Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/43

CHAPTER III

VERRAZZANO VISITS THE WAMPANOAGS

French Explorations—Verrazzano Seeks the Orient in 1524—Discovers Block Island—Enters Newport Harbor—Indian Reception—Description of the Men and Women—Their Dress—The Kings and Their Wives—The Country and Its Productions—Indian Dwellings—Customs—Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay—The Maine Indians Hostile—Indian Religion.

FOLLOWING the first authentic discovery and exploration of America by Columbus in 1492, all the maritime nations of Europe entered the race for further discovery, conquest and possession. Although Spain and Portugal had undertaken, in 1494, to divide the unexplored parts of the earth between them, under authority of the Pope's edicts, England and France treated the plan with contempt. "The King of France sent word to our great emperor," says Diaz, describing the capture of some Spanish treasure ships by a French pirate, "that as he and the King of Portugal had divided the earth between themselves, without giving him a share of it, he should like them to show him our father Adam's will, in order to know if he had made them his sole heirs." He also declared that he should feel free to take all he could find upon the ocean. With this spirit, France sent out two great explorers, Verrazzano and Cartier, the one exploring North America and writing New France on the Atlantic coast from Florida to Greenland, the other penetrating the interior by the great river, the St. Lawrence.

In 1524, the Florentine discoverer, Verrazzano, under French patronage, made his second voyage, westward, in search of the Orient. Touching the Madeiras, on his route, and then the main land of the Carolinas, he coasted north-