Nation in a Nutshell | Page 5

and France Verrazzani. The former skirted the coast for
six hundred miles, kidnapping Indians, and spending some time at
Labrador, where he came to his death. Verrazzani, in 1524, sailed for
the Western Continent in the _Dolphin_, ranged along the coast of
North Carolina, and so northward until he espied the beautiful harbor of
New York, and anchored for a brief rest in that of Newport. Verrazzani
returned to France with glowing accounts of the beauty, fertility, and
noble harbors of the country.
[Sidenote: Jacques Cartier.]
Within ten years France sent forth another expedition, under the
command of the famous Jacques Cartier, which was destined to acquire
for that nation its claim to the possession of Canada. Cartier sailed from
St. Malo to Newfoundland in twenty days. He went up the St.
Lawrence, and returned home to tell the thrilling tale of his adventures.

The next year he came back to discover the sites of Montreal and
Quebec; and he made two more voyages, in 1540 and 1542.
[Sidenote: Ponce de Leon.]
Meanwhile, Spain was resolved to sustain the great prestige she had
gained by the expeditions of Columbus, and to yield to no rival her
claims to dominion on the new continent. In 1512, Don Juan Ponce de
Leon, a brave soldier and adventurous man, who had accompanied
Columbus on his second voyage, landed on the peninsula of Florida,
and established the right of Spain to its possession. Five years after,
Fernandez landed on the coast of Yucatan; and ere long Garay explored
the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
[Sidenote: De Soto.]
It is not possible, in this survey, to follow, or even to name, the Spanish
expeditions of discovery and conquest between 1512 and 1550. Suffice
it to say that during this period subjects of the Spanish king landed on
the coast of South Carolina, entered the harbors of New York and New
England, crossed Louisiana and northern Mexico to the Pacific,
explored Mexico and Peru, marched across Georgia under the lead of
the renowned Ferdinand de Soto, penetrated to the interior, and, after
many romantic adventures and desperate hardships, discovered the
magnificent river which we call the Mississippi; made perilous
excursions into the wild depths of Arkansas and Missouri, and even to
the remote banks of the Red River.
[Sidenote: Character of the Discoverers.]
The enterprises of Spaniards, English, Portuguese, and French were
alike prompted by the greed of gain. All sought the fabled El Dorado;
all craved the power of colonial dominion. None the less were the
navigators and soldiers, whom the nations sent forth to reveal a new
world to civilization, men of courage and fortitude, able in achieving
the momentous tasks assigned to them. Columbus and Cabot, at least,
thought less of riches and fleeting honors than of the proper and noble
glories of discovery; it was left to their Spanish successors to kidnap
the Indians, to rob their settlements and murder their women, and to
invade the peaceful wilds of America, with fire and the sword.

III.
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION.

[Sidenote: Voyages of Colonization.]
To acquire a title to the fertile and fruitful lands and fabled riches of the
newly discovered continent, became the aspiration of the great
maritime states of Europe, which had shared between them the honors
of its discovery. From the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of
the seventeenth century, the voyages of adventure and projected
colonization were almost continuous. Spaniards, Frenchmen, and
Englishmen fitted out vessels and crossed the ocean, to make more
extended researches, and to found, if possible, permanent settlements.
Although failure generally attended these attempts at colonization, they
gradually led the way to the final occupation of the continent.
[Sidenote: The Huguenots in America.]
Of these abortive efforts, that of Admiral Coligny to found a settlement
of the Huguenots, who were persecuted in France, on the new shores,
was the earliest and one of the most romantic. As long ago as 1562,
America became a refuge of the oppressed for conscience's sake. The
Huguenot colony, taking up their residence on the River May, gave the
name of "Carolina" (from King Charles IX.) to their new domain. After
many and terrible hardships, they returned again to France, to be soon
succeeded by another colony of Huguenots, also sent out by brave old
Coligny, which settled on the same soil of Carolina.
[Sidenote: Menendez in Florida]
This aroused the jealousy and cupidity of Spain. The "most Catholic"
king was not only enraged to find the soil which he claimed as his own
by right of discovery, taken possession of by the subjects of his French
rival, but was scandalized that the new colonists should be Calvinistic
heretics. It was the very height of the gloomiest period of religious
fanaticism and persecution in Europe. Menendez was