How, by Fraud, Our Continent Was Called by his Name-the Pope's Gift of America to the Spanish Monarch

That Vespuccius is responsible for the fraud involved in giving his name to the newly-discovered continent, seems clear from other circumstances. He was in communication with a learned German schoolmaster and cosmographer, named Woldseemuler, who pedantically transformed his name (Wood-lake-miller) into the Greek one of Hylacomylus. He was a correspondent of the Academy of Cosmography which the Duke of Lorraine had established at Strasburg, and at the request or suggestion of Vespuccius he proposed to the members of that academy, under whose auspices the letters of Americus were published, the name of America for the western continent. At about the same time Hylacomylus issued at St. Diey a little work entitled "Cosmographie Rudimenta," in which it was proposed to name the continent America. He took an active part in the publication of the letters of his friend, and he may be regarded as the chief perpetrator of the fraud with Vespuccius as the accessory, at least, because he sanctioned it by his silence. "Considering the intimacy of the two parties," says the learned Viscount Santarem, "there is no doubt that the geographer was guided by the navigator in what he did." Referring to the honor so conferred on Americus Vespuccius, the late Dr. Francis Lieber wrote to the author of this history: "Ethically speaking, there has never been erected a monument so magnificent, enduring and cruelly unjust; as if the Madonna di Sisto were not called by Raphael's name but by that of the man who framed it first." It is probably too late now, after centuries of use, to correct the injustice by changing the name of America. Washington, with his usual clear conception of right, did justice to Columbus by giving to the territory in which the seat of our national government was permanently established, the name of the District of Columbia. Although Cabot probably discovered the continent a few days before Columbus touched the shores of South America, he is not entitled to the honor of giving his name to our continent. Voltaire justly declared: "The glory of having discovered the New World undoubtedly belongs to him who had the genius and courage to undertake the first voyage." Newton observed: "Those who follow are only disciples." Cabot was a noble disciple.

Many other voyages in search of new lands and great treasures, which were made from Spain at the beginning of the sixteenth century, had no immediate relation to the history of our country, and we will pass them by unnoticed. Others had a direct or indirect connection with further discoveries and final settlements in this region of the world, and these we will consider.

When the discoveries of Columbus were made known, the King of Portugal felt a strong desire to send out a similar expedition at the expense of the crown. But the Spanish monarchs had, with wise sagacity, obtained from Pope Alexander the Sixth (the pontiff who, by accident, took a fatal draught from a poisoned bowl which he had prepared for another), the gift of all lands that lay three hundred leagues westward of the Azores; and the Portuguese sovereign dared not interfere with these rights of Spain. But when the news of Cabot's discovery of a continent in the northwest, reached Lisbon, King Emanuel the Great, immediately fitted out two caravels for a voyage toward that continent, and placed them under the command of Gaspar Cortereal. He was a gentleman of enterprising and determined character, who had been reared in the household of the Portuguese monarch, and ardently thirsted for glory. He first touched the northern extremity of Newfoundland, and, it is believed, discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He went up the coast of Labrador almost to Hudson's Bay, discovering nothing of importance not already seen by Cabot. The natives appeared to him rugged and strong, and capital subjects for slaves; so he seized fifty-nine of them, carried them on board his vessels, and with this living treasure he returned to Portugal. There he made a profitable sale of his captives. "They are extremely fitted to endure labor," wrote the Venetian ambassador at the Portuguese court, "and will probably turn out the best slaves which have been discovered up to this time."

The profits of this voyage excited the cupidity of Cortereal and his king, and they determined to engage in an active slave-trade with Labrador (Labrador), so named because of the admirable qualities of the natives as laborers. Cortereal went on a second voyage in 1501, and was lost at sea. His brother Michael went in search of him and was never heard of atterward. The king sent a ship to search for the brothers, but no tidings of them were brought back. These disasters frustrated the cruel designs of the slave-traders, and the Portuguese monarch sought to win glory for his favorite and his crown, by claiming that Cortereal was not only the first discoverer of Newfoundland, but that he was the first to see the continent in that region. In a Portuguese map published in 1508, the coast of Labrador is called Terra Corterealis or Cortereal's Land; and in support of the claim that he was the first discoverer of it, maps were actually forged. But all efforts to deprive Cabot of that honor failed.