2. European Exploration and Colonies 1400-1650

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By the fifteenth century, Europeans began to look westward for adventure and profit. The Copernican Revolution, advanced by Galileo and Kepler, had put an end to the geocentric view of a flat earth at the centre of the universe. Near the end of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo had returned to Europe with fabulous tales of the riches of India, China, and the Orient.

The overland route to Asia was costly and dangerous, so traders began looking for a water route, initially around Africa and later toward the western horizon. Better navigational aids, such as the astrolabe that showed a ship's latitude (distance north or south of the equator), made for safer voyages and more accurate maps. As maps improved, so too did the confidence of captains and crews alike.

Ship design also advanced, with stern rudders and tillers, and better sails and rigging, such as found in the three-masted Portuguese caravel, able to sail long distances with a heavy load of freight in the hold.

Portuguese Caravel

Portugal and Spain

Portuguese mariners started the race for a seaborne empire. This small country faced the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Mediterranean Sea, so it had to overcome a great disadvantage. But a series of astute and ambitious rulers saw that the only way to build up wealth for Portugal, was to bypass the Italian and Muslim merchants who controlled the Mediterranean markets, and do it by sea.

Pushed by Prince Henry, known as Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese built trading stations down the west coast of Africa, the so-called "Gold Coast. While exploration lagged after Henry's death in 1460, it picked up again in 1481 when King John II launched a renewed effort. He realized that an all-water route around Africa would allow direct trade with India and China. In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, naming it Cape of Storms (renamed Cape of Good Hope by King John II). Ten years later, Vasco da Gama arrived in the Indian port of Calicut, today's Calcutta.

Christopher Columbus

Spain did not want to be left behind in the Age of Discovery. Rejected by several European monarchs, Christopher Columbus eventually found a sponsor in Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. Spain had recently conquered the Muslim stronghold of Granada, and now ruled all Spain, so they could now turn their attentions to sharing in the rich spice trade of Asia. The piously Catholic Spanish also wished to form an alliance against the Muslims with the rulers of India and China. Queen Isabella saw in Columbus, the navigator from Genoa, a man who might further her ambitions.

First Columbus Landing in the New World

With three small ships and ninety men, Columbus left Palos, Spain on August 3, 1492. Two months later, with provisions running low, no land in sight, and his crew becoming increasingly uneasy, they finally reached the islands of the Bahamas on October 12th. To his dying day Columbus was convinced that he had discovered "India", therefore incorrectly naming the inhabitants "Indians".

In three subsequent voyages, Columbus explored Cuba and Hispaniola, the present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He claimed the land for Spain and engaged in a one-sided trade relationship with the aboriginal people, ransacking the land for gold. He had definitely not discovered the Orient but he had opened the way for the coming of the Europeans, and all that they would bring with them.

Other Spanish explorers followed Columbus in search of the fabled gold and spices of the far east. In 1513, Vasco Balboa crossed a narrow strip of land in Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. In the same year, Ponce de Leon set out to find the legendary 'fountain of youth' and discovered Florida. Six years later, the surviving crew of one of Ferdinand Magellan's ships became the first to circumnavigate the globe.

The Spanish were notorious in their mistreatment of the aboriginal peoples they encountered. The 'conquistadors' (conquerors) brutally exploited and murdered the people they encountered. Hernán Cortès, vanquished the Aztecs between 1518 and 1521. A decade later, Francisco Pizzaro did the same to the Incas of Peru. Others followed in their wake in Central and South America, ruthlessly exploiting the indigenous people.

Vasco de Gama

Columbus Awarded a Patent of Exploration

Hernán Cortès

John Cabot's Voyages

A Romanticized View of Cabot's Departure from Bristol

When news of Christopher Columbus's discovery reached England, King Henry VII did not want his nation left behind. He had already rejected Columbus, so he did not want to repeat the mistake. So when a Genoa-born mariner, Giovanni Caboto, known to us today as John Cabot, arrived in London after failing to get sponsorship from the Spanish court, Henry VII was intrigued. Cabot argued that, because a degree of longitude is shorter the further one is from the equator, the voyage from western Europe to eastern Asia would be shorter on higher latitudes.

Cabot was backed by two Bristol merchants, Robert Thorne and Hugh Eliot, who agreed to fund a voyage. Henry was convinced, and in March, 1496, he naturalized Cabot as an English citizen and gave him a grant "full and free authoritie, leave, and power, to sayle to all partes, countreys, and seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with five ships ... and as many mariners or men as they will have in saide ships, upon their own proper costes and charges, to seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever iles, countreyes, regions or provinces of the heathen and infidelles, whatsoever they bee, and in what part of the world soever they be, whiche before this time have beene unknowen to all Christians."

Cabot Arrives at Bonavista

As an agent of the English Crown, Cabot could not intrude on Spanish and Portuguese discoveries. The king would receive one fifth of the value of merchandise brought back to Bristol, though he had invested no money of his own.

Cabot went back to Bristol to prepare for his voyage. Bristol was England's second-largest seaport, and from 1480 onwards, several expeditions had been sent out to look for Hy-Brasil, an island in the Atlantic spoken of in Celtic legends. Newfoundland may have been found on one of these voyages, but if so, the discovery was kept secret. The Pope had given the Portuguese and Spanish rights of discovery. Also, the merchants may have wanted to keep secret the location of a potential passage to the Orient, or the wealth of codfish to be found in the west.

Cabot's Ship Matthew

Cabot's first voyage from Bristol took him only to Iceland, but the following May 20, 1497, he sailed on a 50-ton trading ship, the Matthew, with a crew of eighteen, and crossed the North Atlantic Ocean in a few weeks.

He arrived on the north shore of Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island on June 24, 1497, and claimed the land for King Henry. As John Day wrote, Cabot "landed at only one spot of the mainland, near the place where land was first sighted, and they disembarked there with a crucifix and raised banners with the arms of the Holy Father and those of the King of England, my master; and they found tall trees of the kind masts are made, and other smaller trees, and the country is very rich in grass."

Cabot Plants Flag on Cape Breton

The explorers "found a trail that went inland, they saw a site where a fire had been made, they saw manure of animals which they thought to be farm animals, and they saw a stick half a yard long pierced at both ends, carved and painted with brazil, and by such signs they believe the land to be inhabited. Since he was with just a few people, he did not dare advance inland beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow, and after taking in fresh water he returned to his ship. All along the coast they found many fish like those which in Iceland are dried in the open and sold in England and other countries, and these fish are called in English 'stockfish'; and thus following the shore they saw two forms running on land one after the other, but they could not tell if they were human beings or animals; and it seemed to them that there were fields where they thought might also be villages, and they saw a forest whose foliage looked beautiful."

Cabot sailed for England on about July 20, 1497, and arrived back in Bristol on August 6. The King rewarded him with a pension of 20 pounds a year, and a patent was written for a new voyage. The next year, 1498, Cabot departed again, with 5 ships this time. Except for one of the ships, that soon after depart made for an Irish port because of distress, nothing was heared of the expedition, or of John Cabot, ever since.

Matthew Replica; see www.tallshipstock.com

Like Columbus, a fellow Genovese, Cabot believed that he had found the Orient. And though he discovered no gold or diamonds, he found something almost as valuable - cod fish so thick in the water that they slowed down his ship. Some Bristol fishing ships had already been exploiting the rich area of the Grand Banks in secret. However, in about 1480, their Basque and Portuguese rivals had pushed them out. Now Cabot's lush description renewed their interest. His tales of the waters of these "Newe Found Isles", teeming with cod so abundant that they could be scooped out with baskets, brought a stream of english fishing vessels into the area.

Religion had a great deal to do with this revival of the fisheries. With Roman Catholics having to abstain from eating meat almost half of the days of the year, another source of protein was necessary. That greatly increased the market for fish, particularly cod, which was considered the tastiest as well as being the easiest fish to cook. Hundreds of European vessels sailed to the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland annually, and did so until recent times.

Cod Fishing and Drying

The cod was harvested in one of two ways. The "wet fisheries, favoured by the Basques and the French, involved packing the cod with salt in the holds of their ships. The English, however, had less access to salt. So they devised the "dry fishery" technique. This involved fishing closer to shore in smaller boats, then landing with their catch on shore, and cleaning and gutting the fish. The fish were then placed on racks or stages for drying. Thus, the English had to land and eventually build storehouses and residences. That in turn led them into contact with the aboriginal people, the Beothuk and the Mi'kmaq.

Giovanni de Verrazano

On his first journey, Cabot failed to meet any aboriginals. However, he knew from various signs, that the land was inhabited. The Beothuks had already having met with Europeans, and were wary of engaging in trade. However, they wanted metal and other European goods, and often raided the English fishing posts. That in turn led to retaliatory raids which forced the Beothuk further into the interior, as the English settlements became both more numerous and more permanent. This tragic relationship would inexorably lead to the eventual extinction of the Beothuk in the 1820s. The tribe's use of oil mixed with red ochre led the Europeans, incorrectly, to brand all aboriginals as "red Indian.

The French entered the imperial rivalry when an Italian explorer in their pay, Giovanni de Verrazano, claimed parts of the New World for their Empire. He traveled up the east coast of North America proving the area was not a series of islands but rather a huge uninterrupted land mass.

Newfoundland, from Cabot's Map

Resource: Since all of Cabot's writings went down with him on his ill-fated third voyage, our primary source of information comes from the Letter of John Day, an English spy in Spain.

Postscript

Cabot's ship Matthew went back to haulting wine, salt fish, woolen cloth and woad (a plant used to make ink) between Bristol and ports along the French and Spanish coast. In 1997, a British-built replica reached St. John's to help mark the 500th Anniversary of the voyage.

John's son Sebastian may have made a voyage to North America in 1508, looking for his father and the north west passage. From 1525-28, he tried to repeat Magellan's voyage around the world, but ended up looking for silver along the River Plate.

In 1498-1500 the Portuguese explorers, Miguel and Gaspar Corte-Real visited Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland. In 1501-5 an English syndicate, consisting of 3 Azoreans and 2 English traders, made voyages to Newfoundland. The cod rush was on. From 1504 onward, Breton, Basque, Portuguese and English fishermen regularly crossed the ocean to catch fish on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

In a letter to the Duke of Milan on December 18, 1497, Milanese Ambassador to England Raimondo di Soncino wrote: "The area is swarming with fish which can be taken not only with baskets but in baskets let down with a stone so that it sinks in the water.' He also wrote that the fish were so abundant that they could "render the English demand (for fish) independent of Iceland."

Drake and Gilbert

Jamestown

Francis Drake

Several abortive attempts at settlement in the 1500s. However, they all failed rapidly. During the Elizabethan Age (1558 to 1603), England attempted to oppose Spanish supremacy in the exploration race by building up its naval dominance and by attempting to establish colonies in the New World. Francis Drake, one of the famed English "sea dogs", captained the second ship to circumnavigate the earth between 1578 and 1580. In the process, Drake laid English claim to the Pacific Coast area of the northern part of North America. Recent evidence from Dutch maps strongly suggests that Drake was secretly seeking the North West Passage, and actually explored the inland passage of British Columbia, looking for a northerly route back to England, before turning back because of the cold. He called the land New Albion, but in published accounts placed it 10 degrees further south in California, to throw Spanish explorers off the trail.

In 1583, Humphrey Gilbert tried to establish a colony in Newfoundland, but it collapsed in less than a year. The following year, 1584, Walter Raleigh explored the Atlantic seaboard from Virginia to Spanish Florida. In addition, he organized two colonizing efforts on Roanoke Island, off the coast of Virginia, in 1585 and 1587. The complete disappearance of the Roanoke settlers remains a great historical mystery to this day. The first successful permanent English settlement in the New World would have to wait until the Virginia Company's founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

Derived From Sanson's Atlas 1650

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Search for the North West Passage

Detail of Sebastian Cabot Map, 1544

Early French attempts at settling and colonizing the new world suffered similar fates. In 1541-1542, Jacques Cartier, on his third and final voyage to the New World, wintered at Stadacona, and waited for the arrival of settlers being brought over by Sieur de Roberval. When they never appeared, in June 1542, Cartier broke camp and began his journey back to France. Off the coast of Newfoundland, Cartier met the Roberval group but rather than acknowledging them and returning to brave the coming winter together, he slipped by Roberval and returned to France.

Sebastian Cabot

Roberval's attempt to survive the harsh Canadian winter and hold off aboriginal attacks, also ended in failure. Samuel de Champlain and Pierre du Gua de Monts' 1604 colonization attempt at Ste. Croix Island on the western side of the Bay of Fundy and the following year at Port Royal on the other side of the Bay were both unsuccessful. The first successful colony, at Quebec, came only in 1608, the year after the English had founded Jamestown.

By this point, Europeans realized that there lay a huge land mass between themselves and the Orient. Verrazano and others had proven that it was an immense and continuous land mass from Florida to the Bay of Fundy. Cartier and later French explorers soon found that the St. Lawrence River was not a quick pathway through the entire continent.

Mapmakers were beginning to discern the true shape of the earth, and concluding that the distance between Europe and Asia was shorter the further from the equator a person sailed. Surely, they thought, there must be some route through the frigid northern reaches of the continent. Thus was launched the deadly search for a Northeast passage over Asia and a Northwest Passage over North America. The victor could claim a fabulous prize - a route to the extraordinary riches of the Orient. But there would be many who would perish in the attempt.

The first to take up the challenge was Sebastian Cabot, John's son. Setting out in 1508, the younger Cabot likely sailed as far as the mouth of Hudson Bay before a mutinous crew forced him to return home.

In 1576, Humphrey Gilbert increased interest in the northern route when he published his "Discourse". In it, Gilbert argued that if explorers could wend their ways through the hazardous waters of the high Arctic, they would reach the treasures of Cathay.

Martin Frobisher's Voyages

In the same year, Englishman Martin Frobisher searched for the elusive Passage in his fragile ship, the Gabriel. He got as far as the southern tip of Baffin Island where he entered a bay that today bears his name. His attention was diverted by what he took to be gold. He also made contact with the Inuit, taking one of them on board his ship.

When his men were returning the aboriginal to shore, five of them were captured, and never seen again. Frobisher took an Inuit hunter hostage, hoping to negotiate the release of his men. That proved unsuccessful and Frobisher returned to England, where the Inuit died of influenza. Frobisher made two subsequent voyages but the 'gold' - all 1 200 tons of it - turned out to be nothing more than 'fool's gold' - it was used to build a wall - and he and his Cathay Company were ruined.

Martin Frobisher

Frobisher Crew Mining Gold

Inuit Attack English

Clearly, the realization was dawning that the high Arctic was not a gateway anywhere, but rather a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to be overcome. The next notable challenger was John Davis who made three voyages in 1585, 1586, and 1587. He rediscovered Greenland which had been abandoned since Norse days. In addition, he crossed the strait that now bears his name in order to reach Baffin Island. He investigated the indentations of the coastline relentlessly, hoping to find a passage through. However, it was all to no avail.

Voyages in Hudson Strait

Further Exploration of Hudson Bay

Henry Hudson

In 1610, Henry Hudson, the best-known northern adventurer, sailed with a crew of twenty-two on the Discovery. Hudson was one of the great navigators of his age. He was the first person to successfully navigate the 700-kilometre strait between Baffin Island and Quebec.

Now he journeyed into a huge open sea, which would turn out to be the bay that now bears his name. He sailed south into warmer temperatures, all the while thinking that he had discovered the passage to the Far East. However, as he became trapped in James Bay, his crew grew concerned. The summer was fading, their provisions were disappearing, and all the while they searched frantically for a way out.

When winter set in, Hudson decided to try to survive the winter on land. Totally unprepared, trapped in the ice, in frigid arctic temperatures, and with only starvation rations, they barely survived. When spring thankfully arrived, rather than returning straight to England, Hudson decided to continue his quest. That was too much for most of his crew. They mutinied. Hudson, bound and without food or water, along with his son, Jack, and a few crewmates, was cast adrift. He was never heard of again.

The search for the mysterious Northwest Passage would continue more than three hundred years, costing hundreds of lives and millions of pounds. It would not be until the 1903-1906 voyage of Norwegian navigator Roald Amundsen, captaining the Gjoa, that the Passage was finally conquered.

The first ship to make the journey from west to east, and only the second of all time, was the 1940-1942 expedition of the RCMP schooner, the St. Roch, commanded by Sgt. Henry Larsen. Larsen's St. Roch also went through the passage east to west, and through the Panama canal, making it the first ship to circumnavigate North America.