THE HISTORICAL CHOROGRAPHY OF WITH SOUTH AMERICA. BY THE EDITOR. ITH the discovery of Magellan, complementing that of Balbóa, the general contour of South America was pretty well understood; and the southern continent of America, long before the northern, took its place in the new hemisphere with something like completeness. The oldest map we have — that of La Cosa — had shown from the explorations of Columbus and his companions the northerly and northeasterly shores, in 1500,1 The same had been delineated with more or less development in the Cantino map of 1502; 2 in the Portuguese charts which Lelewel supposes to be represented in the map which he assigns to 1501-1504;3 in the Ruysch map of the Ptolemy of 1508; 4 in the Peter Martyr map of 1511;5 in the Sylvanus map in the Ptolemy of 1511;6 in the "Admiral's map, " and in the "Orbis typus universalis juxta,” 8 both in the Ptolemy of 1513; and in the map in Reisch's Margarita philosophica of 1515.9 The explorations upon which this knowledge was based, began with the expedition of Ojeda and Vespucius (1499), and with that of Pedro Alonzo Niño and Cristóbal Guerra (1499–1500), both on the northern coasts. 10 These were followed by the expedition of Vincente Yañez Pinzon, one of Columbus' original captains, who in the latter part of 1499 crossed the equinoctial line, and on Jan. 20, 1500 (though accounts vary a little), made Cape St. Augustine, the first of Europeans to see that most easterly point of what was for a few years to come to be distinctively the New World." Pinzon's explorations in the Spanish interests were northerly from 1 See sketch, Vol. II. p. 106, and the heliotype in Vol. III. p. 8. 2 Sketched in Vol. II. p. 108. 3 Géographie du moyen-âge, p. 43, — confessedly made up from the two maps in the Ptolemy of 1513 as based on Portuguese knowledge of ten years earlier. See Vol. II. p. 188. The author of the Corografia Brazilica, while admitting the voyage of Pinzon, claims that his Cape Consolation was not Cape St. Augustine, but the North Cape, under two degrees south latitude. Cf. Santarem, Childe's tr., p. 110, and Cesáreo Fernandez Duro's Colón y Pinzón. Informe relativo á los porme + Sketched in Vol. II. p. 115, and heliotyped nores del descubrimiento del Nuevo mundo presen in Vol. III. p. 8. 5 Fac-simile in Vol. II. p. 110. 6 Sketched on Mercator's projection in Vol. II., p. 122. 7 Fac-simile in Vol. II. p. 112. 8 Fac-simile in Vol. II. p. III. 9 Fac-simile in Vol. II. p. 114. 10 See Vol. II. p. 187. VOL. VIII. -21 tado á la Real academia de la historia (Madrid, 1883). In the La Cosa map (1500) at Cape St. Augustine is this legend: "Este Cabo se descubrio en anno de mil y iiiixcix por Castilla syendo descubridor Vicentians." Cf. the bibliography in Silva's L'Oyapoc et l'Amazone. It is claimed for Ojeda that he touched near Cape St. Augustine in June, 1499. Varnhagen in his this point. He sailed into that fresh-water sea which the Amazon spreads into the ocean, and filled his water-casks, while yet no land was in sight. He passed the Orinoco, and from the Gulf of Paria turned back and reached Spain in September.2 Between December (1499) and June (1500) Diego de Lepe added something to the knowledge of the coast from below Cape St. Augustine northward; but precisely how much is not known. Meanwhile the Portuguese had established the claim under the treaty of the Line of Demarcation which makes Brazil to-day the inheritance of the House of Braganza. To follow up Da Gama's discoveries by the Cape of Good Hope, Emanuel of Portugal had sent a squadron under Pedro Alvarez de Cabral, who left the Tagus in March, 1500. To avoid the calms on the African coast, as is commonly alleged, though possibly stress of weather may have been the reason,5 he stretched his course so far westerly that on April 22 he struck the American coast at a point considerably south of Pinzon's landfall. 4 He followed the coast beyond fifteen degrees south latitude, and landing in a safe harbor, Puerto Seguro, on the third of May, called the country Terra Sanctæ Crucis." He sent back one of his been discovered by accident, had Columbus never pursued his theory. It was customary in the days of Robertson and Raynal to claim for Cabral the discovery of Brazil, in Examen, in reply to D'Avezac, enumerates the proofs, as he calls them, of his belief in the discovery of Brazil by Ojeda in June, 1499. Burton (Hans Stade, p. lxxix) notes various claims of earlier knowledge. 1 Varnhagen defended his view of the landfall of Pinzon in his Examen (p. 19), in reply to D'Avezac. 2 Cf. Navarrete, iii. 18; Grynæus, Novus orbis, editions of 1532 and 1555; Humboldt, Examen critique, i. 313, and iii. 221; Galvano (Hakluyt Society's edition), p. 94. The "Capitulation of Pinzon was first published from the manuscript, at Madrid, by Joaquim Caetano da Silva in the appendix of his L'Oyapoc et l'Amazone, Question Brésilienne et Française, Paris, 1861, 2 vols. This work is an historical examination of the dispute between France and Brazil as to the bounds of French Guiana. course, and sailed till he came within sight of land." 6 Ruysch's map of 1508 is the earliest to name Brazil "Terra Sanctæ Crucis." See Vol. II. p. 115. 7 The first land seen by Cabral was a range of hills in the province of Bahia, back from the coast in the region of the savage Botocudo; and conspicuous in the prospect is a conical hill, which is seen in the view of the coast at this point given in C. F. Hartt's Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil (Boston, 1870), p. 226, as copied above. One of Cabral's companions, Pedro Vaz de Caminha, describes the view with tolerable accuracy in a letter, dated May 1, 1500, preserved in the Governmental archives at Lisbon. This letter was first printed incorrectly in the Corografia Brazilica (vol. i. p. 13) of Ayres do 3 Navarrete, iii. 23, 553; Humboldt, Examen Cazal, 1817, and in 1836 was edited more corcritique, i. 314, iv. 221. 4 Varnhagen's Examen de quelques points de l'histoire géographique du Brésil, p. 31, with map showing his own and D'Avezac's views of the portion of Brazil cut off by it. 5 Galvano (Hakluyt Society's edition, p. 96) says: "Losing sight of one of his ships, he went to seek her, and in seeking of her, lost his Cf. rectly by the Royal Academy of Lisbon in Noticias das nacões ultramarinhas, vol. iv. no. 3. It was translated into French in 1822. Burton's Hans Stade, p. lxxvii (Hakluyt Society's Edition), and the Art de vérifier les dates, xiii. 441; Varnhagen's Hist. do Brazil, 2d ed., p. 72; and references in Cat. Hist. Brazil, Bibl. Nac., i 478-479. disregard of the priority of Pinzon, now generally recognized, though certain Portuguese writers have been loath to acknowledge the Spanish claim.1 In 1501, on the report brought by Cabral's messenger ship, the Portuguese sent out an expedition under Gonçalo Coelho to follow up the discoveries; and in this expedition Vespucius may have sailed in some subordinate capacity, as cosmographer even, as is 1 Cf. Santarem in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris (1847), vii. 319, and his enumeration of writers who accord priority to Cabral (Childe's translation of Santarem, p. 33, etc.). Cf. various illustrative and controversial works, etc., enumerated in Cat. Hist. Brazil, Bibl. Nac., i. 479; also Ferd. Denis' Une fête Brésilienne, P. 51. Cabral's instructions are printed in Navarrete's Coleccion, iii. 45, 94, and they are found in Italian in the Paesi novamente retrovate, etc. His track is pricked in the mappemonde prefixed to Lafitau's Histoire des découvertes des Portugais (Paris, 1734). A letter of the Portuguese King, dated July 29, 1500, conveying tidings received from Cabral's messenger, Gaspar de Lemos, and addressed to the Spanish monarch,- Copia de una littera del Re de Portagallo mädata al Re de Castrella del viaggio e successo de India,- was printed in Rome, Oct. 23, 1500, and again in Milan in 1505. Navarrete (vol. iii. p. 13) reprints it. There are copies in the Bibliotheca Marciana and Bibliotheca Corsini at Venice (Sabin, vol. vi. no. 22,407; Varnhagen, Nouvelles recherches, p. 18; Bibl. Amer. Vet., Additions, nos. 18, 19; Dr. Court's Catalogue, no. 83). Cf. further on this voyage, Faria de Souza, Asia Portugueza, book i. chap. 5; De Cazal, Corografia Brazilica, i. 12; Barros, Decada da Asia (Lisbon, 1628), vol. i. chap. 30; Humboldt, Examen critique, i. 315, ii. 217, iv. 223, v. 53, 61, 71; Zurita, Anales de Aragon, vol. v. ; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, p. 48; Purchas, vol. i. book ii. p. 30; Badelli, Milione, vol. i. p. liv; Ruge, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 128. The accounts in Ramusio and Grynæus were translated into Spanish in the Noticias das nacãos ultramarinhas (vol. ii.) of the Royal Academy of Lisbon. We know that Las Casas, in 1502, had possession of some notes by Columbus of the traces of lands to the west, which he had found in the accounts of Portuguese navigators (Examen critique, i. 21); but the earliest partic ularized extant account of the Portuguese discoveries in the new regions east and west is contained in the Historia do descobrimento by Ferñao Lopez de Castanheda, the first part of which was printed at Coimbra in 1551. It is, however, scant on the American voyages of the Portuguese (Sabin, vol. iii. no. 11,381, who also gives the later editions; Bibliotheca Grenvilliana). There seems to have been a reprint the same year, and a second edition in 1554, which was reprinted at Lisbon in 1797. Books ii. to vii. appeared in 1552-1554, and the eighth book in 1561, completing the work, which is rare in a full set. An entire reprint appeared at Lisbon in 1833 in seven volumes. Of the first book a French version appcared at Paris in 1553, and a Spanish at Antwerp in 1554 (Murphy, no. 494; Court, nos. 53, 54). Two books appeared in Italian at Venice in 1577 (Carter-Brown, i. 311). A German translation was made from the French in 1565. An English version of the first book, made by Nicholas Lichefield, and dedicated to Sir Francis Drake, appeared in London in 1582, and was reprinted in Kerr's Voyages, ii. 292. Castanheda was largely drawn upon by H. Osorius in his De rebus Emmanuelis (Cologne, 1581), which took a French version as Histoire de Portugal the same year, and in Dutch was called Leven en bedrijf van Don Emanuel, Koning van Portugal, Rotterdam, 1661-1663 (Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,804; Carter-Brown, i. 342; Muller, 1872, no. 1,160). There was an English book of about the same time covering nearly the same field, John Dauncey's Compendious Chronicle of Portugal, London, 1661 (Sabin, vol. v. no. 18,669; Bohn's Lowndes, p. 594). The best known record, however, of the Por tuguese maritime explorations was published in Paris in 1733 (two imprints), and again in 1733-1734. This was J. F. Lafitau's Histoire des découvertes et conquestes des Portugais dans le nouveau monde. The title is deceptive, for the book concerns mostly Asia and Africa; and the American portion is but a small part of its four volumes, and none of its engravings pertain to the western hemisphere. A Portuguese version was printed at Lisbon in 1786-1787 (Sabin, vol. x. no. 38,591, etc.; Carter-Brown, iii. 506-508; Leclerc, nos. 319–320, —1601–1602). There is a recent contribution to the subject in a lithographed volume, E. A. de Bettencourt's Descobrimentos, guerras e conquistas dos Portuguezes em terras do ultramar nos seculos XV. e XVI. (Lisboa, 1881-1882). General histories of discovery, like Ruge's Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, and Varnhagen's Historia do Brazil, necessarily treat the subject more or less concisely. Cf. Luciano Cordeiro, "La part prise par les Portugais dans la découverte de l'Amérique," published in the Compte-rendu of the Congrès des Américanistes, 1875, i. 274. Santarem passes in review most of the writers in discussing the claims of Vespucius to having been on the coast in 1501 and 1503. See Vol II., chapter on “Vespucius.” said.1 Galvano places its track along the coast from the fifth degree to the thirty-second degree south. Varnhagen traces the nomenclature of the Brazilian coast, as we have it in the early maps, to this voyage of Gonçalo Coelho in 1501. On the return of Coelho, another fleet, commanded by Christovão Jaques, pushed the discoveries as far as the cape forming the northerly entrance of Magellan's Straits. Jaques on this expedition put into the bay"Bahia de Todos os Sanctos" (San Salvador). This was in 1503; and in the same year Coelho led another expedition, sailing from Lisbon on the 1 See chapter ii. of the second volume. 2 Lorenz Friess' sketch of the coast of Brazil in his Carta marina navigatoria Portugalensium, apparently, as Dr. Kohl thinks, drawn from the reports of Cabral and the other early navigators of 1500-1503. A legend in the north reads: "A dying person is killed in this country; his flesh smoked, roasted, and eaten." At the south another legend says: "They have sailed all along this coast, but have not as yet penetrated into the interior." Kohl thinks the "Abbatia" is a misreading of the Portuguese "a baia." It is claimed that Vespucius had written, mixing Spanish and Italian, "Bahia di tutti i sancti," but had made the first word, by his bad penmanship, "Badia." The Carta was published in 1530, and this map is no. 423 in Kohl's Collection. |