New World, Inc.

by John Butman

  But it is that other, more renowned, Smith—Captain John, of Pocahontas fame, and the man who named New England—who first and best articulated the driving commercial impulse, the spirit of enterprise, that created America.

  “I am not so simple, to think,” Smith wrote in 1616, that “any other motive than wealth will ever erect there a Commonweale.”30

  Chronology

  This is a selective list of important events, publications, voyages, and colonies, most (but not all) of which are featured in the book.

  1492 Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World. Flying the flag of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, he reaches the Bahamas, naming the island where he lands, San Salvador.

  1494 The Treaty of Tordesillas, officiated by Pope Alexander VI, divides the unclaimed regions of the world between Spain and Portugal.

  1497 Amerigo Vespucci makes the first of four voyages to a region he later calls Mundus Novus, or “New World”; John Cabot, sailing for England, reaches the New World, probably Newfoundland, and claims it for England.

  1498 Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut on India’s west coast, having sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, Africa. By doing so, he opens a sea trade route to India, China, and the East Indies; John Cabot makes a second voyage to New World and does not return.

  1503 La Casa de la Contratación, a Spanish government body, is established to manage Spain’s overseas exploration, trade, and maritime activities.

  1507 Martin Waldseemüller’s map of the world is the first to show a landmass marked America, naming it after Amerigo Vespucci.

  1508 Sebastian Cabot, son of John, sets out on a possible, but disputed, voyage in search of the Northwest Passage.

  1516 The first edition of Utopia, by Thomas More, is published—in Latin.

  1517 John Rastell, More’s brother-in-law, leads a voyage to America that ends in mutiny off the Irish coast.

  1519 John Rastell’s Interlude of the Nature of the Four Elements, the first English account of America, appears in print.

  1519–21 Spanish soldiers, chief among them Hernán Cortés, invade and subjugate the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico and was then called New Spain.

  1519–22 The crew of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese aristocrat sailing for Spain, circumnavigates the world.

  1524 Giovanni Verrazzano, a Florentine, sails along the Atlantic coast of America.

  1526 Sebastian Cabot, sailing for Spain, explores the east coast of South America, enters the Plate River, and hears of silver mines in the Amazon.

  1534 Henry VIII, in the Act of Supremacy, declares the king of England as head of the Church of England.

  1534–35 Frenchman Jacques Cartier explores Newfoundland and other parts of what is now Canada, then called New France.

  1535 The first Act of Suppression is passed, paving the way for the dissolution of the monasteries and the redistribution of assets of the church into private hands.

  1545 The Spanish begin silver mining operations at Potosí in what is now Bolivia.

  1548 Sebastian Cabot returns to England in order to pursue his dream of a passage to Cathay—after more than thirty years in Spain.

  1549 Thomas Smith writes (but does not publish) Discourse of the common weal of this realm of England; Kett’s Rebellion, a citizen uprising, takes place near Norfolk in protest over land enclosures, wealth disparity, and other grievances.

  1551 A year of crisis: the coinage is debased, cloth exports fall, and hundreds of people are killed by the so-called “sweating sickness”; Thomas More’s Utopia is published in English for the first time.

  1552 A group of merchants and courtiers meet to found The Mysterie, Company, and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknown.

  1553 The Mysterie sends out the first expedition in search of a Northeast Passage to Cathay, led by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor; Richard Eden produces A Treatyse of the New India, a translation of Sebastian Munster’s Cosmographia, dedicated to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

  1554 Richard Chancellor reaches Moscow, meets the tsar, later known as Ivan “The Terrible,” and opens a trading relationship between England and Muscovy.

  1555 The Mysterie, renamed “The Merchant Adventurers of England for the Discovery of Unknown Lands” and later known as the Muscovy Company, receives charter; Richard Eden publishes Decades of the New World, which draws on the work of the Italian scholar Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, promotes Chancellor’s second voyage, and introduces the words “China” and “colony” into the English language.

  1557–60 Anthony Jenkinson travels to Moscow and then continues overland toward China, reaching Bokhara (now in Uzbekistan).

  1558 The French capture Calais, England’s raw wool staple and the last remnant of an empire dating back to the time of the Norman Conquest.

  1562 The French, under a Huguenot navigator called Jean Ribault, establish Charlesfort on the coast of modern-day South Carolina. It is abandoned after one year.

  1564 The French, this time led by René de Laudonnière, establish Fort Caroline in modern-day Florida.

  1565 The Spanish establish San Augustine, the longest-surviving European settlement in North America; they sack the French settlement at Fort Caroline, ending the hopes of Huguenots for a safe haven in the New World.

  1566 Humphrey Gilbert completes (but does not publish) A Discourse of a discoverie for a new passage to Cataia; his proposals for leading a voyage in search of the Northwest Passage are rejected by the Muscovy Company.

  1567–69 Humphrey Gilbert and his associates launch unsuccessful attempts to establish colonies in Ulster and Munster, two provinces in Ireland.

  1570 Elizabeth I is excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

  1572–74 Thomas Smith and his son make an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in Ulster, Ireland.

  1576 Humphrey Gilbert’s A Discourse of a discoverie for a new passage to Cataia is published, ten years after it was first written: it features his map of the world, the earliest by an Englishman; Martin Frobisher leads his first voyage to the New World, bringing back an Inuit, a black rock that is suspected to contain gold, and news that he has found (he claims) the entrance to the Northwest Passage (which he calls Frobisher Strait).

  1577 Martin Frobisher, sponsored by the new Company of Cathay, makes a second voyage to the New World; Elizabeth I names the land explored by Frobisher Meta Incognita, “Unknown Limit”; John Dee publishes General and Rare Memorials Pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation, and argues for the establishment of a “British Empire”; Francis Drake sets out on his voyage round the world.

  1578 Frobisher makes his third and final voyage to Meta Incognita and names an illusive island (probably the southern tip of Greenland) “West England”—the first foreign land to be named after the country; Humphrey Gilbert leads an abortive voyage to “annoy” Spain and locate a site for a colony in the New World; George Best publishes his account of Frobisher’s three voyages.

  1579 Francis Drake claims the northwest coast of America for England and names it Nova Albion; Richard Hakluyt produces his first publication, A Discourse of the Commodity of the Taking of the Straight of Magellanus.

  1580 Drake sails home on the Golden Hind after his three-year voyage round the world, the first English captain to circumnavigate.

  1581 Philip II is declared king of Portugal, increasing his power and extending Spain’s declared right to unclaimed territories worldwide.

  1582 Richard Hakluyt publishes Diverse Voyages touching the discovery of America.

  1583 Humphrey Gilbert sets out on a second voyage to the New World, claims Newfoundland for Elizabeth, but is lost at sea on the journey home.

  1584 Walter Ralegh, Gilbert’s half brother, receives royal approval to establish a settlement in the land he calls Virginia, after Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen”; Richard Hakluyt produces Discourse on Western Planting to support Ralegh’s venture.

/>   1585 Ralegh’s first colony is established on the island of Roanoke; England’s long sea war with Spain begins.

  1586 Drake arrives at Roanoke and evacuates Ralegh’s settlers—so ending the first English colony in America;

  Grenville, on relief voyage to Roanoke, finds the colony deserted and leaves fifteen men to resettle—they are never seen alive again.

  1587 John White establishes Ralegh’s second colony on Roanoke with a mix of men, women and children; his daughter gives birth to Virginia, the first English child born in America; he returns to England to collect supplies.

  1588 The English fleet defeats the Spanish Armada; Thomas Harriot, one of Ralegh’s colonists, publishes A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, his report on the first Roanoke Colony.

  1589 Thomas Smythe, a young London merchant, takes charge of plans to establish the City of Raleigh; the famous Armada portrait of Elizabeth I is completed; Richard Hakluyt publishes the first edition of Principal Navigations.

  1590 John White returns to Roanoke, but fails to make contact with the colonists he left behind in 1587. They later become known as the “lost colonists.”

  1592 A great carrack, the Madre de Dios, with a hoard of treasure worth £500,000, is captured by English privateers; the Levant Company is established.

  1595 Walter Ralegh sails to South America in an unsuccessful search for El Dorado, the city of gold.

  1598 Richard Hakluyt publishes the first volume of a revised three-volume edition of Principal Navigations.

  1600 The English East India Company is established.

  1602 Bartholomew Gosnold explores Maine and modern-day Massachusetts, giving Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard their names; George Waymouth sails in a vain search for the Northwest Passage.

  1603 Elizabeth I dies, after reigning for nearly forty-five years, and the throne passes to James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who becomes James I of England; Ralegh is sent to the Tower of London, effectively ending his tenure as “Lord and Governor of Virginia.”

  1604 The Treaty of London is agreed, ending the nineteen-year undeclared war between England and Spain; George Waymouth explores Maine, and kidnaps five Indians, who are sent to live in the households of Ferdinando Gorges and John Popham.

  1605 Guy Fawkes and a group of Catholic dissidents are caught attempting to assassinate James I in an event remembered as the Gunpowder Plot.

  1606 James I signs the first Charter of Virginia, authorizing the founding of two colonies in North America; Richard Challons, leading an expedition run by the Plymouth Company, sails for the New World but is captured by the Spanish, leading to an international incident.

  1607 The first permanent English colony, Jamestown, is founded by settlers from the London Company; Bartholomew Gosnold is among many Jamestown settlers who succumb to disease soon after their arrival; Captain John Smith reports that he is saved from brutal execution by a young Indian princess, Pocahontas; George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert, Humphrey’s son, establish the Popham, or Sagadahoc, Colony in Maine.

  1608 The settlers of the Popham Colony abandon the New World, ending the hopes of Gorges and the Plymouth Company.

  1609 James I signs the second charter of Virginia, which significantly increases the number of investors; the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet led by the new governor, Sir Thomas Gates, is shipwrecked off the Bermuda Islands, possibly prompting William Shakespeare to write The Tempest.

  1610 Henry Hudson, funded by the Virginia Company and the English East India Company, explores what later became known as the Hudson Strait. It follows his earlier (1609) navigation of the Hudson River while sailing under the flag of the Dutch East India Company; some London and Bristol merchants receive a charter to colonize Newfoundland, nearly 30 years after Humphrey Gilbert claimed it for England.

  1612 James I signs the third Virginia charter, broadening its geographical range to encompass the Bermuda Islands and providing the authority to raise funds through public lotteries; a group of merchants, led by some of the Virginia Company leaders, launch the Northwest Passage Company in order to revive the search for a fast route to Cathay. John Smith publishes A Map of Virginia, with a description of the countrey, the commodities, people, government and religion.

  1613 The first consignment of Virginian tobacco, grown by John Rolfe, is sent to England.

  1614 The first indentured servants, who arrived in Jamestown in 1607, complete their service and are rewarded with a new status as tenant farmers; John Rolfe marries Pocahontas, marking the end of the first Anglo-Powhatan war.

  1615 Some leaders of the Virginia Company establish the Bermuda, or Somers Islands, Company.

  1616 Pocahontas, now known as Rebecca Rolfe, visits England and meets James I; John Smith writes a treatise on America, and gives New England its name.

  1617 The largest private plantation, known as Smith’s Hundred, after Sir Thomas Smythe, is established near Jamestown.

  1618 The Virginia Company issues the Great Charter, which introduced the ground rules for what was, in effect, a new commonwealth.

  1619 Jamestown’s settlers hold the first meeting of the House of Burgesses, described by one historian as “the first freely elected parliament of a self-governing people in the Western World.”

  1620 English separatists, later known as Pilgrims, leave Plymouth in England and sail in the Mayflower to New England, where they found New Plymouth.

  1621 The Pilgrims mark their first year in the New World with the very first thanksgiving celebration.

  A Note to the Reader

  There are a number of particular issues involved in writing and reading about the people, events, and ideas of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century that we have made decisions about and that the reader should know about.

  Spelling, Writing, and Printing. There was little consistency of spelling, capitalization, grammar, or printing during this period. English was only gradually becoming the standard written language of England, where educated people had long preferred to write and publish in Latin. In 1516, Sir Thomas More chose to write Utopia in Latin. It was not until 1551 that it was translated into English. By 1582, Richard Mulcaster, who memorably described Elizabeth I’s coronation procession, was calling for an English dictionary, noting that “I do not think that any language… is better able to utter all arguments, either with more pith, or greater plainness, than our English tongue is.” By way of emphasis, he stated: “I honor the Latin, but I worship the English.”1 It was not until 1604, however, that the first English dictionary was compiled. This tracked many of the new words flooding into the language—not least because of the exploits of the merchant adventurers and their colonial commanders. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the “number of words ‘available’ to speakers of English more than doubled between 1550 and 1650.”2

  William Shakespeare, who was born and died during this period, introduced many new words—precisely 1,489, according to the OED.3 Richard Eden introduced words such as “China” and “colony.” Several of the English visitors to North America made a point of collecting Indian words. John Smith, for example, was responsible for introducing “tomahawk,” “moccasin,” and “raccoon,” while others introduced “caribou,” “moose,” “papoose,” “powwow,” “squaw,” “terrapin,” and “wigwam.”4 Given the rapid growth of the number of words, it is little wonder that there was inconsistency and complication in the usage and capturing of the English language.

  There were other contributing factors. People spelled words phonetically and pronounced them as their particular dialect or regional accent propelled them to; publishers and printers followed their own rules of spelling and punctuation. The result was often a lexical shambles on the page that can be both astonishing and sometimes amusing to read—or try to read. Martin Frobisher’s last name was spelled in at least a dozen different ways, many of them by Frobisher himself, and often within the same text: we find Martyne Furbisher, for examp
le, and Ffurbisher and Captayne Frobysher.5 Walter Ralegh was another famous man whose name was spelled in various ways. We have chosen to spell the great courtier’s name with the spelling that he tended to use: Ralegh, not the more standard modern spelling, Raleigh.

  In one text, the word “miner” is spelled “moyener” and the word “ore” as “ewr,” probably manifesting the vowels of a West Countryman.6 Also, the skills of the editors, publishers, and printers (often one and the same person) are thrown into high relief on the page. In Daniel Tucker’s account of the 1606 voyage of Richard Challons, there is the phrase “we a Rived at a niland” for “we arrived at an island,” which could easily have been corrected in the editing process.7

  Writers and printers of the day also used a number of marks and shortcuts that are unfamiliar today, such as shortening the word “which” into the space-saving wch or indicating a double consonant with a dash: . The letter “s” is often printed with a character that looks to the modern reader like an “f”; a “u” often is printed as a “v”; an “i” indicates a “j.” So the word “subject” might be printed “fubie.” “Ing” endings often gain an “e,” as in “promisinge.” Publishers, especially in the earlier years of this period, might print an entire page of text with no indentations or paragraph breaks, and rarely a comma or period. One likely reason that Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, first published in 1589, gained popularity was that the spelling was reasonably consistent and the printing and layout made the accounts relatively easy to read. By this time, printing—introduced into England in 1476 by William Caxton, a cloth merchant and governor of the Merchant Adventurers in Bruges (before the staple moved to Antwerp)—was a well-established technology.

  Some of the materials for this book were produced by non-native speakers, such as Bernardino de Mendoza, Spain’s ambassador to England for many years, and one of his successors, Pedro de Zúñiga—and they, too, sometimes offer revealing hints about pronunciation and spelling conventions. Zúñiga, for example, wrote to Philip III with news about an English gentleman he referred to as “Vatarrales,” meaning—of course—Walter Ralegh.8