Explorers' Tales Blog

Life at sea in the 16th century—Part 2

5/6/2020

Painting by Louis Le Breton showing two corvettes careened for cleaning at Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea. Public Domain

From National Archives, United Kingdom

Roger M McCoy

   Life at sea in the sixteenth century was a hard life, which many sailors began by the age of nine. They worked and slept in cramped space with the conditions of disease, poor food, low pay, and bad weather. Seamen were often cold and wet, the ships sometimes were infested with rats, and a sailors diet usually lacked meat and vegetables, which could lead to malnutrition and sickness, specifically scurvy.
   During their time at sea sailors had to perform many tasks to keep the ship underway and also to maintain the ship seaworthiness. For example, scrubbing (swabbing) the deck was important for cleanliness and also for the preservation of the wood decking. Scraping algae, barnacles, and other organisms off the hull also had the dual purpose of reducing the resistance of moving through the water and preserving the wooden boards (strakes) of the hull. Below are some other jobs of sailors in the sixteenth century. Many of these tasks are still performed on ships today.
   The sailor’s tasks included manning the tiller or wheel for steering the boat and keeping it on course; dropping the sounding line to determine the water depth, especially as they neared land; handling the rigging (sails and ropes) of the ship, and general maintenance of the ship. A few more promising sailors were taught the basics of navigation and became ships’ pilots. If the ship carried cannons some sailors became gunners responsible for the cannons, powder, and ammunition on board. The youngest boys carried the gunpowder from the hold to the guns during warfare and were called “powder monkeys.”

Maintenance and repairs
   Sailors were always on call all day even when not off their watch. If a storm or gunfire caused damage the ship might begin taking on water and repairs were needed immediately. The captain could call all hands on deck to repair sails and mast, man the bilge pumps below decks, or be suspended over the side to patch holes in the hull with wood or sheets of lead nailed to the ship. Sometimes such repairs to the hull were done below the waterline at great risk to life. Several routine maintenance tasks are described below.

Tarring the decks
   A wooden ship’s deck and hull planking must be treated to preserve the boards and to prevent sea water from leaking through to the interior. To accomplish this sailors had to pack tarred fibers into the gaps and cracks in deck boards and timbers that were exposed to the water. This task was done with the aid of a material called “oakum.” Until the early twentieth century oakum was made from old recycled tarry ropes which were painstakingly unravelled, i.e. picked, and reduced to single fibers. Sleeping on a recently tarred deck could leave stripes on a sailor’s clothing or skin. Hence the term “tar,” or “Jack Tar” referring to sailors.
   The tedious and unpleasant task of picking and preparing the hemp was a common occupation in prisons and workhouses, where the young or the old and infirm were put to work picking oakum. Sailors being punished were also frequently sentenced to pick oakum and each man was expected to pick one pound of fibers for oakum per day. The novel, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, tells of orphaned children in workhouses picking rope fibers for oakum for use on naval ships. Children were told they were serving England and it was the patriotic thing to do.
   In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde vividly described the jobs of seamen concerning ship’s maintenance in 1897.
We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we scraped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

Swabbing the decks
   Scrubbing the deck boards was an unending task and had much more purpose than make-work to keep sailors busy. The daily swabbing had two important purposes. One was to keep the planks swollen so water could not leak to lower decks. Despite this effort decks still leaked a bit, just as any hull leaked. Just as importantly the swabbing preserved the wood because the salt water killed moss and mold.
   Before the twentieth century sailors’ work went beyond swabbing decks. They also had to scrape the boards with a sandstone or pumice block, called the “holystone.” It may have been called holystone because the sailors had to kneel in a praying position to use it. This added procedure removed any fungus that may have survived the swabbing. The holystone was eventually banned as it wore down the deck boards and made expensive replacement necessary.

Managing the rigging
   All the ropes needed to support ships’ masts and spars or adjust the sails are called the “rigging.” The sailors responsible for the rigging maintenance were called riggers. The riggers’ work was important to the progress of the ship because the set of the sails determined the speed of the ship.
   Rigged under full sail with a favorable wind, a sixteenth-century ship might average about 4 knots (4.6 mph) and travel a distance of about 100 miles per day. For example, Columbus sailed west in the trade winds and reached the Bahamas (4200 miles) in thirty-seven days, averaging 113 miles per day. Larger sailing ships of the nineteenth century could expect to travel about eight knots (9.2 mph) with favorable winds. A ship sailing against (about 45°) the wind might expect to make only 1 mph.

Cleaning the ship’s hull
   After months at sea wooden hulls required cleaning and the same applies to steel-hulled ships today. Before the convenience of dry dock was available, the only way to clean the wooden hull was a procedure called “careening,” also called “heaving down.” Careening was accomplished by sailing a ship into shallow water at high tide. When the tide receded the ship became grounded on the beach and a rope fastened high on the mast was used to pull the ship over on one side, leaving the other side of the hull exposed. The crew could then clean and tar the hull and repair any damage.
   Careening was most urgently needed if the ship had suffered damage from cannon shot. Other types of damage such as dry rot, and holes bored into wood by a mollusk (Teredo, or shipworm) had to be repaired. Other organisms that attach themselves to the hull, such as algae, barnacles, and mussels, also must be removed. Mussels are not necessarily damaging to the wood, but they inhibit the smooth flow of water reducing the ship’s speed.
   At the end of a voyage sailors performed some final maintenance, received their pay, then were furloughed without pay until the ship sailed again or they found a different ship in need of hands. During the time in port officers were also put on indefinite leave, with nominal pay in some cases. A sailor’s life was filled with work both during and after a voyage. Much of the labor was routine maintenance, but jobs such as furling sails high in the rigging during a raging gale was fraught with life-threatening danger. Despite the hardship and danger sailors had few options for a change of jobs and continued sailing until they could no longer do the work.

33 Comments

Before Columbus

6/29/2018

9 Comments

Muhammed al-Idrisi’s interesting world map made in 1154 A.D. This view is inverted as the original map had north at the bottom. Wikimedia Commons

Roger M. McCoy

We sometimes think that Columbus was the first to consider sailing westward to Asia in 1492, but we find that others tried many years before Columbus.
   In 1154 the Arab geographer and cartographer, Muhammed al-Idrisi, compiled information from travelers and explorers and produced the most accurate map of the known world at the time. Al-Idrisi’s impressive map remained the standard of accuracy until 1507 when Johannes Ruysch and Martin Waldseemüller each produced maps that included the New World. The illustration above of the al-Idrisi map shows that someone who understood the spherical shape of the Earth could hypothesize sailing westward from Europe to reach Asia. In the Middle Ages the estimated circumference of the Earth was significantly less than the actual distance, so a person might also guess that the voyage would not be too long. A few men tried and never returned and several factors probably stalled others from such a venture. One possible reason might be that ships of that time were designed for travel in the Mediterranean and were not sufficiently seaworthy for crossing a large, unknown ocean. Whatever the reason, sailing west to Asia was not yet feasible in the Middle Ages.
   By the late thirteenth century Europeans showed an increased interest in exploring the world. Failed attempts seldom make it into the history books, but one little known effort occurred in 1291 by two brothers, Ugolino and Guido Vivaldi. They set out in two small ships sailing westerly in hopes of finding India. Both ships were lost and never returned. There were other similar probes with no luck. The lure of spices and silk fabric urged others to keep trying but with little success.
   Around the year 1300 Marco Polo returned from twenty-four years of travel in China and other Asian countries. He immediately wrote a widely- read book of his experience titled Livres des mervbeilles du monde, usually called in English, The travels of Marco Polo. This book had wide appeal to Europeans most of whom had focussed inwardly for centuries with little knowledge of the rest of the world. Although a few others had visited China, Polo was the first to write about it in great detail. His description of silk cloth and exotic spices did much to stimulate interest in travel and exploration outside the bounds of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Even Columbus claimed to be inspired by Polo’s book some 190 years after its publication.
   A lesser motivation for travel to other parts of the world was the persistent rumor of a Christian king called Prester John, who reigned in an unknown area believed at various times to be in Mongolia, India, and Ethiopia. Adventurers of the twelfth century hoped to find this imaginary ruler.
   In the early fifteenth century a Portuguese nobleman, Prince Henry the Navigator, sent ships to explore nearby parts of the Atlantic Ocean and down the west coast of Africa. The African coast was totally unexplored and considered by some sailors to be potentially dangerous with sea monsters, and possibly on the edge of the world. In 1434 one of Prince Henry’s ship captains became the first European to sail southward past Cape Bojador at the western bulge of Africa. Until then no European had sailed beyond that point. By 1462 the Portuguese had explored around the west bulge of Africa and reached the coast that today comprises countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia.
   Henry’s expeditions also sailed westward to discover the Madeira Islands and the Azores. Henry documented these discoveries by engaging cartographers to map the newly found places. In another major benefit to sailors, Prince Henry’s navigators discovered the important advantage of using the easterly Trade Winds for sailing west, then sailing north into the Westerlies for sailing eastward back to Europe, thus closing a circuit that navigators continued using until the advent of steam-powered ships. Finally in 1497 Vasco de Gama, sailing for the Portuguese, made it all the way to India around Cape of Good Hope giving Portugal the first all-sea route to the Orient from Europe.
   This was all fine for Portugal, but other maritime countries such as Spain were blocked by Portugal from sailing along this route. This led to disputes between Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese King, Alfonso V, entreated Pope Nicholas V to establish specific spheres of influence for their ventures as well as those of the Spanish. The pope obliged in exchange for Portuguese help against the Turks. In 1452 the pope issued a papal bull, titled Dum Diversas, (Until Different). In this bull the pope agreed to sanction Portuguese claims in Africa. The excerpt below shows not only the pope’s support of Portuguese claims, but goes further by sanctioning capture and subjugation of pagans and unbelievers. This is an important document that led to invasions, cruelty, and enslavement of indigenous people by many European explorers. These words of Pope Nicholas V initiated centuries of invasions, massacres, and rapine in the name of Christianity.

   We grant you (meaning the kings of Spain and Portugal) by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property ... and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.

Two years later the same pope expanded on the previous bull with another called Romanus Pontifex (Roman Pontiff). This bull confirmed that the king of Portugal had dominion over all lands south of Cape Bojador in Africa. In addition to encouraging the seizure of the lands of Saracen Turks and other non-Christians, it also repeated the earlier bull's permission for the enslavement of such peoples. The bull's primary purpose was to prevent other nations from infringing on Portugal's rights of trade and colonization in these regions. The bull stated that the Portuguese may provide the indigenous people “the reward of eternal felicity, and obtain pardon for their souls…and to incite them to aid the Christians against the Saracens …” The Romanus Pontifex became the basis for Christian explorers to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue” non-Christian people; to steal “all movable and immovable goods,” and to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery” in the name of Christianity.
   Thus we see the unknown world divided for exploitation between the Portuguese and the Spanish and the stage is set for both conversion and enslavement of non-Christian indigenous people. Other countries were not included in this bull and the countries of northwest Europe chose to ignore the edict. England, France, and the Netherlands claimed land in northern portions of the New World with little or no repercussion from Spain and Portugal.
   This brings us to the year 1492 and Columbus’s voyage west to reach the Orient by a route that avoided the Portuguese control of the African route. This venture never reached Asia, but instead rediscovered (see Vikings, May 2017) the New World that attracted many explorers and settlers from western Europe.

Sources
Fried, Johannes. (translated by Peter Lewis) The Middle Ages, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2015.

Rotandaro, Vinnie. Disastrous doctrine had papal roots. Kansas City, MO: National Catholic Reporter. 2015.

9 Comments

Explorer Priests

5/28/2018

2 Comments

The San Xavier del Bac mission was established by Father Kino in 1692. Construction of the current structure was completed in 1797. Wikimedia

North America drawn in 1650 by Nicholas Sanson (1600-1667). California is shown as an island despite Ulloa’s discovery 111 years earlier. Wikimedia.

Roger M. McCoy

Wealth, power, and fame were the usual factors driving men to explore unknown lands. Some explorers, however, did not fit this mold. Exceptions include the scientists such as Lewis and Clark, and the company men such as John Rae who went solely to learn everything about a new area. Another exception is the priests who explored new lands with the intention of bringing Christianity to the indigenous people. Although many priests ultimately came, a few stand out for their important discoveries. Two of these are Father Jacques Marquette, who explored the upper Mississippi, and Father Eusebio Kino, who explored and mapped in the southwest deserts.
   The Frenchman Jacques Marquette became a Jesuit in 1654 at the young age of seventeen, and stayed in France for several years before being assigned to mission work in the New World. There his task was to create missions and bring Christianity to the indigenous people in the immense area known as New France, which grandly included the St Lawrence River drainage area, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi valley to the Gulf of Mexico. While among the tribes near La Pointe (Wisconsin) he heard of a great river trade route southward to the oceans. Marquette requested and received permission to join with the French-Canadian Louis Jolliet who was forming an expedition in the Great Lakes region.
   Beginning in May, 1673, the expedition traveled on the lakes to the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. Once there they continued up the Fox River toward its headwaters in what is now Wisconsin. Along the way the local natives told them of a short portage (under two miles) to the Wisconsin River, a tributary of the Mississippi. The men of the expedition carried their canoes between rivers and continued to the Mississippi. This portage ultimately became an important route between the east coast and the interior when later a canal with locks was built to handle the traffic.
   The expedition traveled down the Mississippi making many contacts with local natives along the way. When they reached the mouth of the Arkansas River (in southern Arkansas) they encountered tribes with European-made trinkets and realized they were approaching Spanish territory. They were only 435 miles from the Gulf, but wanting to avoid a confrontation the expedition turned around and headed back up the Mississippi. They re-entered the Great Lakes at the present site of Chicago after a four month expedition.
   Father Marquette returned to the Illinois Territory the next year and died of an illness at St Ignace mission (Michigan) at the age of thirty-seven. Everything learned, from the portage in Wisconsin to the existence of a vast river to the Gulf of Mexico, was all new to the European maps and added to the growing awareness of the immensity of this new continent.

   The most remembered priest-explorer in the southwest United States is certainly Father Eusebio Kino (1645-1711), a Jesuit priest of the late seventeenth century. Existing missions or ruins of Kino missions extend across the state of Sonora in Mexico and in southern Arizona. Father Kino’s name is connected to these missions because he arrived in New Spain in 1677 with the assigned task of increasing the presence of Christianity in the region. In fulfilling that commission Kino not only established about two dozen missions but also made important contributions to the map of northern Mexico and southern Arizona.
   Born in the northern Italian village of Segno in 1645, Eusebio Kino became a Jesuit at the age of twenty. His preparation for missionary work in the New World included the study of agriculture, animal husbandry, building methods, surveying, cartography, and astronomy; all valuable tools for establishing missions and exploring and mapping new lands. He acquired the skills necessary to show the native people of New Spain how to grow food crops, and raise cattle, goats, and sheep. He came to New Spain with a variety of seeds and starter herds of livestock, which greatly expanded over time. For example, during the course of Kino’s thirty-four year presence in New Spain, his original herd of twenty cattle grew to 70,000.
   A priest did not ride in alone unannounced and start building a mission himself. He usually came with a military escort or with priests already known in the area and negotiated with the Indians to convince them to accept the idea of a European coming into their midst. Once established he depended on building a reputation for being of some benefit to the Indians. Then, based on his reputation, he could more easily persuade other groups and tribes to accept him and another new mission would begin. It depended entirely on building a reputation that would precede him as he went to other locations.
   Part of the success of a mission depended on providing food, tools, and other supplies to the Indians so they could see how their lives might be improved by learning new methods of agriculture and owning livestock. Those who accepted these innovations could provide a more secure, year-round food supply. The Indians who accepted the mission in their village saw it as a tolerable threat to their way of life, but had little idea how much change they would ultimately have to make. The missionaries saw their work as the only way to bring salvation to the Indians. Hence the mission had different purposes depending on the objectives of the people involved.
   Father Kino was not the first missionary into the Pimería Alta region that encompassed today’s states of Sonora and southern Arizona. He was actually building on fifty years work by earlier missionaries. On his arrival in the region he was accompanied by well-known missionaries who introduced him to the Indians. Usually the people of the village knew of the benefits of a missionary in their midst from seeing how well other villages fared by having a mission. Once Kino’s reputation was established, expansion to other villages could be managed without the aid of additional missionaries. During his thirty-four years in New Spain Kino established twenty-four missions in Sonora and Arizona.
   Soon after arriving in New Spain 1687, Father Kino traveled to the Baja California peninsula. His map of the area made during that expedition showed that Baja California was a definitely a peninsula and not an island. Although an earlier Spanish expedition by Ulloa in 1539 sailed the Sea of Cortez far enough to map Baja California as a peninsula, by the early 1600’s maps had reverted to showing Baja California as an island. Actually some maps showed all of California as an island. Since Father Kino’s time California has been mapped as part of the mainland. During numerous other expeditions Father Kino mapped over 50,000 square miles of New Spain.




The continuously active San Xavier del Bac mission, standing in a Tohono O’Odham village south of Tucson, Arizona, is a prime example of Spanish Colonial baroque architecture. It serves as a parish church and has a regular schedule of services, led by Franciscan priests. The present building, built in 1785, is within a mile of the original mission site established by Kino in 1692. Most of the other Kino missions have deteriorated to ruins. His earlier studies in architecture and building gave Kino the knowledge to design and oversee the natives’ adobe construction and decoration of these churches.
   Many monuments, statues, streets, and geographic features in both Mexico and the United States attest to Father Kino’s importance in the history of the region in the seventeenth century. The towns at eleven Kino mission sites in Mexico, and one in Tumacácori National Historic Park in Arizona, observe Kino festivals with music, dances by local groups, and regional food. Father Kino’s burial site in the city of Magdalena de Kino in Sonora has become a national monument in Mexico.

Sources
Bolton, Herbert Eugene, Rim of Christendom: a biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino, Pacific coast pioneer, Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1984.

Derleth, August. Father Marquette and the great rivers. New York: Vision Books. 1955.

Polzer, Charles W. Kino: His missions, his monuments. publ. by C.W. Polzer, 1998.

Polzer, Charles W. Kino guide II: a life of Eusebio Francisco Kino, S.J., Arizona's first pioneer and a guide to his missions and monuments, Tucson, Ariz.: Southwestern Mission Research Center, 1982.

Shea, John G. Discovery and exploration of the Mississippi Valley. (electronic resource). New York: Redfield. 1852.

2 Comments

Cabeza de Vaca: Wandering Explorer, 1528-1536

3/28/2018

6 Comments

After an ancestor showed the Spanish king an unknown pass through the mountains in 1212, the king's army won a decisive victory. The ancestor was granted a title and this Cabeza de Vaca coat of arms, which reflects that the way to the pass was marked with the skull of a cow.

Route of Cabeza de Vaca. Map by Lencer. (Wikimedia Commons)

Roger M. McCoy

  The tale of Cabeza de Vaca has elements of a fanciful yarn but it is true. In 1527, King Charles V of Spain approved a bold venture to explore the unknown land known as La Florida. Florida at that time was the name for a large area with undefined boundaries far beyond those of present day Florida. The hope, as usual, was to find great wealth similar to the stunning successes in Mexico and Peru ten years earlier.
   The expedition leader, Pánfilo de Navráez, wisely chose a decorated soldier, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, to serve as treasurer and marshal representing the king’s interests during the expedition and they embarked for Florida in 1528. This was a major expedition with 600 men and 400 horses to be provisioned and equipped, but it experienced many unexpected disasters ending eight years later with only four men surviving and reaching Mexico City on foot with nothing to show for the effort. Fortunately Cabeza de Vaca later wrote a book, Naufragios (Shipwreck), based on his recollections some time after the long trek. Because he was working from memory his account contains many errors of time and place and some frustrating omissions concerning landmarks that would have helped historians determine his route more precisely.
   In June 1528 all the 600 men and 400 horses were packed into five carracks, ships a bit larger than Columbus’s Niña. With such crowding it was inevitable that unsanitary conditions would lead to sickness, and many died during the voyage. To further complicate matters, 140 men deserted when the expedition reached Cuba. It is possible the deserters initial intention was to get a free ride to Cuba and start a new life. Also, fearsome stories of worse conditions yet to come: swamps, alligators, parasitic worms, and hostile Indians, may have given them the idea to desert.
   When the expedition reached Florida, Narváez unwisely split them into two parties. One party of 300 was to go inland in search of Apalache, a place to the north reported by local natives to have an abundance of gold. Explorers often heard such tales of riches; always someplace far away. (The name Apalache later became the source of the name Appalachian.)
   The second party was to stay on the ships and explore the coast to the area of Tampa Bay. By splitting the expedition, Navráez made the smaller groups more vulnerable to attack, risking that the land party might never be able to find the ships later.
   The inland group, led by Navráez, pushed through swampland and eventually found a village believed to be Apalache with only forty huts inhabited by farmers raising corn—no gold. Now the inland explorers were out of food and uncertain where to find the ships. In the summer of 1528 the survivors, including Cabeza de Vaca, found the west coast of Florida, and were desperate for food and rescue.
   In an attempt to save themselves the survivors undertook a seemingly impossible project. They decided to build five boats. They had no tools, no forge, and no materials. They built a forge to melt down stirrups, swords and any other bits of iron they had. From the iron they made axes for felling trees, saws for cutting boards, and nails for fastening them together. They made ropes from their clothes and horses’ manes. They created caulking from palm leaves. Those not occupied with building went inland looking for food to gather or steal. Others went along the shore catching fish and collecting shellfish. They slaughtered horses as needed for meat and from the hides made water vessels for the voyage. By the end of summer they had five primitive boats big enough for fifty closely packed men and some provisions. As they embarked the boats had only inches of freeboard above the water.
   With no idea what lay in store for them, they set out to reach Pánuco, on the northeast coast of Mexico near the present city of Tampico. From there it would be a short but arduous trek over the mountains to Mexico City. They imagined they had 1,000 miles to travel, but the actual distance is closer to 3,000.
   On their boats they suffered from crowding, hunger and thirst. Some died from drinking seawater. They met severe storms and when they went ashore they encountered hostile coastal Indian tribes. Cabeza de Vaca was wounded in one skirmish with Indians.They passed the mouth of the MIssissippi River and relished the fresh water they could drink even though far from land. At this time they still had five boats and continued sailing westward along the coast.
   During a severe storm, probably a hurricane, the boats were were separated and three were lost; the men presumably drowned. Each isolated boat with its surviving men spent the night trying to keep the boat from sinking by constantly bailing water. Somehow two boats made it through the storm. One boat made its way to shore with only six men alive. They were half starved, thin, and gaunt with ribs showing. Their clothes were in tatters and they were half naked. They probably landed at Galveston Island offshore the land that became Texas. At the other end of the island another boat washed onto shore in the surf with more stragglers from the expedition…too weak to man the oars. Cabeza de Vaca was in this second boat. Nearby Indians seeing no danger from these alien men took them in and fed them.
   Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes decided to repair one of the boats so the few that were able could travel by sea, and the others could continue by land when they recovered sufficiently. At that time it became every man for himself…a sure way to destroy an expedition. Those who went in the boat were never seen again. For the men who went by land, physical hardships, lack of food, and disease soon took its toll. As the number of survivors dwindled rapidly, they were enslaved by a group of Indians. After a few years only fifteen were left alive, and four men escaped their captors and walked along the coast of present day Texas. It was now 1534 and the survivors had been slaves of the Indians for four years. These escapees were Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo, and Esteban, an African slave owned by Dorantes. Only de Vaca and Esteban played notable parts in the odyssey that followed.
   The four survivors were taken in by tribes along the way. Cabeza de Vaca and the other men adapted to the lives of the indigenous people they stayed with, whom he later described as Roots People, Fish and Blackberry People, or Fig People, depending on their principal foods. The four were viewed by the coastal Indian tribes as possible gods and sick people began to come for healing. The four used what little medical knowledge they had plus prayers and the sign of the cross over the patient. As a healer, Cabeza de Vaca used blowing (like the Native Americans) to heal, but claimed that God and the Christian cross led to his success. These procedures were perceived as magic incantations.
   The native conclusion was that the incantations had worked and that these strange foreign visitors had mystical powers. As a result the four survivors, especially Esteban, were held in high esteem. Esteban’s former life in Africa made him more familiar with the role of a shaman and he played the part well. His presence was instrumental in the survival of the four. Esteban’s quick mind easily picked up the various languages they encountered making him a further asset to the survivors.
   As the naked survivors moved southwestward along the Texas coast they encountered other Indians and continued performing healing rituals over the sick. All the four survivors were involved in this healing activity and their occasional successes gave them widespread fame, and Indians along the coast began to coming great distances to be healed. The sick would come and ask the “shamans” to rub them to make them well. De Vaca and especially Esteban became proficient in “healing.” The sick were satisfied with the results and brought the survivors more food than they could eat.
   As they continued their trek along the coast they continued to survive by treating the costal Indians’ health problems in exchange for food. “All held full faith in our coming from heaven.” wrote Cabeza de Vaca. In reality there was little the survivors could do to heal anything more than headaches or wounds. Many Indians who came to them were blind from cataracts and others had incurable diseases. They believed the survivors could help them and were willing to pay for the service.
   When the four survivors came to the Rio Grande, they inexplicably turned away from the direct southwesterly route to Pánuco and headed northwest roughly parallel to the river. They later turned west, crossing southern New Mexico and part of Arizona before turning south along the west coast of Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca wrote they turned away because the coastal Indians were hostile. Other travelers however reported encountering only peaceable Indians along the Gulf coast of south Texas and Mexico. They headed into very difficult desert terrain with fewer Indians for help and less food. Furthermore the change of route added years to their journey, and historians can only speculate on the reason for this illogical detour. Cabeza de Vaca later claimed the change of route was made in order to explore unknown lands in the Spanish realm. This makes little sense for four men who were in danger of starvation and had no defense against attack.
   The only one who might have benefitted from an extended journey was Esteban. He had become a skilled shaman and his reputation had spread. Coastal Indians held him in high esteem and encouraged his coming to their area. He had become an equal among the four wandering explorers, and they were dependent upon him for survival. Hence Esteban had an advantage by staying away from Mexico where he would again become a slave. He may have somehow persuaded the others to travel a northerly route home. Finally the four reached Mexico City in 1536.
   Esteban and his owner stayed in Mexico. Esteban later guided an expedition back to New Mexico to try to determine the existence of the golden cities of Cibola (see blog dated 6/13/2015). Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain in 1537 to report to the king on the eight year long expedition. His account also served as a petition to the King of Spain to both establish a permanent Christian mission and eventually establish the native tribes as a nation under the governance of Spain. Disgusted by the Spanish abuse of Indians, Cabeza de Vaca urged the king to establish a more lenient policy toward native tribes. He continued to be a strong advocate for the rights of Native Americas throughout his lifetime.
   Cabeza de Vaca later returned to Mexico and served as Mexican territorial governor. In that time he was accused of corruption and sent back to Spain to stand trial. In 1552 he was convicted then pardoned, and became a judge in Seville, Spain until his death in 1557.

Sources
Cabeza de Vaca, Alvart Núñez. Naufragios (Shipwreck), ed. Juan Maura (Madrid: Cátedra, 2001 [1542])

Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez. The Journey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions from Florida to the Pacific 1528-1536. Translation of La Relacion, ed. Ad. F. Bandelier. New York, Allerton Book Co. 1904.

DeVoto, Bernard. The course of empire. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1952.

Varnum, Robin. Álvar Nùnez Cabeza de Vaca: American trailblazer. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2014.

6 Comments

Vikings Move To A New Neighborhood

5/2/2017

0 Comments

Viking ship on display at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. View is from right rear of ship. Wikipedia Commons.

Roger M McCoy

Two types of evidence support the presence of Norse in North America up to five hundred years before Columbus. There are tales of even earlier Europeans In the New World, e.g. Saint Brendan, the Irish monk who, by legend, is believed to have sailed as far as the New World around 570 A.D.
   The first evidence for the Norse in North America was the Icelandic Sagas that describe the people and events of Icelandic Norse families and their society in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. The Sagas tell of establishing a long-lasting settlement in Greenland and another brief settlement in Newfoundland.
   A second piece of evidence is the actual discovery in 1960 of the remains of the Norse settlement in Newfoundland, L’Anse aux Meadows, dating to the year 1000 A.D. The name is derived from French, L’Anse aux Méduses, meaning Jellyfish Cove. Meadows replaced Méduses partly for its similar sound in English plus the fact that Arctic meadows now cover the area. This site is believed to be the short-lived colony named Vinland by its founder, Leif Erikson.
   According to the Sagas, Norsemen from Iceland first settled Greenland in the 980’s when Eric the Red was banished from Iceland for committing murder. With his extended family and some additional followers he established settlements on the southwest coast of a new land that he named Greenland in a shameless bit of spin, hoping to entice more people to come. People came and the settlements endured, supporting an active trade with Norway and Iceland. The colonies began to decline in the fourteenth century, which coincides with a general climatic cooling called the Little Ice Age.
   Near the end of the tenth century, Erik’s son Leif Erikson decided to search for another land to the west that an earlier navigator had sighted when blown off course. His expedition led to the establishment of several colonies, one of which is now called L’Anse aux Meadows. Others are believed to exist, but have not yet been discovered with certainty.
   The Norse were not a single people, but consisted of three groups based on their country of origin and their destinations for exploration. Although they settled and farmed the lands they entered and became traders, their first contacts with other peoples were usually as raiders and plunderers.
   Swedish Vikings headed east up the rivers of Russia such as the Volga and Dnieper. They eventually started the settlements that became the cities of Kiev and Novograd in Ukraine. Their probe probably extended as far as Constantinople. They established long-lasting trade with these areas.
   The Danish Vikings arrived in Britain, France, and Spain, then sailed into the Mediterranean to Italy. Their first documented raid into Britain was the raid of a monastery on the northeast coast of England on the tidal island of Lindisfarne in 793. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the Viking raid as follows:

   In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen people destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.
   Those were “dragon-y” times.

A contemporary Northumbrian scholar named Alcuin wrote: Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race ... The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.
   A visit to the ruins of the Lindisfarne monastery many years ago gave me a clear sense of the vulnerability of this remote unfortified island. It was somewhat protected from invasions by land, but wide open to the shallow-draft Viking boats arriving by sea.
   The Norwegian Vikings set sail to the west: Iceland, Greenland, and briefly North America. They were the first Europeans confirmed to have come to the New World. Some of their discoveries were the result of being blown off course and losing their way—not surprising considering their navigation depended on fair weather in a stormy sea like the North Atlantic.
   Information in the Norse sagas suggest that Vikings depended heavily on sea lore for navigation: prevailing winds and currents. Even the presence of whales was useful information about the proximity of land. The stories also tell of Vikings being “bewildered” during a voyage. This occurred when the ship encountered fog or storms and they completely lost their sense of direction. This is when they might discover new lands.
   If they used a navigational tool, it was probably a notched stick, which was helpful for sailing along a given latitude. A stick had a notch that corresponded with a known destination. The Viking navigator sailed north or south along the coast, occasionally holding the stick at arms length to see if they had reached the proper latitude for their destination. When the top of the stick touched the north star while the notch was held even with the horizon, they knew they could sail west to reach their destination. A separate notch would be needed for each destination.
   The Norse preceded Columbus to North America by hundreds of years, but had no lasting effect. Why did the Norse settlement in America not spark the rapid expansion that occurred after Columbus? Trade between Europe and China and India had existed since at least the first century A.D. using both overland and combined sea and overland travel. But the Europeans had no incentive to reach Asia by sea in 1000 A.D. What changed by 1492? Believe it or not, economics.
   In 1000 A.D. all goods between Asia and Europe passed through trading cities in the Middle East, and traders in that area added fees that raised the cost of spices and silks that finally reached European markets. Everyone in Europe was equally affected and prices for Oriental goods were stable. Apparently no one imagined an alternative at that time.
   In the late fifteenth century an all-sea route to India was found when Vasco de Gama, sailing for Portugal, reached India by sailing around Africa in 1497-1499. Columbus had tried by sailing west, but failed to reach the Orient. Portugal carefully guarded its route from interlopers and soon had a well-protected market advantage and bigger profits.
   Sixteenth century merchants of Italy, Spain, England, and France, wanting a similar price advantage, clearly saw the need to acquire a route independent of any foreign power. Then the quest for a passage through North America took off.
   None of these conditions had sufficiently matured to expand global trade during the Middle Ages when Vikings were stirring. The European world had not yet awakened. All other adventures described in this Explorers’ Tales series are the result of that awakening.

Sources
Lagan, Jack. The Barefoot Navigator: Navigating with the Skills of the Ancients. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, Inc. 2005.

Mowat, Farley. The New Founde Land. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Ltd. 1989.

Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Norse_colonization_of_North_America

0 Comments

How longitude was finally found.

3/28/2017

4 Comments

Harrison's H-1 clock. Wikimedia. Phantom Photographer

Harrison's H-4. Wikimedia. Phantom Photographer

    Greeks, Phoenicians, and Romans sailed the Mediterranean for hundreds of years without knowing their latitude and longitude. They could estimate location by observing sun and stars and yet the mariners of that period sailed confidently to their destinations. They even made voyages outside the Mediterranean to India via the Red Sea. Early cartographers began to show latitude and longitude after 150 A.D. when Ptolemy created a twenty-seven map world atlas showing north-south and east-west grid lines. He also listed all the important place names of the day with latitude and longitude based on information gleaned from travelers. Ideally this information would allow mariners to measure their latitude and longitude and chart a course to their destination. Unfortunately it was not that easy. Nevertheless countries with a merchant fleet and a navy recognized the importance of knowing longitude. For this reason the British government established the Board of Longitude in 1714 which issued this statement, "The Discovery of the Longitude is of such Consequence to Great Britain for the safety of the Navy and Merchant Ships as well as for the improvement of Trade that for want thereof many Ships have been retarded in their voyages, and many lost…”
   Although latitude has an obvious zero line at the equator, longitude had no recognizable zero line. Mapmakers were free to choose an arbitrary line, usually a known longitude within their country. Ptolemy chose to have the zero longitude line pass through the Canary Islands. Later chosen were Paris, Rome, St Petersburg, and Philadelphia, among others. Finally in 1767 the world began to use London, specifically the observatory in Greenwich outside London. Drawing latitude and longitude on a map does not solve the problem of navigating safely to a destination. There must be a way to determine longitude while on a rolling ship.
   The basics of finding longitude were well known. It was recognized that longitude could be determined by simply finding the time on a ship and the time at some known meridian at home. If this time difference could be determined at a given moment then the simple rule of fifteen degrees of longitude for each hour of time difference could be applied. This concept is simple but in practice it was out of reach for lack of a reliable method of time measurement on board a ship.
   One bizarre suggestion for telling time at home port was the wounded dog technique. This method depended on a miraculous substance called “powder of sympathy.” This mysterious powder was able to heal wounds from any distance merely by applying it to a piece of bandage that had been on an injured person. The important element of the procedure was that the patient felt a sharp pain at the moment the powder came in contact with a bandage that had touched the wound.
   Applying this strange phenomenon to finding latitude would require having a wounded dog on board every ship. Supposedly when the clock in London struck noon, someone there would dip bandages from all the dogs in the sympathy powder and the wounded dogs on ships anywhere in the world would yelp in pain, signaling that it was then noon in London. If a ship’s navigator could then determine the solar time aboard ship he could calculate longitude. Even if the preposterous notion of sympathy powder were valid, the method would require a wounded dog on each ship and a person to dip many pieces of bandage in the powder at noon each day. Furthermore the poor dog’s wound would have to be kept open so the system could continue working. Fortunately this idea was never really taken seriously by anyone as no one could produce the powder of sympathy.
   Three more realistic methods evolved for finding longitude while navigating a ship and the earliest of these did not involve knowing time. It was called dead reckoning. This approach began from a port of known longitude and a careful record of direction, speed, and time traveled was kept using a sand glass. Even the most skilled and careful navigator made errors that could accumulate into large errors on a long voyage. Ships at sea were never certain of their location using dead reckoning. A comparison of old maps with recent maps often shows fairly good agreement with latitude but great distortions due to errors in longitude. An even worse outcome from longitudinal errors is running aground. Errors in longitude resulted in many shipwrecks.
  A second method involves finding time at the Prime Meridian (zero longitude) by a technique called lunar distance. This required measuring the angle between the moon and a star. At that moment anyone on the surface of the earth who can see the same two bodies will observe the same angle between them after certain routine corrections. The navigator then consults a prepared table of lunar distances and the times at which they will occur. By comparing the corrected lunar distance with the tabulated values, the navigator finds the Greenwich time for that observation. A major problem was that these measurements require greater accuracy than can be obtained on a rolling ship. The observer must be on a stable surface to measure angles.
   The British Board of Longitude announced a prize of £20,000 for the person who devised a method that could stand the test of a voyage to the West Indies and back with a maximum error of thirty minutes (0.5°) longitude. This was a princely sum comparable to $4,000,000 today. The membership of the Board consisted of scientists, naval officers, and government officials, plus a group of ex-officio members who acted as advisors to the Board of Longitude. The advisors included the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, the president of the Royal Society, Sir Isaac Newton, and prominent mathematicians from Oxford and Cambridge among others. From the composition of the Board it might be expected that they anticipated an astronomical solution to longitude.
   When the Board announced its enticing prize many proposals were submitted including numerous crackpot ideas. Most proposals submitted for the Board’s consideration were variation’s on the lunar distance approach. Although the lunar distance method was complicated and impractical, the use of a clock for finding longitude was deemed impossible for the accuracy required.
   This brings us to the third method for finding longitude: the clock. The best clocks of the day were regulated by a pendulum requiring a stable platform and even the most accurate would lose several minutes per day. In 1675 a Dutch astronomer and mathematician, Christiaan Huygens, invented a chronometer regulated by a balance wheel and a spiral spring rather than a pendulum. This innovation became the basis for pocket watches. Huygens tested his invention at sea, but it never achieved the accuracy needed for navigation. Several others attempted to refine the concept but they came to nothing.
   Jeremy Thacker developed some important ideas to improve accuracy, such as enclosing the works in a glass vacuum chamber to eliminate changes in atmospheric pressure, a winding mechanism that prevented the clock stopping while being wound, and mounting the instrument on gimbals to reduce the effect of the rolling at sea. Thacker introduced the name “chronometer” to highlight the greater accuracy of his clock. Still it was not accurate enough for navigation. The problem was that temperature changes caused expansion and contraction of every important metal in the clock, causing it to gain and lose depending on air temperature.
   Enter John Harrison, a carpenter and cabinet maker from Yorkshire born in 1693, who as a boy taught himself to read and write. Later he avidly read books such as “Saunderson’s Mechanicks” and Newton’s Principia. Although Harrison had never worked with a clockmaker, he built his first pendulum clock in 1713 made almost entirely of wood, including all wheels and axles. Harrison could see that the pendulum clock would never win the big prize for a navigation clock, so he designed one with a set of counter-oscillating rods that were counterbalanced to maintain precise motion in the stormiest sea.
   In 1730 Harrison took his plans directly to the then Astronomer Royal, Edmund Halley, who saw some promise but discouraged Harrison with the news that the Board’s bias was toward an astronomical solution to longitude rather than a mechanical. Halley, however, kindly recommended that Harrison talk to the most respected instrument maker in England and a Fellow of the Royal Society, George Graham. Harrison was wary at first that Graham would steal his idea, but in a few hours of discussion Graham became a helpful mentor in the project.
Five years later in 1735, Harrison completed H-1: Harrison’s No. 1. This fascinating clock is twenty-five inches high, still operating, and on display in the Royal Observatory of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Its shiny brass parts with oscillating rods look more like a Rube Goldberg device than a clock, but it is an elegant sight to behold.            Harrison took his clock to Graham who showed it to the Royal Society where it was acclaimed. The first test came a year later on a trip to Portugal, not the West Indies as prescribed. Harrison went on the voyage with the clock and it proved a resounding success. He took it before a meeting of the Board with several members already in full support. Surprisingly, at that meeting Harrison decided to ask for more time and funds to build a smaller version with even greater accuracy. The Board could hardly refuse such an offer and granted £250 plus another £250 when he finished the second version. Harrison left the meeting full of confidence that the £20,000 would be his.
   In 1741 Harrison brought H-2 to the committee. It was only slightly smaller and incorporated a number of improvements. This clock was given several rigorous and successful tests by the Royal Society, who declared it ready for a sea test. At this point Harrison again balked, telling the Board he still saw ways for improvement. He spent almost seventeen years persistently working on H-3 while collecting an occasional £500 grant from the Board. This third clock, H3, was designed with circular balances, roller bearings, and most importantly bi-metallic (brass and steel) parts that could automatically compensate for temperature changes. Each of these innovations is still in use today. Its distinctive feature was an oscillating balance wheel powered by a bi-metallic spring for temperature compensation.
   In the meantime the venerable Astronomer Royal, Edmund Halley, died and was replaced by James Bradley. Also improved tables and methods for the lunar distance method had come to the attention of the Board of Longitude. Bradley, being an astronomer, had a strong inclination to favor the lunar distance method, and felt Harrison’s clock was unseemly simple. The feeling of the Board began to shift in favor the lunar distance method over Harrison’s clock.
By 1757 John Harrison had made H-3, which was still about twenty-four inches high. Although he felt it was a suitable size, Harrison was still not satisfied with its performance, and moved on to work on H-4.
   Harrison began to see that other clockmakers were using some of his innovations to improve the accuracy of pocket watches. This moved him to consider a new version of his clock. In 1759 he completed his H-4 which now looked like an oversized pocket watch (5” diameter and 3 pounds in weight). Harrison was finally happy with his clock and declared, …”There is neither any other Mechanical or Mathematical thing in the World that is more beautiful or curious in texture than this my watch or Timekeeper for the Longitude… and I heartily thank God that I have lived so long, as in some measure to complete it.” Harrison was then 66 years old and had worked on navigation clocks for about twenty-nine years—with subsistence grants, but no prize—to produce the most important timepiece ever built. In the Greenwich Maritime Museum the original H-4 is still operational but is never allowed to run so it can be preserved in its pristine state.
   The rest of Harrison’s story concerns his long ordeal convincing the Board that his clock was better than the lunar distance method they now favored. A voyage to test H-4 was planned in May 1761, then delayed and delayed again until November in what may have been a ploy by Astronomer Royal Bradley in favor of the lunar method. When the ship arrived in Jamaica in mid-January, a time check showed a loss of only five seconds in 81 days at sea. Upon return to England at the end of March the total error for the voyage was under two minutes. Harrison had met all the requisites of the Board and the prize should have been his immediately. The Board, however, felt uncertain that certain prescribed procedures may not have been followed and that a second more rigorous test must be made. New conditions were added to the test in a prime example of moving the goal post just as you’re about to score.
   Naturally Harrison’s frustration grew as his hopes declined and he vowed not to comply with the new abominable demands, some of which were imposed on his clocks but not on the lunar method. Eventually he gave into their demands. The Board required that Harrison give them his existing clocks, H-1 through H-4 and all drawings and descriptions, in an effort to be certain that there was no element of luck in construction of the clock. Then Harrison was required to build two replicas. As assurance of their good intentions the Board then gave him £10,000 of the prize money.
   In 1775 Captain James Cook returned from his second voyage into the Pacific Ocean during which he carried a replica of Harrison’s H-4. It was made by Larcum Kendall and labelled K-1. Captain Cook gave high praise to the effectiveness of the timepiece for navigation. Not surprisingly, this endorsement by such a renowned mariner carried great weight with the Board. Incidentally, this K-1 clock cost £450, which today would be about $72,000--too expensive for many mariners when a good sextant cost only £20.
   John Harrison’s H-4 ultimately passed all the required tests. He produced a replica, H-5, and received the remainder of the prize money in 1773—forty-three years after first presenting his revolutionary idea, but not without additional haranguing with the Board. He died three years later at the age of eighty-three.

Sources
Nye, Eric W. Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Conversion of Currency, retrieved from website: www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm. (no date shown)

Sobel, Dava. Longitude, The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. New York: Walker and Company. 1995. (A most engaging little book even if you never wondered about finding longitude.)

Wikipedia. John Harrison. Retrieved from website: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison

Wikipedia. Marine Chronometer. Retrieved from website: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer

4 Comments

The compass brought Europe to the New World

2/22/2017

4 Comments

Wind rose from chart of Jorge Aguilar. 1492. Wikimedia, I. Alvesgaspar

A nineteenth century binnacle. Wikimedia

   The magnetic compass is among those early world-altering inventions, which Daniel Boorstin identified as the clock, the compass, the printing press, the telescope, and the microscope. The compass used as a navigational tool was certainly the single most important development for world exploration. Despite its importance information on the origin of the compass is sketchy and its adoption was surprisingly slow. European and Asian mariners sailed the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean long before the compass was known and, even after its introduction, it often was used only as a last resort when other methods would not work. Navigation during this time relied on bottom soundings, stars, and written descriptions of currents, shoreline features, and bottom materials. A pilot’s guide might read in part, “…continue sailing until you find soundings of 100 fathoms depth, then veer toward the coast until you find 70 fathoms and a dark ooze, set a course toward the highest hill to reach the port.” After the invention of the compass specific bearings would be added, e.g. “…sail northwest by north until a 70 fathom bottom with a dark ooze is reached…”
   During the early period of trade with Egypt, Syria, Turkey, India, and southeast Asia, Europeans knew almost nothing of China. This lack of knowledge about east Asia persisted despite a steady stream of spices, silks, and ceramics brought to Europe by caravan via the Silk Road through central Asia. The first major flow of information about China began when the Italian traveler, Marco Polo, went to China in 1271 and returned three and a half years later. His great contribution at that time was a book, The Description of the World, about his experiences and many observations throughout his trip. Amid the wealth of detail in his book is information about the use of a magnetic compass used by the Chinese for divination, but there is no mention that it was used for navigation. Also there is no evidence that he brought a compass back to Europe.
   In Europe the magnetic compass was also used first for divination and later for navigation. Whether it came from China, which is likely, or was developed independently in Europe, the compass finally came into use for navigation in the Mediterranean region in the late thirteenth century.
   The Mediterranean Sea was already well-charted, with coastal outlines and wind roses to determine direction before the advent of the compass. The wind rose is the familiar direction indicator (see illustration) now considered synonymous with compass. But the wind rose was first aptly named as an indicator of the various wind directions.
   The first magnetic compass was a lodestone, usually the mineral magnetite, that aligned itself in a north-south direction if allowed to move freely. An iron needle rubbed against a lodestone would acquire the same properties. The first application of this unexplained and mysterious phenomenon, whether in China or in Europe, was for divination. In China the compass was an important tool for feng shui, the art of maintaining harmony and alignment with nature. Only later was navigation added to the functions of the compass.
   The first experiments in making a compass seems to have consisted of sticking a magnetized needle through a piece of straw so it would float on water. This worked in the stable conditions on land, but on a ship was not practical. The next stage was to balance the metal pointer on a pivot and place a wind rose underneath, with the north arrow aligned to the northern constellations. This began to make sense for actual navigation but needed one more improvement—a box, called a binnacle, to enclose the needle and protect it from disturbance by the wind. One last refinement was a candle inside the binnacle to make it visible at night. Eventually gimbals were added to keep the compass level during the pitching and rolling of the ship. All this development happened over a very short time, and the result was very similar to the compass seen on ships of more recent vintage. When iron ships appeared they added compensating magnets outside the binnacle to maintain proper north orientation.
   The first known construction of a compass for navigation in Europe occurred in the city-state Amalfi, south of Naples, Italy. Although Amalfi has no significant port today, in 1300 A.D. it was the primary port in Italy. A monument in the city commemorates their claim to fame as the site of the invention of the navigation compass.
   In the Mediterranean area the main effect of the compass for navigation was that ships could begin sailing throughout the year. By the end of the thirteenth century the compass was in common use in the Mediterranean and the practice of parking ships for the winter ended. Winter cloudiness was no longer a problem with the compass, and ships could make two or more trips each year between Venice or Genoa and Egypt and other ports in the Levant.
   Then in the fifteenth century voyages turned more to the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The last decade of the fifteenth century was remarkable for the sudden urge to search for water routes to the Orient. The Portuguese began by gradually feeling their way down the coast of Africa, braving the unknown until they ultimately rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into the Indian Ocean. The first to accomplish this feat and open an all-water route to India was Vasco de Gama in 1497. During the same period Columbus made three of his four voyages to the new world before 1500. John Cabot sailed from England to Newfoundland in 1497. Following those trailblazers inevitably one of them sailed around the world. Ferdinand Magellan was the first to circumnavigate beginning in 1519 but others followed. No one was satisfied they had found the shortest route to the Orient. There must be a passage somewhere and that thought kept exploration active well into the nineteenth century.
   The role of the compass in all this new effort was paramount. The fact that all these voyages were in uncharted areas did not deter anyone. What gave them the confidence to go forth into such enormous spaces without a map or a guidebook was the compass. With the compass they knew they could keep track of their location and could eventually return to home port.
   A new concern for mariners crossing the Atlantic was that the compass pointed to the west of the north stars. This variation was no problem in Europe where the magnetic deviation (variation from true north) is slight, but the farther west they traveled the more the compass pointed west of the stars. This alarming and unexplained situation at first caused disturbing doubts about the reliability of the compass. Many years passed before anyone knew that the north magnetic was not in the same location as the geographic north pole. Actually they had no understanding of Earth’s magnetism. The navigators compensated for this strange behavior by occasionally noting the difference between compass direction and north star direction and adjusting headings accordingly. For more detail on navigation refer to “Explorer’s Tales” posting on 5/28/2016.
   Although much was known about celestial navigation by the fifteenth century, most mariners heading for open seas relied heavily on dead reckoning and the compass. Dead reckoning required a sand glass to measure the time elapsed on a particular course. Multiplying the time by their estimated speed a mariner could compute a distance traveled. A change of course required another estimate of distance, and all this information was carefully recorded on a map-in-the-making. The ultimate result was charts of all the continents and a great amassing of knowledge about the world.
   Although the invention of the magnetic compass occurred in China, its world-changing application to exploration began in Italy. The well-known result was the discovery of the New World by European mariners.

Sources
Aczel, Amir D. The riddle of the compass. Harcourt, Inc: New York. 2001.
Gurney, Alan. Compass, A story of exploration and innovation. New York: W.W. Norton. 2004.

Boorstin, Daniel J. Cleopatra’s nose: Essays on the unexpected. New York: Vintage Books. 1994.

May, William E. A History of Marine Navigation, Henley-on Thames: G. T. Foulis and Co., 1973.

Taylor, E. G. R. The Haven Finding Art: A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook. London: Abelard - Schuman, Ltd, 1957.

Waters, David. The Art of Navigation in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times. Greenwich,    England: National Maritime Museum, 1978.

4 Comments

Captain James Cook goes to the Pacific Northwest

1/31/2017

0 Comments

Cook's voyages. Red: 1st voyage; Green: 2nd voyage; Blue: 3rd voyage. From Wikimedia Commons.

Roger M. McCoy
   Tales of exploration would be seriously incomplete without adding a bit about James Cook. Although sailing in the 1770’s, after two and a half centuries he still stands as the major figure in the exploration of the Pacific Ocean. Most of his fame stems from three Pacific expeditions that became models of exploration and hydrographic mapping. His ambitious objective was to survey the vast Pacific Ocean; search for a hypothetical, but undiscovered, southern continent; and make another attempt to find a water passage through North America. He met his objectives, making many important discoveries and maps that were unsurpassed for more than 100 years.
   In 1745, at the age of seventeen, young James Cook lived in the small village of Staithes on the Yorkshire coast near the whaling port of Whitby. As a young man ready to make his way, Cook became an apprentice on a ship trading in coal sailing around the North Sea. In that role he took an interest in learning navigation and after ten years he was offered command of a ship. By this time Cook had decided his future lay with the Royal Navy and he left coal shipping. He was such an apt learner in the navy that he became a master’s mate within a month. Two years later he became a ship’s master, a job of great responsibility.
   Cook prepared himself for exploring uncharted seas by learning surveying and mapmaking. With these skills Cook could sail a ship competently and also expertly map a coast line, a job that most captains left to others.
   Cook is renowned for his three exploration expeditions that covered much of the Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. In his third and final voyage Cook surveyed the North American coast from present day Oregon, Northward along the coast through Bering Strait to Icy Cape on the north coast of Alaska. This traverse closed a great gap in the North American map. His terminal point in the Arctic, Icy Cape, long stood as a point from which other mappers tried to extend maps eastward. Another significant aspect of this voyage was that Cook was carrying, as he had on the second voyage, the K1 (Kendall) replica of the John Harrison H4 clock for calculating longitude. Cook’s endorsement of the new clock opened the way for reluctant mariners to adopt the new method for measuring longitude.
   The third voyage, of particular interest for North America, began in 1776. Cook commanding the Resolution, sailed with the Discovery commanded by Captain Charles Clerke around Africa, into the Indian Ocean, continuing into the Pacific, making a stop at the island of Kauai to replenish wood and water. This was the first contact of Europeans with the islands that Cook named the Sandwich Islands in honor of the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. While there they established friendly contacts with the native Hawaiians.
    One officer’s journal from that time describes the first time seeing people surfing. He marveled that boys and girls of nine or ten years of age could be submerged by a tremendous wave and rise on the other side laughing and going on to meet the next wave. He wrote, “These People find one of their Chief amusements in that which to us presented but Horror & Destruction…our hardiest seamen would have trembled to meet such tempestuous Waves…[that] they could look upon as no other than certain death.”
   From Kauai the expedition sailed eastward to North America. One objective of their visit to the west coast of North America was to search for the ever elusive Northwest Passage, a navigable water route through the continent. Cook began his traverse up the American coast at Cape Blanco (Oregon), the northernmost point reached by Spanish mariners and by Sir Francis Drake in the sixteenth century.
Continuing north, Cook’s expedition stopped for five weeks in Nootka Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. There they set up an astronomical observatory on shore and established friendly relations trading with the local native tribes.
   The expedition’s surgeon, Dr. David Samwell, who kept a thorough and interesting journal throughout the voyage, wrote some observations of their stay in Nootka Sound. In one entry Samwell wrote of the young girls brought by their fathers as companions for the seamen. The girls were decorated with body paint and the seamen took great pains to wash paint from the young girls before spending the night.
   In Samwell’s journal entry of April 6, 1778 he wrote, “Their Fathers who generally accompanied them made the Bargain & received the price of the Prostitution of their Daughters, which was commonly a pewter plate well scoured for one night. When they found this was a profitable Trade they brought more young women to the Ships, who in compliance with our preposterous Humour spared themselves the trouble of laying on their Paint & us of washing it off again by making themselves tolerable clean before they came to us, by which they found they were more welcome Visitors and thus by falling in with our ridiculous Notions (for such they no doubt deemed them) they found means at last to disburthen our young Gentry of their Kitchen furniture, many of us after leaving this Harbour not being able to muster a plate to eat our Salt beef from.”
Eventually the ships were seriously lacking in hatchets and other iron tools that had been given to the accommodating young girls.
   As often happened when Europeans first contacted the North American Indians, they described them as similar to the Chinese even though most Europeans had never seen a Chinese person except in drawings. As the expedition sailed up the northwest coast Dr. Samwell wrote in May 18, 1778, “The Faces of many of these Indians are much like the Chinese,…[a few had] their Hair Cut after the Chinese Fashion with a single Lock hanging down their Backs tho’ it was tucked up under their Caps. …as we conjecture Descendants from some Chinese who may have been cast away here in some distant Age, but now are incorporated with the Natives.”
   Another record of the expedition was kept by a young midshipman, officer-in-training George Gilbert, who gave detailed descriptions of the northwest Indians he saw. In most cases he too compared them with natives of other places he had visited. He wrote, “Their hair was matted with a red mixture much like that used by New Zealanders both in color and smell…They wore cloaks made of tied and woven grasses like the New Zealanders…They wore round caps with a point at the top like the Chinese…The women were far unlike the blooming beauties of the tropicks… their broad flat-bottomed canoes were like a Norwegian “yaul” cut from one tree.”
   The expedition sighted a very large inlet that at first promised to be the long- sought passage. They traversed the long body now known as Cook Inlet and eventually discovered its dead end. Nevertheless they landed and took possession in the name of the King of England. Gilbert commented that a group of natives watched the little ceremony but showed little interest. Cook may have been unaware that Russia also considered the area to be in their possession and Russian trading posts were already established.
   Cook followed the Alaskan coast through the Bering Strait to the north coast, where they met continuous ice locked to the shore and extending out to sea as far as they could see. They had reached their limit at a point Cook named Icy Cape for obvious reasons. It was then August 18, 1778, and time to leave the extreme parts of the Arctic. By October he was out of Alaskan waters and headed on a return course to the island of Hawaii.
   The Hawaiians were far less welcoming on this occasion and a serious altercation over a stolen boat led to open conflict resulting in the death of Captain Cook.
The sailors apparently opened fire as they tried to escape in their boats, but were overwhelmed on the beach by sheer numbers of Hawaiians. According to Gilbert, Cook was stabbed, held under water and carried away as the sailors escaped. Captain Clerke, now commander of the expedition, later retrieved parts of Cook’s body and held a burial ceremony on the shore of Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii.
   The expedition continued home to England, where Cook’s discoveries and maps were made known to the world. He had mapped a major piece of North American coastline and dispelled hope for a Northwest Passage. His surveys and claims allowed England to assume title to many lands and opened the Pacific to British immigration.

Sources
Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.) The Journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (for the Hakluyt Society.) 1974.
Gilbert, George, and Holmes, Christine (ed.) Captain Cook’s final voyage: The journal of midshipman George Gilbert. Horsham, England: Caliban Books. 1982.
McCoy, Roger M. On the Edge: Mapping North America’s coasts. New York: Oxford University Press. 2012.
McLynn, Frank. Captain Cook: Master of the seas. New Haven: Yale University Press.2011.

0 Comments

Alexander von Humboldt: Scientist-Explorer

12/28/2016

0 Comments

Humboldt and Bonpland at Mt Chimborazo. Painting by Weitsch, 1810

Much of our present understanding about nature was first conceived by a few naturalists at the end of the eighteenth century. From among those early scientists one primary person emerged: Alexander von Humboldt. He gained international renown for traveling to remote regions unexplored by scientists and measuring, collecting, or observing everything: plants, rocks, earth magnetism, air temperatures, elevations, and indigenous humans. He wrote profusely and spoke frequently in many public appearances always stressing the complex interconnectedness of nature.
  Born in Berlin (then the capital city of Prussia) in 1769 to a lower tier aristocratic and wealthy family, Humboldt had exposure to the best teachers in many subjects concerned with the natural environment. His primary training led him into geology and work as inspector of mines and later director of mines for the government of Prussia. During this time as an administrator he conducted research on vegetation and the Earth’s magnetism.
  A major turning point for Humboldt came when his mother died in 1796 and he inherited the family wealth. This boon allowed him to leave his job at the Ministry of Mines and devote his life to travel and research. He began by buying the many necessary scientific instruments needed for an extended expedition. He acquired an enormous collection of state of the art equipment that he considered essential, and much of which had to be duplicated to allow for possible losses or damage. He was prepared for measurements of gases, liquids, and solids, earth magnetism, and atmospheric electricity. He bought the necessary quadrants, chronometers, theodolites, and altimeters for mapping locations and elevations. He had the instruments necessary for making astronomical observations.
Between 1799 and 1804 Humboldt, starting at the age of twenty-nine, traveled extensively in Latin America, beginning with Cuba, exploring and describing the area for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. With his royal passport from the king of Spain he had unrestricted access to colonial regions and local administrators. Throughout this journey he was accompanied by an accomplished botanist and physician, Aimé Bonpland. Along with Bonpland and locally hired porters and guides, Humboldt ventured into the rainforests of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. He climbed mountain after mountain in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, including Chimborazo, a volcanic peak then thought to be the highest (20,548 ft) in the world, but is still the highest peak north of Peru and all the way to Alaska.
To be sure this was an arduous journey with hardship, sickness, and few comforts, but Humboldt’s motivation never faltered. Author Andrea Wulf describes Humboldt and three companions crawling single file along a narrow ridge with steep drops on both sides while climbing Mount Chimborazo. “The icy wind numbed their hands and feet and ice crystals clung to their hair and beards.” As they climbed past the 17,000 elevation they struggled to breathe in the thin air. They ended their climb 1000 feet below the peak when they encountered a impassable crevasse.
   The two men made many discoveries and produced accurate maps everywhere they went, many of which were not superseded for more than a century. Humboldt and Bonpland were the first to determine that the Orinoco River, which flows northward in Venezuela, was connected at its headwaters to the Negro River which flows southeastward into the Amazon.
  While in Latin America Humboldt collected about 60,000 plants of which 3,000 had never been identified and given scientific names. He studied the electric eels, piranhas, and various monkeys of the tropical rainforest. His studies of the composition of guano led to its use as a fertilizer in Europe. By measuring water temperatures offshore on the west side of South America he identified the west coast cold ocean current that is now called the Humboldt current. Of all his scientific measurements Humboldt felt that his most important contribution was the measurement of Earth’s magnetism and locating the magnetic equator.
  After South America Humboldt and Bonpland traveled to Mexico, then made a six-week visit to the United States (1804) where they were the guests of honor at a celebration in Philadelphia. They also went to Washington for a meeting with President Jefferson, who told Humboldt of the expedition beginning that year by Lewis and Clark to carry out a similar scientific exploration.
  Humboldt settled in Paris and worked steadily writing his thirty volume Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland over a period of twenty-one years. This detailed report of his Latin American studies focused on the natural history of the regions, history of their discovery, and culture of the pre-Colombian civilizations of Latin America. It became a best seller even among the general public, and the first printing of the first volume was sold out in a few months. He also wrote two monographs on the economic structure of Mexico and Cuba, focusing on the plantation economy of Cuba that depended on slavery. Humboldt was repulsed by the cruelty of slavery which he actively opposed with practical ideas for its abolition. On his visit to the United States he again commented on the great harm done by slavery.
Humboldt’s other major work, Kosmos, began to take shape as he gave public lectures in 1827-29 when he was at the peak of his career. The idea of Kosmos was to convey not only a graphic description of the physical world but proposed a unifying concept as well. This important work motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. Humboldt said his Kosmos was born in the Andes and took twenty-five years to complete.
  Humboldt’s creative mind reached beyond merely reporting his findings. He drew innovative conclusions that have had a lasting effect on the natural sciences. Perhaps his most significant contribution was support for the then new idea of interconnectedness of all elements of Earth’s environment: plants, animals, soil, and climate. His focus on this important concept gave birth to ecology, the study of ecosystems as entities rather than studying only a single part of the environment. Humboldt also stressed the need for interaction and collaboration among scientists to gain a more complete picture of the environment.
  Another of Humboldt’s contributions was the advent of a new field of study called plant geography. From his many travels in different climates he observed that the distribution of plants strongly correlated with climate. For example, humid tropics on different continents all have similar plants, albeit of different species. The same pattern exists in each climate and can be seen with changes in elevation as well, which Humboldt observed as he climbed various mountains in the Andes. It was partly on this knowledge of plant zonation according to climate that Vladimir Köppen based his famous map of world climates in 1884.
     As a scientist-explorer Humboldt became widely imitated. The young United States in the early nineteenth century had just acquired a vast area of land named the Louisiana Purchase, and President Thomas Jefferson made plans to send Lewis and Clark to explore, map, and collect plants all the way to the Pacific northwest. The U.S. government initiated surveys led by Frémont, King, Hayden, Powell, and others. Humboldt’s example became the objective for these early surveys.
  Humboldt’s enormous status and popularity in the nineteenth century is illustrated by the great number of places and things named for him—more than any other person. In North America alone there are thirteen towns, four counties, mountains, bays, a river in Nevada, a state park and Humboldt State University in California, as well as city parks in Chicago and Buffalo. The state of Nevada was almost named Humboldt. If we look at South America and Europe the list of honors expands enormously. Nearly 300 plants and more than 100 animals are named after him, not to forget Mare Humboldtianum on the moon!

Sources
Helferich, Gerard. Humboldt’s cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American journey that changed the way we see the world. New York: Gotham Books. 2004.

Magee Judith. Alexander Humboldt. (a chapter in The Great Naturalists). Robert Huxley, ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

Gulf, Andrea, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s new world. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2015.

0 Comments

John C. Frémont: Claiming the West

8/26/2016

1 Comment

First three Fremont expeditions.

Roger M McCoy

  Although the Lewis and Clark expedition had explored a portion of the vast interior of North America by 1806, there was still much unexplored land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. A strong feeling existed among many Americans that all that land should be part of the United States although much of it belonged to Mexico. Some people were already considering a move into the west even though so little was known. To this end the U.S. Government began a series of western surveys to establish possible routes, inventory resources, and most of all maintain a presence in the Louisiana Purchase lands, and even the lands still owned by Mexico.
Five such surveys from 1842 to 1854 were led by an army officer named John C. Frémont. Between surveys Frémont served as Military Governor of California (before statehood) and a very short term as one of the two first senators from California (after statehood in 1850). After the surveys Frémont became the first presidential candidate for the newly formed Republican Party but lost to James Buchanan in 1856. He was a man of many parts involved in politics, land acquisitions, and gold mining, but our focus for the moment is his exploration surveys.
   In 1842 Frémont met Kit Carson, a well-known frontiersman, and arranged for him to act as guide on the first expedition. Also on that expedition was a dour German cartographer, Charles Preuss, who made no secret of the fact that he hated the wilderness but he went with Frémont repeatedly. Frémont and twenty-five men journeyed for five months exploring the land between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains. A few excerpts of journals written during that first trip show a remarkable difference between the enthusiastIc Frémont and the morose Preuss, who obviously had little respect for Fremont.
   Near the site of present day Manhattan, Kansas, Frémont wrote of the beautiful prairies and streams. People in Kansas today will readily verify his description of the beauty of the land and the intensity of its storms.
June 22,1842. Our route the next morning lay up the valley, which bordered by hills and graceful slopes looked uncommonly beautiful. The stream [the Little Blue] was about fifty feet wide and three or four feet deep, fringed by cottonwood and willow with frequent groves of oak tenanted by wild turkeys. Elk were frequently seen in the hills and now and then an antelope bounded across our path or a deer broke from the groves.
   After thirty-one miles a heavy bank of black clouds in the west came on us in a storm preceded by a violent wind. The rain fell in such torrents that it was difficult to breathe facing the wind, the whole sky was tremulous with lightning; now and then illuminated by a blinding flash, succeeded by pitchy darkness.

Charles Preuss during that same period of the trip wrote:
   June 6, 1842. Annoyed by that childish Frémont. During the night a lot of rain, which made me get up; everything wet. What a disorder in this outfit. To be sure, how can a foolish lieutenant [Frémont] manage such a thing?
   June 12, 1842. A lot of rain at night; slept in a poor tent.
   Eternal prairie and grass with occasional groups of trees. Frémont prefers this to every other landscape. To me it is as if someone would prefer a book with blank pages to a good story. The ocean has its storms and icebergs, the beautiful sunrise and sunset. But the prairie? To the deuce with such a life.
   June 19, 1842. Our big chronometer has gone to sleep. That is what always happens when the egg wants to be wiser than the hen. So far I can’t say that I have formed a very high opinion of Frémont’s astronomical manipulations. Now he has started to botanize.
   Had a remarkably bad night. First came a thunderstorm with torrential rain which drenched us thoroughly in our miserable tents. Then it became so warm that the mosquitoes were as if possessed by the devil, and I could not sleep a minute. The others lay safely under their nets; mine had been forgotten because of Frémont’s negligence.
Preuss would be surprised to know that many plants of the west have fremontii as their species or sub-species name today because Frémont first collected them. One well-known example is the southwestern cottonwood tree, Populus fremontii.
   At the end of the first expedition Frémont wrote an account of the expedition titled, A Report on an Exploration of the Country Lying between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains on the Line of the Kansas and Great Platte Rivers. This report became very popular reading and was reproduced in newspapers across the country. The public became captivated with the vision of the west as an inviting land beckoning to be settled. Frémont was an instant celebrity and an enthusiastic promoter of westward movement much to the satisfaction of his expansionist father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, uncle of the American artist by the same name. Frémont's success led to a second expedition the following summer.
   The second expedition in 1843 again included Kit Carson as well as Charles Preuss, who continued to produce excellent topographic maps of all terrain they passed through. Their route took them along the Snake River to the Columbia River into Oregon—a route that became the Oregon Trail. They reached the Cascade Mountains, turned south into California, and became the first to see and describe Lake Tahoe, then turned west to the site of Sacramento. The published report and map from this expedition became a guide for thousands of immigrants who came to Oregon and California.
   The third expedition in 1845 filled in a major void in the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. The cumulative effect of these first three surveys of the west was to establish routes that became known as the Oregon Trail, California Trail through Nevada and across the Sierra Mountains (think Donner party), and the Applegate Trail from Oregon south to California.
   Frémont certainly became famous for his expeditions and an admired public figure. But no praise was higher than that of his companion Kit Carson. Carson came to admire Frémont for his success with his own men on the expeditions. Carson wrote,
I was with Frémont from 1842 to 1847. The hardships through which we passed I find impossible to describe, and the credit which he deserves I am incapable of doing justice in writing. I can never forget his treatment of me when in his employ and how cheerfully he suffered with his men while undergoing the severest hardships. His perseverance and willingness to participate in all that was undertaken, no matter whether the duty was rough or easy, is the main cause of his success. And I say without fear of contradiction that none but him could have surmounted and succeeded through as many difficult services as his was.

Sources
Egan, Ferol. Frémont: Explorer for a Restless Nation. Reno: University of Nevada Press. 1977.

Bergon, F. and Papanikolas, Z., eds. Looking Far West: The Search For The American West. New York: The New American Library. 1978

1 Comment

<<Previous

"Explorers' Tales"A blog article is only a starting point in learning about explorers. References with each article provide further reading. Explorer's original journals are especially interesting and are quoted in the blog when possible.

Archives

"Explorers' Tales"
A blog article is only a starting point in learning about explorers. References with each article provide further reading. Explorer's original journals are especially interesting and are quoted in the blog when possible.