NORUMBEGA
In the year 1582 English lads of the generation of eleven-year-old Bartholomew Gosnold could read for the first time a true tale of the North American Indians. It was told in a sixty year-old document translated by the Reverend Richard Hakluyt for his first printed collection of mariners' narratives of voyages to America. This document was a letter, written by one Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian from Florence in the service of King Francis I of France. In it, Verrazzano gave the king an acount of a voyage up the coast of North America. Highly colored and somewhat fanciful, this was designed to stir the imagination of the King rather than to give specific geographical information. Nevertheless, it contained the first useful account of a place recongnizable as located in the region we know as New England.
From Verrazzano's "Letter" one learned that the explorer's vessel, entering a large harbor, had been welcomed by natives of the land, who approached the ship in twenty small boats. Trifling gifts of small bells and glass beads enticed these people to board the great vessel. Among them were two Kings, one older and one younger, both clad in deerskins, and ornamented with chains of many-hued stones.
Verrazzano describes his Indian visitors as the goodliest and fairest natives they had found on the voyage. "They exceed us in bigness," he wrote: "they are of the colour of brasse, some of them incline more to whitenesse; others are of yellow colour, of comely visage, with long and blacke haire, which they are very careful to trim and decke up; they are blacke and quicke eyed, and of sweete and pleasant countenance . . ." And he added that during his two-weeks' stay great numbers of these people came often to the ship, their faces "all bepainted with divers colours, shewing us that it was a signe of joy."
Among their ornaments were plates of wrought copper which they esteemed more than gold. The rich red copper appealed to them; the pale yellow of gold made it seem to them the basest of metals. They showed no interest whatever in silk or embroidered fabrics. The utility of articles of iron and steel was beyond their comprehension. Glass baubles, azure and red, were treasures to them.
The voyagers journeyed fifteen or more miles into the interior and saw treeless plains twenty-five leagues broad, fit for planting. They entered a thick wood of oak, cypress, and other trees bearing varieties of nuts and fruit. They saw deer and other fur-bearing animals, which these people took with nets or shot with their bows and arrows.
There were enumerous other details to interest boys of Bartholomew's age. They read that the Indians' arrows were tiped, not with iron but with points of flint, jasper-stone, or hard marble, and that with other sharp stone tools they cut down huge trees to make their boats of one whole piece of wood hollowing them out with wonderful art. The largest of these hollowed logs could carry ten or twelve men.
The houses of these people were made with half-rounds of trees set in a circle ten or twelve paces in circumference and covered with mats of straw "wrought cunningly together, which save them from the wind and raine." There was no order in the arrangement of these separate lodges. Taking off the mats, they moved these houses according to their convenience and the season. They planted "pulse" [peas, beans, etc.], but lived mostly by hunting and fishing.
Verrazzano found these Indians kindly and hospitable, generous in supplying the voyagers with stores of food for their ship. They were the same people who, over a century later, were to give asylum to Roger Williams when he fled to the Narragansett region from the face of his persecutors. And thus Verrazzano gave Englishmen their first glimpse of Norumbega, the landthat was to become New England. Bartholomew Gosnold, who read Verrazzano's letter, grew up to be the first Englishman to search this place, discovering instead another bay -- Buzzards Bay -- only a few miles east of the one visited by Verrazzano three quarters of a century before him.
The land, said Verrazzano in conclusion, was in the parallel of Rome, forty-one degrees and two-thirds; "the mouth of the Haven lieth open to the South half a league broad." Within, he added, it extended twelve leagues, increasing in breadth to form a gulf twenty leagues in compass. In this gulf werre five small islands full of trees. There were hills on both sides of the southern entrance, with many rivers flowing into the sea. In the midst of the entrance there was a natural rock of freestone suitable for fortification, which Verrazzano might have added had he been in a flippant mood, "try to find it."
For the readers of this publication of 1582, called Divers Voyages, touching the discoverie of America, Hakluyt printed in the margin opposite Verrazzano's account of the kingdom at 41º 40' N., this note: "The Countrey of Sir H.G. voyage." Even so young a reader as Bartholomew would understand that the initials were those of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, for all England was talking of this Knight's plans for a great expedition to Norumbega. The family tutor would occasionally suspend, we imagine, the parsing of Latin in the manorial schoolroom at Otley (where the walls were frescoed with scenes from the classics) to repeat for the small group of Gosnold scions the latest report of England's progress toward empire.
It was high time that England had colonies of her own in America. Sir Francis Drake had recently been assaulting and pillaging Spanish colonies and Spanish ships in Central and South America, to the tune of 600,000 pounds of a single voyage -- but after all he was, in modern slang, a hijacker, victimizing the Spanish racketeers themselves of their own American plantations amongst Indians who regarded gold as a worthless metal, whence, by trade and development of the land's natural resources, wealth would be brought continously to England! But the merchants of the guilds, supporters of the established trade routes through the northern seas and tghe Mediterranean, ever willing to fit out a vessel for piracy and plundering in the tropical Atlantic, were not ready to invest the large sums needed to maintain a colony until it became productive of wealth.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert had obtained in 1578 a patent from the Queen broadly giving him the right to establish a colony in North America at any place not already in possession of another Christian nation, meaning, of course, that he was to avoid localities preempted by France in the north and Spain in the south. His maritime activities in the first years under this patent are not recorded in such a way as to make them comprehensible in purpose or in accomplishment. In 1582, however, Gilbert began to appeal to knights and gentry who for one reason or another were interested in a new life beyond the seas. He conveyed to them by assignment rights to about ten million acres in exchange for their financial support of his expedition. These acres were located on or near the Dee River, according to Gilberts agreement with Sir George Peckham, but this river in not shown on Dee's own map.
Rumors of these things must have made even the landed gentry of Otley, Suffolk, perk up their ears, for to every country gentleman the easy acquisition of more land and forests was the best of all reasons for colonization overseas. After interminable delays, word finally came that Sir Humphrey had sailed on June 11, 1583, with five vessels. This was followed immediately by the disquieting news that one of them, fitted out by Sir Walter Ralegh, Gilbert's younger half-brother, had been forced to turn back by a sick or hungry crew on the second day out.
The expedition, it was explained, had sailed to Newfoundland because of the latness of the start, to replenish its supplies from the well-stocked fishermen assembled there before sailing on south to Norumbega. Late in the summer another one of the fleet, the Swallow, was reported back in England, having returned with some of the sick and fearful, under the command of Captain William Winter. How amazed young Bartholomew Gosnold would have been had he been shown, by some occult art, that twelve years later he was to become by marriage a near relative of this Captain Winter. Even less could Gosnold know that Gilbert's visionary adventure was shaping his own destiny.
The Golden Hind (named for Sir Francis Drake's famous ship, then on exhibition in the Thames hard by the palace at Greenwich), owned and commanded by Captain Edward Hayes, returned late in September, the sole survivor of Gilbert's fleet, with a tale of disasters.
Gilbert had attended to certain matters of government in Newfoundland on behalf of the Queen, then, as planned, had sailed south with his three remaining ships fully provisioned. Something went wrong with the sailing directions. The Delight, a 120-ton vessel, with the bulk of the supplies on board, went ashore a hundred leagues short of their destination, a total loss with the entire crew, as was supposed, of ninety-six men. (Unbeknownst to the captains of the other ships, sixteen men had escaped in a pinnace. After suffering extreme hardship, they finally reached the southern shores of Newfoundland and were ultimately returned to England, to tell their story of the shipwreck.)
It was useless for the expedition to press on, with only Gilbert's ten-ton frigate, the Squirrel, and Hayes' forty-ton Golden Hind. Orders had been given for a return to England. Sir Humphrey had insisted on sailing in his own little frigate, with the squirrel of his coat-of-arms proudly displayed on the prow. Somewhere near the Azores the Squirrel had been in the lead at night, when a great storm struck. Anxious watchers on the Golden Hind had seen the masthead light of the Squirrel disappear. Nevermore was there sight or word of the gallant frigate or of her reckless commander.
These were the beginnings of the birth pains of New England. Two decades were to pass before Bartholomew Gosnold, grown to full maturity, undertook to do what Sir Humphrey Gilbert had failed to do. He succeeded in landing settlers, although but for a breif stay, in the region described by Verrazzano.
The full story of Gilbert's voyage was written by Captain Edward Hayes for Richard Hakluyt. Bartholomew had reached his eighteenth year, and was half-way through his university studies when Hayes' narrative appeared in 1589 in the work entitled Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation. In it, and in the succeeding edition of 1598-1600, Hakluyt also reprinted Verrazzano's Letter. Gosnold called this work familiarly the "Booke of Discoveries" when he had occasion later to refer his father to it for a description of the Indians of Norumbega.
Two othe works advocating a trans-Atlantic settlement in the temperate zone were printed in 1583 as the result of Gilbert's activity. One was by Christopher Carleill, who had hoped with the aid of his step-father, the Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, to rival Gilbert's voyage, but with better financial backing. Bartholomew Gosnold undoubtedly had a copy of this work thrust into his hands by his vigorous young mother-in-law, Martha Golding. Martha had been an aunt of sorts to Carleill, that is, Martha's "brother[-in-law]", John Barne, was Carleill's uncle. It is probable that Martha would want her new son-in-law to follow in the footsteps of her late "nephew", of her own age, who died two years before Bartholomew Gosnold married into the Golding family.
The other publication of 1583 was by Sir George Peckham, Gilbert's chief assignee. Hakluyt, as well as Hayes, seems to have contributed to this pamphlet, called True Report, since the following quotation, at least, shows Peckham echoing Hakluyt. In his words appears the first clear account of the ocean highway from England to New England.
For after once we are departed the coast of England, wee may passe straightway thither, without danger of being driven into any the countries of our enemies, or doubtfull friends: for commonly one winde serveth to bring us thither, which seldome faileth from the middle of Januarie to the middle of May, a benefite which the mariners make great account of, for it is pleasure that they have in a few or none of other journeyes. Also the passage is short, for we may goe thither in thirtie or fortie dayes at the most, having but an indifferent winde, and returne continually in twentie or foure and twentie dayes at the most. And in the same our Journey, by reason it is in the Ocean, and quite out of the way from the intercourse of other countreyes, we may safely trade and traffique without peril of piracy: neither shall our ships, people, or goods there, be subject to arrest or molestation of any Pagan potentate, Turkish tyrant, yea, or Christian prince, which heretofore sometimes upon slender occasion in other parts have stayed our ships and merchandizes, wherebby great numbers of our countreymen have been utterly undone, divers put to ransome, yea, and some lost their lives: a thing so fresh in memorie as it needeth no proofe, and is well worthy of consideration.
Besides, in this voyage we doe not crosse the burnt line [equator, or torrid zone], whereby commonly both beverage and victuall aare corrupted, and mens health very much impayred, neither doe we passe the frozen seas, which yeelde sundry extreme dangers: but have a temperate climate at all times of the yeere, to serve our turnes [needs].
This was the course which Bartholomew Gosnold chose to follow in 1602.
