Randolph County, Missouri - Chapter 1: Introductory, 1920

EARLY EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES - THE NORTHMEN - CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS - SPANISH, FRENCH AND ENGLISH EXPLORERS - ST. AUGUSTINE, THE OLDEST TOWN IN THE UNITED STATES - SANTA FE - RESULT OF EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

This work will be essentially a history of Randolph County. But the history of no state, nor part of a state, of this Union would be complete if all earlier historic events are omitted.

the Red, an adventurous navigator and explorer. The place where he and his companions landed, and later spent one or more winters cannot be determined. They called the region Vineland because of the abundance of wild grapes. This point may have been somewhere along the North Atlantic coast from A pioNBBR~HOMB Labrador to Massachusetts or Rhode

Island. But, however interesting it may be to us to know that the Northmen (Danes and Norwegians), visited our shores at this earlier date, still their discovery led to nothing. No attempt was made by the Northmen to colonize the country, and in course of time their descendants, less adventurous, had lost all remembrance of any tradition or record of that far off shore. If any legend survived, it had become a mere fable, impotent to inspire action and obtain results.

Nearly five hundred years later Christopher Columbus, an Italian, born at Genoa about the year 1436, through the generous encouragemeni of Queen Isabella of Spain, received from the Spanish government the necessary help, together with the rank of admiral, to enable him to sail in search of the East Indies by sailing west. No thought of a new world, a Western Continent, had entered the mind of Columbus or any one else.

On Friday, August 3, 1492, half an hour before sunrise, he set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small vessels, and one hundred and twenty men.

No one understood navigation better than Columbus; he had a chart of the globe made by himself and based on the highest authorities. Next, he had the compass for his guide. Finally, he carried with him an improved astrolabe, or instrument for determining his position by observation of the sun. But these were not all. He had the conviction that he was engaged in a providential work, and that he was certain to accomplish it. There are occasions in life when such a faith is worth everything; this was one.

Nine weeks after his embarkation, and not too soon, because the crews of his ships had become discouraged, almost mutinous, an event occurred, which led to results. On October 2nd, a flock of land birds was seen flying to the southwest. At the instance of Alonzo Pinzon, one of his captains, Columbus, who had been sailing due west, turned the prow of his ship and followed these winged guides.

Columbus believed the island to be a part of the East Indies, hence he called the native inhabitants, Indians, a name they still bear in this country. Columbus made three more voyages to the Western continents, but never found out his mistake, but died in 1506, firmly convinced that America was part of Asia, and that he had discovered a short and direct all sea westward route from Europe to the East Indies.

On this, his first voyage, Columbus discovered Cuba, and San Domingo; on his second voyage, Porto Rico, Jamaica and the islands of the Caribbean Sea in 1493 ; on his third voyage, 1498, the island of IVin- idad off the coast of Venezuela, and the mainland of South America at the mouth of the Orinoco river. On his fourth and last voyage he explored Central America and the Isthmus of Panama. Columbus raised the Spanish flag and claimed the country for Spain wherever he went.

In the spring of 1497, John Cabot of Venetia, an Italian then residing in Bristol, England, encouraged by Henry VII, King of England, set sail westward and discovered the continent of North America.

In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot and his son Sebastian, discovered that country which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June about five o'clock in the morning.

The next year Sebastian Cabot made a voyage and explored the coast from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras, perhaps even farther south. He likewise asserted the title of Henry VII to the land.

The fact that the western hemisphere, the two Americas, north and south, was no part of Asia, was made known by Magellan in 1517- 1519, sailing under the flag of Spain, who sailed around the south end of South America, through the straits that bear his name, thence north along the west coast for some distance, thence west across the Pacific Ocean. One of his ships sailed entirely around the world.

Then the eyes of Europeans were opened and the truth made known. America was an immense continent, to them a new world. In 1509, Diego Columbus, son of Christopher Columbus was appointed governor of San Domingo, where a colony had been already established, who speedily thereafter conquered the Island of Cuba.

In the spring of 1513, Ponce De Leon, an elderly Spaniard, went upon an exploring expedition, under the auspices of the Spanish government and on Easter Sunday discovered the mainland of North America. De Leon landed near the mouth of the St. John river, planted the cross and raised the Spanish flag, and named the country Florida. It was upon this discovery that Spain laid claim to Florida and afterward made this claim good. In 1565, a fort was built at St. Augustine by the Spaniards and a settlement effected. St. Augustine is the oldest town

During the year 1534, Cartier, a Frenchman, discovered and named the St. Lawrence river and ascended the same to Mount Royal, so named by him, the site of the city of Montreal, raised the French flag and claimed this territory for France.

In the spring of 1539 Hernando De Soto with a force of six hundred picked men, two hundred horses, three hundred hogs for meat, sailed from Cuba, landed at Tampa Bay, and began his march of exploration and violence toward the natives. For two years this march went on. During that time De Soto and his men traveled upward of fifteen hundred miles through the now states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Their quest was for gold and they found little. In the spring of 1541, they came to the Mississippi river at a point in the northwest corner of the state of Mississippi and there they crossed over into the then wilderness, now the state of Arkansas, and resumed their march. How far, and whence they journeyed, is of little consequence now. In May, 1542, they came back to the great river, at the mouth of Red River. This was the end of De Soto's career. There he died and was secretely buried at midnight in the muddy waters of the Mississippi. Only about half of those who had landed in Florida were alive, a miserable remnant of a once proud array, half naked, half starved, the survivors at length reached the Spanish settlements in Mexico. De Soto and his followers were the first white men to stand on the banks of the Mississippi river.

As late as the year 1600, there seemed small promise that this country would ever be settled and governed by the English-speaking race. Look at the situation. More than a hundred years had passed since Columbus landed; yet the only white inhabitants of the territory now embraced in the United States were a few hundred Spaniards in St. Augustine, Florida, and perhaps a few hundred more in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the second oldest town. Over the rest of the country, embracing more than three millions of square miles, the Indians ruled supreme. France had tried to get a foothold on the Atlantic coast and had failed ; England had tried and failed, likewise. Spain alone succeeded. In 1600, it certainly looked as though her flag was destined to wave over the whole land from sea to sea.

Confining ourselves to the territory now included in the United States, let uc see what the explorers of that, and also of a later age, found

America to be. In great measure it seemed to them Europe repeated. It had practically the same climate and the same soil, it produced, or was capable of producing, the same trees, the same fruits, the same crops, with the valuable addition of cotton, sugar, and rice. In all ways it was equally favorable to human health and life.

But this is not all. In two important respects America is superior to Europe. That continent commands the Atlantic only; this commands two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Ships can be sent direct to Europe and Africa from our eastern coast, and direct to Asia and Australia from our western. That is the first f.dvantage. The second is that though America lepeats the natural features of Europe in its lakes, mountains, plains, rivers, and foiests, yet it repeats them on a far grander scale. Europe has nothing to compare with the Sierras and the Rockies, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, Niagara, the Canyon of the Colorado, Yellowstone Park, or the v ostern prairies. "America," s^ys a distinguished English statesman "has a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man." Such was the land spread out before the explorers. It seemed to offer to all who were disappointed with the Old World an opportunity to try what they could make of life under new and broader conditions.