John Cabot

In the letters that the Spanish diplomat of the late 15th century Pedro de Ayala sent from England to his homeland, one can find references to “another Genoese, like Columbus, offering the English king an enterprise similar to sailing to India.” We are talking about Giovanni Caboto, who moved to England, changed his name to John Cabot and, in the end, found people ready to support his voyage to distant shores.

Up to a certain point, the biographies of Cabot and Columbus are remarkably similar.

Italian and French navigator and merchant in English service, who first explored the coast of Canada.

Date and place of death – 1499 (age 49), England.

When it comes to the discoverers of America, the names of Columbus, Ojeda, Amerigo Vespucci, Cortez and Pissaro, familiar from school, come to mind, and it seems strange that he is less known from these navigators. After all, scientists have officially recognized that it was the ships under the command of John Cabot that were the first in the world, after the legendary expeditions of the Scandinavians in the 11th century, to reach the shores North America.

One of the first “northern” travelers to America were the Cabot father and son: John and Sebastian.

John was born in Genoa. In search of work, his family moved to Venice in 1461. While in the service of the Venetian trading company, Cabot went to the Middle East to buy Indian goods. I visited Mecca, talked with the merchants there, from whom I sniffed out the location of the country of spices. He was convinced that the earth was round. Hence the confidence that you can approach the treasured islands from the east, sailing to the west. This idea, apparently, was simply in the air in those years.

In 1494, Giovanni Caboto moved to England, where he began to be called in the English manner John Cabot. The main western port of England at that time was Bristol. The news of Columbus's discovery of new lands in the western Atlantic could not leave the enterprising merchants of this city alone. They rightly believed that there might also be undiscovered lands to the north, and did not reject the idea of reaching China, India and the spice islands by sailing to the west. And finally, England no longer recognized the authority of the Pope, did not participate in the Spanish-Portuguese division of the world and was free to do what she wanted.

But before that, he still lived in Spain.

Based on the knowledge of the spherical shape of the Earth, the idea of sailing to the west, in order to reach distant eastern lands, he, apparently. nurtured back in the 1470-1480s. But in order to present it to the Spanish king and queen, they were too late; they had already chosen Columbus and were not ready to sponsor the second adventurer. Although Cabot did not repeat his fellow countryman’s proposal exactly, but offered several options - including a route through Northern Asia.

Not finding support in Southern Europe, Cabot moved to England around 1495. Bristol merchants, having secured the support of King Henry VII, equipped an expedition to the west at their own expense, inviting the Genoese guest worker John Cabot as captain. Since the state had no share, there was only enough money for one ship. The ship's name was "Matthew". King Henry VII was interested in the trip, and this is because immediately after the discoveries of Columbus, the Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded in 1494, which actually divided the world between Spain and Portugal. The remaining countries were literally left “overboard” from the process of development and colonization of new lands.

There were only 18 crew members on board. It is clear that the Matthew was an exploration ship, while Columbus's first expedition was initially aimed at big booty - spices and gold.

After spending about a month near the new lands, Cabot turned the ship back to England on July 20, 1497, where he safely arrived on August 6. There was nothing special to report. The open land was harsh and inhospitable. There was almost no population. There was no gold or spices. By all accounts, this was the eastern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Walking along the coastline, Cabot found a convenient bay, where he landed and declared these lands as his possessions. English king. The historic landing is believed to have taken place in the Cape Bonavista area. The ship then set off on its return journey, discovering along the way the Great Newfoundland Bank, a large sandbank where huge schools of cod and herring were spotted.

The Milanese ambassador to London, Raimondo de Raimondi de Soncino, wrote that John Cabot is now “called the great admiral, he is dressed in silk, and these Englishmen are running after him like crazy.” King Henry VII honored him with an audience and generously rewarded him.

Already in May 1498, a new expedition left the English shores and headed west. This time he led a flotilla of five ships across the ocean, heavily laden with various goods. Obviously, one of the main tasks now was to make contact with the local population and establish trade links.

Very few sources are currently known about this expedition. What is certain is that English ships reached the North American continent in 1498 and passed along its eastern coast far to the southwest. But whether John Cabot himself reached distant shores remains a mystery to this day. According to the most common version, he died on the way. Then the expedition was commanded by his son Sebastian - who in the future also became an outstanding navigator and even visited the Russian shores, near Arkhangelsk.

The work of John and Sebastian Cabot was continued by other English and French explorers, and thanks to them, North America very quickly ceased to be a blank spot on the geographical maps of the world.

Source -tur-plus.ru, Wikipedia and Victor Banev (magazine Mysteries of History).

It is rare for father and son to become equally famous in the same business. To strive for the same goal and dream with equal passion. Especially when it comes to adventurous professions that require courage, perseverance and fiery imagination.
But in the history of the Age of Discovery there is such an example: John and Sebastian Cabot, Italians in the English service, had no doubt that the route to Asia could be found in the northwest. Of course, neither one nor the other managed to prove this, but how many wonderful discoveries awaited them along the way.

Giovanni Caboto was born around 1450 in the same city as Columbus - Genoa. And at the age of eleven, the boy with his father Giulio moved to the main competitors of the Genoese, the Venetians, where he grew up, received citizenship of the oldest republic in Europe, married a local beauty with a good dowry and had three sons from this marriage: Lodovico, Sebastian and Santo. All three will follow in their father’s footsteps, and the middle one will not yield to him in anything.

All of Kaboto's ancestors, as far as he could trace his ancestry, were sailors and merchants, so he and youth took up the family business - he sailed a ship to the shores of the Levant, bought spices from the Arabs. As you know, in the 15th century, spices - pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg - became the most profitable product on the entire European market. They write that he provided a 400 percent profit. True, accordingly, the extraction of spices became an increasingly dangerous business - not only pirates, but also Ottoman Turks in war galleys hunted for merchants. Caboto, apparently, was not one of the timid; he made at least a dozen flights to the East and traveled several times into the depths of the Asian continent - goods were cheaper there. He was one of the few Europeans who even managed to visit the holy Mecca.

From the conversations of the Arabs, the merchant concluded that the spice-rich countries were located directly northeast of Arabia and southern Persia. And since educated people At that time it was quite clear that the Earth was spherical, he made a logical conclusion: this means that for Europeans moving in the opposite direction to the Muslims, India and Indonesia would end up in the northwest.

A project for a grand journey was immediately born in his ardent imagination, but no one was interested in it at home. The enterprising dreamer had to go look for “sponsors” in a foreign land.
It is known that he lived for some time in Valencia, visited Seville and Lisbon, trying to interest the Spanish royal couple and the Portuguese monarch in his project, but failed. Columbus was doing the same thing in those years, and it seems that he was literally half a step ahead of our hero. Having learned that he had been passed over, Giovanni was probably very annoyed: who would have thought that a second such “crazy” would stand in his way?! Be that as it may, he decided that there was only one other country in the world where his plan would be appreciated. In France, strife was raging “in the conflagrations” of the Hundred Years’ War. That left England, where the rapidly growing trading class was actively exploring new trade routes. Giovanni and his sons went there.

The first evidence of his stay on the island of Great Britain dates back to 1494, but he probably appeared there a little earlier and settled in Bristol, where he received a changed name, under which he entered all history textbooks - John Cabot.

Bristol was then the main seaport of England, the center of fishing in the North Atlantic and developed very rapidly. Local merchants time after time, season after season, sent ships to the west, to the unknown “kingdom” of the ocean. They hoped to “bump into” many legendary islands there, abundantly populated and full of mysterious treasures. However, the ships returned without making any discoveries. The voyage of 1491, in which Cabot and his sons may have entered the Atlantic for the first time, also ended in failure. According to another version, however, at that time they were still in Spain.

In any case, we can say for sure that the Italian, discouraged by failures, was prompted to decisively intensify his actions by the great news - in 1492, “for Castile and Leon” in the far West, “Columbus discovered new world" Why is England worse? We must hurry immediately before the Spaniards occupy this entire world. The navigator feverishly begins to send letter after letter to Henry VII demanding (!) to accept him. And a miracle happens. On March 5, 1496, at Westminster, John Cabot and his three offspring were granted a personal royal patent for “the right to search, discover and explore all islands, lands, states and regions of pagans and infidels, remaining to this day unknown to the Christian world, in whatever part of the world they are were not there." At the same time, the letter, of course, strictly forbade the traveler to sail to the south, where the Spaniards settled. But the way to the north and west was open.

The lands discovered by John and Sebastian Cabot in the western Atlantic - the coast of the modern island of Newfoundland and the Labrador Peninsula - remained completely unexplored for a long time. Unlike fertile in climatic and economically In the Caribbean zone, the local gloomy rocks and cold did not encourage Europeans to establish permanent colonies, so until the very middle of the 16th century, there was probably not a single permanent settlement of “newcomers” here. As for the indigenous population, the so-called Beothuks, their number did not exceed 10 thousand people even before contact with white people, and after meeting with Europeans they began to die out altogether, mainly due to diseases brought from the Old World. As is commonly believed, the last woman of this tribe, a certain Shanodithit, died in the capital English proficiency Newfoundland, St. John's, in 1829. England's claims to these lands were renewed in 1583 by the navigator Sir Humphrey Gilbert, but by that time, during the summer season, so many Portuguese, Spanish and French ships were “crowding” here that one could not think of victory without a fight. The very name “Labrador”, which comes from the name of the Portuguese João Fernandes Lavrador, indicates that the development of the northern regions of America followed an international path. In the end, only the French remained in the arena of this “competition,” who slowly settled the southern shores of Newfoundland from Quebec, where they had long since settled; and the British, who built the already famous St. John's on its eastern shore in 1610.

And then the history of these “wild” places entered the general mainstream of world politics. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) and the Treaty of Paris (1774) approved the complete transfer of the entire territory of modern eastern Canada to London. A separate colony of Newfoundland and Labrador was formed, governed autonomously even after it acquired dominion status in 1907. Only after the final fall of British rule, in 1949, following the results of a referendum among the still small population (it has barely exceeded half a million by now), with a result of only 52.3 to 47.7 percent, was it decided to “join Canada."

Here is the time to briefly say what exactly the British expected to find in the North Atlantic, what lands were considered located there. After all, Messer Giovanni’s new compatriots had somewhat different thoughts on this matter than those that he formed during his interactions with the Arabs.
In Bristol, for example, stories about the island of Bressaille have enjoyed great success for many centuries. A reader with a sensitive ear will hear in this name the more familiar in our tradition “Brazil”, the name of which, translated from Celtic dialects, meant “the best”. They supposedly lived there happy people who knew neither old age nor death, but gold and gems lay underfoot.
Confidence in the existence of Brazil was so great that back in 1339 this almost perfectly round island in the western Atlantic approximately at the latitude of Ireland first appeared on the map of a certain Angelino Dulquerte. And in another, anonymous diagram, it was located in the same place, but turned out to be turned into an atoll, framing a lagoon with nine small areas of land. By the way, today scientists are seriously discussing the hypothesis that this is a very approximate image of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. It is also half closed from the sea and strewn with islands...

In addition to Brazil, the unknown expanses of the Atlantic seemed dotted with many more islands - Buss, Maidu, Antilia. The fabulous “land of the Seven Cities” was also located here. Rumors about her went back to the following legend: at the height of the Arab conquest of Spain, seven bishops with many parishioners boarded ships and, after long wanderings across the ocean, landed on the unknown western shore, where they each founded a thriving city. And one fine day the inhabitants of these cities will definitely return and help their Christian brothers expel the Moors. But now the Moors have been expelled without outside help, and the legend still lives on.
In addition, science provided “suggestive” information - a treatise (12th century) by the Arab geographer Idrisi was translated into English, which mentions the rich island of Sahelia beyond Gibraltar and the seven cities that once existed there. They supposedly prospered until the inhabitants killed each other in internecine wars.

Finally, the port was filled with soul-stirring stories - every sailor considered it his duty to tell about something unusual. So a story spread among Cabot’s contemporaries: they say, two expeditions had already accidentally reached the Seven Cities, having been knocked off course by a hurricane. And they allegedly spoke Portuguese there, and asked those who arrived: whether Muslims still ruled the land of their ancestors. Well, golden sand was, of course, mentioned.

The first real voyage in search of islands in the west was undertaken in 1452 by the Portuguese Diego di Teivi, who was sent to the North Atlantic by the famous inspirer of travel, Prince Henry (Enrique) the Navigator. He swam to the Sargasso Sea, marveled at its unique structure without shores, then turned even further north and discovered two of the most western islands from the Azores group, still unknown at that time. One of the participants in this expedition was a Spaniard, a certain Pedro de Velasco. Forty years later, long retired, he apparently met with both Christopher Columbus and Giovanni Caboto and told them something important. In any case, we know for certain that both knew about the existence of the Sargasso Sea.

It is curious that the “story” of Brazil and others like him did not end either with the discovery of America, or when the name of the mythical island was given to huge country Brazil. Around 1625, one of the representatives of the British banking clan Leslie even achieved a royal deed of gift to Brazil, which should come into force when he is found. And Irish-born captain John Nisbet claimed several decades later that he landed on the coast of Brazil. According to him, the island was a large black rock inhabited by many wild rabbits and one evil sorcerer who was hiding in an impregnable castle. Nisbet managed to defeat the sorcerer with the help of a huge fire, because fire, as you know, is light that defeats the power of darkness.

In general, fabulous patches of land remained on maps until the rational 19th century. Back in 1836 great Alexander von Humboldt ironically noted that of all the fictitious islands of the North Atlantic, two still managed to “survive” - Brazil and Maida. And only in 1873, when the supposed rocks were not discovered in the ocean during voyages along the same route, the British Admiralty ordered their removal from navigation plans.

It is more than likely that, having received the Royal Patent, in the spring of 1496 Cabot set off. In any case, this is reported by the merchant John Day in a letter sent to Spain to a certain “Great Admiral”. Such a title in those days could only belong to Columbus. It seems that the discoverer of America jealously watched the actions of his opponent. And he was glad to hear that Cabot’s expedition returned without achieving any goal - there was not enough provisions, and the team grumbled. Don Christopher himself could take credit for the firmness shown in a similar situation - thanks to this firmness, in fact, New World and was found. But the Italian in the English service had to wait out the winter in Bristol and prepare for the new voyage more carefully.
This time, on May 2, 1497, he left the port with a crew of only 18 people on a small ship named "Matthew" in honor of the Evangelist Matthew. The ship was heading due west, just north of 52° north latitude. The weather was generally favorable to the British, with only frequent fogs and numerous icebergs hindering them. On the morning of June 24, the sailor on watch saw land on the horizon - it was the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. Cabot called it Terra Prima Vista. In Italian it means “the first land seen.” This expression was later translated into English and became New Found Land.

The lucky captain landed in the first convenient harbor where he managed to anchor, planted a flag in the ground and declared this land the property of Henry VII of England for eternity. Subsequently, by the way, this fact caused a lot of misunderstandings, mainly due to the fact that the location of the bay was hopelessly forgotten. For example, the island of Newfoundland is one thing, and the land of the continent itself on the territory of modern Canada is another. It is no coincidence that on the map created in 1544 by John Cabot’s son Sebastian, the landing point “moved” to the land of the modern province of Nova Scotia in the vicinity of Cape Breton Island. Gossips, naturally, they claim that Sebastian deliberately went for falsification in order to prove: the English crown was the first to “stake out” the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Most modern researchers believe that on this journey Cabot actually only approached the shores of Newfoundland. Well, except that I saw the Labrador Peninsula from afar...

But on the way back on the open sea, this expedition made another unexpected and important, although not so spectacular, discovery. Not far from the North American continent, she encountered unprecedentedly huge schools of herring and cod. This is how the Great Newfoundland Bank was discovered - a huge sandbank in the Atlantic with an area of about 300 thousand km2, the richest area in the world in fish. And Cabot was able to correctly assess its significance, declaring upon arrival in England that now there is no need to go “big fishing” to Iceland, as before. It is known that at that time in Europe during fasts a huge amount of fish was consumed. So the discovery of the fishing shoals was of enormous importance for the economy of England: following Cabot, fishing fleets, growing every year, moved to the west. London's income from the riches of the sea that washes Newfoundland can be compared with Spain's income from Indian treasures. In 1521, the Castilians siphoned out of America £52,000 worth of gold and jewelry at the then exchange rate. By 1545, this figure had risen to 630,000, and by the end of the century had fallen to 300,000. At the same time, American cod in 1615 brought England alone £200,000, and in 1670 - 800,000!

The voyage off the coast of the newly discovered continent took about a month. 18 travelers (all survived - a rare case in the 15th century) looked in amazement at the gloomy rocky shores overgrown with dense forest. At first, Cabot decided that he had discovered the legendary country of the Seven Cities, but he never met not only the city, but also the person. Probably the Indian hunters preferred to hide. However, the English captain came across snares for hunting and needles for mending fishing nets on the shore. He took them with him as proof that King Henry had new subjects. On July 20, the ship took the opposite course, adhering to the same parallel, and on August 6 (unprecedented speed at that time!) just as happily moored in Bristol.
In the Old World, from Cabot’s descriptions they drew the usual conclusion for the era: he had discovered some remote provinces of the “kingdom of the Great Khan,” that is, China. It was considered great luck: the Venetian merchant Lorenzo Pasqualigo then wrote to his homeland: “Cabot is showered with honors, given the rank of admiral, he is dressed in silk, and the British are running after him like crazy.”.

In fact, the Italian imagination greatly exaggerated the pragmatic English approach to affairs: Henry showed his usual stinginess. A stranger and a poor man, although he had achieved rank and success, received only 10 pounds sterling as a reward. In addition, an annual pension of another twenty was assigned - that’s all he got for the entire continent donated to England. True, the Royal Council studied the map of the first voyage, drawn up immediately, very carefully and ordered it to be kept secret. So she soon disappeared safely, only the Spanish ambassador in London, Don Pedro de Ayala, managed to look at her, concluding that “the distance traveled does not exceed four hundred leagues” (2,400 kilometers).

And yet, inspired by success, Cabot submitted new proposals to the king that same summer. We know about them from Raimondo di Soncino, ambassador of the Duke of Milan: “...sail further and further west until he reaches an island called Sipango, from where he believes all the spices in the world come, as well as all the jewelry.”. It was an echo of the legends about Japan heard by Marco Polo in the 13th century. Much later, having arrived in this island country, the Europeans saw that there were neither spices nor gold there, but Cabot was sure that treasures awaited him precisely in the northern latitudes.

Meanwhile, the Spaniards became worried again. Ayala reported to Ferdinand and Isabella that the lands found by Cabot rightfully belonged to Spain, which the British were shamelessly robbing. Since “things are happening” west of the line specified by the Treaty of Tordesillas, then everything is clear. This document of 1494 clearly divided the entire world of new discoveries approximately in half between Portugal and Spain. England, whose army and navy remained incomparably weaker than the Spanish, should not have been taken into account at all.
And so, not wanting a conflict with the powerful spouses, Henry Tudor made a Solomonic decision: he approved Cabot’s new expedition, but did not give any money for it. In addition, he ordered, if funds were found somewhere, to equip it in strict secrecy. Perhaps this explains why even less is known about Cabot’s second (or third) voyage than about the previous one.

Cabot's new expedition left Bristol in early May 1498, just when Columbus first landed on the South American continent. The admiral had at his disposal a whole flotilla of five ships and 150 sailors - all this was collected by merchants inspired by stories about the first voyage. Among the crew members there were even criminals whom the king proposed to settle on the newly discovered lands, as well as several Italian monks - they had to convert the inhabitants of Sipango to the true faith. Rich London merchants sailed on two more ships, who themselves wanted to see the Western wonders they “paid for.”
In July, news reached England from Ireland: the expedition stopped there and left one of the ships, battered by the storm. In August or September, the ships reached the coast of North America and headed southwest along it. They went further and further, but did not see any signs of Sipango or China. Sometimes exhausted sailors landed on land and met strange people, dressed in animal skins, but they had neither gold nor spices. Several times Cabot hoisted flags and announced to the oblivious Indians that from now on they were subjects of His Majesty Henry. Along the way, small forts and colonies were founded, which were destined to disappear without a trace. By the way, three years later, in 1501, the Portuguese Gaspar Cortirial, who landed in those parts, found a sword hilt on the shore Italian work and two silver English earrings.

With the onset of cold weather, the expedition turned back to the shores of Albion. By this time, the hardships of the journey had undermined the health of the not yet old John, and his corpse in a canvas bag was eventually lowered to the bottom of the Atlantic. The command of the expedition passed into the hands of one of the experienced sailors and after difficult path Only two ships entered their home bay, the rest, along with for the most part crew died. The king was dissatisfied: so much money was spent on the enterprise (what if it wasn’t government money?), and there were no benefits. An order followed to stop further voyages to America. It seems that Cabot's exhausted sailors were unable to explain to their monarch that this country, although it has no spices, is rich in furs, which are valued higher and higher on the European market. Very soon this circumstance will be appreciated by the French, who in 1524 will visit modern Canada and immediately grab a huge piece of it - New France. The British will have to take two centuries from their rivals what could have immediately gone to them.

But about the geographical discoveries of Cabot’s second expedition, by the way, something is known, again, not from English, but from Spanish sources. The map of Juan la Cosa, which appeared soon, shows the mouths of several rivers and a bay on which it is written: "The Sea Discovered by the British". Alonso Ojeda, preparing for the expedition of 1501-1502, which ended, however, in complete failure, pledged to continue the discovery of the mainland “right up to the lands visited by English ships.”

Be that as it may, Cabot did the most important thing - he designated a place for England in the development of America. And thereby laid the groundwork for the penetration of English settlers there, who many years later created the most significant civilization in the New World.

John Cabot

Cabot John (Cabot, Giovanni) (Cabot, John, Italian: Giovanni Caboto) (c. 1450–1498/1499), Italian navigator and explorer, born c. 1450 in Genoa. In 1461 the Cabot family moved to Venice. While in the service of the Venice Trading Company, Cabot traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean. About 1484 he came to England and settled among shipowners in Bristol. Received from the English king Henry VII a patent that granted the right to assert the power of England on all newly discovered islands and lands, to colonize them and trade with the colonies. Cabot sailed from Bristol on May 2, 1497 on the ship "Matthew" and on June 24 landed, probably on the shore of Cape Breton Island, which he mistook for the northeastern coast of Asia. Cabot sailed along the coast east of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Race, from where he returned to England. In 1498 he undertook second trip, during which he explored the east and west coasts of Greenland and visited Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland. Having followed the coast south to 38° N, he did not find any traces of eastern civilizations. Due to limited food supplies, Cabot was forced to return to England, where he soon died.

Materials from the encyclopedia "The World Around Us" were used.

Failed Columbus

Cabot John, Caboto Giovanni (c. 1450-1498/99) - Italian navigator and explorer. According to Gumilev, the beginning of the 16th century is a turning point in the history of the ethnogenesis of the Western European superethnos. A new behavioral imperative has come to the surface - the reactive imperative of the breakdown phase. Gumilyov writes that at this time a person very necessary for both sides appeared - Christopher Columbus. He discovered America.

The active ones went to conquer America, the quiet, calm ones remained in place.

This is how the passionary breakdown found its resolution. In this regard, the scientist mentions the name of Cabot’s passionary J. Gumilev argues that if X. Columbus had not done this, then Cabot or someone else would have done it (“The End and the Beginning Again,” 219).

Quoted from: Lev Gumilyov. Encyclopedia. / Ch. ed. E.B. Sadykov, comp. T.K. Shanbai, - M., 2013, p. 293-294.

Discoverer of North America

Cabot, Caboto John (Giovanni) (c. 1443–1499), Italian-English navigator, one of the discoverers of North America. In 1497, having set sail on the ship "Matthew", he discovered for the second time (after the Normans) Fr. Newfoundland, Plasencia Bay and the Great Newfoundland Bank. At the head of a flotilla of 5 ships (about 200 crew) in 1498 he again reached Fr. Newfoundland, discovered the strait later named after him, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, marking the mouth of a small bay (Shaler). Then he walked along the coast of North America, perhaps up to 44° (northern coast of the Gulf of Maine) or up to 36° north latitude, that is, slightly south of the Chesapeake Bay, sometimes landing on land. On the way with most of the team he went missing. Cabot's discoveries allowed England to later lay claim to North America. The strait connecting the Atlantic with the Gulf of St. Lawrence is named in his honor.

Materials used from the publication: Modern illustrated encyclopedia. Geography. Rosman-Press, M., 2006.

Read further:

Cabot Sebastian (Саbot, Sebastian), Sebastiano Caboto (1476–1557), Italian navigator, son of John.
Main events of the 15th century (chronological table).

ENGLISH Overseas EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN CABOT

In 1494, Cabot moved to live in England, where he began to be called John Cabot in the English manner. The Bristol merchants, having received news of Columbus's discoveries, equipped an expedition and put D. Cabot at its head. The English king Henry UP in writing allowed Cabot and his three sons to “sail through all places, regions and shores of the Eastern, Western and Northern seas...” to search, discover, explore all sorts of islands, lands, states.

Cautious Bristol merchants equipped only one small ship, the Matthew, with 18 people. On May 20, 1497, D. Cabot sailed from Bristol to the west, just north of 52 N latitude. In the morning, Cabot reached the northern tip of the island. Newfoundland. He landed in one of the harbors and declared the country the possession of the English king. Cabot then moved southeast, reaching approximately 46 30 N latitude. and 55 W. In the sea he saw large schools of herring and cod. This is how the Great Newfoundland Bank (more than 300 thousand sq. km) was discovered - one of the richest fishing areas in the world. And Cabot set course for England.
Cabot correctly assessed his “fish” find, announcing in Bristol that now the British need not go to Iceland for fish, and in England they decided that Cabot had discovered the “kingdom of the Great Khan,” i.e. China.
At the beginning of May 1498, the second expedition under the command of Cabot - a flotilla of 5 ships - left Bristol. It is believed that D. Cabot died on the way and the leadership passed to his son Sebastian Cabot.
Even less information has reached us about the second expedition than about the first. What is certain is that English ships reached the North American continent in 1498 and passed along its eastern coast far to the southwest. S. Cabot turned back and returned to England in the same 1498.

We know about the great geographical achievements of Cabot's second expedition not from English, but from Spanish sources. Juan La Cosa's map shows a long coastline with rivers and rivers far to the north and northeast of Hispaniola and Cuba. geographical names, with a bay on which is written: “the sea discovered by the English” and with several English flags.

Enueese Giovanni Cabota as a nine-ten year old boy he moved with his father to Venice in 1461, 15 years later he became a citizen of the republic, married a Venetian and had three sons from this marriage; the second son's name was Sebastian. Almost nothing is known about Cabot’s life in Venice: apparently, he was a sailor and merchant, went to the Middle East to buy Indian goods, even visited Mecca and asked Arab merchants where they got their spices from. From unclear answers, Cabot concluded that spices would “be born” in some countries located very far, to the northeast of the “Indies.”

And since Cabot considered the Earth to be a sphere, he made a logical conclusion that the North-East, far for the Indians - “the birthplace of spices” - is close to the North-West for the Italians. Between 1490 and 1493 He probably resided in Valencia, visited Seville and Lisbon, trying to interest the Spanish monarchs and the Portuguese king with his project of reaching the spice country through Northern Asia, but failed. No later than 1494, Cabot and his entire family moved to England and settled in Bristol, where they began to call him John Cabot in the English manner. Bristol was then the main seaport of Western England and the center of English fishing in the North Atlantic. Beginning in 1480, Bristol merchants sent ships west several times in search of the Brasil Islands and the Seven Cities, but these ships returned without making any discoveries. Since 1495, Cabot and his sons sailed on Bristol ships. even before receiving the protest, he gave permission in writing for Cabot and his three sons to “sail through all the places, regions and shores of the Eastern, Western and Northern seas... to seek, discover and explore all the islands, lands, states and regions of the pagans and infidels who remain to this day time unknown to the Christian world, no matter in what part of the world they may be.” The king stipulated for himself a fifth of the income from the expedition.

The permit deliberately did not indicate a southern direction to avoid conflict with the Spaniards and Portuguese.

Cautious Bristol merchants equipped only one small ship, the Matthew, with a crew of 18 people. On May 20, 1497, D. Cabot sailed from Bristol to the west and all the time stayed just north of 52° N. w. The voyage took place in calm weather, although frequent fogs and numerous icebergs made movement very difficult. Around June 22, a stormy wind blew in, but fortunately, it soon subsided. On the morning of June 24, Cabot reached some land, which he named Terra Prima Vista (in Italian - “the first land seen”). This was the northern tip of the island. Newfoundland, east of Pistol Bay, where a Norman settlement is known to have been found. He landed in one of the nearest harbors and declared the country the possession of the English king. Cabot then moved southeast near the heavily indented coast, rounded the Avalon Peninsula and in Placentia Bay, reaching approximately 46°30"N latitude and 55°W longitude, he turned back to the “point of departure.” In the sea near the Avalon Peninsula, he saw huge schools of herring and cod. This is how the Great Newfoundland Bank was discovered, a large - more than 300 thousand km² - sandbank in the Atlantic, one of the richest fishing areas in the world.

In England, according to Cabot, they decided that he had discovered the “kingdom of the Great Khan,” that is, China. A certain Venetian merchant wrote to his homeland: “Cabot is showered with honors, called a great admiral, he is dressed in silk, and the English are running after him like crazy.” This message appears to have greatly exaggerated Cabot's success. It is known that he, probably as a foreigner and a poor man, received a reward of 10 pounds sterling from the English king and, in addition, he was given an annual pension of 20 pounds. The map of Cabot's first voyage has not survived. The Spanish ambassador in London reported to his sovereigns that he had seen this map, examined it and concluded that “the distance traveled did not exceed four hundred leagues” - 2400 km. The Venetian merchant, who reported the success of his fellow countryman, determined the distance he had traveled at 4,200 km and suggested that Cabot walked along the coast of the “kingdom of the Great Khan” for 1,800 km. However, the phrase from the king's message is “to him [who] discovered new island "- shows quite clearly that Cabot considered part of the newly discovered land to be an island. Henry VII “magnifies” him “Again” open island

"(Newfoundland). At the beginning of May 1498, a second expedition under the command of D. Cabot, who had at his disposal a flotilla of five ships, set out to the west from Bristol. It is believed that he died on the way, and the leadership passed to his son, Sebastian Cabot

We know about the great geographical achievements of Cabot's second expedition not from English, but from Spanish sources. Juan La Cosa's map shows, far to the north and northeast of Hispaniola and Cuba, a long coastline with rivers and a number of place names, with a bay on which is written: "the sea discovered by the English," and with several English flags. It is also known that Alonso Ojeda, at the end of July 1500, when concluding an agreement with the crown for the expedition of 1501 - 1502, which ended in complete failure, pledged to continue discovering the mainland “right up to the lands visited by English ships.” Finally, Pietro Martyr reported that the British “reached the Gibraltar line” (36° N), that is, they advanced somewhat south of the Chesapeake Bay.

Knowing about the successes of the English expeditions, the Portuguese suggested that part of the newly discovered islands in the North Atlantic could be used as a stage on the northwestern route to India. 50 year old Gašpar Kortirial, who in former years organized overseas expeditions at his own expense or participated in them, obtained from King Manuel I a grant for “all the islands or mainland that he would find or discover,” and in June 1500 he sailed from Lisbon on two ships to the north. west. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean and probably visited Labrador (Terra do Lavrador - “Land of the Plowman”). He named the new land by this name, it is believed, in the hope that the local inhabitants could be sold into slavery on plantations, and in the fall of 1500 he brought home several “forest people” and polar bears.

On May 15, 1501, Gašpar Kortirial again sailed with three ships to the northwest, but headed somewhat further south than in 1500. He saw the coast in the west, having traveled, according to his calculation, a much longer distance than in the previous year. He also discovered a land in the north, which he called Terra Verdi (“Green Land”), probably the Labrador Peninsula. Cortirial landed at one point along the coast and then moved south, possibly visiting Hamilton Bay.

The ships separated in or near the Strait of Belle Isle: the two ships returned to their homeland on October 10 and brought about 50 Eskimos to Lisbon. The third ship, on which Gašpar himself was located, went missing. That's what the Venetian ambassador in Lisbon wrote home 10 days after the return of the first ship: “They report that they found a country two thousand leagues from here, between the northwest and the west, that was completely unknown to this day. They walked approximately 600–700 leagues along the shore of the land and did not find the end of it, which makes them think that it is a continent. This land is located behind another land discovered last year to the north. The caravels could not reach that land because of ice and unlimited amounts of snow. Their opinion [about the discovery of the mainland] is confirmed by the many large rivers that they found there... They say that this country is very populous and that the wooden dwellings of the natives are very large and covered on the outside with fish [seal] skins... Seven natives were brought here - men, women and children... They are all the same color, build and height; very similar to gypsies; dressed in the skins of different animals... These skins are not sewn together or tanned, but such as they skin from animals. They cover their shoulders and arms with them... They are very timid and meek... Their faces are painted like the Indians... They talk, but no one understands them. There is no iron in their country, but they make knives and arrowheads from stones. They have a lot of salmon, herring, cod and other fish. They have a lot of wood - beech trees and especially good pine trees for masts and yards...” His Lisbon agent already wrote to the Duke of Ferrara in Italy about this event. Alberto Cantino

, whose report differs little from Pasqualigo’s story. Cantino enclosed with the letter a brightly colored map of the open lands that has come down to us. It indicates that the Portuguese believed that the new lands discovered by Cortirial lay east of the papal meridian, and therefore should belong to Portugal, and not Spain.

The Portuguese voyages in this direction did not stop. The country they mapped soon became known as the “Land of the Cortirials.” But it is impossible to establish indisputably which shores were discovered by them: Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia?

Portuguese fishermen, after the Cortirials, began to constantly sail to the Great Bank of Newfoundland. They were followed by the Normans, Bretons and Basques, who began to go to the newly discovered overseas northern lands no later than 1504. A “fish fever” began.

For many years it was believed that S. Cabot, a knowledgeable and experienced sailor, but a very vain man, hiding behind the name of his father, after returning from the expedition, during which D. Cabot died, never sailed again. Documents discovered relatively recently in England now allow us to speak with confidence about two more independent voyages of S. Cabot in the high latitudes of the North-West Atlantic. The first took place in 1504. On two ships of Bristol merchants in the spring of 1504, he reached the North American continent - it is not known what point, and in June he set off on a return course. The geographical results of the expedition are not indicated, but the goods are noted: both ships returned in the autumn of the same year to Bristol with a cargo of salted fish (40 tons) and cod liver (7 tons) from the area of the island.

Newfoundland. The second voyage was completed in 1508–1509. on ships equipped by the king. Cabot followed the east coast of Labrador to 64° N. w. in search of the Northwest Passage and entered the strait, located, judging by the meager information from his report, between 61 and 64 ° N. w. He passed through this strait about 10° in longitude, i.e. 540 km, and then turned south into the large sea - the Pacific Ocean, in his opinion. The position and size of the strait he passed through correspond approximately to the Hudson Strait - a length of about 800 km, located between 60°30" and 64° N latitude. These facts allow us to believe that Cabot discovered, albeit a second time, after the Normans, the Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay. attracted the wealth of the “Cod Land”. In 1520, and possibly earlier, he crossed the Atlantic, walked along the southern shores of the island. Newfoundland and discovered the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, as well as numerous neighboring small islands; early Portuguese maps show them as an archipelago. Then Fagundish examined the entire eastern coast of the island. Cape Breton, and to the south of it, near the southern border of large shallow waters, he discovered the long and narrow sandy “Santa Cruz Island” - about. Sable (at 44°N and 60°W), now sometimes called the “ship graveyard.” Upon returning to Portugal, he received permission from the king to organize a colony on the shores of the transatlantic land, recruited colonists in his home province of Minho and the Azores, and probably in the summer of 1523 brought them to the eastern shore of the island.

Cape Breton, to Ingonish Bay (at 60°20" W). Less than 1.5 years later, the residents of the village began to have friction with the local Indians, who realized that the newcomers had decided to settle for a long time. They contributed to the deterioration the situation of the new settlers and the Breton fishermen - they cut the gear and destroyed the houses of the Portuguese. In search of a quieter refuge, Fagundish walked southwest along the coast of the Nova Scotia Peninsula, named Terra Frigida on one of the maps in the so-called Miller I Atlas of the World, discovered and briefly examined the Bay of Fundy, which later became famous for its maximum for the World Ocean ( up to 18 m) with semi-diurnal tide. According to two French sources from the second half of the 16th century, Fagundish reached Penobscot Bay, at 44° N. w. and 69° W. and, therefore, discovered at least 1 thousand km of the coast of North America between 45° and 44° N. sh., as well as the eastern and southern shores of the island. Cape Breton, on the Portuguese map Diogo Omena

1568 named Cap Fagundo.

The settlement founded by Fagundis could not exist without support from Portugal, and no help came, and by 1526, and perhaps earlier, the very first (not counting the Normans) attempt by Europeans to settle on North American soil failed.

The Portuguese continued to fish in this area for some time, but were eventually driven out by immigrants from France - Normans and Bretons, as well as Basques.