A Historical Geography of the British Colonies Part 1

A Historical Geography of the British Colonies.

by Charles Prestwood Lucas.

CHAPTER I

EUROPEAN DISCOVERERS IN NORTH AMERICA TO THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: _The British possessions in North America._]

The British possessions in North America consist of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Canada. Under the Government of Newfoundland is a section of the mainland coast which forms part of Labrador, extending from the straits of Belle Isle on the south to Cape Chudleigh on the north.

The area of these possessions, together with the date and mode of their acquisition, is as follows:--

_Name._ _How acquired._ _Date._ _Area in square miles._

Newfoundland Settlement 1583-1623 40,200 and Labrador 120,000

Canada Cession [Quebec] 1763 3,653,946

[Sidenote: _British possessions in North America and West Indies contrasted._]

In the Introduction to a previous volume,[1] it was pointed out that all the British possessions in the New World have one common feature; viz. that they have been, in the main, fields of European settlement, and not merely trading stations or conquered dependencies; but that, in other respects--in climate, in geography, and in what may be called the strata of colonization--the West Indian and North American provinces of the Empire stand at opposite poles to each other. It may be added that, in North America, European colonization was later in time and slower in development than {2} in the central and southern parts of the continent; and, in order to understand why this was the case, some reference must be made to the geography of North America, more especially in its relation to Europe, and also to its first explorers, their motives, and their methods.

[Footnote 1: Vol. ii, _West Indies_, pp. 3, 4.]

[Sidenote: _Geographical outline of America._]

The Old World lies west and east. In the New World the line of length is from north to south. The geographical outline of America, as compared with that of Europe and Asia, is very simple. There is a long stretch of continent, with a continuous backbone of mountains, running from the far north to the far south. The mountains line the western coast; on the eastern side are great plains, great rivers, broken sh.o.r.es, and islands. Midway in the line of length, where the Gulf of Mexico runs into the land, and where, further south, the Isthmus of Darien holds together North and South America by a narrow link, the semicircle of West Indian islands stand out as stepping-stones in the ocean for wayfarers from the old continent to the new.

[Sidenote: _North and South America._]

The two divisions of the American continent are curiously alike. They have each two great river-basins on the eastern side. The basin of the St. Lawrence is roughly parallel to that of the Amazon; the basin of the Mississippi to that of La Plata. The North American coast, however, between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and that of the Mississippi, is more varied and broken, more easy of access, than the South American sh.o.r.es between the Amazon and La Plata. On the other hand, South America has an attractive and accessible northern coast, in strong contrast to the icebound Arctic regions; and the Gulf of Venezuela, the delta of the Orinoco, and the rivers of Guiana, have called in traders and settlers from beyond the seas.

[Sidenote: _South America colonized from both sides, North America only from the eastern side._]

The history of colonization in North America has been, in the main, one of movement from east to west. In South America, on the other hand, the western side played almost from the first at least as important a part as the eastern. {3} The story of Peru and its Inca rulers shows that in old times, in South America, there was a civilization to be found upon the western side of the Andes, and the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific Ocean. European explorers penetrated into and crossed the continent rather from the north and west than from the east; and Spanish colonization on the Pacific coast was, outwardly at least, more imposing and effective than Portuguese colonization on the Atlantic seaboard. The great ma.s.s of land on the earth's surface is in the northern hemisphere; and in the extreme north the sh.o.r.es of the Old and New Worlds are closest to each other. Here, where the Arctic Sea narrows into the Behring Straits, it is easier to reach America from the west than from the east, from Asia than from Europe; but to pa.s.s from the extremity of one continent to the extremity of another is of little avail for making history; and the history of North America has been made from the opposite side, which lies over against Europe, where the sh.o.r.es are indented by plenteous bays and estuaries, and where there are great waterways leading into the heart of the interior.

[Sidenote: _The rivers of North America._]

[Sidenote: _English colonization in North America._]

The main outlets of North America are, as has been said, the St.

Lawrence and the Mississippi; while, on the long stretch of coast between them, the most important river is the Hudson, whose valley is a direct and comparatively easy highroad from the Atlantic to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence basin; and here it may be noticed that, though a Bristol ship first discovered North America, and though, from the time of Ralegh onwards, North America became the main scene of British colonization, the English allowed other nations to secure the keys of the continent, and ran the risk of being cut off from the interior. The French forestalled them on the St.

Lawrence, and later took possession of the mouth of the Mississippi.

The Dutch planted themselves on the Hudson between New England and the southern colonies, and New York, the present chief city of English-speaking America, was once New Amsterdam. Of all {4} colonizing nations the English have perhaps been the least scientific in their methods; and in no part of the world were their mistakes greater than in North America, where their success was eventually most complete. There was, however, one principle in colonization to which they instinctively and consistently held. While they often neglected to safeguard the obvious means of access into new-found countries, and, as compared with other nations, made comparatively little use of the great rivers in any part of the world, they laid hold on coasts, peninsulas, and islands, and kept their population more or less concentrated near to the sea. Thus, when the time of struggle came, they could be supported from home, and were stronger at given points than their more scientific rivals. If the French laid their plans to keep in their own hands the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the St. Lawrence, and thereby to shut off the colonies of the Atlantic seaboard from the continent behind, those colonies had the advantage of close contact with the sea, of comparatively continuous settlement, and of yearly growing power to break through the weak and unduly extended line with which the competing race tried to hem them in.

But this contest between French and English, based though it was on geographical position, belongs to the Middle Ages of European colonization in America: let us look a little further back, and see how the Old and the New Worlds first came into touch with each other.

[Sidenote: _Bacon on the discovery of North America._]

In his history of King Henry VII, Bacon refers to the 'memorable accident' of the Cabots' great discovery, in the following pa.s.sage:--'There was one Sebastian Gabato, a Venetian living in Bristow, a man seen and expert in cosmography and navigation. This man, seeing the success and emulating perhaps the enterprise of Christopherus Columbus in that fortunate discovery towards the south-west, which had been by him made some six years before, conceited with himself that lands might likewise be discovered towards {5} the north-west. And surely it may be he had more firm and pregnant conjectures of it than Columbus had of his at the first. For the two great islands of the Old and New World, being in the shape and making of them broad towards the north and pointed towards the south, it is likely that the discovery first began where the lands did nearest meet. And there had been before that time a discovery of some lands which they took to be islands, and were indeed the continent of America towards the north-west.'[2] Bacon goes on to surmise that Columbus had knowledge of this prior discovery, and was guided by it in forming his own conjectures as to the existence of land in the far west; and it is at least not unlikely that, when he visited Iceland in 1477, he would have heard tales of the Nors.e.m.e.n's voyages to America.[3]

[Footnote 2: Spedding's edition of Bacon's works, 1870, vol. vi, p.

196.]

[Footnote 3: For this visit, see Washington Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, bk. i, ch. vi.]

[Sidenote: _Pre-Columbian explorations._]

It would be out of place in this book to make more than a pa.s.sing reference to the much-vexed question, how far the New World was known to Europeans before the days of Columbus and the Cabots. Indeed, if all the stories on the subject were proved, the fact would yet remain that, for all practical purposes, America was first revealed to the nations of Europe, when Columbus took his way across the Atlantic. It was likely that, when his discovery had been made, men would rise up to a.s.sert that it was not so great and not so new as had been at first imagined. The French claimed priority for a countryman of their own;[4] stories of Welsh and Irish settlement in America pa.s.sed into circulation; the romance of the brothers Zeni was published, a tale of supposed Venetian adventure in the fourteenth century to the islands of the far north; and it was contended, more prosaically and with greater show of reason, that Basque fishermen had frequented {6} the banks of Newfoundland, before that island was discovered for England and thereby earned its present name.

[Footnote 4: Cousin of Dieppe, who claimed to have discovered America in 1488, four years before Columbus reached the West Indies.]

[Sidenote: _Voyages of the Nors.e.m.e.n._]

The story of the Nors.e.m.e.n's voyages has a sounder foundation than any other of these early traditions and tales. Iceland is nearer to Greenland than to Norway: it has been abundantly proved that colonies were established and fully organized in Greenland in the Middle Ages; and it seems on the face of it unlikely that the enterprise and adventure of the seafaring sons of the north would have stopped short at this point, instead of carrying them on to the mainland of America.

[Sidenote: _Their alleged discovery of North America._]

The Norse are said to have come to Iceland about 875 A.D., where Christian Irish had already preceded them; and, in the following year, rocks far to the west were sighted by Gunnbiorn. A century later, in 984, Eric the Red came back from a visit to Gunnbiorn's land, calling it by the attractive name of Greenland. About 986, Bjarni Herjulfson, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, sighted land to the south-west; and, a few years later, about the year 1000, Leif, the son of Eric, who had brought the Christian religion to Greenland, sailed in search of the south-western land which Bjarni had seen. The record of his voyage claims to be the record of the discovery of America. He found the rocky barren sh.o.r.es of Labrador and Newfoundland, and called them from their appearance h.e.l.luland, or 'slateland.' He pa.s.sed on to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and to Nova Scotia, calling it Markland, or the 'land of woods.' Then sailing still further south, he came to a land where vines grew wild, and which he called Vinland. This last was, it would seem, the New England coast, between Boston and New York; and here in after times, for a like reason, English settlers gave the name of Martha's or Martin's Vineyard to an island, which lies close to the sh.o.r.e south of Cape Cod.[5] In Vinland, it is stated, a Norse colony was {7} founded a few years after Leif's visit; and trade--mainly a timber trade--was carried on with Greenland down to the year 1347, after which all is a blank.

[Footnote 5: A little further to the south on the coast of New Jersey, or Maryland, Verrazano 'saw in this country many vines growing naturally' (Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 360, 1810 ed.).]

No authentic inscriptions or remains, indicating Scandinavian discovery or settlement in America, have, it is said, been found anywhere outside Greenland, except at one point in the very far north;[6] and in their absence these northern tales cannot be absolutely verified. It can only be said that, in all probability, America was known to the Northmen in the Middle Ages, but that what happened in these dark days in the extreme north of Europe and the extreme north of America has no direct bearing upon the history of European colonization.

[Footnote 6: See Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_, (vol. i, chap. ii) on 'Pre-Columbian Explorations.' The writer says, 'Nowhere in America, except on an island on the east sh.o.r.e of Baffin's Bay, has any authentic runic inscription been found outside of Greenland.' Reference should be made to the first chapter of Mr. Raymond Beazley's _John and Sebastian Cabot_ ('Builders of Greater Britain' series, 1898), in which the dates and particulars of the Norse discovery of America, as given above, are somewhat modified.]

[Sidenote: _The way to the East._]

At the time when modern history opens, there were two parts of the world which were--to use the Greek philosopher's phrase--'ends in themselves.' One was Europe or rather Southern Europe, the other was the East Indies; and the great problem was to find the best and shortest way from the one point to the other.

[Sidenote: _Africa and America places on the road._]

The overland trade routes through Syria and Egypt--by which Genoa, Venice, and the other city states of the Middle Ages had grown rich--had fallen in the main under Moslem control; and, accordingly, the growing nations of Europe began to take to the open sea. On the ocean, India can be reached from Europe either by going east or by going west. In the former case Africa comes in the way, in the latter America; and the position of these {8} two continents in the modern history of the world is, in their earliest stage, that of having been places on the road, not final goals.

The Portuguese tried the way by Africa and succeeded. Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape, sailed up the eastern coast of Africa, and crossed to India. The Spaniards set sail in the opposite direction, and, failing in their original design, found instead a New World.

Let us suppose that the conditions had been reversed, that Southern Africa, when reached, had proved as attractive as the West Indies; that its sh.o.r.es had been fertile and easy of access; that its rivers had been navigable, and that its turning-point had been as distant as Cape Horn; that, on the contrary, Columbus had discovered a channel through America, where he sought for it at the Isthmus of Darien, had found the American coasts and islands as little inviting as Africa, and behind them an expanse of sea no wider than the Indian Ocean. In that case America would have remained the Dark Continent, to be pa.s.sed by, as Africa was pa.s.sed by, on the way to the East; and hinging on this one central fact, that the Indies were the goal of discovery, the whole history of colonization would have been changed.

As it was, the Spaniards, in the first place, found their way barred by America; and, in the second place, found America too good to be pa.s.sed by, even if a thoroughfare had been found. Thus they a.s.sumed that they had really reached the Indies on their furthest side; and, by the time that the mistake had been finally cleared up, the riches and wonders of the New World had given it a position and standing of its own, over and above all considerations respecting the best way to the East.

America then was discovered by being taken on the way to some other part of the world; it could not be pa.s.sed by like Africa; and it was more attractive than Africa. Thus it was early colonized, while the great ma.s.s of the African {9} continent was left, almost down to our own day, unexplored and unknown.

[Sidenote: _Reasons why the discovery and settlement of North America was later than that of Central and South America._]

This statement, however, only holds true of that part of America which the Spaniards made their own; and the further question arises--Why was the discovery and settlement of North America a much slower process than the Spanish conquest and colonization of Central America and the West Indies? The north of Newfoundland is in the same lat.i.tude as the south of England; the mouth of the St. Lawrence lies directly over against the ports of Brittany; a line drawn due east from New York would almost pa.s.s through Madrid: therefore it seems as though sailors going westward from Europe would naturally make their way in the first instance to the North American coast; and, as a matter of fact, Cabot probably sighted the sh.o.r.es of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Labrador before Columbus set foot upon the mainland of South America.