Othershad seen Cape Cod from a distance, before Bartholomew Gosnold stepped ashore in 1602. Cabot had sailed down the coast from Newfoundland in 1498, perhaps as far as Cape Hatteras, claiming everything in sight for the King of England. Following him in ever-increasing numbers, Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels sailed up and down, some exploring, some on voyages to the Newfoundland fisheries. By 1600, Captain Edward Hayes reported, 400 ships yearly were visiting the fisheries, a large proportion of them undoubtedly fishermen from Southern Europe who had crossed the tropics to Florida and then coasted up to Newfoundland. All these coasting vessels must have passed Cape Cod not far off shore, but only one of them has any semblance of a claim to having discovered it.
A map made in 1529 by a Spanish cosmographer named Diego Ribero shows on the American coast a thornlike projection representing a peninsula pointing north and enclosing a bay. The cape bears the legend C[abo] de Arenas (Cape of Sands, "Sandy Hook"). This may have been the first European name given to Cape Cod, although that is highly questionable.
On Ribero's map, C. de Arenas is made a part of the "Tierra de Ayllón, an associate of Cortés in Mexico, who set out on some exploring after the Conquest (in 1520-1521, and again about 1530), but who pretty certainly got no farther than Cape Fear. North of Ayllón's land and its cape is another place designated "Tierra de Estevan Gómez". Some scholars believe that evidence points to Gomez". Some scholars believe that evidence points to Gòmez as the discover the C. de arenas. Others protest that not only the name of C. de Arenas but also the names of places in its vininity are those of a more southerly part of the coast, tht C. de Arenas is in fact an exaggerated drawing of Sandy Hook, near New York City.
The uncertainty in fact makes little or no difference so far as Bartholomew Gosnold is concerned. One of the maps which Gosnold undoubtedly used was Dr. Dee's map of 1580. On this, C. de Arenas is plainly placed two or three hundred miles west of Verrazzano's Bay -- Narragansett. Bartholomew Gosnold could have had no inkling that in sailing south from his landfall to his destination he would be caught within the great arm of the peninsula which is Cape Cod. No Englishman had known of its existence, and Gosnold's contemporaries, led by Henry Hudson in 1609, ascribe to Gosnold the credit for putting this landmark on the map.
The strange fact that for over a century ships passed by Cape Cod without reporting to the map-makers its peculiar hook-shaped head has a simple explination. The rocky shoals off its seaward shore, extending south beyond Nantucket, effectually discouraged any attempt to approach close enough to see its configuration. These shoals made the cape region one of the most dangerous spots on the Atlantic coast, and ships evidently passed so far to the eastward that their navigators were unable to see the great bay lying between the outer cape and the mainland. If documentary evidence of this is needed, it is to be found in the terrifying experiences of Cape George Waymouth (1605) and of Captain Henry Hudson (1609), in the bafflement of Captain John Smith (1614), and in the concern of the Captain of the Mayflower, the somewhat unsavoury Captain Thomas Jones, for his Pilgrim passengers.
The narrative of Waymouth's voyage at this point tells a story which may be taken as the equivalent of scores of others that might have been told, had navigators in the preceding century attempted to approach Cape Cod.
[Monday, 13 May, 1605; off the coast of Maine.] From ten a clocke that night till three a clock in the morning, our Captain tooke in all Sayles and lay at hull, being desirous to fall with the Land in the day time, because it was an unknown Coast, which it pleased God in his mercy to grant us, otherwise surely we had runne our Shippe upon the hidden Rockes, and perished all: for when we set sayle, we sounded in an hundred fathom: and by eight a clocke, having not made above five or sixe leagues, our Captaine upon a sudden change of water supposing verily he saw the sand, presently sounded, and had but five fathome. Much marvelling because we saw no Land, he sent one to the top, who described a whitish sandy Cliffe, which bare West North-west about sixe leagues off: but comming neereer within three or foure leagues, we saw many breaches still neerer the Land. At last we espied a great breach ahead us right along the shoare, into which, before we entered, our Captaine thought best to hoist out his Ship-boat and sound it: which if hee had not done, wee had there ended our Voyage, together with our lives: for he bare up the Ship as neere as he could after the Boate, until Master Cam his Mate being in the Boat, weffed [waved] and called to him to winde about and stand off, for in this breach he had very shoald water, two fathome upon Rockes, and sometime they supposed they saw the Rocke within three or foure foot, whereon the Sea made a very hight strong greach, which we might discerne (from the top) to runne along as wee sailed by it, sixe or seven leagues to the Southward: and we saw no end thereof. Wherefore we were constrained to put backe againe from the Land; and sounding ( the weather being faire) we found our selves embayed with continual Shoalds and Rocks, in a most uncertaine ground; as by judgement of our Captaine and whole companie, they had never knowne the like; from five and sixe fathome, at the next cast of the Land wee should have fifteene and eighteene fathome all hard Rocke over many which (by the unspeakable goodnesse and mercy of God towards us) wee passed. For if we had bare in with it but the day before (shich was exceeding tempestusous) or in the night, we could by no meanes have escaped the danger. But God so blessed us, that we had weather and winde as faire as poore men could wish, in this distreese, whereby we both perfectly discerned every breach, and with the winde were able to turne, where wee saw most hope of safest passage. Thus we parted from the Land, which wee had not so much before desired: and at the first sight rejoyced: as now wee all joyfully praised God, that it had pleased him so miraculously to deliver us from so imminent danger of death before our eyes.
Three days late, Waymouth, having failed to get sight of any land where his charts placed it, found himself in the vicinity of an island easily identified as Monhegan, off the coast of Maine. This suggests that other navigators in the preceding century, having learned the dangers of the shoales off Cape Cod, sailed a course so far to the eastward that they had no sight of the head of the Cape, but made their next landfall somewhere on the coast of Maine or Nova Scotia. Many other seamen, less well-informed or less canny, undoubtedly sailed their ships to destruction in the vicinity of the Cape, as the rough waters surrounding it to this day take heavy toll of unwary fishing vessels and coasters, regardless of navigational aids.
The landsman, who may have ridden in safety through great seas on deep waters, cannot readily comprehend the twisting, rending power of these same seas when they roll in upon the broken bottom of rocky shoals. No one knew that power more than the mariners who sailed cockleshells courageously into the unknown. But once a region pestered with shoals became known, it was avoided. And because the Cape Cod shoals were so fearsomely known, navigators and geographers alike had to wait for Bartholomew Gosnold to tell them the shape and the physical aspects of the Cape itself.
For the last three centuries and a half, everyone who has cast his eye upon a map of New England has carried away an unforgettable impression of the great peninsula at the south-eastern corner of Massachusetts, running out for thirty-five miles easterly to a junction with barrier beaches of the outer coast that run another thiry miles northerly and ten miles southerly. The extreme northerly end curves around like the head of al shepherd's crook, forming a horbour of refuge into which the Great Shepherd drew the Pilgrims, far from the shoals that threatened them when first they arrived off these shores. To this whole great cape Bartholomew Gosnold gave the name Cape Cod.
A peculiar situation makes it possible to gauge the appreciation of Gosnold's accomplishment in the minds of his contemporaries. Brereton's Relation described the Cape and the cod-fishing within its great bay, but nowhere mentioned the fact that the name "Capecod" was bestowed upon it. The story of the naming of the Cape was told in Archer's parallel account -- which did not get into print until 1625. For an interval of twenty-three years, therefore, the written story of the naming of Cape Cod was not available. Nevertheless, within this period we find that the name "Cape Cod" was in common use, the story of Gosnold's exploit having passed like a saga from one mariner to another. The citations that follow suggest how word of the new landmark spread among English seamen. Yet onone of these records were printed before Archer's account.
In 1609, tow years after Gosnold's death, Henry Hudson sailed down the coast of America on the voyage for the Dutch that led him to the discovery, or rather rediscovery, of Manhattan and the river subsequently named for him. He encountered on his way a great headland, of which his mate Juet recorded, "And this is that Headland which Captaine Bartholomew Gosnold discovered in the yeere 1602. and called Cape Cod; because of the store of Cod-fish that hee found thereabout."
The next year, on June 19, 1610, Sir George Somers and Captain Samuel Argall, each commanding a pinnance, sailed from Jamestown colony bound for Bermuda, in the hope of finding there provisions for the starving Jamestown settlers. They somehow failed to locate Bermuda, and turned north. At this time the name "Cape Cod" was bellowed across the waters of the North Atlantic; Agrall's narrative reveals that his ship bore up Somers' lee so that they were within hailing distance and Sir George called out that he could no longer ride out the stormy weather towards Bermuda, "but that he would presently [right away] steere away North North-west, to see if he could fetch Cape Cod." This occurred on July 16th.
Their next landfall was not , howevfer, Cape Cod, but the coast of Maine, where they spent nearly a month fishi8ng and being tossed about in fog and rain. It was August 19th before Argall could note:
About two of the clocke in the afternoone I did see an Head-land, which did beare off me Southwest, about foure leagues: so I steered with it taking it to bee Cape Cod; and by foure of the clocke I was fallen among so many sholes, that it was five of the clocke the next day in the morning before I could get cleere of them. It is a very dangerous place to fall withall: for the shoales lie at the least ten leagues off from the Land; and I had upon one of them but one fathom and a halfe water, and my Barke did draw seven foot. (Somers had meanwhille taken off for Bermuda, without further ado.")
Another account of this same expedition was written by William Strachey a year or more later:
Likewise from the North point of our Bay [Chesapeake], which (as aforesaid) the Indains call Accowmack and we call Cape Charles hath the Coast all along bene discovered even to the River of Sachadehock; for Capt Argoll in his returne from the search of the Bermudas Anno 1710. after he had lost Sir George Somers the 28. of July in a dangerous Fogge, well beaten to and fro, fell with the Mayne mainland] (standing for Cape Cod) and made good from 44. degrees what Captayne Bartilmew Gosnoll, and Capt Waymouth wanted in their discoveryes, observing all along the Coast, and drawing the plotts thereof as he stered homewardes unto our Bay . . .
All this leads back to the velasco map, which was already drawn before Strachey wrote. Not only did Gosnold, Henry Hudson, and Argall supply information, but so also did the so-called Popham colony, which spent the winter of 1607-1608 on the coast of Maine and did considerable exploring. Detailed evidence of just who discovered and mapped just what is lacking, but the map itself is certainly attributable at least as much to Popham's group as to any predecessors or to Argall. The interesting feature of the Velasco may, however, is the fact that the name Cape Cod is placed opposite the southeastern corner of the Cape; the northern tip of the Cape bears the legend "whitson's Head". Although the name is only an ephemeral contribution of Martin Pring (1603), it is noteworthy that for the first time the peculiar convolution of this northern head, which forms the harbor now known as Provincetown Harbor, is more or less correctly drawn.
If Whitson's Head did not survive as a name, there might have been danger that a burst of monarchic loyalty from Captain John Smith might. Smith repeatedly referred to "Cape Cod" in his Description of New England (1616), but not once did he mention when or how it got the name. One might think that he must have heard the story from Gosnold himself, since the two were associated for the least two years in the Virginia enterprise. Smith attributed the entire Virginia enterprise to Gosnold, so it cannot be that he omitted the story out of jealousy or disparagement. But he made no mention of who named Cape Cod and nearly ten years after Gosnold's death he felt free to please Prince Charles (who found the New England Indian names "barbarous"), and changed Cape Cod to Cape James, in honor of the King. The misguided effort to flatter royalty proved as short-lived as Pring's "Whitson's Head." Gosnold's homely, practical name has survived all such petty adulation. Yet Gosnold's own name seemed for a few years to be in danger of succumbing to a wave that virtually left little memory of him but the name Cape Cod. For as long as the name endures it will be associated with the arrival of the Pilgrims on these shores in 1620.
The Pilgrims are among those who knew about Cape Cod -- how is not known -- before Gabriel Archer's story of its naming saw the light of day. It is fitting, therefore, to conclude this chapter with the words of Governor William Bradford, telling the story of the arrival of the Mayflower at the Cape.
. . . after longe beating at sea they fell with that land which is called Cape Cod; the which being made & certainly knowne to be it, they were not a litle joyfull. After some deliberation had amongst them selves & with ye mr. of ye ship, they tacked aboute the resolved to stande for ye southward (ye wind & weather being faire) to finde some place aboute Hudsons river [location uncertain] for their habitation. But after they had sailed yt course aboute halfe ye day, they fell amongst deangerous shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so farr intangled ther with as they conveived them selves in great danger; & ye wind shrinking upon them withall, they resolved to bear up againe for the Cape, and thought them selves hapy to gett out of those dangers before night overtook them, as by Gods providence they did. And yet next day they gott into ye Cape-harbor wher they ridd in saftie. A word or too by ye way of this cape; it was thus first named by Capten Gosnole & his company (because yey tooke much of yt fishe ther), Ano: 1602, and after by Capten Smith was caled Cape James; but it retains ye former name amongst seamen . . .
Being thus arived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries thereof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente.
