The Voyage of Verrazzano - Chapters IV-VII



CHAPTER IV.
II. MISREPRESENTATIONS IN REGARD TO THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE COAST. THE 
CHESAPEAKE. THE ISLAND OF LOUISE. MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
In pursuing its main object of making known the discovery, the letter 
ventures upon certain statements which are utterly inconsistent with an 
actual exploration of the country. The general position and direction of 
the coast are given with sufficient correctness to indicate the presence 
there of a navigator; but its geographical features are so meagrely and 
untruthfully represented, as to prove that he could not have been the 
writer. The same apparent inconsistency exists as to the natural history 
of the country. Some details are given in regard to the natives, which 
correspond with their known characteristics, but others are flagrantly 
false. The account is evidently the work of a person who, with an 
imperfect outline of the coast, by another hand, before him, undertook to 
describe its hydrographical character at a venture, so far as he deemed it 
prudent to say anything on the subject; and to give the natural history of 
the country, in the same way, founded on other accounts of parts of the 
new world. The actual falsity of the statements alluded to is, at all 
events, sufficient to justify the rejection of the whole story. So far as 
they relate to the littoral, they are now to be considered. 
 
In general, the geography of the coast is very indefinitely described. Of 
its latitudes, with the exception of the landfall and termination of the 
exploration, which are fixed also by other means, and are necessary to the 
ground work of the story, only a single one is mentioned. The particular 
features of the coast are for the most part unnoticed. Long distances, 
embracing from two hundred to six hundred miles each, are passed over with 
little or no remark. Islands, rivers, capes, bays, and other land or 
seamarks, by which navigators usually describe their progress along an 
unknown coast, are almost entirely unmentioned. For a distance of over two 
thousand miles, adopting the narrowest limits possible assigned to the 
discovery, only one island, one river, and one bay are attempted to be 
described, and not a single cape or headland is referred to. No name is 
given to any of them, or to any part of the coast, except the one island 
which is named after the king's mother. It was the uniform practice of the 
Catholic navigators of that early period, among whom, according to the 
import of the letter, Verrazzano was one, to designate the places 
discovered by them, by the names of the saints whose feasts were observed 
on the days they were discovered, or of the festivals of the church 
celebrated on those days; so that, says Oviedo, it is possible to trace 
the course of any such explorer along a new coast by means of the church 
calendar. This custom was not peculiar to the countrymen of that 
historian. It was observed by the Portuguese and also by the French, as 
the accounts of the voyages of Jacques Cartier attest. But nothing of the 
kind appears here. These omissions of the ordinary and accustomed 
practices of voyagers are suspicious, and of themselves sufficient to 
destroy all confidence in the narrative. But to proceed to what is 
actually stated in regard to the coast. 
 
Taking the landfall to have occurred, as is distinctly claimed, at 
latitude 34 Degrees, which is a few leagues north of Cape Fear in North 
Carolina, and which is fixed with certainty, for the purposes of the 
letter, at that point by the estimate of the distance they ran northerly 
along the coast before it took an easterly direction, the discovery must 
be regarded as having commenced somewhat south of Cape Roman in South 
Carolina, being the point where the fifty leagues terminated which they 
ran along the coast, in the first instance, south of the landfall. It is 
declared that from thence, for two hundred leagues, to the Hudson river, 
as it will appear, there was not a single harbor in which the Dauphine 
could ride in safety.* The size of this craft is not mentioned, but it is 
said she carried only fifty men, though manned as a corsair. Judging from 
the size of the vessels used at that time on similar expeditions, she was 
small. The two which composed the first expedition of Jacques Cartier 
carried sixty men and were each of about sixty tons burden. The Carli 
letter, which must be assumed to express the idea of the writer on the 
subject, describes her as a caravel; which was a vessel of light draught 
adapted to enter shallow rivers and harbors and to double unknown capes 
where shoals might have formed, and was therefore much used by the early 
navigators of the new world.** Columbus chose two caravels, out of the 
three vessels with which he made his first voyage; and the third one, 
which was larger than either of the caravels, was less than one hundred 
tons. The Dauphine is therefore to be considered, from all the 
representations in regard to her, of less than the latter capacity, and as 
specially adapted to the kind of service in which she is alleged to have 
been engaged. In running north from their extreme southerly limit, they 
must have passed the harbor of Georgetown in South Carolina, and Beaufort 
in North Carolina, in either of which the vessel could have entered; and 
in the latter, carrying seventeen feet at low water and obtaining perfect 
shelter from all winds.*** But if they really had been unable to find 
either of them, it is impossible that they should not have discovered the 
Chesapeake, and entered it, under the alleged circumstances of their 
search. That it may be seen what exactly is the statement of the letter in 
regard to this portion of the coast, it is here given in its own terms. 
Having represented the explorers as having reached a point fifty leagues 
north of the landfall, which would have carried them north of Hatteras, 
but still on the coast of North Carolina, their movements over the next 
four hundred miles north are disposed of in the following summary manner: 
"After having remained here," (that is, at or near Albemarle,) "three days 
riding at anchor on the coast, as we could find no harbor, we determined 
to depart and coast along the shore to the northeast, keeping sail on the 
vessel only by day, and coming to anchor by night. After proceeding one 
hundred leagues we found a very pleasant situation among some steep hills, 
through which a very large river, deep at its mouth, forced its way to the 
sea." There can be no mistake in regard to the portion of the coast here 
intended. Upon leaving this river they found that the coast stretched, it 
is stated, as will presently appear, in an Easterly direction. A stream 
coming from the hills, its situation at the bend of the coast, its 
latitude as fixed by that of the port which, after leaving it, they found 
in nearly the same parallel and which is placed in 41 Degrees 40', all 
point distinctly to the embouchure of the Hudson at the highlands of 
Navesink as the termination of the hundred leagues. Within this distance 
the Chesapeake empties into the sea. 

(* A league, according to the Verrazzano letter, consisted of four miles; 
and a degree, of 15,625 leagues or 62 1/3 miles.)

(** Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance. Tome Second. Marine, par M. A. Jal. 
fol. V. (Paris 1849.))

(*** Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 359 (19th edition.))

The explorers were not only in search of a harbor for the purpose of 
recruiting, but they were seeking, as the great end of the voyage, a 
passage to Cathay, rendering, therefore, every opening in the coast an 
object of peculiar interest and importance. They were sailing with extreme 
caution and observation, in the day-time only, and constantly in sight of 
land. The bay of the Chesapeake is the most accessible and capacious on 
the coast of the United States. It presents an opening into the sea of 
twelve miles from cape to cape, having a broad and deep channel through 
which the largest ships of modern times, twenty times or more the tonnage 
of the Dauphiny, may enter and find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe 
anchorage.* That an actual explorer could not have failed to have 
discovered this bay and found a secure harbor at that time, is shown by 
the account of the expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of 
infamous memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, 
for the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of 
navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at the 
date of the Verrazzano voyage. Menendez Marquez was the first to enter the 
Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of Santa Maria.** 
Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it relates 
to this bay. 

(* Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 340.)

(** This name occurs on the map of Ribero on this part of the coast, which 
establishes its application by Gomez; but its position is evidently 
misplaced and carried too far south.)

"Pedro Menendez Marquez, governor of Florida for his uncle the Adelantado 
reduced many Indians to obedience and took possession of the provinces 
particularly in the name of the king, in the presence of Rodrigo de 
Carrion, notary of the government of Santa Elena. Afterwards, he, being a 
great seaman, inasmuch as he had formerly been admiral of the fleet, as 
Francisco Cano relates, Lib. 3, de la Histor. de las Ordenes Militares, 
fol. l84, went, by order of the Adelantado, to explore the coast, which 
exploration commenced at the cape of the Martyrs, and the peninsula 
Tequesta [point of Florida], where the coast begins to run north and 
south, at the outlet of the Bahama channel, and extended along the coast 
to beyond the harbor and bay of Santa Maria, which is three leagues wide 
and which is entered towards the northwest; and within it are many rivers 
and harbors where, on both sides of it, they can anchor. At the entrance, 
near the shore, on the south, there are from nine to thirteen fathoms of 
water, and on the north, from five to seven. Two leagues outside, in the 
sea, the depth is the same, north and south, but more sandy than inside. 
Going through the channel there are from nine to thirteen fathom; and in 
the harbor about fifteen, ten and six fathoms were found in places where 
the lead was thrown." 
 
"The bay of Santa Maria is in thirty-seven degrees and a half."*

(* Ensayo Chronologico, pp. 146, 8.)
 
To ignore the existence of this great bay, the most important 
hydrographical feature of our coast, as Verrazzano, according to the 
letter, does, and to pretend that no harbor could be found there, in which 
the diminutive Dauphiny could lie, is, under the circumstances under which 
this exploration is alleged to have been conducted, to admit that he was 
never on that part of the coast. 
 
Suddenly leaving the river of the hills, in consequence of an approaching 
storm, they continued their course directly east for a distance of ninety-
five leagues, passing in sight of the island and arriving finally at the 
bay, which are the only ones described, and that very briefly, in the 
whole voyage along the coast. 
 
"Weighing anchor," reads the letter, "we sailed eighty leagues towards the 
East, as the coast stretched in that direction, and Always in sight of it. 
At length we discovered an island of triangular form, about ten leagues 
from the main land, in size about equal to the island of Rhodes, having 
many hills covered with trees and well peopled, judging from the great 
number of fires which we was all around its shores; we gave it the name of 
your majesty's illustrious mother. We did not land there, as the weather 
was unfavorable, but proceeded to another place, fifteen leagues distant 
from the island, where we found a very excellent harbor. * * * This land 
is situated in the parallel of Rome, being 41 degrees 41' of north 
latitude. It looks towards the south, on which side the harbor is half a 
league broad; afterwards, upon entering it between the east and the north 
it extends twelve leagues,* and then enlarging itself it forms a very 
large bay, twenty leagues in circumference, in which are five small 
islands of great fertility and beauty, covered with large and lofty trees. 
Among these islands any fleet, however large, might ride safely, without 
fear of tempests or other dangers. Turning towards the south, at the 
entrance of the harbor on both sides there are very pleasant hills and 
many streams of clear water which flow down to the sea. In the midst of 
the entrance, there is a rock of freestone, formed by nature and suitable 
for the construction of any kind of machine or bulwark for the defence of 
the harbor." 

(* A slight correction of the translation of Dr. Cogswell, which is the 
one we have adopted, here becomes necessary. It reads: "upon entering it 
the extent between the east [misprinted coast], and north, is twelve 
leagues." The text is, "entrando in quello infra oriente e settentrione 
s'esteude leghe XII.")

This island is a mere fancy; none such exists any where upon this coast. 
The distance which they thus ran easterly, of eighty leagues, would have 
carried them more than an hundred miles into the ocean beyond Cape Cod. 
That distance, however, may be regarded only as approximate, because they 
possessed no means of determining longitude with accuracy, and therefore 
this, like all statements in the letter, of distances running east and 
west, is to be considered an estimate only, formed from the circumstances 
attending the sailing of the vessel, and liable to serious error. But the 
island and bay were objects of actual observation, and are therefore to be 
regarded as they are described. After leaving Long Island, which forms the 
coast in an easterly direction for a little over an hundred miles from the 
Hudson, only three islands occur, except some insignificant ones and the 
group of the Elizabeth islands all near the shore, in the entire distance 
to the easterly shore of Cape Cod, when the coast turns directly north. 
They are all three somewhat of a triangular shape, and in that respect are 
equally entitled to consideration in connection with the description of 
the island of Louise, but are all incompatible with it in other 
particulars. Louise is represented as being a very large island, equal in 
size to the famous island of Rhodes, which has an area of four hundred 
square miles, and as being situated ten leagues distant from the main 
land. The first of the three islands met with, eastward of Long Island, is 
Block island. It contains less than twenty square miles of territory and 
lies only three leagues from the land; and thus both by its smallness and 
position cannot be taken as the island of Louise. It has, however, been so 
regarded by some writers, because on the main land, about five leagues 
distant, are found Narraganset bay and the harbor of Newport, which, it is 
imagined, bear some resemblance to the bay and harbor which the explorers 
entered fifteen leagues beyond the island of Louise, and which cannot be 
elsewhere found. 
 
But Narraganset bay does not correspond in any particular with the bay 
described in the letter, except as to its southern exposure and its 
latitude, and as to them it has no more claim to consideration than 
Buzzard's bay, three leagues further east, and in other respects not so 
much. Newport harbor, several miles inside of Narraganset bay, faces the 
north and west, and not the south. The whole length of that bay, including 
the harbor of Newport from the ocean to Providence river, is less than 
five leagues, and its greatest breadth not more than three. But the harbor 
described in the letter first as extending twelve leagues and then 
enlarging itself, formed a large bay of twenty leagues in circumference. 
The two, it is clear, are essentially unlike. The great rock rising out of 
the sea at the entrance of the harbor, has no existence in this bay or 
harbor. Narraganset bay, therefore, affords no support to the idea that 
Block island, or any other, is the island of Louise. Martha's Vineyard, 
the second of the three islands before mentioned, is the largest of them, 
but it contains only one hundred and twenty square miles of land, and is 
within two leagues of the main land. Nantucket, the last of the three, is 
less than half the size of Martha's Vineyard, and is about thirty miles 
from Cape Cod, the nearest part of the continent. From neither of them is 
any harbor to be reached corresponding with that mentioned in the letter. 
It is incontrovertible, therefore, that there is neither island nor bay on 
this coast answering the description. It is not difficult to perceive that 
the island of Louise was a mere invention and artifice on the part of the 
writer to give consistency to the pretension that the voyage originated 
with Francis. This island is the only one of which particular mention is 
made in the whole exploration. Yet it was not visited or seen except, in 
sailing by it, at a distance. Its pretended hills and trees disclosed 
nothing of its character; and, under such circumstances, its alleged 
dimensions were all that could have entitled it to such particular notice 
and made it worthy of so exalted a designation; and to those no island on 
this coast has any claim. 
 
There is little room to doubt from the description itself, and the fact 
will be confirmed by other evidence hereafter, that the bay intended to be 
described was the great bay of Massachusetts and Maine terminating in the 
bay of Fundy. It is represented as making an offset in the coast of twelve 
leagues towards the north, and then swelling into an enclosed bay beyond, 
of twenty leagues in circumference, indicating those bays, in their form. 
The distances, it is true, do not conform to those belonging to that part 
of the coast; but it is to be borne in mind that they may have been taken, 
according to the only view which can reconcile the contradictions of the 
letter, from an imperfect delineation of the coast by another hand. The 
identity of the two is, however, proven, without recourse to this 
explanation, by the description of the coast beyond, which is given as 
follows: 
 
"Having supplied ourselves with every thing necessary, we departed, on the 
sixth* of May, from this port [where they had remained fifteen days] and 
sailed one hundred and fifty leagues, keeping so near to the coast as 
never to lose it from our sight; the nature of the country appeared much 
the same as before, but the mountains were a little higher and all in 
appearance rich in minerals. we did not stop to land, as the weather was 
very favorable for pursuing our voyage, and the country presented no 
variety. The shore stretched to the East, and fifty leagues beyond more to 
the north, where we found a more elevated country full of very thick woods 
of fir trees, cypresses and the like, indicative of a cold climate. The 
people were entirely different from the others we had seen, whom we had 
found kind and gentle, but these were so rude and barbarous that we were 
unable by any signs we could make to hold communication with them." 

(* According to the Archivio Storico Italiano, and not the fifth, as given 
in N. Y. Hist. Coll.)

This is all that is mentioned in regard to the entire coast of New England 
and Nova Scotia, embracing a distance of eight hundred miles according to 
this computation, but in fact much more. It is here stated, however, 
distinctly, that from the time of leaving the harbor, near the island of 
Louise, they kept close to the land, which ran in an Easterly direction, 
and constantly in sight of it, for one hundred and fifty leagues. This 
they could not have done if that harbor were on any part of the coast, 
west of Massachusetts bay. If they sailed from Narraganset bay, or 
Buzzard's bay, or from any harbor on that coast, east of Long Island, they 
would in the course of twenty leagues at the furthest, in an easterly 
direction, have reached the easterly extremity of the peninsula of Cape 
Cod, and keeping close to the shore would have been forced for one hundred 
and fifty miles, in a northerly and west of north direction, and thence 
along the coast of Maine northeasterly a further distance of one hundred 
and fifty miles, and been finally locked in the bay of Fundy. It is only 
by running from Cape Sable along the shores of Nova Scotia that this 
course and distance, in sight of the land, can be reconciled with the 
actual direction of the coast; and this makes the opening between Cape Cod 
and Cape Sable the large bay intended in the letter. But this opening of 
eighty leagues in width, could never have been seen by the writer of it; 
and nothing could more conclusively prove his ignorance of the coast, than 
his statements that from the river among the hills, for the distance of 
ninety-five leagues easterly to the harbor in 41 Degrees 40' N. and from 
thence for a further distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, also 
Easterly, the land was always in sight. 
 
[image caption: Cape Henry and entrance into the chesapeake. Lighthouse, 
with lantern 129 feet above the sea, bearing W. N. W. 1/2 W., three 
leagues distant.]



CHAPTER V. 
III. CAPE BRETON AHD THE SOUTHERLY COAST OF NEWFOUNDLAND, HERE CLAIMED TOM
LETTER BY RAMUSIO. 

By the two courses and distances just mentioned, the explorers are brought 
first to the island of Cape Breton, and then to the cape of that name, 
where the coast first takes a decided turn, from its easterly direction, 
to the north, and forms the westerly side of the strait leading into the 
gulf of St. Lawrence. This cape, according to the letter, is distant 
easterly one hundred and fifty, and fifty, leagues from the harbor in the 
great bay, distances which, for reasons already mentioned, are to be 
regarded as estimates only, but which taken exactly would have carried 
them beyond Cape Race in Newfoundland. They are to be considered, however, 
as properly limited to the turn of the coast before mentioned, as that is 
a governing circumstance in the description. Beyond this point, north, and 
east, the letter presents the claim to the discovery in another aspect. 
Thus far it relates to portions of the coast confessedly unknown before 
its date. But from Cape Breton, in latitude 46 Degrees N. to latitude 50 
Degrees N. on the east side of Newfoundland, it pretends to the discovery 
of parts, which were in fact already known; and it makes this claim 
circumstances which prove it was so known by the writer, if the letter 
were written as pretended. Having described their attempts at intercourse 
with the natives at Cape Breton, the narrative concludes the description 
of the coast with the following paragraph. 

"Departing from thence, we kept along the coast, steering northeast, and 
found the country more pleasant and open, free from woods, and distant in 
the interior, we saw lofty mountains but none which extended to the shore. 
Within fifty leagues we discovered thirty-two islands, all near the main 
land, small and of pleasant appearance, but high and so disposed as to 
afford excellent harbors and channels, as we see in the Adriatic gulf, 
near Illyria and Dalmatia. We had no intercourse with the people, but we 
judge that they were similar in nature and usages to those we were last 
among. After sailing between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues 
MORE, and finding our provisions and naval stores nearly exhausted, we 
took in wood and water, and determined to return to Frane, having 
discovered (avendo discoperto) VII,* that is, 700 leagues of unknown 
lands."

(* "The MS. has erroneously and uselessly the repetition VII, that is, 700 
leagues." Note, by M. Arcangeli. It is evident that VII is mistakenly 
rendered 502 in the transcription used by Dr. Cogswell.) 

The exact point at which they left the coast, and to which their discovery 
is thus stated to have extended, is given in the cosmography which follows 
the narrative, in these words: 

"In the voyage which we have made by order of your majesty, in addition to 
the 92 degrees we ran towards the west from our point of departure (the 
Desertas) before we reached land in the latitude of 34, we have to count 
300 leagues which we ran northeastwardly, and 400 nearly east along the 
coast before we reached the 50th parallel of north latitude, the point 
where we turned our course from the shore towards home. Beyond this point 
the Portuguese had already sailed as far as the Arctic Circle, without 
coming to the termination of the land." 

That this latitude must be taken as correctly determined follows from the 
representation of the letter, that they took daily observations of the sun 
and made a record of them, so that no material error could have occurred 
and remained unrectified for over twenty-four hours; and from the 
presumption that they were as capable of calculating the latitude as other 
navigators of that period, sent on such purposes by royal authority, like 
Jacques Cartier, whose observations, as the accounts of his voyage to this 
region show, never varied half a degree from the true latitude. The 
fiftieth parallel strikes the easterly coast of Newfoundland three degrees 
north of Cape Race, and to that point the exploration of Verrazzano is 
therefore to be regarded as claimed to have been made.*

(* Damiam de Goes, Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Emanuel parte I. C. 66. 
(Fol., Lisboa, 1566))

This intention is made positively certain by the remark which follows the 
statement of the latitude, that "beyond this point the Portuguese had 
already sailed as far north as the Artic circle without coming to the 
termination of the land." The exploration of the Portuguese here referred 
to, and as far as which that of Verrazzano is carried, was made by Gaspar 
Cortereal in his second voyage, when according to the letter of Pasqualigo 
the Venetian embassador, he sailed from Lisbon on a course between west 
and northwest, and struck a coast along which he ran from six to seven 
hundred miles, "without finding the end."* No other exploration along this 
coast by the Portuguese, tending to the Arctic circle is known to have 
taken place before the publication of the Verrazzano letter. The first 
voyage of Cortereal, was, according to the description of the people given 
by Damiam de Goes, among the Esquimaux, whether on the one side or the 
other of Davis straits it is unnecessary here to inquire, as the Esquimaux 
are not found south of 50 Degrees N. latitude. The land along which he ran 
in his second voyage, was, according to the same historian, distinctly 
named after him and his brother, who shared his fate in a subsequent 
voyage. It is so called on several early printed maps on which it is 
represented as identical with Newfoundland. It appears first on a map of 
the world in the Ptolemy of 1511 edited by Bernardus Sylvanus of Eboli, 
and is there laid down as extending from latitude 50 Degrees N. to 60 
Degrees N. with the name of Corte Real or Court Royal, latinized into 
Regalis Domus.** The length of the coast, corresponds with the description 
of Pasqualigo, and its position with the latitude assigned by the 
Verrazzano letter for their exploration. Its direction is north and south. 
There can be no question therefore as to the pretension of the Verrazzano 
letter to the discovery of the coast by him, actually as far north as the 
fiftieth parallel. 

(* Paesi novamente ritrovati. Lib. sexto. cap. CXXXL. Venice, 1521. A 
translation into English of Pasqualigo's letter, which is dated the 19th 
of October, 1501, is given in the memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 235-6.)

(** Claudii Ptholemaei Alexandrini liber geographiae, cum tabulis et 
universali figura et cum additione locorum quae a recentioribus reporta 
sunt diligenti cura emendatus et impressus. (Fol., Venetiis, 1511.))

That it is utterly unfounded, so far as regards that portion of the coast 
lying east and north of Cape Breton, that is, from 46 Degrees N. latitude 
to 50 Degrees N., embracing a distance of five hundred miles according to 
actual measurement, or eight hundred miles according to the letter, is 
proven by the fact, that it had all been known and frequented by 
Portuguese and French fishermen, for a period of twenty years preceding 
the Verrazano voyage. The Portuguese fisheries in Newfoundland must have 
commenced shortly after the voyages of the brothers Cortereaes in 1501-2, 
as they appear to have been carried on in 1506, from a decree of the king 
of Portugal published at Leiria on the 14th of October in that year, 
directing his officers to collect tithes of fish which should be brought 
into his kingdom from Terra Nova;* and Portuguese charts belonging to that 
period, still extant, show both the Portuguese and French discoveries of 
this coast. On a map (No. 1, of the Munich atlas,) of Pedro Reinel, a 
Portuguese pilot, who entered the service of the king of Spain at the time 
of fitting out Magellan's famous expedition, Terra Nova, and the land of 
Cape Breton are correctly laid down, as regards latitude, though not by 
name. On Terra Nova the name of C. Raso, (preserved in the modern Cape 
Race) is applied to its southeasterly point, and other Portuguese names, 
several of which also still remain, designating different points along the 
easterly coast of Newfoundland, and a Portuguese banner, as an emblem of 
its discovery by that nation, are found. Another Portuguese chart, 
belonging to the period when the country between Florida and Terra Nova 
was unknown (No. 4 of the same atlas) delineates the land of Cape Breton, 
not then yet known to be an island, in correct relation with the Bacalaos, 
accompanied by a legend that it was discovered by the Bretons.** The 
French authorities are more explicit. The particular parts of this coast 
discovered by the Normands and Bretons with the time of their discovery, 
and by the Portuguese, are described in the discourse of the French 
captain of Dieppe, which is found in the collection of Ramusio. This 
writer states that this land from Cape Breton to Cape Race was discovered 
by the Bretons and Normandy in 1504, and from Cape Race to Cape Bonavista, 
seventy leagues north, by the Portuguese, and from thence to the straits 
of Belle Isle by the Bretons and Normands; and that the country was 
visited in 1508 by a vessel from Dieppe, commanded by Thomas Anbert, who 
brought back to France some of the natives. This statement in regard to 
the Indians is confirmed by an account of them, which is given in a work, 
printed in Paris at the time, establishing the fact of the actual presence 
of the Normands in Newfoundland in that year, by contemporaneous testimony 
of undoubted authority.*** 

(* Memorias Economicas da academia Real das Sciencias da Lisboa, tom. III, 
393.)

(** Atlas zur entdeckingsgeschichte Amerikas. Herausgegeben von Friedrick 
Kunstmann, Karl von Sprusser, Georg M. Thomas. Zu den Monumenta Saecularia 
der K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 28 Maers, 1859. Munchen.)

(*** Eusebii Chronicon, continued by Joannes Multivallis of Louvain, 
(Paris 1512) fol. 172.)



We give here, a translation of the interesting passage referred to in the 
text, from this volume, which came from the celebrated press of Henri 
Estienne. 

"An Salutis, 1509. Seven savages were brought to Rouen with their garments 
and weapons from the island they call Terra Nova. They are of a dark 
complexion, have thick lips and wear marks on their faces extending along 
their jaws from the ear to the middle of the chin like small livid veins. 
Their hair is black and coarse like a horse's mane. They have no beard, 
during their lives, or hairs of puberty. Nor have they hair on any part of 
their persons, except the head and eye-brows. They wear a girdle on which 
is a small skin to cover their nakedness. They form their speech with 
their lips. No religion. Their boat is of bark and a man may carry it with 
one hand on his shoulders. Their weapons are bows drawn with a string made 
of the intestines or sinews of animals, and arrows pointed with stone or 
fish-bone. Their food consists of roasted flesh, their drink is water. 
Bread, wine and the use of money they have none. They go about naked or 
dressed in the skins of bears, deer, seals and similar animals. Their 
country is in the parallel of the seventh climate, more under the west 
than France is above the west." PLUS SUB OCCIDENTE QUAM GALLICA REGIO 
SUPRA OCCIDENTEM. By "west" here is meant the meridional line, from which 
longitude was calculated at that time, through the Island of Ferro, the 
most westerly of the Canary islands, and the idea here intended to be 
conveyed is that the country of these Indians was further on this side 
than France was on the other side, of that line. 

This description, as well as the name, Terra Nova, indicates the region of 
Newfoundland as the place from whence these Indians were taken. According 
to the tables of Pierre d'Ailly, the seventh climate commences at 47 
Degrees 15' N. and extends to 50 Degrees 30' N. beginning where the 
longest day of the year is 15 hours and 45 minutes long. (IMAGO MUNDI, 
tables prefixed to the first chapter.) This embraces the greater part of 
the southerly and easterly coasts of Newfoundland. The practice of 
tattooing their faces in lines across the jaw, as here described, was 
common to all the tribes of this northern coast, the Nasquapecs of 
Labrador, the red Indians of Newfoundland and the Micmacs of Cape Breton 
and Nova Scotia. It was from the use of red ochre for this purpose that 
the natives of Newfoundland obtained their designation of red Indians. The 
Micmacs used blue and other colors; hence it would appear from the 
circumstance of the marks upon these Indians being livid (LIVIDAE) or 
blue, like veins, that they belonged to the tribes of Cape Breton. (Hind's 
Labrador II, 97-110. Purchas, III. 1880-1. Denys. (Hist. Nat. De 
L'Amerique Sept. II, 887.))] 

That the French and especially the Normands had soon afterwards resorted 
to Newfoundland for the purpose of taking fish, and were actually so 
engaged there at the time of the Verrazzano voyage, is evident from the 
letter of John Rut, who commanded one of the ships sent out on a voyage of 
discovery by Henry VIII of England in 1527. That voyager states that, 
driven from the north by the ice, he arrived at St. Johns in Newfoundland 
on the third of August in that year, and found there eleven Normand, one 
Breton and two Portuguese vessels, "all a fishing."* This was at a single 
point on the coast, and in latitude 47 Degrees 30' N.; and so large a 
number of vessels there denotes a growth of many years, at that time, of 
those fisheries. 

(* Purchas, III, 809. Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, pp. 108, 268, and the 
authorities there cited.)

These facts not only prove that Newfoundland and Cape Breton were well 
known in France and Portugal before the Verrazzano voyage and therefore 
that he did not discover them, but that he must have known of them before, 
and that the letter is intentionally false in that respect. It might 
perhaps be insisted with some plausibility under other circumstances, that 
he ran along the coast, believing that it was a new land, and therefore 
made the representation of having discovered it in good faith. But 
admitting that it was even possible for him to have sailed along those 
shores without encountering a single fishing craft which would have 
assured him that he was not in unknown waters, it is impossible that he 
could have sailed from Dieppe and returned to that port where, of all the 
places in France or Europe, the knowledge of these facts most existed, and 
where they were as familiar as household words, and where they must have 
entered into the thoughts and hopes of many of its inhabitants, without 
their being known to him; and that he could have written the letter from 
that same port, claiming the discovery of the country for himself, without 
intending a fraud. It was the port to which Aubert belonged and where he 
landed the Indians he brought from Newfoundland. It was the principal port 
of Normandy from which the fishing vessels made their annual voyages to 
that country. It was the port from whence he manned and equipped his own 
fleet of four ships, with crews which must have been largely composed of 
Normand sailors who were familiar with the navigation and the coast. And 
there was not a citizen of Dieppe, probably, who had not an interest of 
some nature in one or more of the fishing vessels, and could have told him 
what country it was that he had explored. 

It bears unequivocal testimony to the fictitious character of this claim, 
that Ramusio thought it necessary to interpolate in his version a passage 
representing the discovery of Verrazzano as terminating where the 
discoveries of the Bretons began, and to omit the cosmography which states 
it was at the point where those of the Portuguese towards the Arctic 
circle commenced. By this alteration the letter is made to acknowledge the 
prior discoveries by the Bretons, which are entirely excluded in the 
original version, and to adopt the latitude of 50 Degrees N. for the 
Verrazzano limit thus making the false statement, as to the extent of the 
discovery, a mistake as it were of nautical observation. The following 
parallel passages in two versions will best explain the character and 
effect of the alteration. 

VERSION OF CARLI, 
Narrative. 

Navicando infra 'l subsolano ed 
aquilone in spatio di leghe CL et 
de gia avendo consumato tutte le 
nostre substantie navale et vettovaglie, 
avendo discopruto leghe DII 
cive leghe 700, piu do nuova terra 
fornendoci di acque et legne 
deliberammo di tornare in Francia. 
* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Cosmography. 

In questa nostra navigatione 
fatta per ordine du V. S. M., 
oltre i gradi 92 che dal detto 
meridiano verso lo occidente della 
prima terra trovamo gradi 34 
navigando leghe 300 infra oriente 
e settentrione leghe 400, quasi allo 
oriente continuo el lito della terra 
siamo pervenuti per infino a gradi 
50, lasciando la terra che piu 
tempe fa trovorno li Lusitani, 
quali seguirno piu al septentrione, 
pervenendo sino al circulo 
artico e'l fine lasciendo incognito. 

Translation Narrative. 

After sailing between east and 
north the distance of one hundred 
and fifty leagues more and finding 
our provisions and naval 
stores nearly exhausted, we took 
in wood and water, and determined 
to return to France having 
discovered VII that is 700 
leagues of unknown lands. 
* * * * * * * * * * * 

Cosmography. 

In the voyage which we made 
by order of your Majesty, in 
addition to the 92 degrees we ran 
towards the west from our point 
of departure, before we reached 
land in the latitude of 34, we 
have to count 300 leagues which 
we ran northeastwardly, and 400 
nearly east along the coast before 
WE REACHED THE 50TH PARALLEL OF 
NORTH LATITUDE, THE POINT WHERE WE 
TURNED OUR COURSE FROM THE SHORE 
TOWARDS HOME. BEYOND THIS POINT 
THE PORTUGUESE HAD ALREADY SAILED 
AS FAR NORTH AS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, 
WITHOUT COMING TO THE TERMINATION 
OF THE LAND. 

VERSION OF RAMUSIO, 
Narrative. 

Navigando fra levante & 
tramontana per spatio di leghe 
150, PERVENIMO PROPINQUI ALLA 
TERRA EGE PER IL PASSATO 
TREVORONO I BRETTONI, QUALE 
STA IN GRADI 50 & havendo 
horamai consumati tutti li 
nostri armeggi & vettovaglie, 
havendo scoperto leghe 700, 
& piu di nuova terra, fortnitoci 
di acque & legue, deliberammo 
tornare in Francia. 
* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Cosmography omitted. 

Translation Narrative. 

Sayling northeast for the space 
of 150 leagues we approached to 
the lande that in times past was 
discovered by the britons, which is 
in fiftie degrees. Having now 
spent all our provision and 
victuals and having discovered 
about 700 leagues and more of 
newe countries, and being 
furnished with water and wood we 
concluded to returne into Fraunce. 
(Hakluyt, Divers voyages). 

(Cogswell, Coll. of N. Y. Hist. 
Society, Second series, I.) 


Ramusio in omitting the cosmography and confining his version to the 
narrative would have left the letter without any designation of the 
northerly limit reached by Verrazzano, had he not transferred to the 
narrative, the statement of the latitude attained, namely, the fiftieth 
degree, from the cosmographical part; which was therefore properly done; 
though as an editor he should have stated the fact. But he transcended his 
duty entirely in asserting, in qualification of the latitude, what does 
not appear in the letter, that it was near where the Bretons had formerly 
made discoveries, and omitting all reference to the Portuguese. The 
Bretons are not mentioned or even alluded to in either portion of the 
original letter. The effect of this substitution therefore is to relieve 
the original from making a fake claim to the discovery north of Cape 
Breton, by admitting the discoveries of the Bretons, and making the 
alleged extent of the Verrazzano discovery, as already remarked, a mistake 
of nautical observation only. That it was deliberately made, and for that 
purpose, is shown by his taking the designation of the latitude from the 
same sentence in the cosmography as that in which the mention of the 
Portuguese discoveries occurs, in qualification of the latitude. 

The motive which led Ramusio to make this alteration is found in the 
discourse of the French captain of Dieppe, in which it is stated that this 
part of the coast was discovered by the Normands and Bretons and the 
Portuguese, many years before the Verrazzano voyage. Ramusio, as he 
informs us himself, translated that paper from the French into the Italian 
and published it in the same volume, in conjunction with the Verrazzano 
letter, which he remodelled. He thus had the contents of both documents 
before him, at the same time, and saw the contradiction between them. They 
could not both be true. To reconcile them, alterations were necessary; and 
this change was made in the letter in order to make it conform to the 
discourse. The fact of his making it, proves that he regarded the letter 
as advancing an indefensible claim. 

It is also to be observed that in adopting the fiftieth parallel as the 
extent of the discovery in the north, Ramusio obtained the statement from 
the cosmography, showing that he had that portion of the letter before 
him; and confirming the conclusion, expressed in a previous section, that 
his version was composed from the Carli copy of the letter, in which alone 
the cosmography occurs. Whether this limit was so transposed by him for a 
purpose or not, may be a question; but the origin of it cannot be 
disputed. 



CHAPTER VI. 
IV. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE LAND NOT MADE 
FROM THE PERSONAL OBSERVATION OF THE WRITER OF THE LETTER. WHAT 
DISTINCTIVELY BELONGED TO THE NATIVES IS UNNOTICED, AND WHAT IS ORIGINALLY 
MENTIONED OF THEM IS UNTRUE. FURTHER ALTERATIONS OF THE TEXT BY RAMUSIO. 

We are brought now to the observations in reference to the people and 
productions of the country. The communications which the explorers had 
with the shore are not represented as having been numerous, or their 
visits of long duration, the longest having been one of three days, while 
they were riding at anchor off the coast of North Carolina, and another of 
fifteen, spent in replenishing the supplies for their ship, in the harbor 
in the great bay of Massachusetts. These opportunities were however, it 
seems, sufficient to have enabled them to study the characteristics of the 
natives and to determine the nature of the vegetation at those places; but 
the description given of both is very general. Not a single person, 
sagamore or warrior, or even the boy who was carried away to France, is 
designated by name, nor any object peculiar to the region by its native 
appellation. Not an Indian word, by which a locality or a tribe might be 
traced, occurs in the whole narrative. Some familiar details are mentioned 
of Indian manners and customs, which give the account the appearance of 
truth, but there is nothing in them which may not have been. deduced from 
known narratives of earlier voyages to adjoining parts of America; while 
much that was peculiar to the country claimed to have been discovered, and 
of a character to compel observation, is omitted; and some particulars 
stated which could not have existed. 

In its incidents of Indian life it recalls the experiences of Columbus. 
When the great discoverer first came to the island of Hispaniola it is 
related, "they saw certaine men of the Islande who perceiving an unknowen 
native comming toward them, flocked together and ran into the thicke 
woodes, as it had bin hares coursed with greyhoundes. Our men pursuing 
them took only one woman, whom they brought, to the ships, where filling 
her with meate and wine, and apparrelling her, they let her depart to her 
companie." Also, "their boates are made only of one tree made hollow with 
a certain sharpe stone, for they have no yron, and are very long and 
narrow." And again, "when our men went to prayer, and kneeled on their 
knees, after the manner of the Christians, they did the like also. And 
after what manner soever they saw them pray to the crosse, they followed 
them in all poyntes as well as they could.* The Verrazzano letter tells 
us, in like phrase, that when they landed at the end of fifty leagues from 
the landfall, "we found that the people had fled to the woods for fear. By 
searching around we discovered in the grass a very old woman and a young 
girl of about eighteen or twenty, who had concealed themselves for the 
same reason. We gave them a part of our provisions, which they accepted 
with delight, but the girl would not touch any." At the same place, it is 
added," we saw many of their boats made of one tree, without the aid of 
stone or iron or other kind of metal." And to make the parallel complete, 
the letter asserts of the natives, "they are very easy to be persuaded and 
imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all which they saw us do as 
Christians in our acts of worship." While they were taking in their 
supplies and interchanging civilities with the Indians in the harbor of 
the great bay, the following scene of royalty is described as having 
occurred. "One of the two kings often came with his queen and many 
gentlemen (gentili uomini) to see us for his amusement, but he always 
stopped at the distance of about two hundred paces, and sent a boat to 
inform us of his intended visit, saying they would come and see our ship. 
This was done for safety, and as soon as they had an answer from us, they 
came off and remained awhile to look around; but on hearing the annoying 
cries of the sailors, the king sent the queen with her maids (demizelle) 
in a very light boat to wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant 
from us while he remained a long time on board." This hyperbolical 
description of the visit of the sachem of Cape Cod accompanied by the 
gentlemen of his household and of his squaw queen with her maids of honor, 
has its prototype in the visit paid to Bartholomew Columbus, during the 
absence of his brother, the admiral, by Bechechio the king or cacique of 
Xacagua and his sister, the queen dowager, Anacoana, who are represented 
as going to the ship of the Adelantado in two canoes, "one for himself and 
certayne of his gentlemen, another for Anacoana and her waiting women." 
The astonishment which the natives manifested at the appearance of the 
Dauphiny and her crew; their admiration of the simple toys and little 
bells which were offered them by the strangers; their practice of painting 
their bodies, adorning themselves with the gay plumage of birds, and 
habiting themselves with the skins of animals, seem all analogized, in the 
same way, from the accounts given by Peter Martyr of the inhabitant of the 
islands discovered by Columbus, and of the northern regions by Sebastian 
Cabot. These traits of Indian life and character, therefore, not having 
been peculiar to the natives of the country described in the letter, and 
having been already mentioned in earlier accounts of the adjoining parts 
of America, the description of them here furnishes no proof of originality 
or of the truth of the letter for that reason. 

(* Peter Martyr, Dec. LL in Eden.)

On the other hand objects which historically belong to the inhabitants of 
the places declared to have been visited, and characterize them distinctly 
from those previously discovered, and which were of such a marked 
character as to have commanded attention, are not mentioned at all. Of 
this class perhaps the most prominent is the wampum, a commodity of such 
value and use among them that, like gold among the Europeans, it served 
the double purpose of money and personal adornment. The region of the 
harbor where the voyagers spent, according to the letter, fifteen days in 
familiar intercourse with the inhabitants, was its greatest mart, from 
which it was spread among the tribes, both north and east. Wood, 
describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they "are the most curious 
minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out of the inmost 
wreaths of periwinkle shels. The northerne, easterne, and westerne Indians 
fetch all their coyne from these southern mint- masters. From hence they 
have most of their curious pendants and bracelets; hence they have their 
great stone pipes which will hold a quarter of an ounce of tobacco." And 
in regard to their practice of ornamentation, he remarks again: "although 
they be poore, yet is there in them the sparkes of naturall pride which 
appeares in their longing desire after many kinde of ornaments, wearing 
pendants in their eares, as formes of birds, beasts and fishes, carved out 
of bone, shels, and stone, with long bracelets of their curious wrought 
wampompeage and mowhackees which they put about their necks and loynes; 
which they count a rare kinde of decking." The same writer adds a 
description of an Indian king of this country in his attire, which is 
somewhat less fanciful than that in the letter. "A sagamore with a humberd 
(humming-bird) in his eare for a pendant, a blackhawke in his occiput for 
his plume, mowhackees for his gold chaine, good store of wampompeage 
begirting his loynes, his bow in his hand, his quiver at his back, with 
six naked Indian spatterlashes at his heeles for his guard, thinkes 
himselfe little inferiour to the great Cham.* Roger Williams confirms this 
account of the importance of the wampum among these same Indians. "They 
hang," he states "these strings of money about their necks and wrists, as 
also about the necks and wrists of their wives and children. Machequoce, a 
girdle, which they make curiously of one, two, three, four and five inches 
thickness and more, of this money, which sometimes to the value of 
tenpounds and more, they weare about their middle, and a scarfe about 
their shoulders and breasts. 

The Indians prize not English gold, 
Nor English, Indians shell: 
Each in his place will passe for ought, 
What ere men buy or sell."**

(* New England Prospect, pp. 61, 65-6.)

(** Key into the Language of America, pp. 149-50.)

Another important article in universal use among the Indians of the main 
land, north and south, was the tobacco pipe. Tobacco was used by the 
natives of the West India islands, made up in rolls or cigars; but by the 
Indians of the continent it was broken up, carried in small bags attached 
to a girdle round the body, and smoked through clay, stone or copper 
pipes, sometimes of very elaborate workmanship. Smoking the pipe was of 
universal use among them, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. It 
was a tender of hospitality to strangers; and a sign of peace and 
friendship between the nations.* When Captain Waymouth ran along the coast 
of the great bay of Massachusetts, in 1605, he repeatedly encountered this 
custom. On one occasion the natives came from the shore in three canoes, 
and Rosier remarks of them: "they came directly aboord us and brought us 
tobacco, which we tooke with them in their pipe which was made of earth 
very strong, but blacke and short, containing a great quantity. When we 
came at shoare they all most kindely entertained us, taking us by the 
hands, as they had observed we did to them aboord in token of welcome, and 
brought us to sit downe by their fire, where sat together thirteene of 
them. They filled their tobacco pipe, which was then the short claw of a 
lobster, which will hold ten of our pipes full and we dranke of their 
excellent tobacco, as much as we would with them."** No notice is taken of 
this custom, either of tobacco or the pipe in the Verrazzano letter. 

(* For a full and interesting account of the importance of the tobacco-
pipe among the Indians of North America, upon cited authorities, we refer 
the reader to Antiquities of the Southern Indians. By Charles C. Jones 
Jr., p. 382. (New York, 1873.))

(** Purchas, IV. 1662.)

The most remarkable omission of all is of the bark canoe. This light and 
beautiful fabric was peculiar to the Algonkin tribes. It was not found 
among the southern Indians, much less in the West India islands. Its 
buoyancy and the beauty of its form were such as to render it an object of 
particular observation. Though so light as to be capable of being borne on 
a man's shoulders, it would sometimes carry nine men, and ride with safety 
over the most stormy sea. It was always from the first a great object of 
interest with the discoverers of the northerly parts of the coast, which 
they manifested by taking them back to Europe, as curiosities. Aubert 
carried one of them to Dieppe in 1508, and Captain Martin Fringe, who was 
one of the first to visit the shores of Cape Cod, took one, in 1603, 
thence to Bristol, which he thus describes, as if he saw no other kind. 

"Their boats whereof we brought one to Bristoll, were in proportion like a 
wherrie of the river of Thames, seventeene foot long and foure foot broad, 
made of the barke of a birch tree, farre exceeding in bignesse those of 
England: it was sowed together with strong and tough oziers or twigs, and 
the seames covered over with rozen or turpentine little inferiour in 
sweetnesse to frankincense, as we made triall by burning a little thereof 
on the coales at sundry times after our comming home: it was also open 
like a wherrie, and sharpe at both ends, saving that the beake was a 
little bending roundly upward. And though it carried nine men standing 
upright, yet it weighed not at the most, above sixtie pounds in weight, a 
thing almost incredible in regard of the largenesse and capacitie thereof. 
Their oares were flat at the end like an oven peele, made of ash or maple, 
very light and strong, about two yards long wherewith they row very 
swiftly."*

(* Purchas, IV. 1655.)

The silence of the letter in regard to this species of the canoe is the 
more remarkable, as it is in connection with the natives of the harbor 
where they spent fifteen days, that mention is made in it a second time of 
the manner of making their boats out of single logs, as if it were a 
subject of importance, and worthy of remark. The inference is most 
strongly to be drawn therefore, from this circumstance, that the writer 
knew nothing about the bark canoe, or the people who used them. 

The absence of all allusion to any of the peculiar attributes, especially 
of the essential character just described, of the natives of the great bay 
leads to the conclusion that the whole account is a fabrication. But this 
end is absolutely reached by the positive statement of a radical 
difference in complexion between the tribes, which they found in the 
country. 

The people whom they saw on their first landing, and who are stated to 
have been for the most part naked, are described as being black in color, 
and not very different from Ethiopians, (di colore neri non molto dagli 
Etiopi disformi) and of medium stature, well formed of body and acute of 
mind. The latter observation would imply that the voyagers had mixed with 
these natives very considerably in order to have been able to speak so 
positively in regard to their mental faculties, and therefore could not 
have been mistaken as to their complexion for want of opportunity to 
discover it. The precise place where they first landed and saw these black 
people is not mentioned further than that the country where they lived was 
situated in the thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they 
proceeded further along the coast northwardly, and again coming to anchor 
attempted to go ashore in a boat without success, when one of them, a 
young sailor, attempted to swim to the land, but was thrown, by the 
violence of the waves, insensible on the beach. Upon recovering he found 
himself surrounded by natives who were black like the others. That there 
is no mistake in the design of the writer to represent these people as 
really black, like negroes, is made evident by his account of the 
complexion of those he found in the harbor of the great bay in latitude 41 
Degrees 40", who are described as essentially different and the finest 
looking tribe they had seen, being "of a very white complexion, some 
inclining more to white, and others to a yellow color" (di colore 
bianchissimo; alcuni pendano piu in bianchezza, altri in colore flavo). 
The difference between the inhabitants of the two sections of country, in 
respect to color, is thus drawn in actual contrast. 

This is unfounded in fact. No black aborigines have ever been found within 
the entire limits of North America, except in California where some are 
said to exist. The Indians of the Atlantic coast were uniformly of a tawny 
or yellowish brown color, made more conspicuous by age and exposure and 
being almost white in infancy. The first voyagers and early European 
settlers universally concur in assigning them this complexion. Reference 
need here be to such testimony only as relates to the two parts of the 
country where the distinction is pretended to have existed. The earliest 
mention of the inhabitants of the more southerly portion is when the 
vessels of Ayllon and Matienzo carried off sixty of the Indians from the 
neighborhood of the Santee, called the Jordan, in 1521, and took them to 
St. Domingo. One of them went to Spain with Ayllon. They are described by 
Peter Martyr, from sight, as semifuscos uti nostri sunt agricolae sole 
adusti aestivo, half brown, like our husbandmen, burnt by the summer 
sun.** Barlowe, in his account of the first expedition of Raleigh, which 
entered Pamlico sound, within the region now under consideration, 
describes the Indians whom he found there as of a "colour yellowish."** 
Captain John Smith, speaking of those of the Chesapeake, remarks, that 
they "are of a color brown when they are of age, but they are born 
white."*** On the other hand the natives of Massachusetts and Rhode Island 
in latitude 4l Degrees 40' are described by the first explorers of that 
region in substantially the same terms. Brereton, who accompanied Gosnold 
in his first voyage to the Elisabeth islands and the main land opposite, 
in 1602, mentions the natives there, as being of a complexion or color 
much like a dark olive."**** Martin Fringe who visited Martha's Vineyard 
the next year and constructed there a barricade where the "people of the 
country came sometimes, ten, twentie, fortie or three score, and at one 
time one hundred and twentie at once," says, "these people are inclined to 
a swart, tawnie or chesnut colour, not by nature but accidentally."***** 
And Roger Williams, partaking of the same idea as Pringe, that the swarthy 
color was accidental, testifies, almost in the same language as Captain 
Smith, that the Narragansets and others within a region of two hundred 
miles of them, were "tawnie by the sunne and their annoyntings, yet they 
were born white."****** Thus the authorities flatly contradict the 
statement of black Indians existing in North Carolina, and a difference of 
color between the people of the two sections claimed to have been visited 
in this voyage. 

(* Dec. VII, 2.)

(** Hakluyt, III. 248.)

(*** Smith, Map of Virginia, 1612, p. 19.)

(**** Purchas, IV. 1652.)
(***** Ibid, IV, 1655.)

(****** Roger Williams's Key, 52.)

Of an equally absurd and preposterous character is the statement made in 
reference to the condition in which the plants and vegetation were found. 
The grape particularly is mentioned in a manner which proves, beyond 
question, that the writer could not have been in the country. The dates 
which are given for the exploration are positive; and are conclusive in 
this respect. The Dauphiny is represented as having left Madeira on the 
17th of January, and arrived on the coast on the 7th of March, that is, 
the 17th of that month, new style.* They left the harbor of the great bay, 
where they had remained for fifteen days on the 6th of May, which makes 
their arrival there to have been on the 2lst of April, or first of May, N. 
S. They were thus during the months of March and April, engaged in 
coasting from the landfall to the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40', 
during which period the observations relating to the intermediate country, 
consequently, must have been made. They left the coast, finally, in 
latitude 50 Degrees N., for the purpose of returning to France, in time to 
reach there and have the letter written announcing their arrival at Dieppe 
on the 8th of July, and therefore it must have been some time in June, at 
the latest; so that very little if any portion of the summer season was 
passed upon the coast of America. 

(* See ante, page 4, note.)

In describing the country which they reached at the end of the fifty 
leagues north of the landfall, that is, near the boundary between North 
Carolina and Virgina, where they discovered the old woman and girl 
concealed in the GRASS and found the land generally, "abounding in forests 
filled with various kinds of trees but not of such fragrance" as those 
where they first landed, the writer gives a particular description of the 
condition in which they found the vines and flowers. 

"We saw," he says, "many vines there growing naturally, which run upon, 
and entwine about the trees, as they do in Lombardy, and which if the 
husbandmen were to have under a perfect system of cultivation, would 
without doubt produce the best wines, because tasting (beendo, literally, 
drinking or sucking) the fruit many times, we perceived it was sweet and 
pleasant, not different from ours. They are held in estimation by them 
because wherever they grow they remove the small trees around them in 
order that the fruit may be able to germinate. Ws found wild roses, 
violets, lilies and many species of plants and odoriferous flowers, 
different from ours.*

(* "Vedenimo in quella molte vite della natura prodotte, quali alzando si 
avvoltano agli alberi come nella Cisalpina Gallia custumano; le quali se 
dagli agricultori avessimo el perfetto ordine di cultura, senza dubbio 
produrrebbono ottimi vini, perche piu volte il frutto di quello beendo, 
veggiendo suave e dolce, non dal nostro differente sono da loro tenuti in 
extimatione; impero che per tutto dove nascono, levano gli arbusculi 
circustanti ad causa il frutto possa gierminare. Trovamo rose silvestre et 
vivuole, gigli et molte sorte di erbe e fiori odoriferi da nostri 
differenti.")

The flavor and vinous qualities of the grapes are thus particularly 
mentioned as having been proven several times by eating the ripe and 
luscious fruit, and in language peculiarly expressive of the fact. 
According to the dates before given, this must have occurred early in the 
month of April, as the scene is laid upon the coast of North Carolina. 
There is no native vine which ever flowers in this country, north of 
latitude thirty-four, before the month of May, and none that ripens its 
fruit before July, which is the month assigned by Lawson for the ripening 
of the summer fox grape in the swamps and moist lands of North Carolina,--
the earliest of all the grapes in that region.* North of latitude 41 
Degrees no grape matures until the latter part of August. As the explorers 
are made to have left the shores of Newfoundland for home in June, at 
farthest, they were at no time on any part of the coast, in season to have 
been able to see or taste the ripe or unripe fruit of the vine. The 
representation of the letter in this respect depending both upon the sight 
and the taste, must, like that of the contrasted appearance of the 
natives, be regarded as deliberately made; and consequently, the two as 
establishing the falsity of the description in those particulars, and thus 
involving the integrity and truth of the whole. 

(* New Voyage to Carolina, p. 602.)

The liberty which Ramusio took with these passages in his version of the 
letter, demands notice, and adds his testimony again to the absurdity of 
the account. He doubtless knew, from the numerous descriptions which had 
been published, of the uniformity of the physical characteristics of the 
American Indians; and he certainly knew of it as regarded the natives of 
this coast; as is proven by his publication of Oviedo's account of the 
voyage of Gomez, made there in 1525, in which they are described, in the 
same volume with the Verrazzano letter.* His own experience, as to the 
climate of Venice, taught him also that grapes could not have ripened in 
the latitude and at the time of year assigned for that purpose. He had 
therefore abundant reason to question the correctness of the letter in 
both particulars. As in the case of the representation of the extent of 
the discovery, before mentioned, he did not hesitate to make them conform 
more to the truth. He amended the original in regard to the complexion of 
the natives represented as those first seen, by inserting in place of the 
words, applied to them, of "black and not much different from Ethiopians," 
the phrase, "brownish and not much unlike the Saracens" (berrettini & non 
molto dalli Saracini differenti)** by which they are likened to those 
Arabs whose complexion, "yellow, bordering on brown," is of a similar
cast;*** and in regard to the grapes, by substituting instead of, "tasting 
the fruit many times we perceived it was sweet and pleasant," the passage, 
"having often seen the fruit thereof dried, which was sweet and pleasant," 
(havedo veduto piu volte il frutto di quelle secco, che era suave &
dolce,) by which he apparently obviates the objection, but in fact only 
aggravates it, by asserting what has never yet been heard of among the 
Indians of this coast, the preservation of the grape by drying or 
otherwise. 

(* Tom. III. fol. 52, (ed. 1556).)

(** Berrettini is derived from beretta, the Turkish fez, a red cap, 
designating also the scarlet cap of the cardinals & the church of Rome.)

(*** Pritchard, Natural History of Man, p. 127 (2d edition).)

It is evident that whatever may have been the motives of Ramusio in making 
these repeated alterations of the statements in the letter, they not only 
show his own sense of their necessity, but they have had the effect to 
keep from the world the real character of this narrative in essential 
particulars, until its exposure now, by the production of the Carli 
version. 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE EXTRINSIC EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM. I. DISCOURSE OF THE FRENCH 
SEA-CAPTAIN OF DIEPPE. 

The extrinsic evidence which in urged in support of the claim to the 
discovery by Verrazzano is not of great amount. It is certain, however, 
that if the letter upon which the claim is founded, be spurious and 
fictitious, as for the reasons assigned, it is considered to be, any 
extraneous evidence, must either partake of the same character, or have 
originated in some misconception or error. What exists upon the subject 
consists principally of two pieces, which have only recently been regarded 
of any importance for this purpose, and in connection with which the 
others may be considered. 

One of them is an anonymous paper entitled in full, "Discourse of a great 
sea-captain, a Frenchman of the town of Dieppe, as to the voyages made to 
the new land of the West Indies, called New France, from the 40 Degrees to 
the 47 Degrees under the Arctic pole, and concerning the land of Brazil, 
Guinea, the island of St. Lawrence and that of Sumatra," the other is a 
map of the world, bearing the name of Hieronimo de Verrazzano. 

The discourse of the French captain does not, any more than the letter of 
Verrazzano, exist in the original; nor has any copy of it ever been 
produced, except in a printed translation by Ramusio in the same volume, 
as that in which his version of that letter appears, and immediately 
following it. Ramusio states that it was written in 1539, as may he 
inferred from the letter itself in its present form, and that he had 
translated it from the French, grieving much that he did not know the name 
of the author, because not giving it he seemed to do wrong to the memory 
of so valiant and noble a gentleman. It is evident, however, upon 
comparing the description, which it gives, of a voyage made from Dieppe to 
Sumatra, with the original journal, first brought to light and published a 
few years ago, of such a voyage made by Jean Parmentier in 1529, that this 
discourse was written by some one of the persons engaged in that 
expedition.* Its authenticity, in general, may therefore not be 
questioned. But as the original has never been produced and it is only 
known through this version of Ramusio, experience in regard to his 
practice as a compiler, of altering texts according to his judgment of 
their defects and errors, proves that we have by no means a reliable copy 
for our guidance. In fact, as given by Ramusio, its recognition of the 
Verrazzano discovery is only by way of parenthesis, and in such antagonism 
to the context, as to render it quite certain that this portion of it is 
by another hand. 

(* Voyages et decouvertes des navigateurs Normands. Par L. Estancelin, p. 
241. (Paris 1832.) M. Estancelin supposes that Pierre Mauclere the 
astronomer of one of the ships composing the expedition of Parmentier, was 
the author of this discourse (p. 45, note). But M. D'Avezac attributes it 
to Pierre Crignon, who also accompanied Parmentier, and who besides being 
the editor of a collection of poems by Parmentier, after his death, 
evinced his knowledge of nautical matters by writing a dissertation on the 
variation of the needle. Introduction to the Brief Recit of Jacques 
Cartier, p. VIL (Tross, Paris, 1868.) Brunet, sub Parmentier. Margry, Les 
navigateurs Francaises, p. 199.)

The writer, after explaining the nature of latitude and longitude, and 
taking the meridian of no variation running through the eastern extremity 
of the Cape de Verde islands as the basis of his observations of 
longitude, proceeds to a description of Terra Nova; so much of which as is 
pertinent is here abstracted. 

"The Terra Nova, the nearest cape of which is called the Cape de Ras, is 
situated west of our diametrical or meridional line whereon is fixed the 
first point of longitude according to the true meridian of the compass; 
and the said Cape de Ras is in west longitude 40 Degrees and 47 of North 
latitude. The Terra Nova extends towards the Arctic pole from 40 Degrees 
to 60, and from Cape de Ras going towards the pole, the coast almost 
always runs from south to north, and contains in all 350 leagues, and from 
said Cape de Ras to the cape of the Brettons, the coast runs east and 
west, for an hundred leagues, and the cape of the Brettons is in 47 
Degrees west longitude and 46 north latitude. To go from Dieppe to the 
Terra Nova, the course is almost all east and west, and there are from 
Dieppe to said Cape de Ras 760 leagues. 

"Between Cape de Ras and cape of the Brettons dwell an austere and cruel 
people with whom you cannot treat or converse. They are large of person, 
clad in skins of seals and other wild animals tied together, and are 
marked with certain lines, made with fire, on the face and as it were 
striped with color between black and red, (tra il nero & berrettino) and 
in many respects as to face and neck, are like those of our Barbary, the 
hair long like women, which they gather up on top of the head as we do 
with a horse's tail. Their arrows are bows with which they shoot very 
dexterously, and their arrows are pointed with black stones and fish 
bones. * * * 

"This land was discovered 35 years ago, that is, the part that runs east 
and west, by the Brettons and Normands, for which reason the land is 
called the Cape of the Brettons. The other part that runs north and south 
was discovered by the Portuguese from Cape de Ras to Cape Buona-vista, 
which contains about 70 leagues, and the rest was discovered as far as the 
gulf of the Castles, and further on by said Brettons and Normands, and it 
is about 33 years since a ship from Honfleur of which Jean Denys (Giovanni 
Dionisio) was captain and Camart (Camarto) of Rouen, was pilot, first went 
there, and in the year 1508, a Dieppe vessel, called the Pensee, which was 
owned by Jean Ango, father of Monsignor, the captain and Viscount of 
Dieppe went thither, the master or the captain of said ship being Thomas 
Aubert, and he was the first who brought hither people of the said 
country. 

"Following beyond the cape of the Brettons there is a land contiguous to 
the said cape, the coast whereof extends west by southwest as far as the 
land of Florida and it runs full 500 leagues, (which coast was discovered 
fifteen years ago, by Messer Giovanni Da Verrazzano, in the name of King 
Francis, and Madame The Regent,) and this land is called by many la 
Francese, and likewise by the Portuguese themselves and its end towards 
Florida is at 78 Degrees west longitude and 30 Degrees north latitude. The 
inhabitants of this land are tractable peoples, friendly and pleasant. The 
land is most abundant in all fruit. There grow oranges, almonds, wild 
grapes and many other kinds of odoriferous trees. The land is called by 
its people Nurumbega, and between this land and that of Brazil is a great 
gulf which extends westwardly to 92 Degrees west longitude, which is more 
than a quarter of the circuit of the globe; and in the gulf are the 
islands and West Indies discovered by the Spaniards."*

(* Ramusio, III. fol. 423-4 (ed. 1556).)

This account emphatically contradicts the Verrazzano letter which claims 
the discovery of the coast from Cape Breton in 46 Degrees N, as far east 
and north, as 50 Degrees N. latitude, embracing a distance of two hundred 
leagues, both according to the letter and the discourse. It distinctly 
affirms this long stretch of coast to have been discovered long before the 
Verrazzano voyage by the Portuguese and the Bretons and Normands, 
assigning to the Portuguese and French specific portions of it. This is in 
perfect harmony with the truth as established by the authorities to which 
occasion has already been had to refer. This account therefore 
unequivocally repudiates the Verrazzano claim to the discovery of that 
part of the country, and thus derogates from the pretensions of the letter 
instead of supporting them. 

The letter contains a distinct and specific claim for the discovery of the 
coast as far north as 50 Degrees N. The writer of the discourse, if he had 
any knowledge on the subject, must have known of the extent of this claim. 
In attributing to others the discovery of that large portion of the coast, 
east and north of Cape Breton, he must have considered the claim to that 
extent as unfounded. It is difficult therefore to account for his 
admitting its validity as regards the country south of Cape Breton as he 
apparently does; as it is a manifest inconsistency to reject so important 
a part as false, and affirm the rest of it to be true, when the whole 
depends upon the same evidence. 

Another circumstance to be remarked is, that the description, which 
follows, of the country said to have been discovered by Verrazzano, has 
not the slightest reference to the account given in the letter, but is 
evidently derived from other sources of discovery. Two names are 
attributed to it, Francese and Nurumbega, both of which owe their 
designation to other voyagers. Francese, or French land, appears for the 
first time in any publication, on two maps hereafter mentioned, printed in 
1540, under the Latin form of Francisca. It is called in the manuscript 
cosmography and charts of Jean Alfonse, terre de la Franciscane. An 
earlier map by Baptista Agnese, described by Mr. Kohl, indicates that the 
name owes its origin, as will hereafter be pointed out, to the voyages of 
the French fishermen to the shores of Nova Scotia and New England.* 
Nurumbega, as the writer himself states, is an Indian name, which could 
not have been taken from the Verrazzano account, as that does not mention 
a single Indian word of any kind. The statement of the productions of the 
country includes oranges, which do not belong to any portion of the 
continent claimed to have been visited by Verrazzano, and plainly 
indicates an entirely different authority for that portion of the coast. 
It is therefore equally unaccountable why the author of the discourse 
should have acknowledged the discovery by Verrazzano and, at the same 
time, have passed over altogether the description in the letter, and 
sought his information in regard to the country elsewhere, when he had 
there such ample details, especially in connection with the great bay. 

(* Discovery of Maine, p. 202, chart XIV.)

The solution of the whole difficulty is to be found in the fact that the 
clause relating to Verrazzano was not the work of the author of the 
discourse, but of another person. It is not difficult to understand how 
and by whom this interpolation came to be made. Ramusio had both the 
letter and the discourse in his hands at the same time, for the purpose of 
preparing them for publication, recomposing the one, as has already been 
shown, and translating the other from the French into the Italian, as he 
himself states. In the execution of the former of these tasks, he took the 
liberty of altering the letter, as has been proven, by substituting the 
phrase of, the land discovered by the Bretons, for that of, the country 
explored by the Portuguese, as the northern limit of the voyage of 
Verrazzano; thereby removing the objection, to which the letter was 
obnoxious, of entirely ignoring the discoveries of the Bretons, which were 
distinctly asserted in the discourse. In order to conform to the 
Verrazzano letter, as it was thus modified, it was necessary to insert 
this clause in the discourse, which would else to contradict the letter 
entirely. The two alterations, however necessary they were to preserve 
some consistency between the two documents, are, nevertheless, both alike 
repugnant to the original letter. 

This discourse fails, therefore, as an authority in favor of the 
Verrazzano discovery, or even of the existence of a claim in its behalf; 
the statement which it contains in relation to Verrazzano, originating 
with Ramusio adding nothing to the case.*

(* The writer gives, however, some details in relation to the Indians and 
the fisheries along the easterly coast of Newfoundland, illustrative of 
certain points which have arisen in the course of this enquiry. Continuing 
his remarks, as given in the text, in regard to the Indians inhabiting the 
southerly coast between Cape Race and Cape Breton, he states: "There are 
many stags and deer, and birds like geese and margaux. On the coast there 
is much good fishery of cod, which fish are taken by the French and 
Bretons, only because those of the country do not take them. In the coast 
running north and south, from Cape de Ras to the entrance of the Castles, 
[straits of Belle-Isle] there are great gulfs and rivers, and numerous 
islands, many of them large; and this country is thinly inhabited, except 
the aforesaid coast, and the people are smaller; and there is great 
fishery of cod as on the other coast. There has not been seen there either 
village, or town, or castle, except a great enclosure of wood, which was 
seen in the gulf of the Castles; and the aforesaid people dwell in little 
cabins and huts, covered with the bark of trees, which they make to live 
in during the time of the fisheries, which commences in spring and lasts 
all the summer. Their fishery is of seal, and porpoises which, with 
certain seafowl called margaux, they take in the islands and dry; and of 
the grease of said fish they make oil, and when the time of their fishery 
is ended, winter coming on, they depart with their fish, and go away, in 
little boats made of the bark of trees, called buil, into other countries, 
which are perhaps warmer, but we know not where.")