chapter 8._

ALSO IN

_G. Dexter, Cortereal, Verrazano, &c. (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 4, chapter 1)._

_Relation of Verrazano (New York Historical Society Collection, volume 1, and N. S., volume 1)_.

_J. C. Brevoort, Verrazano the Navigator._

AMERICA: A. D. 1524-1528. The Explorations of Pizarro and Discovery of Peru.

"The South Sea having been discovered, and the inhabitants of Tierra Firme having been conquered and pacified, the Governor Pedrarias de Avila founded and settled the cities of Panama and of Nata, and the town of Nombre de Dios. At this time the Captain Francisco Pizarro, son of the Captain Gonzalo Pizarro, a knight of the city of Truxillo, was living in the city of Panama; possessing his house, his farm and his Indians, as one of the principal people of the land, which indeed he always was, having distinguished himself in the conquest and settling, and in the service of his Majesty. Being at rest and in repose, but full of zeal to continue his labours and to perform other more distinguished services for the royal crown, he sought permission from Pedrarias to discover that coast of the South Sea to the eastward. He spent a large part of his fortune on a good ship which he built, and on necessary supplies for the voyage, and he set out from the city of Panama on the 14th day of the month of November, in the year 1524. He had 112 Spaniards in his company, besides some Indian servants. He commenced a voyage in which they suffered many hardships, the season being winter and unpropitious." From this unsuccessful voyage, during which many of his men died of hunger and disease, and in the course of which he found no country that tempted his cupidity or his ambition, Pizarro returned after some months to "the land of Panama, landing at an Indian village near the island of Pearls, called Chuchama. Thence he sent the ship to Panama, for she had become unseaworthy by reason of the teredo; and all that had befallen was reported to Pedrarias, while the Captain remained behind to refresh himself and his companions. When the ship arrived at Panama it was found that, a few days before, the Captain Diego de Almagro had sailed in search of the Captain Pizarro, his companion, with another ship and 70 men." Almagro and his party followed the coast until they came to a great river, which they called San Juan [a few miles north of the port of Buenaventura, in New Granada]. … They there found signs of gold, but there being no traces of the Captain Pizarro, the Captain Almagro returned to Chuchama, where he found his comrade. They agreed that the Captain Almagro should go to Panama, repair the ships, collect more men to continue the enterprise, and defray the expenses, which amounted to more than 10,000 castellanos. At Panama much obstruction was caused by Pedrarias and others, who said that the voyage should not be persisted in, and that his Majesty would not be served by it. The Captain Almagro, with the authority given him by his comrade, was very constant in prosecuting the work he had commenced, and … Pedrarias was forced to allow him to engage men. {65} He set out from Panama with 110 men; and went to the place where Pizarro waited with another 50 of the first 110 who sailed with him, and of the 70 who accompanied Almagro when he went in search. The other 130 were dead. The two captains, in their two ships, sailed with 160 men, and coasted along the land. When they thought they saw signs of habitations, they went on shore in three canoes they had with them, rowed by 60 men, and so they sought for provisions. They continued to sail in this way for three years, suffering great hardships from hunger and cold. The greater part of the crews died of hunger, insomuch that there were not 50 surviving, and during all those three years they discovered no good land. All was swamp and inundated country, without inhabitants. The good country they discovered was as far as the river San Juan, where the Captain Pizarro remained with the few survivors, sending a captain with the smaller ship to discover some good land further along the coast. He sent the other ship, with the Captain Diego de Almagro to Panama to get more men. At the end of 70 days, the exploring ship came back with good reports, and with specimens of gold, silver and cloths, found in a country further south. "As soon as the Captain Almagro arrived from Panama with a ship laden with men and horses, the two ships, with their commanders and all their people, set out from the river San Juan, to go to that newly-discovered land. But the navigation was difficult; they were detained so long that the provisions were exhausted, and the people were obliged to go on shore in search of supplies. The ships reached the bay of San Mateo, and some villages to which the Spaniards gave the name of Santiago. Next they came to the villages of Tacamez [Atacames, on the coast of modern Ecuador], on the sea coast further on. These villages were seen by the Christians to be large and well peopled: and when 90 Spaniards had advanced a league beyond the villages of Tacamez, more than 10,000 Indian warriors encountered them; but seeing that the Christians intended no evil, and did not wish to take their goods, but rather to treat them peacefully, with much love, the Indians desisted from war. In this land there were abundant supplies, and the people led well-ordered lives, the villages having their streets and squares. One village had more than 3,000 houses, and others were smaller. It seemed to the captains and to the other Spaniards that nothing could be done in that land by reason of the smallness of their numbers, which rendered them unable to cope with the Indians. So they agreed to load the ships with the supplies to be found in the villages, and to return to an island called Gallo, where they would be safe until the ships arrived at Panama with the news of what had been discovered, and to apply to the Governor for more men, in order that the Captains might be able to continue their undertaking, and conquer the land. Captain Almagro went in the ships. Many persons had written to the Governor entreating him to order the crews to return to Panama, saying that it was impossible to endure more hardships than they had suffered during the last three years. The Governor ordered that all those who wished to go to Panama might do so, while those who desired to continue the discoveries were at liberty to remain. Sixteen men stayed with Pizarro, and all the rest went back in the ships to Panama. The Captain Pizarro was on that island for five months, when one of the ships returned, in which he continued the discoveries for a hundred leagues further down the coast. They found many villages and great riches; and they brought away more specimens of gold, silver, and cloths than had been found before, which were presented by the natives. The Captain returned because the time granted by the governor had expired, and the last day of the period had been reached when he entered the port of Panama. The two Captains were so ruined that they could no longer prosecute their undertaking. … The Captain Francisco Pizarro was only able to borrow a little more than 1,000 castellanos among his friends, with which sum he went to Castile, and gave an account to his Majesty of the great and signal services he had performed."

_F. de Xeres (Sec. of Pizarro), Account of the Province of Cuzco; translated and edited by C. R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, 1872)._

ALSO IN: _W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, book 2, chapters 2-4 (volume 1)._

AMERICA: A. D. 1525. The Voyage of Gomez.

See CANADA (NEW FRANCE): THE NAMES.

AMERICA: A. D. 1526-1531. Voyage of Sebastian Cabot and attempted colonization of La Plata.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557.

AMERICA: A. D. 1528-1542. The Florida Expeditions of Narvaez and Hernando de Soto. Discovery of the Mississippi.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

AMERICA: A. D. 1531-1533. Pizarro's Conquest of Peru.

See PERU: A. D. 1528-1531, and 1531-1533.

AMERICA: A. D. 1533. Spanish Conquest of the Kingdom of Quito.

See ECUADOR:

AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535. Exploration of the St. Lawrence to Montreal by Jacques Cartier.

"At last, ten years after [the voyages of Verrazano], Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, induced the king [Francis I.] to resume the project of founding a French colony in the New World whence the Spaniards daily drew such great wealth; and he presented to him a Captain of St. Malo, by name Jacques Cartier, whose merit he knew, and whom that prince accepted. Cartier having received his instructions, left St. Malo the 2d of April, 1534, with two ships of 60 tons and 122 men. He steered west, inclining slightly north, and had such fair winds that, on the 10th of May, he made Cape Bonavista, in Newfoundland, at 46° north. Cartier found the land there still covered with snow, and the shore fringed with ice, so that he could not or dared not stop; He ran down six degrees south-southeast, and entered a port to which he gave the name of St. Catharine. Thence he turned back north. … After making almost the circuit of Newfoundland, though without being able to satisfy himself that it was an island, he took a southerly course, crossed the gulf, approached the continent, and entered a very deep bay, where he suffered greatly from heat, whence he called it Chaleurs Bay. He was charmed with the beauty of the country, and well pleased with the Indians that he met and with whom he exchanged some goods for furs. … On leaving this bay, Cartier visited a good part of the coasts around the gulf, and took possession of the country in the name of the most Christian king, as Verazani had done in all the places where he landed. {66} He set sail again on the 15th of August to return to France, and reached St. Malo safely on the 5th of September. … On the report which he made of his voyage, the court concluded that it would be useful to France to have a settlement in that part of America; but no one took this affair more to heart than the Vice-Admiral Charles de Mony, Sieur de la Mailleraye. This noble obtained a new commission for Cartier, more ample than the first, and gave him three ships well equipped. This fleet was ready about the middle of May, and Cartier … embarked on Wednesday the 19th." His three vessels were separated by violent storms, but found one another, near the close of July, in the gulf which was their appointed place of rendezvous. "On the 1st of August bad weather drove him to take refuge in the port of St. Nicholas, at the mouth of the river on the north. Here Cartier planted a cross, with the arms of France, and remained until the 7th. This port is almost the only spot in Canada that has kept the name given by Cartier. … On the 10th the three vessels re-entered the gulf, and in honor of the saint whose feast is celebrated on that day, Cartier gave the gulf the name of St. Lawrence; or rather he gave it to a bay lying between Anticosti Island and the north shore, whence it extended to the whole gulf of which this bay is part; and because the river, before that called River of Canada, empties into the same gulf, it insensibly acquired the name of St. Lawrence, which it still bears. … The three vessels … ascended the river, and on the 1st of September they entered the river Saguenay. Cartier merely reconnoitered the mouth of this river, and … hastened to seek a port where his vessels might winter in safety. Eight leagues above Isle aux Coudres he found another much larger and handsomer island, all covered with trees and vines. He called it Bacchus Island, but the name has been changed to Isle d'Orleans. The author of the relation to this voyage, printed under the name of Cartier, pretends that only here the country begins to be called Canada. But he is surely mistaken; for it is certain that from the earliest times the Indians gave this name to the whole country along the river on both sides, from its mouth to the Saguenay. From Bacchus Island, Cartier proceeded to a little river which is ten leagues off, and comes from the north; he called it Rivière de Ste Croix, because he entered it on the 14th of September (Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross); but it is now commonly called Rivière de Jacques Cartier. The day after his arrival he received a visit from an Indian chief named Donnacona, whom the author of the relation of that voyage styles Lord of Canada. Cartier treated with this chief by means of two Indians whom he had taken to France the year before, and who knew a little French. They informed Donnacona that the strangers wished to go to Hochelaga, which seemed to trouble him. Hochelaga was a pretty large town, situated on an island now known under the name of Island of Montreal. Cartier had heard much of it, and was loth to return to France without seeing it. The reason why this voyage troubled Donnacona was that the people of Hochelaga were of a different nation from his, and that he wished to profit exclusively by the advantages which he hoped to derive from the stay of the French in his country." Proceeding with one vessel to Lake St. Pierre, and thence in two boats, Cartier reached Hochelaga Oct. 2. "The shape of the town was round, and three rows of palisades inclosed in it about 50 tunnel shaped cabins, each over 50 paces long and 14 or 15 wide. It was entered by a single gate, above which, as well as along the first palisade, ran a kind of gallery, reached by ladders, and well provided with pieces of rock and pebbles for the defence of the place. The inhabitants of the town spoke the Huron language. They received the French very well. … Cartier visited the mountain at the foot of which the town lay, and gave it the name of Mont Royal, which has become that of the whole Island [Montreal]. From it he discovered a great extent of country, the sight of which charmed him. … He left Hochelaga on the 5th of October, and on the 11th arrived at Sainte Croix." Wintering at this place, where his crews suffered terribly from the cold and from scurvy, he returned to France the following spring. "Some authors … pretend that Cartier, disgusted with Canada, dissuaded the king, his master, from further thoughts of it; and Champlain seems to have been of that opinion. But this does not agree with what Cartier himself says in his memoirs. … Cartier in vain extolled the country which he had discovered. His small returns, and the wretched condition to which his men had been reduced by cold and scurvy, persuaded most that it would never be of any use to France. Great stress was laid on the fact that he nowhere saw any appearance of mines; and then, even more than now, a strange land which produced neither gold nor silver was reckoned as nothing."

_Father Charlevoix, History of New France, (translated by J. G. Shea), book 1._

ALSO IN: _R. Kerr, General Collection of Voyages, part 2, book 2, chapter 12 (volume 6)_.

_F. X. Garneau, History of Canada, volume 1, chapter 2._

AMERICA: A. D. 1535-1540. Introduction of Printing in Mexico.

See PRINTING, &c.: A. D. 1535-1709.

AMERICA: A. D. 1535-1550. Spanish Conquests in Chile.

See CHILE: A. D. 1450-1724.

AMERICA: A. D. 1536-1538. Spanish Conquests of New Granada.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1536-1731.

AMERICA: A. D. 1541-1603. Jacques Cartier's last Voyage. Abortive attempts at French Colonization in Canada.

"Jean François de la Roque, lord of Roberval, a gentleman of Picardy, was the most earnest and energetic of those who desired to colonize the lands discovered by Jacques Cartier. … The title and authority of lieutenant-general was conferred upon him; his rule to extend over Canada. Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpon, Labrador, La Grand Baye, and Baccalaos, with the delegated rights and powers of the Crown. This patent was dated the 15th of January, 1540. Jacques Cartier was named second in command. … Jacques Cartier sailed on the 23d of May, 1541, having provisioned his fleet for two years." He remained on the St. Lawrence until the following June, seeking vainly for the fabled wealth of the land of Saguenay, finding the Indians strongly inclined to a treacherous hostility, and suffering severe hardships during the winter. Entirely discouraged and disgusted, he abandoned his undertaking early in the summer of 1542, and sailed for home. {67} In the road of St. John's, Newfoundland, Cartier met his tardy chief, Roberval, just coming to join him; but no persuasion could induce the disappointed explorer to turn back. "To avoid the chance of an open rupture with Roberval, the lieutenant silently weighed anchor during the night, and made all sail for France. This inglorious withdrawal from the enterprise paralyzed Roberval's power, and deferred the permanent settlement of Canada for generations then unborn. Jacques Cartier died soon after his return to Europe." Roberval proceeded to Canada, built a fort at Ste Croix, four leagues west of Orleans, sent back two of his three ships to France, and remained through the winter with his colony, having a troubled time. There is no certain account of the ending of the enterprise, but it ended in failure. For half a century afterwards there was little attempt made by the French to colonize any part of New France, though the French fisheries on the Newfoundland Bank and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were steadily growing in activity and importance. "When, after fifty years of civil strife, the strong and wise sway of Henry IV. restored rest to troubled France, the spirit of discovery again arose. The Marquis de In Roche, a Breton gentleman, obtained from the king, in 1598, a patent granting the same powers that Roberval had possessed." But La Roche's undertaking proved more disastrous than Roberval's had been. Yet, there had been enough of successful fur-trading opened to stimulate enterprise, despite these misfortunes. "Private adventurers, unprotected by any special privilege, began to barter for the rich peltries of the Canadian hunters. A wealthy merchant of St. Malo, named Pontgravé, was the boldest and most successful of these traders; he made several voyages to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, bringing back each time a rich cargo of rare and valuable furs." In 1600, Pontgravé effected a partnership with one Chauvin, a naval captain, who obtained a patent from the king giving him a monopoly of the trade; but Chauvin died in 1602 without having succeeded in establishing even a trading post at Tadoussac. De Chatte, or De Chastes, governor of Dieppe, succeeded to the privileges of Chauvin, and founded a company of merchants at Rouen [1603] to undertake the development of the resources of Canada. It was under the auspices of this company that Samuel Champlain, the founder of New France, came upon the scene.

_E. Warburton, The Conquest of Canada, volume 1, chapter 2-3._

ALSO IN: _F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World: Champlain,