Latest / This Country of Ours, Part 1 / 05 - This Country of Ours, Part 1 by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

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05 - This Country of Ours, Part 1 by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall · This Country of Ours, Part 1

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  Speaker 1: This Country of Ours Chapter five. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. This
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  Speaker 1: Country of Ours by H. E. Marshall, Chapter five. How
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  Speaker 1: America was named? The New World is his monument, and
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  Speaker 1: yet the New World does not bear the name of Columbus.
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  Speaker 1: So in this chapter I am going to tell you
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  Speaker 1: how America was named. As soon as Columbus had shown
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  Speaker 1: the way across the sea of darkness, many were eager
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  Speaker 1: to follow in his footsteps. There is not a man,
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  Speaker 1: he says himself, down to the very tailors, who does
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  Speaker 1: not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer. Among
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  Speaker 1: the many who longed to sail the seas, there was
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  Speaker 1: a man named Amerigo Vespucci. Like Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci was
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  Speaker 1: an Italian. He was born in Florence, and there for
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  Speaker 1: nearly forty years he lived quietly, earning his living as
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  Speaker 1: a clerk in the great merchant house of Medici. But
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  Speaker 1: although he was diligent at business, his thoughts were not
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  Speaker 1: wholly taken up with it, and in his leisure hours
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  Speaker 1: he loved to read books of geography and pore over
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  Speaker 1: maps and charts. After a time, business took Amerigo to Spain.
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  Speaker 1: He was there when Columbus returned from his famous first voyage,
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  Speaker 1: and very likely saw him pass through the streets of
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  Speaker 1: Barcelona on his day of triumph. Just when Amerigo and
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  Speaker 1: Columbus met we do not know, but very soon we
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  Speaker 1: find Amerigo in the service of the merchant who supplied
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  Speaker 1: Columbus with food and other necessaries for his second voyage.
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  Speaker 1: It has been thought by some that Vespucci went with
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  Speaker 1: Columbus on this voyage, but that is not very likely.
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  Speaker 1: It was about this time, however, that Vespucci went on
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  Speaker 1: his first voyage, in which he explored the coast of
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  Speaker 1: Venezuela or of Central America. It is very doubtful which
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  Speaker 1: before going on this voyage he had been in Spain
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  Speaker 1: about four years, and, not having succeeded very well as
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  Speaker 1: a merchant, he decided to give up trading and take
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  Speaker 1: to sea life. No voyages perhaps have been more written
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  Speaker 1: about and fought over than those of Amerigo Vespucci. Some
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  Speaker 1: will have it that he went only two voyages, and
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  Speaker 1: say he was a braggart and a vainglorious fool if
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  Speaker 1: he said he went more. Others think that he went
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  Speaker 1: at least four voyages, and probably six. And most people
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  Speaker 1: are now agreed that these last are right, and that
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  Speaker 1: he who gave his name to the great double continent
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  Speaker 1: of America was no swaggering pretender, but an honest and
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  Speaker 1: upright man. In the first two voyages that he made,
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  Speaker 1: Vespucci sailed under the flag of Spain. In the second
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  Speaker 1: two he sailed in the service of the King of Portugal.
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  Speaker 1: But after his fourth voyage he returned again to Spain.
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  Speaker 1: There he received a large salary and the rank of captain.
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  Speaker 1: Later he was made Pilot me Major of Spain, and
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  Speaker 1: was held in high honour till his death. Yet in
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  Speaker 1: all the voyages Vespucci went, whether under the flag of
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  Speaker 1: Portugal or of Spain, he was never leader. He went
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  Speaker 1: as astronomer or as pilot, while other men captained the expeditions.
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  Speaker 1: It is from Amerigo's letters alone that we gather the
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  Speaker 1: little we know about his voyages. For although he says
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  Speaker 1: in one of his letters that he has written a
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  Speaker 1: book called the Four Voyages, it has never been found,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps was never published. One long letter however, which
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  Speaker 1: he wrote to an old schoolfellow, was so interesting that
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  Speaker 1: it was published and read by many people all over Europe.
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  Speaker 1: It was, says an old English writer abroad, in every
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  Speaker 1: man's hands. Amerigo's voyages led him chiefly to Central and
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  Speaker 1: South America, and he became convinced that South America was
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  Speaker 1: a continent. So soon, what with the voyages of Vespucci
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  Speaker 1: and the voyages of other great men, it became at
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  Speaker 1: last quite certain that there was a vast continent beyond
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean. Map makers therefore began to draw a
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  Speaker 1: huge island large enough to form in itself a continent
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  Speaker 1: south of the equator. They called it the New World,
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  Speaker 1: or the Land of the Holy Cross. But the northern
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  Speaker 1: continent was still represented on the maps by a few
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  Speaker 1: small islands, or as a part of Asia. Thus years passed,
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  Speaker 1: daring sailors still sailed the stormy seas in search of
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  Speaker 1: new lands, and learned men read the tales of their
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  Speaker 1: adventures and wrote new books of geography. Then one day
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  Speaker 1: a professor who taught geography at the monastery of Sandi
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  Speaker 1: and Alsace, published a little book on geography. In it
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  Speaker 1: he spoke of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the three parts
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  Speaker 1: of the world as known to the ancients. Then he
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  Speaker 1: spoke of the fourth part, which had been discovered by
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  Speaker 1: Amerigo Vespucci, by which he meant what we now call
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  Speaker 1: South America, and continues this professor, I do not see
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  Speaker 1: what is rightly to hinder Us calling this part Amerigae
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  Speaker 1: or America, that is, the land of Americus, after its
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  Speaker 1: discoverer Americus. This is the first time the word America
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  Speaker 1: was ever used. And little did this old German professor,
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  Speaker 1: writing in his quiet Alsatian College, think that he was
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  Speaker 1: christening the great double continent of the new world. And
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  Speaker 1: as little did Amerigo think, in writing his letter to
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  Speaker 1: his old schoolfellow, that he was to be looked upon
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  Speaker 1: as the discoverer of the new world. At first, the
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  Speaker 1: new name came slowly into use, and it appears for
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  Speaker 1: the first time on a map made about fifteen fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: In this map, America is shown as a great island
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  Speaker 1: continent lying chiefly south of the equator. All the voyages
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  Speaker 1: which Columbus had made had been north of the equation.
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  Speaker 1: No man yet connected the land south of the equator
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  Speaker 1: with him, and it was at first only to the
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  Speaker 1: Southland that the name America was given. Thirty years and
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  Speaker 1: more went by. Many voyages were made, and it became
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  Speaker 1: known for certain that Columbus had not reached the shores
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  Speaker 1: of India by sailing west, and that a great continent
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  Speaker 1: barred the way north as well as south of the equator.
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  Speaker 1: Then a famous map maker gave the name of America
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  Speaker 1: to both continents. But many Spaniards were jealous for the
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  Speaker 1: fame of Columbus, and they thought that the northern continent
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  Speaker 1: should be called Colonia or Columbiana. One anxious that the
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  Speaker 1: part in the discovery taken by Ferdinand and Isabella should
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  Speaker 1: not be forgotten, even tried to make people call it
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  Speaker 1: fair Isabelica. But all such efforts were in vain. America
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  Speaker 1: sounded well, people liked it, and soon everyone used it.
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  Speaker 1: Amerigo Vespucci himself had nothing to do with the choice.
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  Speaker 1: And yet because others gave his name to the new World,
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  Speaker 1: many hard things have been said of him. He has
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  Speaker 1: been called in scorn, a land lubber, a beef and
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  Speaker 1: biscuit contractor, and other contemptuous names. Even one of the
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  Speaker 1: greatest American writers has poured scorn on him. Strange he
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  Speaker 1: says that broad America must wear the name of a thief.
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  Speaker 1: Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle dealer of Seville, whose highest naval
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  Speaker 1: rank was a Bosun's mate in an expedition that never sailed,
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  Speaker 1: managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptize
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  Speaker 1: half the earth in his own dishonest name. But it
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  Speaker 1: was the people of his day, and not Vespucci, who
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  Speaker 1: brought the new name into use. Vespucci himself had never
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  Speaker 1: any intention of being a thief or of robbing Columbus
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  Speaker 1: of his glory. He and Columbus had always been friends,
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  Speaker 1: and little more than a year before he died, Columbus
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  Speaker 1: wrote a letter to his son Diego, which Vespucci delivered.
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  Speaker 1: In this letter, Columbus says, Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of
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  Speaker 1: this letter, has always been wishful to please me. He
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  Speaker 1: is a very honest man. He is very anxious to
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  Speaker 1: do something for me if it is in his power.
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  Speaker 1: It was only accident which gave the name of America
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  Speaker 1: to the new world, and perhaps also the ingratitude of
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  Speaker 1: the great leader's own generation. Later generations, however, have not
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  Speaker 1: been so unmindful of Columbus and his deeds, Americans have
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  Speaker 1: not allowed his great name to be wholly forgotten. The
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  Speaker 1: district in which the capital of the United States is
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  Speaker 1: situated is called Columbia. In Canada, too there is the
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  Speaker 1: great province of British Columbia, and in South America the
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  Speaker 1: United States of Columbia, besides many towns, all named in
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  Speaker 1: honor of the Great Discoverer. End of Chapter five read
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  Speaker 1: on October sixteenth, two thousand seven, in Oceanside, California,