Flemish - New Netherland Institute

The Flemish Contribution to America
New Netherland Institute
October 5, 2013 – Session 5 – 3:15 PM
David Baeckelandt
Flemings in Greenland and North America Before Columbus
…A Flemish Priest in Greenland – in 1364!!
Left a Record – the “Inventio Fortunatae”
… becomes a critical piece in the intellectual impetus for 14th, 15th and 16th century
explorers looking for a path to Asia…
“In A.D. 1364 eight of these people [from Greenland] came to the King’s Court in
Norway. Among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, [and] who
was descended in the fifth generation from a Bruxellensis [native of
Brussels]…The eight (were sprung from) those who had first penetrated the
Northern Regions in the first ships.”
- E.G.R. Taylor, “A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, p.58 in Imago Mundi, XIII, (1956), ed. Leo Bagrow, (‘s Gravenhage), pp.56-68
Flemish Flag First Recognized Internationally
“The first flags identifying
nationality were used at sea. The
oldest international legal
obligation on record for ships to
display flags as identification was
agreed by King Edward I of
England and Guy, Count of
Flanders , in 1297.”
– A Znamierowski, The World Encyclopedia
of Flags, p.44
The Vlaamse Leeuw saluted by English ships
in 1297 was black on a yellow background
14th century Guidebook– From Bruges to Greenland
Created for Flemish merchants ca 1380-1420
The “Bruges Itinerarium” – the only copy extant (at
the University of Gent) dates from the 14th
century and shows the step-by-step route (and
distances between) Bruges and Greenland .
Gilles le Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit
Berry... ; publié pour la première fois avec une introduction et des notes, et
suivi de l'"Itinéraire brugeois″ et de la "Table de Velletri" et de plusieurs autres
documents géographiques, inédits ou mal connus du XVe siècle, recueillis et
commentés par le Dr E.-T. Hamy,..., (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908), p. 167. Found
online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f172
Direct Flemish Trade With Greenland – in 1327!
”Proof that there was trade in walrus tusks between
Greenland and Flemish merchants is provided by the
accounts of [Bruggeling] Bernardus de Ortolis, an agent of the
papal camera, who was appointed in 1326 to collect the
sexennial tenth from the Scandinavian sees…The see of
Gardar [Greenland] habitually paid its required dues in walrus
tusks and Bernardus noted the receipt of one hundred twentyseven Norwegian lisponsis [ca 1500 lbs] …on August 11,
1327, from the hand of the archbishop of Nidarios, the
ecclesiastical head of the see of Greenland. These tusks were
sold to one Jan d’Ypres, a Flemish merchant from Bruges,
who paid for them 12 li. 14 s. in silver Tournois [ca $166,000 in
2013 $*] of which the Norwegian king, who possessed a
monopoly of trade with Greenland, received one half. The
papal agents set out from Bruges, which commercial
metropolis possessed a flourishing trade with Scandinavian
lands…A few years before the activities of Bernardus de
Ortolis, other papal representatives had suggested that the
papal monies be entrusted to loyal and honest merchants
of Flanders.”
-Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”,
Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937),
pp. 167-181. Published by: Medieval Academy of America
Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572
*A 1314 silver Tournais = ca EUR 10,000 ; 1 EUR=$1.3077 4/13/12
Flemings Sent Ships Northwest to Greenland & Canada
Ptarmigan
“Pure white gyrfalcons, unique to
the American Arctic, were
supplied to medieval Europe by
the Norsemen.”
Gyrfalcon Nest
- James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos &
Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press,
2002), p. 57
“The arctic falcon preys largely on ptarmigan, of which there are certainly more on
Victoria [Island] (and throughout the Arctic) than on Greenland….[Martin] Behaim’s
[1492] globe depicts Victoria Island.”
-James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos & Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press, 2002),
p. 57
“The northern Vikings were not only wild sea-rovers, they were also enterprising
merchants who sought to get riches in every way.”
- James Westfall Thompson, “The Commerce of France in the Ninth Century”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 9 (Nov.,
1915), pp. 857-887, The U.of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819140 .Accessed: 29/04/2012 23:44; p.858
Norwegian King Hakon V Magnusson makes a five-year trade treaty with Flanders
in 1308 to sell luxury goods (ivory & gyrfalcons especially) to Bruges’
merchants. - Kristen Seaver – The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, p.82
Flanders’ Cloth Exports
15th cent Flemish Style Dresses Found in Greenland…
”Shrouds recovered from the graves [in
Greenland] show that the garments
which these people wore resembled
those of their distant kin…Thus the
custom wearing pleated dresses,
illustrated by the Flemish artist Petrus
Christus (d.1473) in his portrait of Marco
Barbarigo which hangs in the National
Gallery [of London] …was imitated in
Greenland. The date of the specimen
of pleated dresses discovered in one of
the graves must therefore be placed at
about 1450 or later….”
Greenland dress
–
Petrus Christus
detail 1450-1460
- Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between
Flanders and Greenland”, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval
Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 167-181 Published
by: Medieval Academy of America
Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572
Were Vikings & Flemish in…Rhode Island??
The Tower of the Monastery
of Saint Bavo, Ghent, Belgium
Newport Tower Compared to St Bavo’s Tower
“The monastery evolved over the
next several centuries (600s –
1100s) until it reached its
Romanesque form in the twelfth
century. …The construction in its
geometric features offers a viable
prototype for Newport Tower.”
- Suzanne Carlson, “Loose Threads in a Tapestry of
Stone: The Architecture of the Newport Tower” in New
England Antiquities Research Association , online
downloaded April 11, 2012
http://www.neara.org/CARLSON/newporttower.htm
Newport Tower
Rhode Island
Lavatorium, St. Baaf’s/ Bavo’s Abbey in Ghent
- The Counts of Flanders were crowned here!
Flemish, Fish & Innovations in the Settlement of America
European
Exploration of
North America
Followed
(Coastlines)/Fish
“Along this southern coast of
Newfoundland the explorers
met great schools of cod,
which the sailors caught
merely by lowering baskets
into the water and hauling
them up again full of fish…So
plentiful were the cod in this
region [Newfoundland] that
according to Sebastian Cabot,
‘they sumtymes stayed his
shippes.’”
– H.P.Biggar, Precursors of Jacques
Cartier, pp. x, xiv
The Flemish Banks – Codfish Grounds
875 miles from the Azores, 420 miles From Newfoundland
“The eastern most extension of what
we today call the Outer Banks, the
rich fishing grounds off of the coast
of Newfoundland, have traditionally
been called the “Flemish Cap”.
This is the closest North Atlantic
fishing ground for Europeans.
European fishermen could fish
there literally year-round. Even
today, fishermen, when making
for the Flemish Cap from Europe,
would often say, “We are headed
for Flemish.”
- Rosa Garcia-Orellan, TerraNova: The Spanish Cod
Fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the
Twentieth Century, (Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press,
2010), p.222.
Codfish & Christianity
“’Bacalao’ was the southern European name for cod, deriving from the Flemish word for
cod, bakkeljaw.”
- Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007), p.382
“The introduction of Christianity
had an impact on the European
diet…[meat] could be prohibited
for up to 135 days during the
year…the usual alternative was
fish.”
– J.Wubs-Mrozewicz, “”Fish, Stock and
Barrel” p.188
The oldest continuously named geographic place in Canada – the island
“Baccalieu” – named for the codfish 1st appears on a map by Antwerp
cartographer Ruysch in 1508 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalieu_Island)
Codfish Migration
“The record for long-distance travel belongs to a cod tagged in the North Sea in June
1957 and caught on the Grand Banks in January 1962 after a journey of about 3,200
kilometers.”
- Brian Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World, (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.228.
“Cod migrate for spawning, moving into still-shallower [less than 120 feet deep] water
close to coastlines, seeking warmer spawning grounds and making it even
easier to catch them.”
- Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, (New York: Penguin, 1997), p.42.
“Vismarkt” by the 16th century Antwerp artist Joachim B
“Gilles Le Bouvier (writing about [the year]1450) refers to the Icelanders’
trade with Flanders [and Brabant], especially in ‘stocphis’ [cod] , mutton, wool,
and salmon.”
R.A. Skelton, et.al., The Vinland Map and Tartar Relations, (New Haven: Yale University Press,1965), p.165. Quoting Gilles le
Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit Berry..., ed. E.T. Hamy, (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908),
p. 167. Found online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f109
Early Flemish Innovations in Navigation
“The use of the initials of the Frankish names of the winds – N, NNE, NE, etc. – on
compass cards, seems to have arisen with Flemish navigators, but was early [1400s]
adopted by the Portuguese and Spanish.” –
- Silvanus P. Thompson, "The Rose of the Winds: The Origin and Development of the Compass- Card,"
Proceedings of the British Academy 6 (London, 1918)
Compass Rose in Flemish
“Innovation occurred through trade.”
Compass Rose Mounted
-Hanno Brand, ed., Trade, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange: Continuity and Change in the North
Sea Area and the Baltic c.1350-1750, (Hilversum: Verloren, 2005), p.159
The Flemish Buss
“A Flemish Buss doth often take seven or eight Last [=14-16 tonnes] of herrings in a
day. But if GOD gave a Buss, one day with another, but two Last of herrings a day, that
is, twelve Last of herrings in a week; then at that rate, a Buss may take, dress, and
pack the said whole Proportion of a hundred Last [200 tonnes] of herrings
(propounded to be hoped for), in eight weeks and two days, And yet is herein[after]
allowance made for victuals and wages for sixteen weeks, as after followeth. Of which
sixteen weeks time, if there be spent in rigging and furnishing the said Buss to sea, and
in sailing from her port to her fishing-place; if these businesses, I say, spend two weeks
of the time, and that the other two weeks be also spent in returning to her port after her
fishing season, and in unrigging and laying up the Buss: then I say (of the sixteen weeks
above allowed for) there will be twelve weeks to spend only in fishing the
herring.”
-Edward Arber, Social England Illustrated, a Collection of XVIIth Century Tracts With an Introduction by Andrew Lang,
(Westminister: Archibald Constable & Co., 1903), Forgotten Books Classic Reprint, p.284.
Flemish Fish for Asian Spices
”The Mediterranean Sea could not supply enough fish on its own, so countries in
Northern Europe became a major source of fish for the region – primarily cod. Salt cod
was traded for various goods including wine, cloth, spices and salt. When word
arrived at the end of the 1400s of abundant codfish on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, fishermen were quick to respond.”RWA Rodger & S Spurrell, The Fisheries of North America (2006), p.1
The First Flemish Connections to Asia (1200s-1400s)
Late 1200s Flemish Trade Begins to the East
peppers
“In 1277, the first of the Genoese Atlantic galleys sailed out of the Mediterranean and
then through the English Channel into the North Sea and moored at the Flemish city of
Sluis, the outport of Bruges [Brugge]. Bruges began its career as the new hub of
international trade between northern and southern Europe.”
-Wim Blockmans & Walter Prevenier, The Promised Lands: The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule
-, 1369-1530, (Philadelphia: U of PA Press, 1999), p.6
Before Marco Polo – Flemings to the East
“In the aftermath of the conquest [of Byzantium, in 1202], the prospect of land and
money had attracted people…such as Stephen of Tenremonde [Dendermonde], a
Fleming.” - Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.306
“His description of the islands on the way to the East is clear and specific, as is his account of the
Venetian and Genoese trading posts of Tana and Caffa on the Black Sea, adding that the
sea voyage from Flanders to Tana is ‘half the world’, while few westerners go there by
Land because of the dangers of the trip, for the oncoming Turks now controlled much of
This territory.” - Margaret Wade LeBarge, Medieval Travelers: The Rich and the Restless, (1982) p. 11
Flemish Clergy as Chroniclers
“Prior to the twelfth century, literacy was almost exclusively the province of
churchmen.”
- Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.xvi
“Given the restricted levels of literacy, messages to religious houses were
often the main conduit of news to the West.”
- Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.19
Willem van Rubroeck– 1st Chronicler of Asia
“William of Rubruck was, therefore, the first European to record his impressions of
the Mongol capital.”
-James Chambers, The Devil’s Horseman: The Mongol Invasion of Europe, (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p.139
“Rubruck was born in 1215 and died
in 1270. He went to the East as an
envoy of Louis IX (St. Louis) of
France, who learning that Sartach,
son of Batu the commander of
Tartar troops in Russia, had
become a Christian, desired to
open communications with him.”
- Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo,
(New York: Dorset Press, 1989), p.52
“No one traveller since his [William of Rubruck’s] day has done half so much to
give a correct knowledge of this part of Asia.”
- Historian William Rockhill, quoted in Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo, (New York: Dorset Press,
-1989), p. xix
Willem van Rubroeck– 1st Chronicler of Asia
“He [William of Rubruck] was the first to give us [Europeans] an accurate
description of Chinese writing as well as of the scripts of other Eastern races. He
was also the first to tell about the various Christian communities that he
found in the Mongol empire.”
-Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo, (New York: Dorset Press, 1989), p. xix
“Mandeville” – Influences Portuguese, Columbus
“The most popular description of the East, published in 1360, was The Travels of Sir
John Mandeville.”
-James Chambers, The Devil’s Horseman: The Mongol Invasion of Europe, (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p.166.
The sheer number of surviving manuscripts is testament to Mandeville’s
popularity: more than 300 handwritten copies of The Travels still exist in
Europe’s great libraries – four times the number of Marco Polo’s book.”
- Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p.3.
Jan de Langhe van Ypres & Mandeville
“To return to the Netherlands, a far greater personage than John of Hese (or John of
Utrecht) was John of Ypres or "Long John" (Jan De Langhe), who was abbot of the
Benedictine house of St. Omer until his death in 1383. Long John was one of the first
to appreciate the pregnancy of geographical discoveries and to collect travelers'
accounts; this is very remarkable because the golden age of scientific discoveries
had not yet begun (the usher of it was the Portuguese infante Henrique o
Navegador, who was born only eleven years after Long John's death).“
-George Sarton,Introduction To The History Of Science Volume III Part II Science And Learning In The Fourteenth
Century, (Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1948) p.10
Flemish-Portuguese Discovery of America
Jan de Langhe Influences Henry the Navigator…
“To return to the Netherlands, a far greater personage than John of Hese (or John of
Utrecht) was John of Ypres or "Long John" (Jan De Langhe), who was abbot of the
Benedictine house of St. Omer until his death in 1383. Long John was one of the first to
appreciate the pregnancy of geographical discoveries and to collect travelers' accounts;
this is very remarkable because the golden age of scientific discoveries had not yet
begun (the usher of it was the Portuguese infante Henrique o Navegador, who was
born only eleven years after Long John's death).“
-George Sarton,Introduction To The History Of Science Volume III Part II Science And Learning In
The Fourteenth Century, (Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1948) p.10
Royal Siblings Foster Flemish-Portuguese Ties
“Flanders, which had commercial ties with Portugal since the twelfth century, was to remain,
for the rest of the Middle Ages, one of Portugal’s most important trading partners.”
Ivana Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa, and Factory: Three Institutions of Late-Medieval Portuguese Trade with Flanders,”
The International History Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 1-22; p.1
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/40106532
Henry the Navigator
(1394-1460)
Isabel of Portugal, Duchess
of Burgundy
Wijnendaele Castle, West Flanders
“The Bohemian cosmographer and globe-maker Martin Behaim confirms that
this Flemish immigration into the Azores was sponsored by Henry’s
Sister Isabel, the duchess of Burgundy.”
- Peter Russell, Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’: A Life, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) p. 105
By 1400s Deep Flemish-Portuguese Ties…
“So large was the number of Portuguese in Flanders and Flemings in Portugal that the
Portuguese had their own cemetery in Bruges in 1410, as did the Flemings in Lisbon
before 1414.“
-Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World
-in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 1977) p.41
Portuguese Search For Prester John & Spices
“Vasco da Gama, 1497, on
arriving in Calicut, India [said]: 'I
come in search of Christians and
spices;' [but he] quickly forgot
about the Christians.”
“Now that Africa had been circumnavigated…the king of Portugal had
no more use for Columbus”
-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the
Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus,
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942), p.76
Jaak van Brugge/Jacques de Bruges
Terceira, Azores
A copy exists of a donation “granted by [Prince] Henry [the Navigator] on 2 March 1450
in which the Prince is said to have made sub-donatory [“Capitania”] of Terceira one
Jacques de Bruges, a Fleming…Jacques de Bruges is important in the history of
the Portuguese maritime expansion as the harbinger of the massive vinflux of
Flemish settlers into the central group of the Azores after Henry’s death [1460].
This had the result that, for a few decades, these islands, while Portuguese in
name, were in fact dominated by and ruled by Flemings.”
- Peter Russell, Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’: A Life, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) pp. 104-105
The Azores = The Flemish Isles
List of prominent
Flemings Involved
with the Discovery
and Settlement of the
Azores in the 1400s .
- Patrick Maselis,
Van de Azoren tot de
Zuidpoel p. 13
A Fleming Discovers Antilles Before Columbus?
L:The Antilles
–’Imaginary’
Islands in the
Atlantic; R: A
Ship used in
the Madeiras
“Martim Antonio Leme was the son of Martin Lem, or Leme, a Fleming who had
prospered in Portugal. In 1471 Martim Antonio took part in the expedition to Arzila and
the capture of Tangier, commanding military forces equipped by his father in Flanders.
He was legitimized along with several brothers and sisters on September 6, 1464, and
ennobled on November 12, 1471…Ferdinand Columbus [in his biography of his father,
Columbus, Chapter 9] and [Bartolomeo] Las Casas [Columbus’ friend, in his Historia, Bk
I, Chapter 13] cite the case of Martim Antonio Leme, resident of Madeira, who it was
said sailed far west sometime before 1484 and saw three islands which, Peres says,
‘could not be any but some of the Antilles, [but] of this discovery nothing else whatever is
known, though the history of Antonio Leme shows him to be a person capable
of such a sea voyage’.”
-Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World
in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 1977), p.450
”Towards the west the Sea Ocean [Atlantic] has likewise been navigated
further than what is described by Ptolemy and beyond the columns of
Hercules [Gibraltar] as far as the…Azores occupied by the noble and
valiant knight Joost van Hurter of Moerkerken [Wijnendaele/Duchy of
Cleves] and the people of Flanders…The far-off places towards
midnight [north]…such as Iceland, Norway and Russia, are likewise
now known to us, and are visited annually by ships.”
E.G. Ravenstein, Translations & Commentary on Martin Behaim’s ‘Erdapfel’, (London, 1992) p.15
Flemish Sailors From the Azores
Ferdinand Van Olmen (Fernao Dulmo) “Columbus’ Predecessor”
Islas de Fernão Dulmo – Azorean island
held as a fief to the Portuguese Crown by a
Flemish knight in the 1470s-1480s
“1486-1487: Ferdinand van Olmen. This Flemish settler in the Azores was governor of
the northern half of Terceira simultaneously with Joao Vaz Corte Real’s governorship of
the southern half. In March of 1486 the Portuguese king, Joao II, issued the first of
several exploration patents to van Olmen. All of them related to an Atlantic voyage
projected for March of 1487. The plans for this voyage were similar to many
others that had tried to identify the unknown islands on the nautical chart of 1424
with the Isle of Seven Cities in a Portuguese legend “ Van Olmen was Required to take the “German knight”, Martin Behaim, on ship, “for 40 days west”.
- James R Enterline, Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus, p.209
Flemish Sailors From the Azores
Ferdinand Van Olmen (Fernao Dulmo) “Columbus’ Predecessor”
“1486-1487: Ferdinand van Olmen.
“However, van Olmen’s plans differed from
those of the other island hunters in that he
proposed ‘to seek and find a great island
or islands or the coast of the
mainland’…In this context ‘mainland’ would
have meant ‘Orbis Terrarum’ [continent].
That Van Olmen’s interest lay towards the
northwest is confirmed by the nearly
contemporary historian Las Casas, who
wrote of a contemporary Portuguese
voyage, ‘During the Ireland run they were
heading so far to the northwest that they
saw land to the west of Ireland, which
they believed must be that which
Ferdinand Van Olmen sought to explore.’”
- James R Enterline, Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus,
p.209
Canadian Province Labrador Named for Flemish
Landowner From the Azores
Joao Fernandez (Jan Hendrick) native of Terceira
“On a visit paid by Cabot to Lisbon and to Seville, to engage the services of men who
had sailed to the East with Da Gama or who had navigated with Columbus to the Indies/
he [John Cabot] appears to have met a certain Joao Fernandez, called ‘llavrador’,
who about the year 1492 had made his way from Iceland to Greenland. As Greenland,
which was then thought to form part of Asia, lay so near Iceland, Cabot, from the
scanty evidence available, would seem to have made up his mind to steer a more
northerly course on this voyage.”
“Early in May, the expedition, which consisted of two ships and 300 men, set sail from
Bristol. 5 Several vessels in the habit of trading to Iceland appear to have accompanied
them. Off Ireland, a storm forced one of these to return ; but the fleet proceeded on its
way along the parallel of 5.7 The further they advanced the more they were carried to
the north by the Gulf Stream. At length early in June Cabot sighted the east coast of
Greenland. Fernandez having been the first to tell him in this country, he named it
'the Labrador's land.‘”
-H.P. Biggar, The Precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497-1534: A Collection of Documents Relating to the Early History of the Dominion
of Canada, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1911), p.xii
Anglo-Azorean Partnerships 1480s-1500s
Grant by Henry VII to
Richard Ameryk and other
Bristol merchants to
partner with “Portuguese”
Azoreans from Terceira in
1480 to discover “new
lands to the west”.
The “sea-going farmer of Terceira, Joao Fernandes Lavrador…and Francisco
Fernandes, probably a kinsman, and Joao Goncalves…together with three English
merchants of Bristol, joined in a petition to the king [Henry VII] for letters-patent of
discovery…on the same day, March 19, 1501, Henry VII issued letters-patent, creating
what [historian] Williamson calls ‘the pioneer corporation of the British Empire.’
Upon it the Gilbert patent of 1578 and the first Virginia Charter [which established
Jamestown] were modelled. And since the document of 1501 is patterned on the
Portuguese donations to would-be discoverers, Joao Fernandes and his
friends are, in a sense, the initiators of English imperial policy.”
- Samuel Eliot Morison, Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 51,66
Brothers Corte Real in America in 1499?
“Between the years 1499 and 1502, the
Corte-Real brothers, Gaspar and Miguel,
discovered areas in North America that
correspond to parts of Newfoundland and
regions still farther north.”
- Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the
Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World in the
Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota,
1977), p.464
Dighton Rock
Flemish-Azorean Gaspar Corte Real at
Conception Bay, Newfoundland 1500-1501
Gaspar Corte Real
“Gaspar Corte-Real, son of Joao Vaz Corte-Real, was a man
valiant and adventurous and ambitious to win honor, whence he
proposed to go and discover lands on the north side [of the
American landmass] because to the soiuthward he held that
others had already discovered much; and so doing on his own,
through the favor he had with the king, whose squire he had been
when [the king was known as the] Duke of Beja, he equipped one
ship with a good complement of people and everything
necessary, and departed from the port of Lisbon at the
beginning of spring, [in the] year 1500. On this voyage he
discovered, on that north side, a land that was very cool and
with big trees…after he discovered this land and coasted
along a good part of it he returned to the kingdom [of
Portugal], and set sail again in the year 1501, wishing to
explore further this province.”
- Damiao de Gois, Cronica do felicissimo Rei D. Manuel, parte I, ch. 66 (Coimbra, 1926 ed., I, 146)
quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century, (New
York: octagon Books, 1965), p.70
Half-Fleming Manuel Corte Real Lands in MA
The Corte Reale family “was descended
from a Burgundian noble, Raymond de la
Coste, who had fought at the side of King
Afonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king, in
the taking of Lisbon from the Moors in
1147.”
- Francisco Fernandes Lopes, The Brothers Corte Reale,
(Lisboa: Agencia Geral do Ultramar, 1957), p.10
Dighton Rock carvings transcribed:
1st Map of Columbus’ Discoveries– By a Fleming
“…Appears to be indebted to [the globe made by Martin] Behaim for much of its
information on geography and trade.”
– Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1998), p.24
This map was drawn by “a Flemish cartographer in the employ of the Portuguese” and accurately depicts the Yucatan peninsula, the southern coast of Greenland, and Newfoundland “exactly correct relative to the longitude of the easternmost end of the Indies”.
- J.R. Enterline, Erikson, Eskimoes & Columbus, pp.232-234
1st Settled N. America- Land of Corte Reale1500
The island
was labeled
alternately
“Terra Nova”
and “Corte
Reale”
“This land [Newfoundland] is discovered by order of the very excellent prince Dom
Manuel, King of Portugal; which land is believed to be a point of Asia…and according
to the opinion of the cosmographers it is believed to be the point of Asia.“
- George F.W. Young, Miguel Corte-Real, (Taunton, MA: Old Colony Historical Society, 1970), p.34, n.31
Catching Codfish & Furs Near ‘Terra Nova’
745 miles from Portugal, 1,022 miles from Newfoundland, 1422 miles From Greenland
Map by Petrus Bertius
(of Flanders), 1597
showing Newfoundland
– known as the Land of
Corte Reale.
“The Azorean Portuguese (=descendants of Flemish immigrants), at least,
aspired to colonize either Newfoundland itself or some adjoining islands.”
- David B. Quinn, North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements, p.359
Azoreans From
Terceira Settle in
Islands Off
Newfoundland and
Labrador in 1520…
“Successful European settlement in
North America was always heavily
dependent on the resources that
prospective settlers discovered.”
- Shannon Ryan, The Ice Hunters: A History of
Newfoundland Sealing to 1914, (St. John’s,
Newfoundland : Breakwater Books, 1994), p.25
Flemish Sailors From the Azores
such as Joao Fernandez (Jan Hendrick) Pilot for the Cabots
“Joao Fernandes [Jan Hendriksz], whose title was labrador or landowner in
the Azores, sailed to Greenland [in the 1480s] and later [1490s] served as navigator for
John Cabot. A 1534 map [shown above] shows Labrador already named
after Fernandes ’because he who gave the direction was a labrador of the
Azores, they gave it that name’.”
- Norman Herz, Operation Alacrity, p.16
Their Legacy in America: Livestock
“The Portugals [sic] about 30 years past [circa 1550s] did put into the same island [Sable
Island, just off the coast of Newfoundland] both meat and swine, to breed, which were
since exceedingly multiplied. This seemed to us a very happy tidings to have on an
island lying so near into the main [island – Newfoundland], which we intend to plant
upon, such store of cattle, whereby we might at all times conveniently be relieved of
victual, and served of store for breed.”
- Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 1583
-Marq De Villiers, et.al., Sable Island: The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic,
(Bloomsbury, 2006), p.21
The Flemish Connection to Columbus (1400s)
Behaim’s 1492 Globe
“The first known terrestrial globe
was made by the Nuremberg
merchant Martin Behaim, who
produced his so-called ‘eredglobus’
in [August]1492 as a result of his
sustained commercial
activities…whilst based in Lisbon
throughout the 1480s….Behaim’s
globe was covered with a profusion
of commercial notes on marketplaces, goods worth purchasing,
local trading practices and the
movement of commodities.”
– Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the
Early Modern World, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press,
1998), p.24
Martin Behaim & Columbus - Toscanelli
Toscanelli’s 1457 Mapamundi
Behaim’s Globe ca 1492
“This globe [Martin Behaim’s 1492] exhibits features in common with the so-called
Toscanelli Map for the Atlantic region.”
-E.L. Stevenson, “Martin Waldseemuller and the Early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography of the New World” , Bulletin of
the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1904), pp. 193-215; American Geographical Society Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/198810 .Accessed: 06/05/2012 10:50, p.197
Columbus Influenced by Toscanelli
“You must not be surprised if I call the parts where the spices are west, when they
usually call them east, because to those sailing west, those parts are found by
navigation on the under side of the earth.” Toscanelli to Columbus ca 1481
– C Columbus & CR Markham, The Journal of Christopher Columbus (During His First Voyage, 1492-3), p. 5
Inventio Fortunatae – Columbus’ Inspiration?
Columbus requested a copy of the Inventio Fortunata – and shared info w Cabot
“Your Lordship's servant brought me your letter. I have seen its contents and I
would be most desirous and most happy to serve you. I do not find the book
Inventio Fortunata, and I thought that I (or he) was bringing it with my things,
and I am very sorry not [to] find it because I wanted very much to serve you.
I am sending the other book of Marco Polo and a copy of the land which has
been found [by John Cabot].”
John Day was an English merchant in the Spanish trade. He wrote this letter in Spain between December 1497
and January 1498
Reproduced from James A Williamson The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII.
(Cambridge University Press) 1962, 212-214. http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/johnday.html
The Earliest Claim of Sailing West to Asia…
“Beyond this land of Ireland are to be found neither lands nor other islands
towards the setting sun. And some say that if a ship was steered in a direct line for
a long distance the ship would find itself in the land of Prester John. And
others say that it is the edge of the lands of the western coast.”
- Margaret Wade LeBarge, Medieval Travelers: The Rich and the Restless, (1982) p. 11
“The importance of The Travels lay[s] in a single yet startling passage which set the
book apart from all other medieval travelogues. Mandeville claimed that his voyage
proved for the first time that it was possible to set sail around the world in
one direction and return home from the other.”
- Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.
Columbus Learned From the Flemish-Portuguese
“The enterprise of Christopher Columbus, without any new concept
thought up by him, can only be seen as an episode in the whole system of
Portuguese attempts toward the west.”
-Almeida, Historia de Portugal, II, pp. 181-182 quoted in Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the
Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of
Minnesota, 1977) , p.166
Before Cotton, Sugar: Flanders-Madeira-Portugal 1470s
“By the 1470s Florentine merchants
such as Benedetto Dei were trading
deep into the interior of West Africa
with Portuguese consent; and by
1479 Flemish merchants like
Eustache de la Fosse were establishing trading links with the Portuguese feitorias in the Gulf of
Guinea.
As a result, by the end of the fifteenth
century a third of all sugar production
coming out of Madeira was being
exported to the Low Countries.”
- Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early
Modern World, (Ithace, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1998), p.65
Columbus Believed Azores = Antilles
Columbus’ map - sourced
from Toscanelli - with
Portugal (#6), the Azores
(#4, #5) and the mythical
isles (#1, #2, #3)
highlighted.
“Antilia has always been synonymous with the Isle of the Seven Cities. Nobody as yet
has traced this name farther back than 1452, when the Treve-Velasco expedition, as we
have seen, went out to search for the Seven Cities and found Corvo and Flores [in the
Azores]. Next, Paul Toscanelli’s letter of 25 June 1474 to Canon Martins of Lisbon,
on which Columbus based his great enterprise, states, ‘From the island of Antilia,
which you call the Seven Cities’ to ‘the most noble island of Cipangu [Japan] it is 50
degrees of longitude.’ The same year. D. Alfonso V granted to Fernao Teles ‘The Seven
Cities or whatever islands’ he may find in the Atlantic north of Guinea. The story first
appears in writing on the 1492 globe of Martin Behaim, who must have
picked it up in Portugal or the Azores.”
– Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1971), pp.98-99
Flemish Isles/Azores – Columbus’ Inspiration?
“The discovery of the Azores had
an immense psychological
influence on discovery…The
crossing to a new world was now
more than one-third
accomplished.”
- Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery
of America: The Northern Voyages, (NY: Oxford
UP, 1971), pp.95-96
“On Corvo Island [above] there was a natural rock statue of a horseman pointing
westward. Columbus is said to have seen this on one of his early voyages, and to
have taken it as meant for him…with Newfoundland only 1054 miles distant.”
-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942),
pp.57-58
Ferdinand Van Olmen – Columbus’ Inspiration!
According to Columbus’ son, Ferdinand…
“On a voyage to Ireland they sailed so far northwest that they saw land to the west of
Ireland; this land, the Admiral [Christopher Columbus] thought, was the same that a
certain Fernao Dulmo [Ferdinand Van Olmen of Flanders] tried to discover. I relate this
just as I found this in my father’s writings, that it may be known.”
-Ferdinand Columbus & Benjamin Keen, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1992), p.27
Columbus Had Early Contact With Flemings
“In 1429 the eleven-year-old Domenico, Cristoforo’s father, was entrusted to a Flemish
weaver, Gerardo di Brabante, who made him enter the weaving guild. Ten years later
his papers define him as «woollen clothes weaver». Cristoforo himself worked with his
father until he was twenty years old. In an document, in which he is mentioned as a
witness, he defined himself as a «lanaiolo» (wool worker).”
http://www.tigulliovisit.it/EN/Dettaglio_personaggi.aspx?cid=25&tp=4 downloaded March 23, 2012
Columbus Had Early Contact With Flemings
Columbus’ life-changing sea voyage left Genoa in May, 1476 on a “Flemish urca” flying
the flag of the Duke of Burgundy [also the Count of Flanders] and bound for Flanders,
via Lisbon, the Azores, and Bristol, England. “There is known to be a lively trade
between Lisbon, the Azores, Bristol and Iceland at this time.”
-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942),
pp.23-25
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
Columbus’ annotated copy of Pierre d’Ailly’s
world map printed at Leuven in 1483 which
appears in De imagine mundi et alii tractatus,
(Leuven: Johannes de Westfalia, 1483).
-Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps: 1472-1500, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987), p.87.
“The Imago Mundi of Pierre d’Ailly is claimed to have been practically the sole source
from which Columbus obtained the ideas behind his project of discovery. The marginal
notes on the Columbina Library copy of the Imago Mundi are supposed to reveal the
steps in the formation of his plans.”
-George E. Nunn, “The Imago Mundi and Columbus,” in The American Historical Review, Vol 40, No.4 (July, 1935),
pp.646-661 Oxford University Press Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/1842417, p.661.
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
“It was in fact an Antwerp edition [of Marco Polo’s Travels, above] from circa 1485 that
Polo’s Genoese successor, Christopher Columbus, read and carefully annotated in
preparation for his own historic voyage.”
– Benjamin Schmid, The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670, (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006), p.9
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
“Columbus added to his own
navigational problems by carrying
both Flemish and Genovese
compasses, and while the
Genovese needle, or wire, was set
in line with the north point of the
[compass] card, the Flemish needle
was probably offset to the east of
north by three quarters of a point
(8.4 degrees) as was the custom .”
- Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps, (New York:
Bonanza, 1949), p.133.
“Northern Europeans, particularly the Flemish, were not so casual [about navigation].
They not only wrote about these irregularities but published charts with true sets of
losscodrones; one set for Italian compasses and one for Flemish compasses. The
Flemish compass lines gave the correct variation.”
-Christopher Columbus, The Log of Christopher Columbus, ed. & trans. By Robert H. Fuson, (Intl Marine Pub, 1991), p.42
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
Flemish Bells – Gifts and Curse
“was part of a falconier’s equipage, and was
tied to the legs of trained hunting birds.
Columbus brought a of them to the West
Indies as trade goods on his first voyage, but within a few
years the trinkets took on a sinister cast. Adult Indians were
required to fill [the Flemish bell] with gold every three
months, and give it to the Spaniards as forced tribute.”
-Zvi Dor-Ner, Columbus and the Age of Discovery, (New York: WGBH Foundation, 1991),
1st ed., p.215
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
Returning From 1st Trip
Columbus’ first landfall in
1493 – the Azores (and
prayed in a church with
an “old Flemish triptych
that still adorns the altar”
-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston:
Little, Brown & Co., 1942), p.332
Drafts a letter in the Azores to Ferdinand & Isabella…
Columbus’ Epistola
In Leuven “Dirk Martens ran one of the most admired [printing] presses of Northern Europe.
Martens would publish among the first editions of Columbus’s Epistola in 1493.”
– Benjamin Schmid, The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670, (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006), p.8
Columbus’ Epistola Printed by Flemings
“Only a relatively small number of copies of this edition have been printed and they are
not available through the trade. In this respect this book resembles the 1471 editions of
Gerardus di Lisa [Gerard van de Lys] (who was of Flemish origin) and the 1473 editions
of the printer of Aalst [Dirck Martens]: both seemed more interested in a cultural rather
than [a] business enterprise.”
-Dirk Maarten, first printer “north of the Alps” , Karel V, Octroy vor dierick mertens om te moegen printen alderhande
Boecken…Brussels, February 8th, 1518/1519, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussel, Rekenkamer nr.636, fol.317 recto.
Renewal of the 1513 charter. In Herman Liebaers, ed., Alosti in Flandria anno MCCCCLXXIII, (Brussel: Aalst Dirk
MartensComite, 1973), p.90
Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings
On His Fourth Voyage, in 1502…
“Columbus says he had with him ‘ciento y cincuenta personas’ [150 people]. The rolls
mention only 140 persons, eight of whom were Genoese, [and] two Flemish.”
- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), p.693
Did Amerigo Vespucci Claim Credit For Flemish Discoveries?
The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(a)
“Other influential local seafarers similarly
came to Columbus’s aid [in recruiting
mariners and providing ships for his 1st
voyage]. Juan Nino of Moguer
[Andalusia, Spain] was the owner of
the Nina, one of the two ships that filled
out the royal requisition. He sailed as the
vessel’s master, while his brother,
Peralonso Nino, served as pilot on the
Santa Maria. A third Nino brother sailed
on the voyage as an apprentice
seaman.”
- Zvi Dor-Ner, Columbus and the Age of Discovery, (New
York: WGBH Foundation, 1991), 1st ed., p.116
The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(b)
[By the late 1490s] “new expeditions
began to set out for the New World…The
first of these was one led by Peralonso
Nino of Moguer, which left Palos for the
‘Pearl Coast’, the north coast of South
America, at the beginning of May 1499.
The second was that which left Cadiz
later that month, directed by Alonso de
Hojeda, in the company of the
Cantabrian Juan de la Cosa and the
Florentine who had been living in Seville,
Amerigo Vespucci.”
- Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish
Empire, (London: Phoenix, 2004), paperback ed., p.212
With the Ninos Brothers in 1499 as Pilot for the voyage:
Jean Martin [who was] “Flemish – born in 1465. [He] settled in Moguer [Spain – where
the Ninos brothers lived]. [Martin was the] Pilot of the [ships] Nino and
Guerra in the expedition of 1499 [to the New World].”
- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), p.723
The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(c)
With the Ninos Brothers in 1499…
“Sailed from the bar of Saltes (Palos [Spain]) early in the summer of 1499. They had
only one small craft of 50 tons (60 of today), manned by thirty-three men…[and]
remained all the time on the north coast of South America, between Chuspa, Paria, and
Curiana…their expedition lasted about eight months....This was the most prosperous
voyage which had yet been undertaken, and their bringing to Spain 150 marks
in weight of pearls exercised a great influence over subsequent voyages.”
- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), pp. 678-679
The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(d)
Amerigo Vespucci Sailed Just
After Ninos to the Same Place &
Returned Just a Few Days Later
“They [i.e., Guerra and Nino]
returned to Castile; and within a
few days the fleet in which was the
deponent [viz.: Hojeda’s squadron]
also returned to Castile, and their
the crews of both fleets met, and
related to each other the events of
their voyages.”
- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America,
(New York, 1892), pp. 676
The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(d)
“The second of these independent journeys, that
of Hojeda, la Cosa and Vespucci, was the most
interesting, though it is obscure in detail…
[Hojeda and la Cosa were veterans]. Vespucci,
on the other hand, had not been to the Indies
before [1499]…
[after returning] Vespucci wrote again to Lorenzo
[Medici, his employer], saying:
‘We arrived at A new land which…we observed
to be a continent.’”
- Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire,
(London: Phoenix, 2004), paperback ed., pp.214,216
Amerigo Vespucci
Flemings Disseminate the Idea of “America”
Vespucci Amerigo’s Account of a “New World”
Printed by Flemings
Waldseemueller names the new world after Vespucci in 1507
“Columbus’s reluctance was Vespucci’s opportunity. If the Almirante espied ‘many
islands’ off the coast of Cathay, the future piloto major ‘discovered a continent…new
regions and an unknown world….The Mundus Novus and Lettera of Vespucci
marked the true literary debut of America. Printed an astonishing sixty times between
1503 and 1529 – more than twice per year on average over the course of a quarter
century, and nearly three times as frequently as Columbus’ Epistola…An Antwerp
edition appeared within a year or so of the Florentine original.”
-Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670,
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) , p.12
Vespucci Relied on Earlier Flemish Books
Salacious picture of
cannibalism in Vespucci’s
1505 edition
“The first Antwerp ‘Vespucius’ appeared circa 1505, followed by a vernacular
edition circa 1506. Jan van Doesborch, publisher of the Dutch-language version, next
put out a provocatively titled De novo mondo (ca. 1510) that included a one page
precis of Vespucci’s ‘Letter on his Third Voyage’…with a single-page abridgement of
Vespucci’s chapter on cosmography …extracted from the 1507 Cosmographie
introductio of Martin Waldseemueller. Van Doesborch reissued this hybrid work in
1522, now bearing the misleading English title Of the newe landes and of ye people
found by the kynge of Portygale. Both of these works were presumably based
on the more aptly named Flemish work of 1508, Die reyse van Lissabone.”
-Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670,
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) , pp.13-14
The 1st Map to Label “America” Believed
Vespucci’s Claims & Used Flemish Sources
Waldseemueller
utilizes
Portuguese
maps to decide
the New World
be called
“America”
“The Portuguese influence was greater than that of Spain in determining the general
appearance of the newly-discovered lands on the maps which are now known ...”
Duke Rene of Lorraine, through his Ducal Secretary Lud, sponsored Waldseemueller.
Waldseemueller, according to Lud, utilized Portuguese maps (Cantino Map) to create
his map and make the determination that the new continent should be called “America”.
E. L. Stevenson, “Martin Waldseemuller and the Early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography of the New
World”, Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1904), pp. 193-215: American
Geographical Society; http://www.jstor.org/stable/198810 .Accessed: 06/05/2012 10:50) , pp.203-204
1508 Map by Joannes Ruysch Reinforces
Native of Antwerp/Utrecht – Sailed with the Labrador & Cabot
1st widely printed map that relied on
modern data
1st to incorporate discoveries of
Newfoundland, etc.
1st to suggest a northwest passage to
Asia
Connected to Azorean/ Portuguese
Reference: Inventio Fortunatae
The oldest continuously named
geographic place in Canada – named
by Ruysch in 1508
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalieu_Isl
and)
“In my judgment [Ruysch is] a most exact geographer, and a most painstaking one in
delineating the globe, to whose aid in this little work I am indebted, has told me that he
sailed from the South of England, and penetrated as far as the fifty-third degree of north
latitude, and on that parallel he sailed west toward the shores of the East, bearing a little
northward and observed many islands.”
- Marcus Beneventatus – a key source for Mercator
Mercator – 1st to Label “North & South America”
“Mercator’s map of
1538, naming North
America and South
America for the first
time.”
- Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of
Maps, (New York, 1949), under
relevant picture before p.160
Mercator’s 1538 Map
New York City Library
The First Flemish Emperor of the World – Charles V –
His Contribution to the Discovery & Settlement of America
The Year 1500: The Age of Discovery Began The
Same Year As The Birth of The First Global Ruler
“When he came of age in 1515, Charles V ruled the
largest empire the world had ever seen.”
Paul Arblaster, A History of the Low Countries, (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 112
-Born near Gent (on the road near Eeklo, East Flanders)
-Grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (who sent
Columbus to the New World in 1492)
-Great-great-grandson of Isabella, the Duchess of Burgundy
(who colonized the Azores Islands with 1000s of Flemish
settlers from Franc of Bruges between the 1450s & 1470s)
Charles V ca 1519
-Count of Flanders and Holland before he was King of Spain
-Raised primarily by Hadrian of Utrecht – only Dutch Pope
The World’s First Ruler of a Global Empire was born in Flanders
1516 Became King of Spain
– Grants First Netherlandish Ownership in
America – Lord of Wynandaele
Charles V 1519
Wynandaele, West Flanders
“In 1517…Adolf of Burgundy [from Wynandaele, W.VL.] escorted Charles V from the
Netherlands to Spain, where he was to be crowned king of Aragon and Castile. For his
services Adolf was awarded the island of Cozumel off [of the] Yucatan…when his
ships finally sailed from the Netherlands in 1527 they never got further than
Spain.”
– Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland, p.1
Flemings Flock to Spanish America
“De aanwezigheid van Vlamingen tijdens de kolonisatie van de noordelijke regionen van
Zuid-Amerika heeft ons verschillende en interessante getuigenissen opgeleverd. Aan de
expedities van Lerma naar Santa Marta, alsook deze van de Duitsers naar Venezuela,
namen enkele Vlamingen deel. Een van hen was soldaat van Federmann, stichter van
Santa Fe de Bogotá. Ook een vrouw, Isabel de Malinas – de enige van haar geslacht die
we konden identificeren – participeerde in het migratieproces naar de Nieuwe Wereld.
Een clericus, de jezuïet Theobast, heeft ons enkele feiten overgeleverd over zijn lijden
tijdens de grote oversteek en het adaptatieproces in de Zuid-Amerikaanse territoria. ”
– Eduardo Dargent Chamot, Vlamingen in koloniaal Zuid-Amerika, Oorspronkelijke titel: Presencia Flamenca en la
Sudamérica Colonial Vertaling: Igor Antonissen 2010 http://www.viw.be/PDF/Vlaminingen%20in%20koloniaal%20Zuid
-Amerika.pdf, accessed June 2, 2012, p.20
1520s-1530s: Charles V’s Flemings in N. America
“Burgundy counselors of the young emperor –
Franciscans from the Ghent convent – went over to
America and settled in Mexico after 1523.”
Charles V
ca 1519
Pieter van Ghent “was accompanied by two other
Flemish Franciscans: Johann Van den Auwera (Juan
de Aora); and Johann Dekkers (Juan de Tecto), from
Ghent himself as well, confessor of Charles the Fifth.”
“This little Flemish band laid the bases for the gigantic
‘spiritual conquest’ that the evangelization of Mexico
and Central America was to become.”
- S. Gruzinski, Images At War: Mexico From Columbus to Blade pp.70-71
“The same kind kinds of artisans had also accompanied Francisco de Monteyo on his
first expedition into Yucatan in 1527, along with the usual professional men – merchants,
physicians, a couple of priests, and a pair of Flemish artillery engineers.”
-
M. Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, pp.36-37
Magellan’s Flemings and the
First Circumnavigation of the World
Flemish Influence on Magellan
“Of all the great voyages of the Age of Discovery, Magellan’s circumnavigation
of the globe has good claim to be the greatest.”
- Jack Turner, Spice: The History of a Temptation, (New York: Vintage, 2005), p.32
Magellan’s Flemish Roots
“Although Magellan never set foot in it [the
city of Ghent], the name of this city (and its
district in Flanders in the Burgundian
Netherlands) keeps cropping up in his
[Magellan’s] story like a fateful thread in the
fabric of history. Magellan himself was
descended from a Burgundian crusader
who had settled in Portugal. The Magellan
name seems to have been derived from an
old family name in Ghent.”
- Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine,
1994), p.314, n.18
Ferdinand Magellan
Flemings Were Specialists on Iberian Ships
“Portuguese kings imported Flemish and
German gunners and gun-founders as well
as guns…The gold, ivory, and black pepper
of West Africa and the spices of the Far East
were easily exchangeable in Antwerp for
Flemish and German guns…Thus Portugal
[and Spain] remained largely dependent on
foreign guns as well as foreign gunners.”
- Carlo M. Cipolla, European Culture and Overseas Expansion,
(Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 40
15th century
culverin
Flemings With Magellan
Spices
“On September 20th, 1519, they left San Lucar, carrying, officers and men, forty from the
Basque country and one hundred and two from various parts of Spain, forty=three
Portuguese, twenty-five men from Italy, seventeen Frenchmen, four Germans, five
Flemings, six Greeks, two Irishmen, one Englishman, a native of Mallorca,
one of the Azores, and six coloured men.”
- Mairin Mitchell, Elcano The First Circumnavigator, (London: Herder, 1958), p.51
The Five Flemings With Magellan
Magellan’s
Flagship the
Victoria
Roldan (Roland) de Argot – Brugge – Gunner on the Concepcion
Pedro (Pieter) de Bruselas (van Brussel) - Gunner on the Concepcion
Anton Flamenco (de Vlaming) – Able Seaman on the Santiago
Juan (Jan) Flamenco (de Vlaming) – Cabin Boy on the Santiago
Pedro de Urrea – Flanders – Servant on the San Antonio
- Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine, 1994), pp. 257, 258, 262, 263, 267-8
1519-1523: The Pacific 1st Seen by Roland van Brugge1
Magellan’s Circumnavigation: Actively Mandated by Charles V, Financed by de Haro
Straits of
Magellan
and mtn of
“Roldan” –
the “ugliest
man in the
world”
“Roldan de Argote, a Flemish gunner of [Brugge, in Magellan’s] fleet, climbed a
mountain (later named after him), sighted the ocean, and reported it to the
Captain General [Magellan] who ‘wept for joy’.”
- S.E. Morison, The European Discovery of America, p.392
1519-1523: Magellan’s Circumnavigation Reported by
Maximilian Transylvanus of Brussels
On October 24, 1522
After making the 1st sighting of the Pacific in
1520, under Magellan, Roldan (Roland) van
Brugge was one of 33 who survived (out of
more than 200) to circumnavigate the globe
and return to Spain in 1522.
To the right, the publication of the circumnavigation by
Maximillian Transylvanus (of Brussels) in January, 1523.
“In spite of his name, Transylvanus was not
from Transylvania. He probably was raised in
Flanders. A secretary to Charles V and married
to a niece of Cristobal de Haro, he was well
positioned to acquire knowledge of the Magellan
expedition. When the crew of the Victoria arrived
in Valladoild following their successful circumnavigation, Transylvanus with his
mentor, Pietro Martire, questioned them closely about the events of the voyage.”
- Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine, 1994), p.349
The Impact of Magellan’s
Circumnavigation of the World
New World Conquered in the name of
Charles V
“Let us not forget that it
was in the name of a ruler
born in Ghent and who was
the Count of Flanders that
Cortes conquered faraway
Mexico.”
– Serge Gruzinski, Images At War:
Mexico from Columbus to Blade
Runner (1492-2019), (Durham &
London: Duke University Press
2001), p.70
“Last Days of Tenochtitlan - Conquest of Mexico by Cortez”
1899 by William de Leftwich Dodge
Charles V Sends Ships to Map America’s
Coastline
“Nowe to come to Stephen
Gomes, which by the
commandmente of the
Emperor Charles the Fyfte
discovered the coast of
Norumbega [in 1524].”
- Charles Deane, ed., Documentary
History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2,
Containing a Discourse on Western
Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by
Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: John Wilson and
-Son, 1877), Google e-book; accessed
May 21, 2012, , p.24
“The conditions of life aboard the India [i.e., West Indies] ships were much the same as
elsewhere among Spanish seamen in the New World. The ships were filthy, crowded,
often unseaworthy, and inadequately manned. The prevalence of shipwreck was
frightful, and buccaneers abounded. The profits were between 200 and 300 per
cent, but the casualties also were enormous.”
-Paul S. Taylor, “Spanish Seamen in the New World during the Colonial Period,” The Hispanic American Historical
Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov., 1922), pp. 631-661; Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2506063
.Accessed: 01/05/2012 08:54. p.647
1524: Magellan’s Circumnavigation Inspires French
A “gossipy account of the
voyage was published in
French translation that year.
This helped to stimulate royal
support of Verrazano’s project
which was intended to
achieve a similar result – to
find a trade route to the
East Indies by a
northwesterly route, Spain
and Portugal having laid
claim to routes by the
southwest and the
southeast.”
- Samuel J. Hough, The Italians and the
Creation of America, (Providence, Rhode
Island: Brown University, 1980), p.38
Charles V & Newfoundland
“Juan de Garnica, his Majesty’s [Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V’s] aposentador,
went by his Majesty’s order…and hired a
caravel to be despatched to the Cod
Fisheries or Newfoundland.”
– Letter dated July 18, 1541, found in Biggar,
Collection of Documents, p.411
Charles V ca 1540
1540s-1550s: Charles V First Organized
Mapping of the North American Coast
“The printed world map
with which Sebastian
Cabot had some
connection put the
discoveries on [the] public
record in 1544. It now
became possible to draw
with some conviction the
profile of eastern North
America from the tip of the
Florida peninsula to
Labrador.”
– David B. Quinn, North America
From Earliest Discovery to First
Settlent, 1612, (New York: Harper
& Row, 1977), p.553
Sebastian Cabot’s Map of Newfoundland
was printed at Antwerp in 1544
The Dutch (& Flemish) Revolt
By 1550 Charles V Had Gained the Globe…
…And, By 1550 Charles V Had United the
Netherlands
The Netherland of William of Orange had: “No North and No South”
– Hugo De Schepper, ‘Belgium Nostrum’, 1500-1650, (Antwerpen: De Orde Van Den Prince, 1987), p1
1555: Charles V, Phillip II, Prince Orange
Oktober 25, 1555 - In een ontroerende rede verhaalde de oude keizer, steunend op de jonge
Willem van Oranje, hoe hij steeds had gestreefd "om voor het welzijn van Duitsland en de
andere rijken te zorgen, om voor de vrede en de eenheid van het hele christendom”
…And, In Tandem, By 1550, Antwerp Had …
“The Kings of Spain and Portugal organized their colonial trade on a monopolistic basis,
and, in principle, foreigners were excluded… But neither Spain nor Portugal could do
without the services and the capital which only the large, international firms could supply.
Thus, the treasures from overseas eventually reached Antwerp. The city’s deep
involvement in the East Indian and West Indian trade acted as a stimulus to her
whole economy, commercial and industrial.”
-Pierre Jeannin, Merchants of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paul Fittinghof, (New York: Harper
& Row, 1972), pp.22-23
…Become The Center of Global Trade…
“’The Netherlands,’ as Henri Pirenne
remarked, ‘are the suburb of Antwerp’”.
And the rest of the world “its periphery.”
-Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th
Century: The Structures of Everyday Life, Vol. 1, (New
York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 504 and Vol. 3, p.39.
Quoting Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, III, 1907,
p. 259
“Antwerp…was the centre of the entire
[sic] international economy” in the 16th
century.”
Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The Perspective of the World, Vol. 3,
(New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p.143.
1516 – 1585:
The Prominence of Antwerp
Map of Antwerp
Showing the Beurs,
etc. circa 1580s
Insert map on Antwerp’s
Economic prominence
here
“The establishment of the Portuguese spice trade at Antwerp [1502?] was the final stage
of a movement which had been steadily drawing merchants and merchandise to the
banks of the Scheldt. Only now did the term ‘world market’ acquire its full significance.
Antwerp brought North and South together.“
Pierre Jeannin, Merchants of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paul Fittinghof, (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p.22
1516 – 1585:
The Prominence of Antwerp
Map of Antwerp
Showing the Beurs,
etc. circa 1580s
Insert map on Antwerp’s
Economic prominence
here
“Antwerp was beyond a doubt by far the most important exporting centre in the Low
Countries [in the 16th century]. At 4,257,200 guilders [for 8 mos in 1545], its recorded
exports accounted for almost 75 per cent of the total for the whole of the Low
Countries, valued at 5,702,500 guilders. Compared with Antwerp, the share of the other
ports was negligible. In Amsterdam, the second most important port, the recorded
exports were valued at no more than 354,600 guilders, just 6 per cent of the total.”
Cle Lesger, The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange: Merchants, Commercial Expansion and
Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries c.1550-1630, p.27
The Reformation Starts in Flanders
“Father Martin Luther of the order
of St. Augustine, supporter of old
and damned heresies and
inventor of new ones.”
– from the Second Proclamation by Charles V
against heretics, 1521.
The Reformation Starts in Flanders
- 1st tracts of Luther’s 95 Theses printed @ Antwerp in 1519; 23 editions of Luther’s
works issued at Antwerp by 1522
- 1st Laws against Protestant beliefs issued in Brussels in 1521.
But By 1550 He Lost Netherlanders’ Souls…
The 1st Protestant martyrs are burned at Brussels in1523
Hendrick DeVoes & Jan Van Esschen
(2 Augustinian monks from Antwerp)
To combat the heresies, Charles V appointed the only Dutch speaking Pope, Hadrian VI, in 1522...
Beeldenstorm Begins in Steenvoorde (1566)…
“Heresy grows here [in the Netherlands] in proportion to the situation in our neighbors’ lands.”
– Margaret of Parma to her brother, Philip II,
May, 1561.
“Wherever these iconoclasts,
armed with sticks, axes and
burning torches, ran from
one one church to another
everybody fled…the next
day all the churches looked
as if the Devil had been at
work for some 100 years.”
– Abraham Ortelius to Emanuel
Van Meteren, 27 August, 1566
Left: ‘Beeldenstorm’ by
Frans Hogenburg of
Antwerp – whose art was
used in his friend Van
Meteren’s Histoire.
…And Spreads Throughout the Netherlands
“We assure you, Sire,
that in your Netherlands
there are more than
100,000 men holding
and following the religion
[of Calvinism]… and
none of them is
proposing rebellion.”
– Guy de Bres to Philip II, in the
Confession of Faith, 1561.
As Flanders Slipped Closer to Anarchy…
Spanish troops
slaughter Flemish
Protestants
“In Flanders all is war and turmoil”
– Desiderus Erasmus to Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, last Cardinal Protector of England
The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1356 to 1534 (1523-1524), Volume 10 (Collected Works of Erasmus)
[Hardcover] Desiderius Erasmus (Author), Alexander Dalzell (Translator), R.A.B. Mynors (Translator), p.170
…Triggering An Armed Response, Which Led to
Excessive Taxation, Which Led to Revolt…
The Duke of Alva
“The Duke of Alva, the governor for the Spanish Hapsburg [rulers – i.e., Philip II] in the
Netherlands, introduced a system of unified taxation in 1569. According to his plans,
three sorts of taxes were to be introduced: a 1 per cent tax (hundredth) upon all property,
a 5 per cent tax (twentieth) upon all transfers of real estate, and a 10 per cent tax (tenth)
that was to become a general sales tax….the Spanish governor [Alva] decided to
impose the taxes after all in 1571. This step washed out all possible compromises and
surely precipitated the outbreak of the Revolt – a war that was to last almost 80 years
followed.”
- ‘t Hart, et.al., A Financial History of the Netherlands, pp.13-14
November 4, 1576: Spanish Soldiers Sack Antwerp
“Hierdoor was onder alle gezindten in de Lage
Landen een sterk anti-Spaanse stemming ontstaan.”
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/koss002text01_01/koss002text01_01_0025.php
November 8, 1576: Pacification of Ghent
Map of Low
Countries
Showing (in
green) the
area unified
by William of
Orange under
the
Pacification
of Ghent.
1585 the Fall of Antwerp…
Philip Marnix,
Mayor of Antwerp,
Spymaster for
William of Orange
Antwerp’s three major exoduses in the 1500s (1525-1535; 1567-1576; 1583-1589) drained it of the
elite. England, the northern Netherlands and western Germany were the largest beneficiaries.
“Wealthy immigrant merchants joined the exodus from Antwerp and settled mainly in
Middleburg and Amsterdam.“
- ‘t Hart, et.al. A Financial History of the Netherlands, p.52
…and the Exodus of Flemings…
…Was Amsterdam’s [& London’s] Gain.
Amsterdam’s “population soared; reckoned at about 30,000 [in 1585]…it had mounted to 105,000
by 1622.… the large part in that increase contributed by Antwerp and other towns of Brabant and
Flanders.”
– Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, pp.16-17
Map of
Amsterdam
ca 1600
“The chamber of assurance [maritime insurance] was set up in 1598; the [V.O.C.] was
chartered in 1602; a new bourse [modeled on Antwerp’s] was begun in 1608,
and…the exchange bank [Wisselbank] was founded in 1609.”
– Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, p.17
…Making the 17th C the Dutch “Golden Age”
“De omvangrijke trek vanuit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden heeft een positieve rol gespeeld
in de ontwikkeling van de Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden en deze tot de
belangrijkste en meest rijke land van Europa te maken.”
– Roelof Vennik, Migratie van Vlamingen en Walen naar de Noordelijke Nederlanden voor 1700,
www.ngv.nl
The Franco-Flemish Diaspora
“Huguenot” is a Flemish Term
O.I.A. Roche, in his book The Days of the Upright, a History of the Huguenots, writes
that "Huguenot" is
"a combination of a Flemish and a German word. In the Flemish corner of France, Bible
students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called Huisgenooten,
or "house fellows," while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eidgenossen, or
"oath fellows," that is, persons bound to each other by an oath. Gallicized into "Huguenot,"
often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and
triumph, a badge of enduring honor and courage.”
Franco-Flemish Involvement in the Dutch Revolt
“These fierce Huguenot privateers were under the command of a succession of daring and
sometimes reckless leaders, the best-known of whom is [the Fleming] William de la Marck,
Lord of Lumey, and were called "Sea Beggars", "Gueux de mer" in French, or
"Watergeuzen" in Dutch. In the last half of the 1560s the “Sea Beggars” were formed into an
effective and organized fighting force against Spain. In 1569 William of Orange, who had now
openly placed himself at the head of the party of revolt, and granted letters of marque [for
privateering] to a number of vessels manned by crews of desperadoes drawn from all nationalities.
Eighteen ships received letters of marque, which were equipped by [the Prince of
Orange’s brother] Louis of Nassau in the French Huguenot port of La Rochelle,
which they continued to use as a base. By the end of 1569, about 84 Sea Beggars
ships were in action.”
Flemings Fled to La Rochelle, …
“To the north and west of the port [of La Rochelle], the old parish of Saint Barthelemy
was chiefly inhabited by foreign merchants and wealthier local gens de justice. Near
the harbor, in rue Chef de Ville, congregated Dutch, Flemish, and German merchants
with commercial operations in La Rochelle. In their honor, Rochelais [inhabitants of
La Rochelle] called the main street intersection in the vicinity the ‘canton des
Flamandes’.”
-Kevin C. Robbins, City on the Ocean Sea: La Rochelle, 1530-1650: Urban Society, Religion, and Politics on the
French Atlantic Frontier, (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p.54.
…AND From There to Ft. Caroline, Florida…
Menen, W.VL.
La Rochelle
Ft. Caroline, Florida, 1564
“Deposition de Jehan d’ Menin [Johannes van Menen], mariner, natif de la Rochelle…”
[Jehan Menin] “gave a firsthand account” of the massacre at Ft. Caroline by the
Spanish. One of only 50 survivors [perhaps the only Flemish one] In 1564 –
his family were Protestants from the West Flanders town of Menen.
- DB Quinn, North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements, p.260
Another Landfall of Flemings in Continental U.S.
“It is September 14, 1566, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and a large
Spanish ship, with a Flemish crew, a contingent of Spanish soldiers, and three Jesuit
missionaries aboard, having been blown out to sea twice by hurricanes and storms, sits
tranquilly off-shore by the northern coast of Florida, right near the future Georgia border,
waiting for the proper moment to send an exploratory team to the beach in their
one remaining boat.“
- Raymond A. Schroth, The American Jesuits: A History, (New York: NYU Press, 2007, p.3
Flemings in France Fished For Cod
“In 1526, a ship left the harbour of Brouage to deliver its cargo to the nephew of the
major Genoan merchant Jaspar Centurisme in Anvers [Antwerp]….By 1546, this fishery
had become so important that voyages to the ‘Land of the Cod’ (Newfoundland) were
considered commonplace.”
-Nathalie Fiquet, “Brouage in the Time of Champlain: A New Town Open to the World,” pp. 33-42 in Raymond Litalien &
Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English ed., Kathe Roth trans., (Montreal: McGill University
Press, 2004), p.35
LaRochelle’s Fur Trade In Canada
“La Rochelle…was the point of departure for almost half of the ships sent to Canada.”
-Bernard Allaire, “The Occupation of Quebec by the Kirke Brothers,” pp. 245-257, in Raymond Litalien and Denis
Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2004), p.245.
LaRochelle-Antwerp-Canada Trade Triangle
“The embroideries [listed by Etienne Bellenger for his fur trade in Canada] came from
Flanders…The fact that large quantities of [Bellenger’s] trade items came from northern
countries where furs were very popular suggests that these items were loaded for La
Rochelle at Anvers [Antwerp], a major European fur-trading centre at
the time.”
-Laurier Turgeon, “The French in New England Before Champlain,” pp. 98-112, in Raymond Litalien and Denis
Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2004), p.106.
Beaver Peltries Pull Merchants to North America
“The natural resource which drew these merchants to the coast of America was the
beaver. Current fashion in Europe required a steady flow of pelts for the hat-making
industry.” - Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds./trans., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country,
1634-1635, pp. xiii-xiv
“Trade goods valued at one livre when they left Paris bought beaver skins that were
worth 200 livres when they arrived back there…Each side thought the other was
overpaying, and both in a sense were right, which is why the trade was such a
success.”
– Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, (New York: Bloomsbury
Press, 2008), p.44
Because the Prices of Beaver Hats Were High…
“Between 1580 and 1620, the price of a
plain beaver hat [in Paris] was around 100
sols tournois, while plain (wool) felt hats
were rarely priced at more than 30 sols
tournois. By the 1650s, plain beaver hats
were worth almost 300 sols tournois, while
the price of felt hats was about 50 sols
tournois….Between 1580 and 1615,
decorated hats, both wool and beaver, had
parallel rises in price, but in the 1620s, the
price of decorated beaver hats exploded,
reaching peaks of 700 to 800 sols tournois,
while the price of a decorated felt hat
remained below 75 sols tournois.”
– Bernard Allaire, “The European Fur Trade and the Context of
Champlain’s Arrival,” pp. 50-58 in Raymond Litalien & Denis
Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English
ed., Kathe Roth trans., (Montreal: McGill University Press, 2004),
pp.52-53
Flemish Protestants in France Financed Trade…
“Another piece of evidence of this economic
interlacing was the presence in French port towns
on the Atlantic of ‘Flemish neighborhoods’.
There [was] an international trade network and an
international Protestant network, even though the
Calvinists and Lutherans often belonged to
distinct networks. For example, there were many
Protestants in Brouage, a major salt port for the
Baltic fisheries, where the members of the van
Liebergen family lived.” – Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and
the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien & Denis Vaugeois, eds.,
Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English ed., Kathe Roth trans.,
(Montreal: McGill University Press, 2004), pp.239-240
Jacques de Peyster, born at Gent in 1596, became a banker at Rouen, where he died
in 1655. His wife Catherine de Lanoye, was incidentally, the daughter of Josse de
Lanoye and Sara de Wannemaker of Antwerp. Another, Jean de Peyster, was a banker
at La Rochelle. The rest of the family was scattered thru Haarlem, Utrecht, England,
Ireland, and even Greece! - Henry De Peyster, “The Pre-American Ancestry of the De Peyster Family”
in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, pp. 210-216 in Vol LXX (July, 1939) and pp. 313-331 of
Vol.LXXI (October, 1939) for the detailed written backdrop with supporting documentation. Or, for a quick look at the
simple connections, see http://www.frostandgilchrist.com/getperson.php?personID=I11518&tree=frostinaz01
LaRochelle Merchants Realize Profits 10x on
Beaver Pelt Trade in Canada in 1583
“He broughte home a kinde of mynerall matter supposed to hold silver, whereof he gave
me some; a kinde of muske called castor; divers beastes skins, as bevers, otters,
marternes, lucernes, seales, buffs, deere skinnes, all dressed, and painted on the
innerside with divers excellent colors, as redd, tawnye, yellowe and vermillyon, all which
things I sawe; and divers other merchandise he hath which I saw not….
-Charles Deane, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2, Containing a Discourse on
Western Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John
Wilson and Son, 1877),Google e-book; accessed May 21, 2012, p. 26
The Profitability of the Beaver Fur Trade:
Invest 40 Earn 440!
“…But he told me he had CCCC. and xl. [i.e., 400 and 40] crowns for that in Roan
[=Rouen], which in trifles bestowed upon the savages, stoode him not in fortie crownes.”
-Charles Deane, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2, Containing a Discourse on
Western Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John
Wilson and Son, 1877), Google e-book; accessed May 21, 2012, p. 26
Following Fish, Fur, & Flemings:
The Flemish Connection to English Discovery (1000s-1600s)
The English Followed the Fish, Fur & Flemish
“Fishing was a business enterprise;
so was the subsidiary fur trading
which accompanied it.”
- David B. Quinn, North America From Earliest
Discovery to First Settlements, p.348
“The very first record of North
American cod brought back to
Europe is thru “an English ship…with
an Azorean pilot, [who] came home
to Bristol with…North American cod
in 1502.”
- Sicking & Abreu-Ferreira, Beyond the Catch:
Fisheries of the North Atlantic, p.125
Martin Frobisher: The First Englishman to Sail for the New World
Relied Upon Mercator & Jan de Langhe of Ieper
Sir Martin Frobischer, “also turned to Mandeville for
advice when he set out on on his voyage to discover
the North-West passage. Not only did his ship’s library
contain a copy of Mercator’s world map…but it also
contained a copy of [Jan de Langhe’s] The Travels [of
Sir John Mandeville].”
-Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John
Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 277-278.
The First Book on America in English: printed at Antwerp (1511)
“This text is the first English book containing the word America.”
-Edward Arber, ed., The First Three English Books on America, (London, 1883) Bibliolife reprint,1992, p.vii
Author Pietro Martire
(“Peter Martyr”) had
been Queen Isabella’s
personal chaplain,
collaborated with
Maximilian
Transylvanus of
Brussels, and was an
advisor to Charles V
on the Magellan
voyage decision
“This [book] is not really of the new lands. It is mainly about Prester John.”
-George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,
1928), p.269
One Year Later, at Rupelmonde Near Antwerp
Gerardus Mercator Was Born 500 Yrs Ago: March 5, 1512
“Maps codify the miracle of existence. And the man who wrote the codes for the maps
we use today was Gerard Mercator. Mercator was ‘the
prince of modern cartographers’, his depictions of the
planet and its regions unsurpassed in accuracy, clarity and
consistency. More recently he was crowned by the American
Scholar Robert W. Karrow as ‘the first modern, scientific
cartographer’. Mercator was a humble man with a universal
vision. Where his contemporaries had adopted a piecemeal
approach to cartography, Mercator sought to wrap the world
in overlapping, uniform maps…
He participated in the naming and the mapping of America,
And he devised a new method – a ‘projection’ – of converting the spherical world into a two-dimensional map.
He constructed the two most important globes of the
sixteenth century, and the title of his pioneering ‘modern
geography’, the Atlas, became the standard term for a book of maps.”
Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet, (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), p. xii
England’s Interest Started With Dee/Hackluyt
England’s interest in America did not begin until the year 1577 – the year Mercator gave
Dee info and Abraham Ortelius , creator of the Atlas, toured England .
Ortelius
Van Meteren
Hackluyt
“Hackluyt was thus one of the engineers of English colonization in America. If we omit
the plan of 1563 to preempt French Florida for English uses, we may date the first
project in 1578, when Frobisher planned a settlement in the frozen north. The details of
this project were laid down by Hackluyt. The second project is of the same year,
when Gilbert planned a settlement in Newfoundland.”
-George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,
1928), p.53
John Dee Plagiarized and Falsified…
“So far as we know, Dr. Dee did not gather reports, and his geography remained at best
secondhand and academic.”
– George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society, 1928) p.37
“The world map that Geraldus Mercator (a native of Flanders)
published in 1569 had an insert showing just such a polar
region with its terrifying ‘Indrawing Seas’. Mercator said his
source for this and the story outlined above was the written
account in the ‘Belgic language’ by one Jacobus Cnoyen of
Herzogenbusch. Cnoyen himself may have gotten the story
about the eight Greenlanders while on a 1364 business trip to
Bergen, a Staple of the Hanseatic League. Mercator gave an
account of it all [the Inventio Fortunatae ] in a letter to the English
mathematician and occultist John Dee, who presumably was not
himself able to read Cnoyen’s ‘Belgic language’; Dee then wrote
his own version of the story as told in Mercator’s letter. Dee’s manuscript (later
damaged by fire) incorporating the Cnoyen-Mercator information was dated June 8,
1577. Just three years later, as [Professor] Taylor reconstructs the sequence of
connections in her article ‘A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee’, Richard
Hackluyt also referred to Cnoyen’s story.”
- Kirsten Seaver, The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North Americaca A.D. 1000-1500, pp.133-134
Mercator Sparks English Belief in Claim to No.America
“And this matter of Discovery in hand, and chiefly of these most Northerly Countries and
Iles, hath caused me [John Dee] (since the last yere [i.e., 1576] to send into divers
places beyond the sea, and to men there in our age rightfully [esteemed, to wit the ]
honest Philosopher and Mathemetician, Gerardus Mercator and to that learned
Geographer Abrahamus Ortelius whose company also (syns my first lettres sent over [to
Flanders].”
- E.G.R. Taylor, “A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, p.56 in Imago Mundi, XIII, (1956), ed. Leo Bagrow, (‘s Gravenhage), pp.56-68
“Mercator’s abstract (which is mainly in Flemish) is therefore the only surviving record
of the contents of the Itinerario.” – Skelton, The Vinland Map, p.180
“Late in 1577…Dee was summoned to Windsor, where he ‘declared to the Queen her
title to Greenland.’…Gilbert himself came to consult Dee 1577, the year of his own
patent [to set up colonies in North America]. In 1578, probably to justify the grant, Dee
drew up a paper on the Queen’s title to North America….The paper itself seems not to
have been presented to the Queen until 1580, by which time Dee was thoroughly
enmeshed in Gilbert’s web.”
-George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,
1928) p.48