APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

The Name Indian, p. 10.

The Spanish writers from the outset, beginning with Columbus in his letters, called the natives of America, Indians, and their English translators do the same. So, too, Richard Eden, the earliest English writer on American travel, applies the name to the natives of Peru and Mexico. It is used in the same way, both in translations and original accounts, during the rest of the century, but it is always limited to those races with whom the Spaniards were in contact. In its wider and later application the word does not seem to have established itself in English till the next century. The earliest instance I can find, where it is applied to the natives of North America generally in any original work, is by Hakluyt. In 1587 he translated Laudonnière's "History of the French Colony in Florida," and dedicated his translation to Sir Walter Raleigh. In this dedication he once uses the term Indian for the natives of North America. Heriot and the other writers who describe the various attempts at settlement in Virginia during the sixteenth century, invariably called the natives 'savages." Perhaps the earliest instance where an English writer uses the name Indian specially to describe the occupants of the land afterwards colonized by the English is in the account of Archer's voyage to Virginia in 1602. This account, written by James Rosier, is published in Purchas (vol. iv. b. viii.), From that time onward the use of the term in the wider sense becomes more common. We may reasonably infer that the use of it was an indication of the growing knowledge of the fact that the lands conquered by the Spaniards and those explored by the English formed one continent.

APPENDIX B.

Hereditary Succession among the Indians, p. 14.

The system of succession among the Indians is a matter of interest as throwing some light on the special stage of development which the North American savages had reached when first discovered by European voyagers.

Among the Virginians and also among the Iroquois or Five Nations, the system of succession through females prevailed. All kinship for purposes of succession to the chieftainship was reckoned through the mother. The deceased chief was succeeded by his eldest uterine brother; when the stock of brothers was exhausted, the succession devolved on the eldest uterine nephew, unless, indeed, the sisters of the deceased intervened. That this was so is distinctly stated by Strachey (p. 53), and his statement is in some measure borne out by the not unfrequent mention of queens and female chiefs.

The researches of the late Mr. McLennan and others who have followed the same line of inquiry may be considered to have clearly established the view, that this mode of succession is a relic of the time when promiscuous intercourse, or polyandry, was the prevailing usage, and when consequently certainty in kinship could only be found on the mother's side, and that it therefore belongs to an earlier stage of society than the more familiar system of succession through males. At the same time the system of succession through females, although it obtained among the Virginians and the Iroquois, was not universal among the American Indians, and in modern times at least not even

common.

Alexander, the chief of the Narragansetts, brother and predecessor to Philip, the great enemy of the English settlers, succeeded his father Massasoit. Catlin distinctly tells us (vol. i. p. 192) that "it is a general, though not an infallible, rule among the numerous tribes of North American Indians that the office of chief belongs to the eldest son of a chief, provided he shows himself by his conduct to be equally worthy of it as any other in the nation; making it hereditary on a very proper condition-in default of which, or others which may happen, the office is elective." From this passage it is clear that Catlin knew of only two alternatives, election and succession in the male line, and it is most unlikely that a shrewd observer, as he was, would have overlooked so peculiar and anomalous a system as succession through females, had it been at all widely spread.

Now it is also noteworthy that not only Catlin, but also various writers in Schoolcraft's collection, dwell on the lax nature of the chief's authority, and that more than one of them distinctly speaks of the existing system of chieftainship as a novelty. Thus Mr. Prescott (vol. iii. p. 182) says that "the chieftainship (among the Sioux) is of

modern date." Another writer, Mr. Eakes, whose information was obtained by word of mouth from a Creek chief, says that in that tribe "the chiefs were not originally hereditary; the descent was in the female line. This custom has become extinct. The chiefs are now chosen by the Council." It is almost needless to point out that in the above extract “hereditary" means transmitted from father to son. From this we may conclude almost with certainty that the system which the first European voyagers found extant in Virginia, and which survived till later times among the Five Nations, had elsewhere recently given way to the system of male succession or of election, while those were in the present century regarded as novelties, and the authority which they gave had not yet acquired the strength of longestablished usage.

APPENDIX C.

The Cabots and their Voyages, p. 23.

The voyages of the Cabots, or of Sebastian Cabot, have been a strange stumbling-block to historians. The acme of confusion was reached when a living writer, Mr. Froude, told us that in 1497 Sebastian Cabot was a little boy!"

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Two writers have made a special study of the career of Sebastian Cabot. These are Mr. Biddle and Mr. Nicholls, and from a comparison of their writings with the original authorities we can obtain a fairly clear idea of the question, though certain details must still remain matters of uncertainty. Messrs. Bryant and Gay have also dealt with the subject in a clear and comprehensive manner. The main points about Sebastian Cabot on which doubt has arisen

are:

1. His birthplace.

2. The number of his voyages made from England before 1500

3. The extent of these voyages respectively.

4. The relative parts played by John and Sebastian Cabot.

Before entering upon these questions it may be well to set forth clearly the extent and nature of the evidence before us.

Of strictly contemporary evidence we have:

1. The two patents referred to in my text. These, as far as they go, are evidence of the very highest order.

2. A statement in "Stow's Annals," as follows:

"This yeare (1498) one Sebastian Gaboto, a Genoa's son, born in Bristow, professing himself to be expert in knowledge of the arch of the world and of the Islands of the same, as by his charts and other reasonable demonstrations he showed, caused the king to man and victual a ship at Bristow to search for an island which he knew to be

replenished with rich commodities: in this ship divers merchants of London adventured small stocks, and in the company of this ship sailed also out of Bristow three or four ships fraught with sleight and gross wares."

This extract is to be found p. 804, in the first edition of "Stow's Annals," published in 1605. Nevertheless I venture to call it a contemporary authority since Stow, who was a painstaking and accurate antiquary, professes to have derived it from an unpublished MS. written by Robert Fabian.

This passage was privately communicated by Stow to Hakluyt, before "Stow's Annals" appeared. It was first published in Hakluyt's Divers Voyages," in 1582. It there bears the heading, “A note of Sebastian Cabot's first discovery of part of the Indies, taken out of the latter part of Robert Fabian's Chronicle, not hitherto printed, which is in the custody of Mr. John Stow, a diligent preserver of antiquities." In the statement itself, Hakluyt, who evidently knew a portion of the history of the Cabot family, but not the whole, altered "a Genoa's son" to "a Venetian." In his later and greater work he republished the extract, but with a still further change. He substitutes John for Sebastian, leaving his former heading. Of this change I shall have more to say hereafter.

3. A letter from Lorenzo Pasqualigo, the Venetian ambassador in England, published by Mr. Rawdon Brown, in his "Calendar of Venetian State Papers," Sept. 11, 1497. We do not know enough of Pasqualigo to judge how far he may be fully trusted. We may, however, be sure that he can be relied on in matters of general notoriety. The main points in this letter are: that a Venetian called Juan Cabot had sailed from Bristol to discover new lands; that seven hundred leagues from England he had found the territory of the Great Cham; that he had coasted for three hundred leagues and landed, seeing no human beings, but finding, with other signs of human habitation, some snares for game and a needle, which he brought home. Next year he was to sail with ten ships. In the mean time he lived at Bristol, paid by the king and honored by all men. This letter is dated August 27, 1497.

4. Another extract from the Venetian Archives, dated August 24, 1497. This is only a bare statement of the facts recorded in Pasqualigo's letter, with the one detail added, that the first voyage was made at the king's expense. Moreover, the number of ships to be sent in the next year is increased from ten to fifteen or twenty.

5. The extract referred to in my text from the Privy Purse Expenses: "To him that found the new Isle 10l.;" and also certain references in the same papers to a voyage in 1498.

Besides these definite contemporary records we have a statement which may or may not be contemporary, extracted from a Bristol MS.