JOURNEYS OF THE GREAT EXPLORERS COLUM BUS TO COOK COURSE GUI DE Professor Glyndwr Williams UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Journeys of the Great Explorers: Columbus to Cook Professor Glyndwr (Glyn) Williams University of London Recorded Books ™ is a trademark of Recorded Books, LLC. All rights reserved. Journeys of the Great Explorers: Columbus to Cook Executive Producer John J. Alexander Executive Editor Donna F. Carnahan RECORDING Producer - David Markowitz Director - Matthew Cavnar COURSE GUIDE Editor - James Gallagher Design - Edward White Lecture content ©2004 by Glyndwr Williams Course Guide ©2004 by Recorded Books, LLC 72004 by Recorded Books, LLC Cover image: © PhotoDisc #UT043 ISBN: 978-1-4025-8200-4 All beliefs and opinions expressed in this audio program and accompanying course guide are those of the author and not of Recorded Books, LLC, or its employees. Course Syllabus Journeys of the Great Explorers: Columbus to Cook About Your Professor ...................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5 Lecture 1 The World Before Columbus .................................................................... 6 Lecture 2 The Voyages of Christopher Columbus .................................................. 12 Lecture 3 The Voyage of Vasco da Gama and the “Sea Road” to the East ............................................................................ 18 Lecture 4 The First Circumnavigation: The Voyage of Ferdinand Magellan ........................................................ 24 Lecture 5 The Second Circumnavigation: The Voyage of Francis Drake .................................................................. 30 Lecture 6 The Tools of Discovery ............................................................................ 36 Lecture 7 Life at Sea ................................................................................................ 42 Lecture 8 Voyages of Delusion: The Search for the Northwest Passage .................................................. 47 Lecture 9 The Pacific Ocean: The Great Unknown ................................................................................ 52 Lecture 10 The “Rambling Voyages” of William Dampier ........................................ 57 Lecture 11 Vitus Bering and the Russian Discovery of America .............................. 62 Lecture 12 The Pacific Voyages of James Cook ...................................................... 68 Lecture 13 The Revolution in Navigation and Health ................................................ 75 Lecture 14 The World After Cook .............................................................................. 80 Nautical Terms .............................................................................................................. 85 Course Materials ............................................................................................................ 86 Recorded Books ............................................................................................................ 87 3 s m a i l l i W r w d n y l G f o y s e t r u o About Your Professor c h p a r g o t o h P Glyndwr Williams Dr. Williams has been a professor of history at Queen Mary, University of London, since 1974, and was appointed Emeritus Professor in 1997. He has traveled and lectured in the United States, Canada, Australia, the West Indies, and Jamaica and has held visiting appointments at many universities outside Britain. Among his awards and honors are a D. Litt. from Memorial University, Newfoundland; a D. Litt. from La Trobe University, Melbourne; the Elizabeth Laird Distinguished Lectureship at the University of Winnipeg (1992); and the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum, London, awarded for services to maritime history (1994). Among the named lectures he has given are the E.G.R. Taylor Lecture (London, 1978), the Caird Lecture (London, 1995), the Bernard Bailyn Lecture (Melbourne, 1999), and the John Kemble Memorial Lecture (The Huntington Library, 2000). In July 1999, he was presented with a volume of essays, Pacific Empires, by colleagues and former students, published in his honor by Melbourne University Press. Dr. Williams is vice president of the Hakluyt Society and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, the Mariner’s Mirror, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, the Oxford Companion to Exploration, and the History of Cartography (University of Chicago Press). In 2001-2002, he served as historical consultant on the BBC television series, The Ship, on Captain Cook’s first Pacific voyage. Dr. Williams’ research and writing have been mainly on the exploration of the Pacific and North America. His dozen books and thirty articles include Voyages of Delusion: The Search for the Northwest Passage in the Age of Reason, The Prize of All Oceans: The Triumph and Tragedy of Anson’s Voyage Round the World, The Voyages of Captain Cook, The Great South Sea: English Voyages and Encounters 1570-1750, and Voyages to Hudson Bay in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747, with William Barr. His current commitments include work on the Hakluyt Society’s multivolume edition of The Malaspina Expedition 1789-1794 and the editing of a collection of papers to be published in 2004, Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments. 4 Introduction ne of the most dra- matic periods in oworld history is the age of Europe’s discovery of the world from Columbus and da Gama in the late fif - teenth century to the voy - ages of James Cook in the eighteenth century. The extent of the changes can be seen by comparing the pre-Columbian maps, which c s i showed no knowledge of D o t o h either the Americas or the P © Pacific, with those of 1800, which in terms of projection, scale, and content approximate today’s maps. In these lectures, the most important discovery voyages, the individual character - istics of their commanders, and the endurance of their crews will be described. Interspersed with accounts of individual voyages will be lectures that explain the more general and technical aspects of the voyages: improvements in ship design and navigation, constraints of wind and current, living conditions on board ship, and problems of health and discipline. Special attention will be paid to the controversies that developed from some of these voyages. + + + In addition to the readings and resources included in this guide, the resources below will enhance your overall knowledge of the Age of Exploration. Further Readings New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery 1400-1600 by Ronald H. Fritz (2003). An up-to-date, well-illustrated survey. Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 by Raymond John Howgego (2003). A mas - sive reference work with biographies of all the world’s significant explorers up to the early nineteenth century. The Age of Reconnaissance by J.H. Parry (1981). Still the best short account of the early European discovery voyages and their background. The Times Atlas of Exploration (1991). A valuable aid with a skillful mix of text and maps. Periodicals Among scholarly journals that publish articles on voyages and voyages are Mariner’s Mirror, American Neptune, Northern Mariner, and Great Circle. Imago Mundi is a leading journal on the history of cartography. Website Many of the original journals and accounts of the explorers discussed in this course have been published in scholarly, annotated editions by the Hakluyt Society, London. http://www.hakluyt.com 5 Lecture 1: The World Before Columbus Before beginning this lecture you may want to . Read John Larner ’s Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. + + + Consider this . 1. Did Norse sailors reach America 500 years before Columbus? 2. Why did Europeans think of the Atlantic as an island-filled ocean? 3. Why was the fifteenth-century rediscovery of the work of a second- century geographer important? orld maps of the fif- wteenth century were filled by three great land masses: Europe, Asia, and Africa. They showed no sign of the Americas or of Australia, and there 0 THE TREASURES OF THE INDIES was a massive preponderance of Centuries before Columbus sailed, Arabs land over sea. There were trading had well-established trade routes on both and other exchanges between the land and sea as far east as the Moluccas three known continents, but little in and as far south as present-day Kenya. the way of direct contact. These routes had proven economically Most lucrative was the overland successful not only to the Arabs, but also trade in Asian spices and silks, to their European trading partners around dominated at its consumer end by the Mediterranean. Venice on one side of the The bazaars of Cairo, Jerusalem, and Mediterranean and Egypt on the Baghdad displayed sacks of nutmeg, pep - other. This trade was brutally inter - per, mace, cinnamon, cloves, and other rupted when the Mongol con - exotic, palate-enhancing spices. Silk, cot - quests of the thirteenth century ton, and colorful dyes made their way to under the leadership of Genghis the fashion-conscious aristocracy through - out Europe. Khan spread destruction across huge areas of Asia from China to Not least of all, Europeans set out on dan - Persia, and at its high-water mark gerous expeditions in search of adventure even reached the Balkans and the and fame along with wealth and title spon - Middle East. However, once the sored by monarchs