who looted the treasures of the Incas. The ransom of Atahualpa was a roomful of gold vases whose total value is estimated at $15,000,000. Spanish galleons sailed back across the Atlantic, their holds stuffed with gold and silver, and Spanish sea captains returned home to live in luxury on their ill-won fortunes. This easily gotten wealth had a demoralizing influence. The energies of Spanish adventurers were absorbed in the quest for gold. No land seemed to them worthy of attention that did not give promise of limitless treasure. The vast regions to the north of the Gulf of Mexico were explored in vain. Ponce de Leon (1513) sought the fabled fountain of youth. D'Ayllon (1526) and Gomez (1525) examined the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Florida in quest of a passage to the Indies less circuitous than that traversed by Magellan. Neither gold mines nor a direct route to the Orient rewarded their toils, and the country looked forbidding to eyes wonted to a tropical vegetation. Peter Martyr, the friend of Columbus, commenting disapprovingly on Gomez' enterprise, wrote: "To the South, to the South for the great and exceeding riches of the Equinoctiall: they that seek riches must not go into the cold and frozen North." Later expeditions into the interior discovered no El Dorado. Pineda had sailed up the Mississippi River (1519) and seen Indians wearing gold ornaments. Narvaez (1525) and De Soto (1539-1542) in turn perished in the pursuit of a kingdom that might be as well worth the plundering as Peru. The survivors of Narvaez' ill-fated expedition forced their way across the plains of Texas, up the Rio Grande, and over the mountains to Culiacan, the northernmost outpost of the Mexican conquest. From Culiacan later adventurers set out to find the seven cities of Cibola and their storied treasures. Fray Marcos (1539) penetrated the interior as far as the Zuñi pueblos of New Mexico. Coronado's expedition (1540-1542) pushed farther north to a fork of the Platte River, but only squalid Indian villages rewarded his heroic endeavor. Thenceforth all attempt to Fiske, New France and New England, Ch. I-IV. develop the Spanish dominions north of the thirty-first parallel was abandoned. France. The papal bull that assumed to divide the New World between Spain and Portugal was challenged by Francis I, the dramatic king of France. It is said that he sent a saucy message to Charles V, asking him by what right he and the king of Portugal had undertaken to monopolize the round earth. The authority of the Holy See weighed but lightly upon sixteenth century Frenchmen, and they determined to have their share in the exploitation of America. They sought their treasure in the sea. As early as 1504 fishing smacks from Brittany and Normandy found their way to the Banks off Newfoundland. By 1578 France had as large a fishing fleet in these waters as Spain and Portugal combined. These sturdy fishermen established the claim to littoral rights on the adjoining shores- a claim that has vexed the souls of diplomats to this day. In 1524 Verrazano, an Italian adventurer in command of a French corsair, explored the Atlantic coast from Cape Fear north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Ten years later Jacques Cartier followed up the great river as far as Montreal and founded the claim of France to that section of the New World. The first attempts at settlement were, however, made farther south and well within Spanish territory. The unhappy fate of the Huguenot colonies at Port Royal and Fort Caroline determined the limits of French adventure. Thereafter explorers from France were content to follow the lead of the St. Lawrence. They soon came upon that chain of inland seas, and thus were guided to the heart of the continent. Champlain, who traversed (1615) Lakes Huron and Ontario with an Indian war party, thought he had discovered the Northwest Passage and the long sought route to the Indies. Later adventurers found a more important trade route, the great river that connects the lake region with Father Mar- the Gulf of Mexico. Nicollet (1639) reached the Wisconsin River, though he did not follow its current. In 1673 the trader Joliet and Père Marquette paddled up the Fox and down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi, on to the point where the Arkansas flows in from the west. La Salle finally reached Dix, Thwaites, quette. |