A School History of the United States | Page 5

mainland. As the day was Easter Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pascua (pas'-coo-ah) Florida, he called the country Florida.
[Illustration: Map of 1515][1]
[Footnote 1: Showing what was then supposed to be the shape and position of the newly discovered lands.]
Six years later (1519) Pineda (pe-na'-da) skirted the shores of the Gulf from Florida to Mexico.
%8. Spaniards sail round the World.%--In the same year (1519) that Pineda explored the Gulf coast, a Portuguese named Magellan (ma-jel'-an) led a Spanish fleet across the Atlantic. He coasted along South America to Tierra del Fuego, entered the strait which now bears his name, passed well up the western coast, and turning westward sailed toward India. He was then on the ocean which Balboa had discovered and named the South Sea. But Magellan found it so much smoother than the Atlantic that he called it the Pacific. Five ships and 254 men left Spain; but only one ship and fifteen men returned to Spain by way of India and Cape of Good Hope. Magellan himself was among the dead.[1]
[Footnote 1: Magellan was killed by the natives of one of the Philippine Islands. The captain of the ship which made the voyage was greatly honored. The King of Spain ennobled him, and on his coat of arms was a globe representing the earth, and on it the motto "You first sailed round me."]
%9. Importance of Magellan's Voyage.%--Of all the voyages ever made by man this was the greatest.[2] In the first place, it proved beyond dispute that the earth is round. In the second place, it proved that South America is a great continent, and that there is no short southwest passage to India.
[Footnote 2: By all means read the account of this voyage by Fiske, in his _Discovery of America_, Vol. II., pp. 190-211.]
%10. Search for a Northwest Passage; our North Atlantic Coast explored.%--All eyes, therefore, turned northward; the quest for a northwest passage began, and in that quest the Atlantic coast of the United States was examined most thoroughly.
SUMMARY
1. Towards the close of the fifteenth century the Turks cut off the old route of trade between Asia and Europe.
2. In attempting to find a new way to Asia, the Portuguese then began to explore the west coast of Africa.
3. When at last they got well down the African coast it was thought that such a route was too long.
4. Columbus (1492) then attempted to find a shorter way to Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean, and landed on some islands which he supposed to be the East Indies.
5. The explorations of men who followed Columbus proved that a new continent had been discovered and that it blocked the way to India.
6. The attempts to find a southwest passage or a northwest passage through our continent led to the exploration of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
7. The new world was called America, after the explorer Americus.
8. The voyage of Magellan proved that the earth is round.


CHAPTER II
THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES
%11. The Spaniards explore the Southwest.%--Now it must be noticed that up to 1513 no European had explored the interior of either North or South America. They had merely touched the shores. In 1513 the work of exploration began. Balboa then crossed the Isthmus of Panama. In 1519 Cortes (cor'-tez) landed on the coast of Mexico with a body of men, and marched boldly into the heart of the country to the city where lived the great Indian chief or king, Montezuma. Cortes took the city and made himself master of Mexico. This was most important; for the conquest of Mexico turned the attention of the Spaniards from our country for many years, and finally led to the exploration of the Southwest. But the first explorers of what is now the United States came from Cuba in 1528.
[Illustration: Map of 1530, Sloane MS.[1]]
[Footnote 1: Notice that the two continents begin to take shape, and that as the result of Magellan's voyage is not generally known, North America is placed very near to Java.]
In that year Narvaez (nar-vah-eth), excited by Pineda's accounts of the Mississippi Indians and their golden ornaments, set forth with 400 men to conquer the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico. At Apalachee Bay he landed, and made a raid inland. On returning to the shore, he missed his ships, and after traveling westward on foot for a month, built five rude vessels, and once more put to sea. For six weeks the little fleet hugged the shore, till it came to the mouth of the Mississippi, where two of the boats were upset and Narvaez was drowned. The rest reached the coast of Texas in safety. But famine and the tomahawk soon reduced the number of the survivors to four. These were captured by bands of wandering Indians, were