tant countries to reap the profits which nature seemed to have
reserved for another people. After having conquered their
soil from the Mussulmans the Portuguese found themselves
arrested by the parallel progress of Spanish Christians.
Africa was before them. There they would find conquests
to make, riches to gain, souls to convert; the most learned
and the most intrepid talked of turning the continent as
formerly did the Phoenicians, of opening a route toward the
countries where were produced the commodities which the
Mussulmans hardly allowed to pass by Alexandria and which
Venice sold so dear; finally, of making research after that
kingdom of Prester John in Eastern Africa (Abyssinia) of
whom many spoke, whom none had seen, and who appeared
waiting for the Christian nations in order to lead them to the
conquest of the East.
From all these causes the Portuguese nation in the fif-
teenth century was seized with an ardor as intense as at the
epoch of the crusade. The Infante Don Henry, third son of
King John I., controlled this movement. He established
himself at the extremity of the continent near Cape St. Vin-
cent, and there in face of those unknown seas, which his eye
pierced without cessation, he continued during more than
forty years to send upon them intrepid sailors whose death
slackened but did not arrest those attempts. The clergy
120 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
united its influence to that of the prince. Each departure
was blessed, each ship consecrated, each squadron carried
its priests at the side of its mariners, just as in each colony
rose a church between the citadel and the factory. The
first to depart under the direction of the Infante in 1419 dis-
covered an island which the Portuguese had probably known,
and which they called Madeira (wood) because it was covered
with forests. They set fire to these impenetrable woods;
tradition makes the conflagration last seven years, and attrib-
utes to the ashes that fertility which has won for Madeira
the surname of "Queen of the Isles" ; the Infante had grape-
vines carried there from Greece and sugar canes from Sicily
and Cyprus; this last plant has deserted the island, the first
still prospers there. Twelve years later the Azores were
discovered. Encouraged by a bull of Pope Martin V., who
in 1432 granted Don Henry the right of conquest over the
lands which they should discover, together with plenary in-
dulgence for those who should perish in these expeditions,
the Portuguese doubled Cape Bojador, which, beaten by a
stormy sea, had till then intimidated the most hardy navi-
gators (1433). After this "labor of Hercules" they trem-
blingly passed Cape Blanc (1444), the tropic (1446), beyond
which it was told them the whites would become black, then
Cape Verd and its islands (1446). The death of the Infante
in 1464 did not retard the discoveries. The Portuguese eight
years after arrived at St. Thomas and passed the line; in
1484 they touched Guinea, where they found the gold which
the English coined and called guinea from the name of the
country whence it was derived; at last, in 1486 Bartholomew
Diaz recognized the cape which terminates Africa at the
south; he called it the Cape of Storms; King John gave it
its truer name which it still bears: he called it the Cape of
Good Hope.
Finally, there departed form Lisbon (July 8, 1497,) a
squadron of four tiny ships of less than a hundred tons burden
, with a crew of a hundred and sixty men com-
VascodaGama , , , ;,
(1497) and the manded by Vasco da Gama. 1 he evening
of lo Th a e p?iu- before the departure Gama partook of the sac-
guese. rament and a convent was founded at the spot
where he had quitted the shore. This first expedition was
only for reconnoitering. The fleet touched, not without
peril, on the eastern shore of Africa at Mozambique and
Monbaca, where the Portuguese were astonished at again
CHAP. XI.] THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. 121
finding Moors. The Mussulman king of Melinda gave them
a pilot to conduct them across the Indian Ocean. In twenty
days they crossed the 700 leagues of sea which separated
them from the coast of Malabar, and May 20, 1498 they
dropped anchor before the great city of Calicut. The Arab
merchants since the twelfth century monopolized the trade
of India toward the west. By their intrigues they hindered
the negotiations of Gama with the Zamorin or King of Cali-
cut, and his ships on their return brought back little wealth,
but immense hope (1499). Later in the Lusiad Camoens
sang of the heroic expedition which had opened India to
the Portuguese.
Alvarez Cabral founded in India the first European
factory, that of Calicut. On the way he had been assailed
by a tempest, driven toward the west, and thrown upon an
unknown shore; it was the coast of Brazil, so called from the
name of a dyewood there found in abundance; Alvarez had
first called it the Holy Cross. In India he introduced the
policy, hardly honorable, but profitable, of interfering in the
quarrels of the native kings in order that each might help
in the subjection of the rest.
D'Almeida was the first Viceroy of India, and legitimized
this title by the great victory of Diu, which took away from
the Mussulmans the domination of the Indian Ocean (1508).
But the real creator of the colonial empire of the Portuguese
was the great Albuquerque. By the capture of Socotora at
the entrance of the Red Sea, and by that of Ormuz at the
entrance of the Persian Gulf, which he siezed in 1507 as
lieutenant of d'Almeida, he closed the ancient routes of
Indian commerce to the Mussulmans and Venetians. The
Shah of Persia demanded an annual indemnity for Ormuz;
Albuquerque led the envoys before a heap of grenades and
bullets, then he said to them: "That is the sort of money
with which the King of Portugal pays his tribute."
A Venetian fleet whose ships, taken apart at Cairo, had
been transported on camels' backs by the Mamelukes across
the desert, was destroyed by him (1508). He gave to Por-
tuguese India its capital by taking possession of Goa, which
a river envelops with its two arms so as to form one of the
most beautiful harbors in the world (1510); then he con-
quered Malacca (1511), secured the alliance of the kings of
Siam and Pegu, and reconnoitered the Molucca Islands, an
achievement whereby the Portuguese entered Oceanica, a
122 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
new world, one whose discovery has been completed only in
our time. This mighty warrior, it is said, in order to secure
to the Portuguese the uncontested monopoly of the commerce
of India, dreamed of restoring Egypt to the desert by divert-
ing the course of the Nile into the Red Sea; this was the
counterpart of a project formed at Venice for uniting the
Red Sea and the Mediterranean by a canal. To revenge
upon Islam the occupation of Jerusalem and Constantinople
he wished also to destroy Mecca and Medina. But nature
was stronger than his genius. He died poor and almost in
disgrace. When experiencing the injustice of the king he
contented himself by saying, "To the tomb, worn-out old
man to the tomb." He was seventy-two years old (1515).
The Hindus cherished the recollection of his virtues, and
often came to pray at his tomb for protection against the
injustices of his successors.
However, the progress continued. Scares (1515-18)
completed the submission of Malabar and the conquest of
Ceylon; Nuno d'Acunhamade that of Diu (1531), and frus-
trated a formidable attack of the Ottomans of Souleiman,
who, setting out from Egypt with an immense armament, en-
deavored to drive from the Indian seas these newcomers
who were diverting to Lisbon all the commerce by which
formerly Alexandria grew rich (1538); finally, John de Castro
baffled all the coalitions formed against the Portuguese
domination, and defended Diu against the Ottomans of Sou-
lei'man, who were led by Genoese engineers. To rebuild the
ruined walls of the town money was lacking. He demanded
some from the merchants of Goa, and sent them, it is said, his
mustaches as guarantee of the loan. When he died in 1548
he left as heritage to his family only three reals, but to his
country an immense empire and a consolidated government.
From Lisbon to the Cape of Good Hope, from the Cape of
Good Hope to Hindustan, from Hindustan to Malacca, and
from Indo-China to Japan, there was not an important point
that the Portuguese had not occupied. From Mozambique,
Sofala, and Melinda on the coast of Africa they obtained
gold dust and ivory; from Mascat and Ormuz in the Persian
Gulf, the productions of central Asia. By Diu on the coast
of Guzerat, by Goa on that of Malabar, by the island of Cey-
lon, and by Negapatam on the coast of Coromandel, they
enveloped all Hindustan. Malacca in the peninsula of the
same name delivered to them the commerce of the countries
CHAP. XI.] THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. 123
of Indo-China; they occupied the Spice Islands, Ternate and
Timor in the Moluccas; they had an establishment at Macao
near Canton, and carried on traffic with Japan, which yielded
them an enormous quantity of metals. Their factories upon
the western coast of Africa and on the Congo possessed im-
portance only after the introduction of the slave trade; for
a long time Brazil had no other colonists than criminals and
deported Jews. Goa was the center of this vast colonial
empire.
It is difficult to conceive how in less than half a century
a people so small could in spite of so furious and so numer-
ous oppositions cover with its factories or dominate by its
fortresses a coast line of 4000 leagues. But we must realize
to what degree the love of lucre was excited by this commer-
cial revolution, and what patriotic and religious heroism ani-
mated the first colonists of India. Gama, Cabral, Albu-
querque, John de Castro, believed themselves the armed
apostles of civilization and faith; and in their train in fact
came those men who have created a new sort of heroes,
the missionaries. John de Castro died in the arms of St.
Francis Xavier.
This good fortune of Portugal was ruin for Venice. The
aged queen of the Adriatic and Mediterranean struggled
painfully against the necessity which was slaying her. She
attempted force and united with Souleiman in dispatching a
powerful armament from Egypt; the enterprise having failed,
she made use of entreaties and begged of the Portuguese to
associate her with their commerce: they refused; to buy of
them at a fixed price the productions brought to Lisbon, a
new refusal. Then she freed from all tax the merchandise
arriving through Egypt, and taxed heavily that which came
by way of the Cape. But the former daily grew more rare,
the latter more abundant; Lisbon became the great entrepot
of Eastern commodities. The Dutch came to buy them
there and thence, in place of the Italian merchants, dis-
tributed them through all Europe.
To find the route to India by the east was the idea of all
the Portuguese navigators; to find it by the west was the
idea of Columbus. A mariner at fourteen, the Genoese
Christopher Columbus early gave special attention to the
sphericity of the earth and the possibility of passing
around it. India was supposed to be very extended east-
ward, through the necessity of counterbalancing the Euro-
124 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
pean continent. Waves had been known to bring from
the west sculptured wood, uprooted trees, and even two
dead bodies of men different from Euro-
Columb t us P (i493); peans. The point at issue was therefore to
Cortes (1519) ; reach the Indian continent without circum-
Magellan (1520; ; . , . , . , ..
Pizarro (1539). navigating Africa by crossing the thus far
dl. ""explored Atlantic. Columbus presented
his project to the senate of Genoa, who
rejected it as the dream of a madman; to the King of
Portugal, John II., who endeavored to rob him of it;
to the King of England, Henry VII., whom his brother
went to seek; finally, to the sovereigns of Spain, Ferdi-
nand and Isabella, who, entirely occupied with the siege
of Granada, refused to listen to him. The learned men
of the epoch proposed terrible objections: "How will you
hold yourself up with your head downward? How will you
climb again the convex surface of the globe?" One man,
the prior Juan Peres, alone understood Columbus, and made
Isabella understand him. After the conquest of Granada
this great queen called for the Genoese, who, immovable in
his idea, had already started to carry his project elsewhere.
Ferdinand and Isabella, "sovereigns of the ocean," named
Columbus "grand admiral of all the seas and viceroy of
the lands which he should discover." Castile made the
sacrifice of 100,000 livres. Three poor vessels, the Santa
Maria commanded by Columbus, the Pinta and the Nina
by the Pinpon brothers, started August 3, 1492, from the port
of Palos; they touched at the Canaries, and on quitting these
islands they launched out into the unknown. Three weeks
they sailed westward. Many times birds and large weeds
made them believe they were approaching land ; but these
hopes vanished like those of the traveler deceived by the
mirage of the desert. Always they went on ; but according
as they withdrew from the known world to plunge into im-
mensity, anxiety and terror took possession of their minds.
Soon the crew mutinied, wished to return, and Columbus
dissuaded them only by means of firmness. Finally, during
the night of October n a sailor of the Pinta, which
was in the lead, cried out, "Land!" and at daybreak the
Spaniards discovered a delicious island. Upon the shore
Columbus fell upon his knees and gave thanks to
Heaven. He was on the tiny island Guanahani, one of
the Lucaye or Bahama Islands. By descending less toward
CHAP. XI.] THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. 12$
the south he would have sooner discovered the American
continent.
It is the lot of inventors to discover sometimes more than
they seek, but such good fortune happens only to creative
geniuses. Columbus always believed that he had touched
the Indian continent, and like him we still call this new
land the West Indies. At his first voyage (1492) Columbus
discovered only islands: the Bahamas, Cuba with its fine
roadstead of Havana, the most beautiful there is in the world,
and Hispaniola (Hayti or San Domingo). In the second
(1493) he touched at many of the small Antilles. Only at
the third (1498) did he see the mouth of the Orinoco and
touch the continent without knowing it. Finally, in the
fourth in 1502 he reconnoitered the coasts of Colombia from
Cape Gracias-a-Dios as far as the harbor of Puerto Bello,
and even the entrance of the Gulf of Darien.
But already envy attacked the great man. On return from
his first voyage enough honors could not be heaped upon
him. Ferdinand and Isabella had him sit covered in their
presence as a grandee of Spain ; on the second the enthu-
siasm fell. They had counted on an ample cargo of gold;
Columbus brought back only little. On the third persecu-
tion commenced. Loaded with chains and under the impu-
tation of treason, he returned to Europe. Isabella hastened
to make reparation for this outrage. Nevertheless he was
only able to again set out four years later; and when he
arrived before Hispaniola he was forbidden to land. He
remained a long time deprived of all succor on the coast of
Jamaica, where he had run aground, and he wandered two
years in the sea of the Antilles. On his return Ferdinand
the Catholic received him coldly; Isabella, his protectress,
was dying. Overwhelmed with disappointments, worn out
with fatigue, he survived her only two years (1506). He
wished to be buried with the chains he had worn. His
body rests in the cathedral of Havana; only upon the mau-
soleum of his son at Seville does one read these two verses:
A Castilla y a Leon
Nuevo mundo dio Colon.
Posterity has consecrated another injustice, whereby has
been given to America the name of the Florentine Amerigo
Vespucci, who in 1497 or 1499 touched the continent and
126 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
published the first description spread through Europe of
the new lands.
The route once found, discoveries succeeded rapidly. In
1513 Balboa traversed the isthmus of Panama, and was the
first to look upon the vast ocean of which he took possession
in the name of the crown of Spain, entering its waters sword
in hand. In 1518 Grijalva discovered Mexico, and Ferdi-
nand Cortes almost immediately began its conquest.
Mexico had been for a hundred and thirty years the most
powerful state in America through the number of its inhab-
itants, their courage, and even their civilization. Cortes
had only 700 soldiers, 18 horses, and 10 campaign pieces.
But the victory of the Spaniards was rendered almost inevi-
table by their superiority in arms and discipline, by the
audacity and sang-froid of their chief, by his pitiless policy,
and more than all by the almost superstitious astonishment
of the natives at sight of white men who carried the thunder
in their hands. Setting out from Cuba, Cortes landed (April,
1519) not far from Tabasco and coasted along the gulf as far
as the place which was called St. Jean d'Ulloa, and which
became the port of Vera Cruz, founded by Cortes. Then he
burned his ships so as to leave his followers no hope save
victory, and attacked first the aristocratic republic of Tlascala.
He appalled the warriors with his cannon, and after having
forced 6000 of them to follow him as auxiliaries, he ad-
vanced upon Mexico, the capital of the empire. This city,
situated upon a lake and defended by more than 300,000
inhabitants, was accessible only by a narrow causeway.
He declared himself the friend of Montezuma, under this
title entered the city, and one day, followed by only fifty
Spaniards, penetrated the palace of the emperor, seized his
person, and obliged him to acknowledge himself vassal and
tributary of Charles V. (1519).
The Governor of Cuba, Velasquez, jealous of his successes,
sent against him an army of more than 1000 Spaniards.
Cortes won them over and tripled his forces. At this
moment broke out a patriotic revolt of the Mexicans:
Montezuma was slain while wishing to appease his people,
and the Spaniards were driven from Mexico; but the bloody
victory of Otumba brought them back under the walls of this
city, which they captured (August 13, 1521), and the new
emperor, Guatemozin, was placed with his first minister upon
burning coals that he might be compelled to declare where
CHAP. XI.] THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. 127
he had hidden his treasures. Suffering extorted complaints
from the minister. "And I," said Gautemozin, "am I on a
bed of roses?" Cortes tarnished his glory by cruelties. In
the province of Panuco alone 60 caciques, or chiefs, and
400 nobles were burned. Other incursions brought Cortes
as far as California. He had the fate of Christopher
Columbus; jealous calumnies called him back to Spain;
he was stripped of his command ; to obtain an audience
he was obliged to break through the press which surrounded
the carriage of the emperor. Seeing him erect upon the
step of the carriage door, Charles V. asked who that man
was. "It is, " replied Cortes, "he who has given you more
states than your father left you cities." This reply gave
the finishing stroke to his disgrace; he died in destitution.
While Ferdinand Cortes was subduing Mexico the Portu-
guese Magellan, entering into the service of Charles V.,
undertook to make by sea the circuit of the globe, and
attaining by the west the innumerable islands of the Pacific
Ocean, which the Portuguese reached by the east, to dispute
their conquest with the latter. He set out from Spain
(September 20, 1519), discovered (October 21, 1520), the
strait which bears his name between South America and
Terra del Fuego, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and in March,
1521, approached the Philippines. He perished in a com-
bat with the natives of these islands; but his lieutenant, del
Cano, accomplished the enterprise. The squadron, con-
tinuing to sail westward, reached the Molucca Islands to the
great astonishment of the Portuguese, who could not under-
stand that it had arrived at Tidor by the eastern sea, and,
doubling the Cape of Good Hope, arrived in Spain 1124
days after it had set out.*
In the time of Prince Henry the Portuguese had obtained
from the Holy See the possession of everything which they
should discover; Columbus having found America, the
Spaniards applied to the Pope, who divided the globe between
the two peoples by aline of demarcation drawn 270 leagues
west of the Azores. But seeing that the world was round,
* Of this expedition Dr. Draper well says in his work upon the intel-
lectual development of Europe : "In the whole history of human under-
takings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything which
equals, this voyage of Magellan. That of Columbus dwindles away in
comparison." Later on he speaks of it as " the greatest achievement in
the history of the human race." ED.
128 REVOLUTION IN INTERESTS. [BOOK III.
the two nations found themselves confronting each other in
the other hemisphere. East of the Moluccas they traced a
new line, which they also called the demarcation (1522).
The conquest of Peru was much more easy than that of
Mexico, the natives being less warlike. One day when the
Spaniards of the isthmus of Panama were weighing parcels
of gold an Indian overturned their balances, saying that
after four suns' march southward they would find a country
where gold was so common as to be employed in the meanest
uses. Three adventurers hearing these words, Almagro,
de Luque, and Pizarro, made themselves the chiefs of a new
expedition. A foundling, a schoolmaster, and a soldier of
fortune took upon themselves to subdue an empire 500
leagues in length, and did subdue it in six years (1529-35).
At Peru reigned the dynasty of the Incas, who called them-
selves children of the sun. Pizarro made himself master of
Cuzco, and following the example of Cortes, seized the
Indian prince in the midst of his court in order to oblige him
for his ransom to fill with gold a chamber twenty-two feet
high, then had him strangled. Meanwhile one of his officers
captured Quito. Almagro penetrated into Chili, but divi-
sion of the Incas' riches embroiled the associates. Other
adventurers, among them three brothers of Pizarro, hastened
over from Spain, and by multiplying the shares complicated
the quarrels. Cuzco, the capital of the Incas, became the
theater of a bloody strife, of which the Peruvians remained
inactive spectators. Almagro, made prisoner, had his head
cut off, but his partisans assassinated Pizarro in his palace at
Lima, which he had founded (1541). Only after long and
atrocious wars, during which most of the conquerors perished,
did the country draw breath, pacified by Pedro de la Gasca
(1546), and the authority of the crown was established firmly
in Peru and Chili. In 1535 other Spaniards had founded
Buenos Ayres at the mouth of the La Plata on the opposite
coast of South America.
The Venetian John Cabot, in the service of the English
king, Henry VII., discovered Newfoundland (1497); his son
Sebastian, who proposed the problem, solved only a few
years ago, of the northwest passage, reconnoitered Hudson's
Bay. In 1524 the Florentine Verozzani took possession of
Newfoundland in the name of France, and in 1534 Jacques
Cartier of St. Malo discovered Canada. Thus the two
peoples who were to dispute North America with so much
CHAP. XI.] THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION. 129
desperation had arrived at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, but had established themselves firmly only toward
its end.
The Portuguese and the Spaniards did not follow the same
system in the organization of their colonies. The Portuguese
Empire had been founded progressively by a succession of
regular efforts ; besides, it was composed of strongholds and
of factories from Annobon in Africa as far as Tidor in
Oceanica. It had therefore been necessary to arm the
governor or general with absolute authority. Thus the first
viceroys, as Albuquerque and John de Castro, united in their
hands civil power and command of the troops. This omnip-
otence, arising from the very nature of things, early dis-
quieted the kings of Portugal, who believed they found a
remedy by every three years renewing their colonial adminis-
tration from top to bottom. The governors henceforth had
only one care, to make their fortunes rapidly to the great det-
riment of the colonies. Thence arose an appalling demorali-
zation which even invaded the capital. Everybody disputed