34 CHAP. FLORIDA-SPANISH VOYAGES. The government of Florida was the reward which Ponce received from the king of Spain; but the dignity 1513. was accompanied with the onerous condition, that he should colonize the country which he was appointed to 1514 rule. Preparations in Spain, and an expedition against to the Caribbee Indians, delayed his return to Florida. 1521. When, after a long interval, he proceeded with two 1520. 1516. 1517 ships to take possession of his province and select a site for a colony, his company was attacked by the Indians with implacable fury. Many Spaniards were killed; the survivors were forced to hurry to their ships; Ponce de Leon himself, mortally wounded by an arrow, returned to Cuba to die. So ended the adventurer, who had coveted immeasurable wealth, and had hoped for perpetual youth. The discoverer of Florida had desired immortality on earth, and gained its shadow.1 Meantime, commerce may have discovered a path to Florida; and Diego Miruelo, a careless sea-captain, sailing from Havana, is said to have approached the coast, and trafficked with the natives. He could not tell distinctly in what harbor he had anchored; he brought home specimens of gold, obtained in exchange for toys; and his report swelled the rumors, already credited, of the wealth of the country. Florida had at once obtained a governor; it now constituted a part of a bishopric. The expedition of Francisco Fernandez, of Cordova, leaving the port of Havana, and sailing west by south, 1 On Ponce de Leon, I have used Herrera, d. i. 1. ix. c. x. xi. and xii., and d. i. 1. x. c. xvi. Peter Martyr, d. iv. l. v., and d. v. 1. i., and d. vii. 1. iv. In Hakluyt, v. 320, 333, and 416. Gomara, Hist. Gen. de las Ind. c. xlv. Garcilaso de la Vega, Hist. de la Florida, 1. i. c. iii., and 1. vi. c. xxii. Cardenas z Cano, En sayo Cronologico para la Hist. Gen. de la Florida, d. i. p. 1, 2, and 5. Ed. 1723, folio. The author's true name is Andres Gonzalez de Barcia. Navarette, Colleccion, iii. 50-53. Compare, also, Eden and Willes, fol. 228, 229. Purchas, i. 957. 2 Florida del Inca, Vega, 1. 1. c. ii. Ens. Cron. d. i. Año MDXVI. FLORIDA-SPANISH VOYAGES. II. 35 discovered the province of Yucatan and the Bay of CHAP Campeachy. He turned his prow to the north; but, whatever may be asserted by careless historians, he 1517 was by no means able to trace the coast to any harbor which Ponce de Leon had visited. At a place where he had landed for supplies of water, his company was suddenly assailed, and he himself mortally wounded. The pilot whom Fernandez had employed soon 1518 conducted another squadron to the same shores. The knowledge already acquired was extended, and under happier auspices; and Grijalva, the commander of the fleet, explored the coast from Yucatan towards Panuco. The masses of gold which he collected, the rumors of the empire of Montezuma, its magnificence and its extent, heedlessly confirmed by the costly presents of the unsuspecting natives, were sufficient to inflame the coldest imagination, and excited the enterprise of Cortes. The voyage did not reach the shores of Florida.2 But while Grijalva was opening the way to the con- 1518 quest of Mexico, the line of the American coast, from the Tortugas to Panuco, is said to have been examined, yet not with care, by an expedition which was planned, if not conducted, by Francisco Garay, the governor of Jamaica. The general outline of the Gulf of Mexico now became known.3 Garay encountered the determined hostility of the natives; a danger which eventually proved less disastrous to him than the rivalry of The Ensayo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Florida is not sufficiently discriminating. The error asserted with confidence in d. i. Año MDXVII., may be corrected from Gomara, c. lii. Ant. de Solis, Li. c. vi. Peter Martyr, d. iv. 1. i. and ii. Herrera, d. ii. l. ii. c. xvii. 2 Peter Martyr, d. iv. 1. iii. and iv. 36 II. SOUTH CAROLINA-VASQUEZ DE AYLLON. CHAP. his own countrymen. The adventurers in New Spain would endure no independent neighbor: the governor 1518. of Jamaica became involved in a career, which, as it ultimately tempted him to dispute the possession of a province with Cortes, led him to the loss of fortune and an inglorious death. The progress of discovery along the southern boundary of the United States was but little advanced by the expedition, of which the circumstances have been variously related.1 1520. A voyage for slaves brought the Spaniards still further upon the northern coast. A company of seven, A of whom the most distinguished was Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, fitted out two slave ships from St. Domingo, in quest of laborers for their plantations and mines. From the Bahama Islands, they passed to the coast of South Carolina, a country which was called Chicora. The Combahee2 River received the name of the Jordan: the name of St. Helena, given to a cape, now belongs to the sound. The natives of this region had not yet had cause to fear Europeans; their natural fastnesses had not yet been invaded; and if they fled at the approach of men from the slave ships, it was rather from timid wonder than from a sense of peril. Gifts were interchanged; a liberal hospitality was offered to the strangers; confidence was established. At length the natives were invited to visit the ships; they came in cheerful throngs; the decks were covered. Immediately the ships weighed anchor; the sails were unfurled, and the prows turned towards St. Domingo. Husbands were torn from their wives, and children from their parents. Thus the seeds of war were lavishly 1 Peter Martyr, d. v. l. i. Gomara, c. xlvii. Ensayo Cronologico, 3, 4. Herrera, d. ii. 1. iii. c. vii. T. Southey's History of the West 2 Holmes's Annals, i. 47. SOUTH CAROLINA-VASQUEZ DE AYLLON. 37 scattered where peace only had prevailed, and enmity CHAP. was spread through the regions where friendship had been cherished. The crime was unprofitable, and was 1520 finally avenged. One of the returning ships foundered at sea, and the guilty and guiltless perished; many of the captives in the other sickened and died. The events that followed mark the character of the times. Vasquez, repairing to Spain, boasted of his expedition, as if it entitled him to reward, and the emperor, Charles V., acknowledged his claim. In those days, the Spanish monarch conferred a kind of appointment, which, however strange its character may appear, still has its parallel in history. Not only were provinces granted; countries were distributed to be subdued; and Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon begged to be appointed to the conquest of Chicora. After long entreaty, he obtained his suit. The issue of the new and bolder enterprise was 1524 disastrous to the undertaker. He wasted his fortune in preparations; his largest ship was stranded in the 1525. River Jordan; many of his men were killed by the natives, whom wrongs had quickened to active resistance; he himself escaped only to suffer from wounded pride; and, conscious of having done nothing worthy of being remembered, the sense of humiliation is said to have hastened his death.1 The love of adventure did not wholly extinguish the 1524. desire for maritime discovery. When Cortes was able to pause from his success in Mexico, and devise further schemes for ingratiating himself with the Spanish monarch, he proposed to solve the problem of a north 1 Peter Martyr, d. vii. c. ii. Gomara, c. xlii. Herrera, d. iii. 1. viii. c. viii. Herrera's West Indies, in Purchas, iv. 869. Galvano, in Hak luyt, iv. 429. Ensayo Cronologico, 38 II. SPANISH VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. CHAP. West passage-the secret which has so long baffled the enterprise of the most courageous and persevering 1524. navigators. He deemed the existence of the passage unquestionable, and, by simultaneous voyages along the American coast, on the Pacific, and on the Atlantic, he hoped to complete the discovery, to which Sebastian Cabot had pointed the way.1 The design of Cortes remained but the offer of 1525. loyalty. A voyage to the north-west was really undertaken by Stephen Gomez, an experienced naval officer, who had been with Magellan in the first memorable passage into the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was decreed by the council for the Indies, in the hope of discovering the northern route to India, which, notwithstanding it had been sought for in vain, was yet universally believed to exist. His ship entered the bays of New York and New England; on old Spanish maps, that portion of our territory is marked as the land of Gomez. Failing to discover a passage, and fearful to return without success and without a freight, he filled his vessel with robust Indians, to be sold as slaves. Brilliant expectations had been raised; and the conclusion was esteemed despicably ludicrous. The Spaniards scorned to repeat their voyages to the cold and frozen north; in the south, and in the south only, they looked for "great and exceeding riches." The adventure of Gomez had no political results. It had been furthered by the enemies of Cabot, who was, at that time, in the service of Spain; and it established the reputation of the Bristol mariner.3 1 Quarta Carta, o Relacion de Don Fernando Cortes. S. xix. in Barcia's Historiadores Primitivos, i. 151, 152. The same may be found in the Italian of Ramusio, iii. fol. 294, ed. 1665. 2 Peter Martyr, d. viii. l. x. 3 Peter Martyr, d. vi. 1. x., and d. viii. l. x. Gomara, c. xl. Herrera, d. iii. 1. viii. c. viii. |