the start of an adventure
that took him and his band nearly halfway across the continent in search of
gold, silver, and jewels, which they never found.
After wintering near Tallahassee they went N through Georgia and the
Carolinas into Tennessee, then turned S into Alabama, where De Soto was
wounded in a battle with Native Americans. He was so determined to continue
his treasure hunt that he refused to inform his men that Spanish vessels
were off the coast.
In the spring of 1541 they again set forth and were probably the first
white men to see and cross the Mississippi. A journey up the Arkansas River
and into Oklahoma disclosed no treasures, and, discouraged, they turned back
to the banks of the Mississippi. There De Soto died; he was buried in the
river, so that the Native Americans, whom he had intimidated and ill-used,
would not learn of his death.
His men went west again across the Red River into N Texas, then returned
to the Mississippi and followed it to the sea. A remnant of the expedition
made its way down the coast to arrive at Veracruz in 1543. The chief
chronicle of the expedition is by a Portuguese called the Gentleman of Elvas.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado 1540-1542 Exploring for Spain
 
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado c.1510–1554, Spanish
explorer. He went to Mexico with Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and in 1538 was
made governor of Nueva Galicia. The viceroy, dazzled by the report of Fray Marcos de Niza of the
great wealth of the Seven Cities of Cibola to the north, organized an
elaborate expedition to explore by sea (see Alarcón, Hernando de)
and by land.
Coronado, made captain general, set out in 1540 from Compostela, crossed
modern Sonora and SE Arizona, and reached Cibola itself—the Zuñi country
of New Mexico. He found neither splendor nor wealth in the native pueblos.
Nevertheless he sent out his lieutenants: Pedro de Tovar visited the Hopi
villages in N Arizona, García López de Cárdenas discovered the Grand
Canyon, and Hernando de Alvarado struck out eastward and visited Acoma and
the pueblos of the Rio Grande and the Pecos. Alvarado came upon a Native
American from a Plains tribe nicknamed the Turk, who told fanciful tales of
the wealthy kingdom of Quivira
to the east.
Coronado, still hopeful, spent a winter on the Rio Grande not far from
the modern Santa Fe, waged needless warfare with Native Americans, then set
out in 1541 to find Quivira under the false guidance of the Turk. Just where
the party went is not certain, but it is generally thought they journeyed in
the Texas Panhandle, reached Palo Duro Canyon (near Canyon, Tex.), then
turned N through Oklahoma and into Kansas. They reached Quivira, which
turned out to be no more than indigenous villages (probably of the Wichita),
innocently empty of gold, silver, and jewels.
The Spanish turned back in disillusion and spent the winter of 1541–42
on the Rio Grande, then in 1542 left the northern country to go ingloriously
back to Nueva Galicia and into the terrors of the Mixtón War.
In 1544, Coronado was dismissed from his governorship and lived the rest
of his life in peaceful obscurity in Mexico City. He had found no cities of
gold, no El Dorado; yet his expedition had acquainted the Spanish with the Pueblo and had
opened the Southwest. Subsidiary expeditions from Nueva Galicia to S Arizona
and Lower California make the scope of Coronado’s achievement even more
astonishing.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Giovanni Verrazano 1524 Exploring for France
Giovanni Verrazano c.1480–1527?, Italian navigator and explorer, in the
service of France, possibly the first European to enter New York Bay. Sailing
west to reach Asia, Verrazano explored (1524) the North American coast
probably from North Carolina to Maine. In 1526, or later, sailing from France,
he explored the West Indies, where he was killed by the natives. Based on his
discoveries, his brother Gerolamo’s maps (1529) showed a new concept of
North America. The name is sometimes spelled Verrazzano.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Jacques Cartier 1535 Exploring for France
 
Jacques Cartier, 1491–1557, French navigator, first explorer of the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and discoverer of the St. Lawrence River. He made three
voyages to the region, the first two (1534, 1535–36) directly at the
command of King Francis I and the third (1541–42) under the sieur
de Roberval in a colonization scheme that failed. On the first voyage he
entered by the Strait of Belle Isle, skirted its barren north coast for a
distance and then coasted along the west shore of Newfoundland to Cape
Anguille. From there he discovered the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward
Island and, sailing to the coast of New Brunswick, explored Chaleur Bay,
continued around the Gaspé Peninsula, and landed at Gaspé to take
possession for France. Continuing to Anticosti Island, he then returned to
France.
Hitherto the region had been considered cold and forbidding, interesting
only because of the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries, but Cartier’s
reports of a warmer, more fertile region in New Brunswick and on the Gaspé
and of an inlet of unknown extent stimulated the king to dispatch him on a
second expedition. On this voyage he ascended the St. Lawrence to the site
of modern Quebec and, leaving some of his men to prepare winter quarters,
continued to the native village of Hochelaga, on the site of the present-day
city of Montreal, and there climbed Mt. Royal to survey the fertile valley
and see the Lachine Rapids and Ottawa River. On his return he explored Cabot
Strait, ascertaining Newfoundland to be an island. His Brief Récit et
succincte narration (1545), a description of this voyage, was his only
account to be published in France during his life.
On his third trip he penetrated again to the Lachine Rapids and wintered
in the same region, but gained little new geographical information. Roberval
did not appear until Cartier was on his way home, and Cartier refused to
join him. Although Cartier’s discoveries were of major geographical
importance and the claims of the French to the St. Lawrence valley were
based on them, he failed in his primary object, the discovery of the
Northwest Passage and natural resources. The region remained virtually
untouched until the early 17th cent. The best edition of the voyages is H.
P. Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier (1924).
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Cabrilho's Discovery of California
Portuguese were also involved in the exploration
of the west coast of North America. In 1542-43, Portuguese-born João
Rodrigues Cabrilho and his chief pilot Bartolomé Ferrelo, who may have been
Portuguese, were the first Europeans to explore the coast of the present state
of California. Sailing for Spain, Cabrilho left in June of 1542 from Navidad
on the west coast of Mexico and proceeded north. He reached San Diego Bay in
September, becoming the first European to set foot in what is today the state
of California. He continued north along the California coast but died in
January 1543 from an infection resulting from a broken arm. Ferrelo, his
pilot, continued north, possibly reaching the Oregon coast in March 1543.
Cabrilho's and Ferrelo's voyages are indicated by
light reddish brown and light blue on this reconstructed map compiled by the
nineteenth-century German historical geographer Johann Georg Kohl. A student
of America's discovery and exploration, Kohl prepared this map, as well as
similar maps of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, as a graphic device for
summarizing and visualizing the area covered by the various explorers. The
extent of each explorer's travels is indicated in a different color.
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Johann Georg Kohl. A Map Showing the Progress
of Discovery on the West Coast of the U.S. and Vancouver Island.
1857. Pen, ink, and watercolor. Geography and Map Division, Kohl
Collection, miscellaneous (5).
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/cabrilho.html
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Samuel de Champlain 1603 - 1615 Exploring for France
http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1600-00/Champlain.htm
Samuel de Champlain, 1567–1635, French explorer, the chief founder of New
France.
After serving in France under Henry of Navarre (King Henry IV) in the
religious wars, Champlain was given command of a Spanish fleet sailing to
the West Indies, Mexico, and the Isthmus of Panama. He described this
three-year tour to the French king in Bref Discours (1859). In 1603
he made his first voyage to New France as a member of a fur-trading
expedition. He explored the St. Lawrence River as far as the rapids at
Lachine and described his voyage in Des Sauvages (1603).
With the sieur de Monts,
who had a monopoly of the trade of the region, Champlain returned in 1604 to
found a colony, which was landed at the mouth of the St. Croix River. In
1605 the colony moved across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal (now Annapolis
Royal, N.S.), and in the next three years Champlain explored the New England
coast south to Martha’s Vineyard, discovering Mt. Desert Island and most
of the larger rivers of Maine and making the first detailed charts of the
coast. After the sieur de Monts’s privileges had been revoked, the colony
had to be abandoned, and through the efforts of Champlain a new one was
established on the St. Lawrence River.
In 1608 in the ship Le Don de Dieu, he brought his colonists to
the site of Quebec. In the spring of 1609, accompanying a war party of Huron
against the Iroquois, Champlain discovered the lake that bears his name, and
near Crown Point, N.Y., the Iroquois were met and routed by French troops.
The incident is believed to be largely responsible for the later hatred of
the French by the Iroquois.
In 1612 Champlain returned to France, where he received a new grant of the
fur-trade monopoly. Returning in 1613, he set off on a journey to the
western lakes. He reached only Allumette Island in the Ottawa River that
year, but in 1615 he went with Étienne Brulé and a party of Huron to
Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, returning southeastward by way of Lake Ontario.
Accompanying another Huron war party to an attack on an Onondaga village in
present-day New York, Champlain was wounded and forced to spend the winter
with the Huron.
Thereafter Champlain devoted his time to the welfare of the colony, of
which he was the virtual governor. He helped to persuade Richelieu to found
the Company of One Hundred Associates, which was to take over the interests
of the colony. In 1629 Quebec was suddenly captured by the English, and
Champlain was carried away to four years of exile in England; there he
prepared the third edition of his Voyages de la Nouvelle France
(1632). When New France was restored to France in 1632, Champlain returned.
In 1634 he sent Jean Nicolet
into the West, thus extending the French explorations and claims as far as
Wisconsin. He died on Christmas Day, 1635, and was buried in Quebec.
Champlain’s works were issued by the Champlain Society (1922–36) with
English and French texts. See also biographies by N. E. Dionne (1905, repr.
1963) and S. E. Morison (1972).
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Robert Cavelier sieur de La Salle 1679-1682
 
La Salle, 1643–87, French explorer in North America, one of the most
celebrated explorers and builders of New France.He entered a Jesuit novitiate
as a boy but later left the religious life. In 1666 he went to Canada, where
he developed a seigniory at Lachine. In 1673 the governor of New France,
Frontenac, made him commandant of Fort Frontenac (see Kingston, Ont.,
Canada). After a visit to France, where he was granted a patent of nobility,
La Salle began (1675) to develop the trade at the post. In 1677 he was in
France again and obtained a patent to build forts, explore, and trade. When he
returned, he brought with him Henri de Tonti, who was his
lieutenant in later enterprises.
In 1679 a blockhouse was built at the outlet of the Niagara River, and in
August they set out across the Great Lakes in the Griffon, which Tonti
had built. That first sailing vessel on the lakes took the adventuring traders
to Green Bay; the party then went by land. The Griffon was lost a
little later, probably in a storm. La Salle went along Lake Michigan, erected
Fort Miami on the site of present St. Joseph, Mich., then continued to the
Illinois River. On that stream Fort Creve Coeur was built.
La Salle sent Michel Aco
and Father Hennepin
on an expedition to the upper Mississippi, while he himself went back to Fort
Frontenac for supplies. After La Salle’s departure Tonti was attacked by
hostile Iroquois and was forced to flee the settlement. La Salle, returning,
found the Illinois posts deserted. He set out to find Tonti and also organized
(1681) a Native American federation of the Illinois, the Miami, and smaller
tribes to fight the Iroquois.
He was reunited with Tonti at Mackinac Island, and the two men with Father
Zenobe Membré and a small party descended the Mississippi to its mouth,
arriving Apr. 9, 1682. La Salle took possession of the whole valley, calling
the region Louisiana. Tonti went back to the Illinois and at Starved Rock
began construction of a village; La Salle joined him, and Fort St. Louis was
completed (1682–83).
La Salle was deprived of his authority by the new governor in 1683 and went to
France, leaving Tonti in the Illinois country. Given power to colonize and to
govern the region between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico, La Salle set
out (1684) with four ships for the mouth of the Mississippi. He never reached
it. With three of his ships La Salle reached the Gulf of Mexico; but because
of the sandy sameness of the coastline he was unable to find the Mississippi.
He and his men landed on the Texas shore, probably on Lavaca Bay. They made
futile attempts to reach the Mississippi overland, and the men grew mutinous.
On the third attempt the great explorer was murdered by his own men.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
Sebastian Cabot explorer in English and Spanish service
b. 1483–86?, d. 1557, ; son of John Cabot. He may well have
accompanied his father on the 1497 and 1498 voyages, and he was for many years
given the credit for his father’s achievements. In the 19th cent., scholars,
finding discrepancies in the Sebastian stories, branded him an impostor and
applied his accounts to the 1498 voyage of John Cabot. However, recent
research indicates that the Sebastian narratives relate to a later voyage
(1509) made in search of the Northwest Passage. He may have reached Hudson
Bay. In 1512 he entered Spanish service and in 1518 became chief pilot. After
the return of Magellan’s ship Victoria, he sailed (1526) from Sanlúcar
de Barrameda with the ostensible purpose of loading spices in the Moluccas.
Instead he explored the Río de la Plata country, spending several years along
the Paraguay, Plata, and Paraná rivers, but the hostility of the Native
Americans and the scarcity of food forced him to leave the country. He
returned to Spain in 1530, a distrusted and discredited man. In 1548 he
reentered English service, and in 1553 he became governor of a joint-stock
company (later the Muscovy
Company) organized to seek a Northeast Passage and open trade with China.
Under his instructions an expedition sailed the same year under Sir Hugh
Willoughby, who was lost in midvoyage and was replaced by Richard Chancellor. The
expedition reached the White Sea, and a commercial treaty was negotiated with
Russia, breaking the monopoly of the Hanseatic League.
from The
Columbia Encyclopedia
are the annual reports and narratives written by French Jesuit missionaries at their
stations in New France (America) between 1632 and 1673. They are invaluable as
historical sources for French exploration and native relations and also as a
record of the various indigenous tribes of the region before the influence of
settlers and missionaries had changed them. Published originally in Paris in
annual volumes, they were translated and edited by R. G. Thwaites (73 vol.,
1896–1901).
See bibliography by J. C. McCoy, Jesuit Relations of Canada, 1632–1673
(1937, repr. 1973).
Louis
Jolliet and Father Marquett
Jesuit
Relations Highly recommended as a primary source.
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents Travels
and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries
in New France 1610 —1791 The Original French, Latin and Italian Texts with
English translations and notes; illustrated by portraits, maps and facsimiles.
Edited by Reuben
Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the
State historical Society of Wisconsin. Computerized transcriptions by Tomasz Mentrak
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