John Cabot Sebastian Cabot

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

JOHN CABOT SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of PEOPLE OF Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the CAPE COD United States generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States, as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw.

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: The French trail is distinct. They went measuring and PEOPLE OF sounding, and when they got home had something to show for their CAPE COD voyages and explorations. There was no danger of their charts being lost, as Cabot’s have been.

SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: So far as inland discovery was concerned, the PEOPLE OF adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who land CAPE COD but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of traders. Cabot spoke like an Englishman, as he was, if he said, as one reports, in reference to the discovery of the American Continent, when he found it running toward the north, that it was a great disappointment to him, being in his way to India; but we would rather add to than detract from the fame of so great a discoverer. Samuel Penhallow, in his History (Boston, 1726), p. 51, speaking of “Port Royal and Nova Scotia,” says of the last, that its “first seizure was by Sir Sebastian Cobbet for the crown of Great Britain, in the reign of King Henry VII.; but lay dormant till the year 1621,” when Sir William Alexander got a patent of it, and possessed it some years; and afterward Sir David Kirk was proprietor of it, but erelong, “to the surprise of all thinking men, it was given up unto the French.”

SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long before PEOPLE OF the seventeenth century. It may be that Cabot himself beheld it. CAPE COD

SEBASTIAN CABOT

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1450

From this year until 1535, the Sforzas would be in control of Milan.

At about this point Giovanni Caboto was born in Italy (he would sign his name as “Zuan Chabotto” and is known today in Spanish as Juan Caboto, in French as Jean Cabot, and in English as John Cabot).

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

John and Sebastian Cabot “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1474

At about this point Sebastian Cabot was born (in Bristol, England or Venice, Italy).

Paolo Toscanelli (1397-1482) had constructed by 1440 a map of the Ocean Sea which positioned China and Japan some hundred degrees east of their correct position and thus narrowed the empty waters between Japan and the Canary Islands to but 3,000 miles. In this year he forwarded this map to the Portuguese canon Ferdinando Martini, who would pass it on to Christopher Columbus. On this basis Columbus, ever the optimist, ever delusional, would re-estimate that he had but 2,400 miles to travel after the Canaries dropped off the horizon behind him before he would be able to secure new supplies along the coast of Japan — rather than the correct and fatally enormous figure of 10,000 miles.

CARTOGRAPHY

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

John and Sebastian Cabot “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1476

March 28, Thursday (Old Style): The name of John Cabot appeared in the archives of Venice, for having completed 15 years of residence; he was being granted the rights of a citizen.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1495

It is known that at this point John Cabot was, and probably had been for years, an English subject, residing at Bristol (he was presumably Venetian by birth, since his wife was Venetian and since he had been described as “Kabotto, Venecian” in the charter of 1498).

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

Sebastian Cabota the first that attempted to discover the North-west passage at the charge of Henry the Seventh.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster, who had become King Henry VII of England, paid £50 for a marble and alabaster monument in the garden of Greyfriars in Leicester, in memory of King Richard III.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

John and Sebastian Cabot “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1496

March 5, Saturday (1495, Old Style): King Henry VII of England patented the Venetian navigator known locally as “John Cabot” and his three sons including Sebastian, their heirs or assigns, to discover a new trade route to Asia by searching for islands, provinces, or regions, in the eastern, western, or northern seas and, as vassals of the king, occupying the territories that might be found, with an exclusive right to their commerce on paying the king a 5th part of all profits.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1497

During the late 1500s and early 1600s, the natives known as the Massachuset or “Those of the Great Hills” (since, in Algonquian, “massa” meant great and “wadschuasch” meant hills and “et” meant at) were allied in conflict against the Narragansett confederacy. Eastern Massachusetts groups were located at the endpoint of extensive trade network involving the French, Micmac, Maliseet-Passamaquoddy, and Eastern Abenaki.

In about this period John and Sebastian Cabot would have been passing offshore, as they sailed down along the northeastern coasts of America. Such voyages financed by private merchant groups were not necessarily intended for public review, as the object was to find secret trade routes and trading sites to be exploited for profit, so the extent and exact dates of their voyages are in dispute, but probably Sebastian Cabot in the later voyages would get as far south as Virginia or North Carolina.

This is what an 1893 textbook for kiddies alleged that John Cabot saw: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

King Henry VII of England commissioned an Italian sea-captain, Giovanni Caboto of the Matthew out of Bristol harbor, a classic 15th-Century caravelle, to sail west and claim new lands for England.

The voyager would blunder upon an unexpected new land — not the Orient, as Caboto had anticipated, but the eastern coast of an immense new-found continent. His map has not survived. CARTOGRAPHY

Caboto would go down in history as John Cabot, the explorer who claimed the “New Founde Land” for a British King. Cabot planted the English flag on what is now Cape Bauld, Newfoundland. On a subsequent voyage in 1498, Cabot would enter Hudson Bay at 64°N. THE FROZEN NORTH HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

The Micmac and the Beothuk tribespeoples on Newfoundland were probably the 1st native Americans to have regular contact with Europeans. Arguably, Cabot wasn’t the 1st European to arrive on these shores, as Basque cod fishermen seem to have been visiting the Grand Banks even before Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1492 — but had been keeping exceedingly mum about where it was that they were finding all their marvelous finny fish.1 At least four centuries earlier even than that, 11th-Century Norse Vikings may well have landed at L’Anse aux Meadows, and legend has it that an Irish monk, St. Brendan, landed in Newfoundland four centuries before those Vikings. Whatever, John Cabot’s voyage for King Henry VII in 1497 did mark the beginning of an era — British colonization of the New World. The 1st interracial contact presently of record was made in this year by Captain John Cabot who would take three Micmac with him when he returned to England. It may well be that the Micmac did not appreciate the captain’s services as a tour guide, since in the same area during his 2d voyage a few years later this explorer would disappear from our radar scopes.

1. The Atlantic cod Gadus morhua, is a demersal gadoid species distributed in the Northwest Atlantic from Greenland to North Carolina. Sexual maturity is attained between ages 2 to 4 and spawning occurs during winter and early spring. The cod is an omnivorous feeder and commonly attained lengths up to 51 inches and weights up to 55 to 77 pounds. Maximum age can be in excess of 20 years, although due to severe overfishing young fish (ages 2 to 5) now generally constitute the bulk of a catch. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

Chronological observations of America

Christopher Columbus his third voyage to the to the year of Christ 1673. West-Indies, and now he discovered the Countreys of Paria and Cumana, with the Islands of Cubagua and Margarita.

John Cabota and his Son Sebastian Cabota sent by Henry the Seventh, to discover the West-Indies, which they performed from the Cape of Florida to the 67 degree and a half of Northerly latitude, being said by some to be the first that discovered Florida, Virginia, and New-found-land. From the year of World Vasques de Gama his voyage to Africa.

BY John Josselyn Gent.

FLORIDA HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

May: John Cabot, with his son Sebastian Cabot, under authority of the patent of exploration that had been issued by King Henry VII on March 5, 1496, sailed out into the ocean toward the west. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

June 24, Saturday (Old Style): Having sailed west for an estimated 700 leagues, Captain John Cabot and Sebastian Cabot sighted the coast of Labrador. They presumed this to be part of the dominions of the Grand Cham (textbooks that spell this as “Grand Chain” are misreadings, since it is a version of Marco Polo’s and Paul Toscanelli’s and Christopher Columbus’s “Grand Khan”). They would explore this shore for 300 leagues without discovering any evidence of human habitation and then sail east back to England, reaching Bristol in August.

Leaders of the Cornish Rebellion Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank were hanged on the Tyburn gallows outside London.

August: Captain John Cabot and Sebastian Cabot arrived back at the port of Bristol, England after their initial exploration of the coast of Labrador.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1498

February: Captain Sebastian Cabot sailed to North America (there is some controversy as to exactly where John and his son Sebastian landed on their voyages) and returned with “three Sauages, which Cabot brought home and presented vnto the king, in the 14th yeere of his reigne, as followeth: ‘This yeere also were brought vnto the king three men taken in the Newfound Island that before I spake of: These were clothed in beasts’ skins & did eat raw flesh, and spake such speach that no man could vnderstand them, and in their demeanour like to bruite beastes, whom the king kept a time after. Of the which vpon two yeeres after, I saw these two appairelled after the maner of Englishmen, in Westminster pallace, which that time I could not discerne from Englishmen, til I was learned what they were; but as for speach, I heard none of them vtter one word.’” INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE WHITE ON RED, RED ON WHITE

February 3, Saturday (1497, Old Style): King Henry VII issued an additional charter granting authority to Captain John Cabot to follow up on his discovery of land across the ocean to the west of England, a coast that would come to be known as Labrador. He could impress six English ships at the rates then current for vessels required by the royal navy and enlist crews (nothing would come of this additional charter and it is uncertain when or where the captain died).

March 5, Monday (1497, Old Style): The Letters Patents of King Henry the Seventh Granted unto Iohn Cabot and his Three Sonnes, Lewis, Sebastian and Sancius for the Discouerie of New and Unknowen Lands. READ THE FULL TEXT

May: Captain Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol, presumably under authority of the original royal charter granted to his father John Cabot, in command of two ships manned by volunteers, in search of a northwest passage. He would venture so far north that, in the early part of July, daylight was almost continuous. The sea, however, would become so full of icebergs that he would work his way southward, and discover what is generally believed to have been Newfoundland. Proceeding, he would arrive at the mainland, make several landings, deal with natives, and follow the coast southward, probably as far as Chesapeake Bay. This voyage would be considered a failure in spite of the discovery of a wide domain within the temperate zone, because it had failed to produce a passage to the riches of the Indies. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1499

At about this point John Cabot disappears from the record, perhaps lost at sea.

A Spanish expedition under the command of Alonso de Ojeda explored Colombia’s Caribbean coast. On the basis of Arawak rumors about the Muisca, who allegedly were showering their lake-dwelling gods with gold dust, Ojeda would be inventing the enduring white mythology known as “El Dorado,” native City of Gold.

At this point the native tribes of North Carolina included the Bear River Indians, Cape Fear Indians, Catawba, Cheraw, Cherokee, Chowanoc, Machapunga, Moratok, Natchez, Occaneechi, Saponi, Shakori, Tuscarora, and Waccamaw. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1501

The Micmac and the Beothuk tribespeoples on Newfoundland were probably the 1st native Americans to have regular contact with Europeans. This may have begun as early as the 11th century with early Viking settlements along the coast, or perhaps with Basque cod fishermen who were visiting the Grand Banks before Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1492 — but kept very quiet about where it was that they were finding all their marvelous finny fish. The 1st interracial contact presently of record had been made in 1497 by Captain John Cabot who had taken three Micmac with him when he returned to England. It may well be that the Micmac did not appreciate Cabot’s services as a tour guide, since in the same area during his 2d voyage a few years later this explorer quite disappeared from our radar scopes. Contact between Micmac and Europeans had, however, become quite routine immediately afterwards. Beginning in this year, Basque, Spanish, French, British, and Irish fishing boats would be visiting the Grand Banks every summer.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1510

Juan de la Cosa drew a map of the world embodying the cartographic record of Captain John Cabot (if the Vinland Map is not accepted, this is the oldest known map to show a part of Canada). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1514

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

Sebastian Cabota, the Son of John made further discovery of all the North-east coasts from Cape Florida to New-found-land, and Terra Laborador.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1516

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

The voyage of Sir Thomas Pert Vice-Admiral of England, and Sebastian Cabota, the Eighth of Henry the Eighth to Brasil, St. Domingo, and St. Juan de puerto rico.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1518

East Asian porcelain reached Europe.

Upon the death of King Henry VII in 1509 Captain Sebastian Cabot had been invited to Spain by King Ferdinand V, and after being appointed there as one of the “Council of the New Indies,” on this day he was designated as the pilot-major of Spain.

At a ducal banquet, noble guests were observed to be picking up their meats off their plates and inserting them into their mouths by the use of a silver forked implement.

An African slave aboard the ship of the conquistadore Panfilo de Narváez brought the variola virus to the region of the Caribbean. Soon this would spread to Mexico and Peru bringing the deaths by pandemic disease of literally millions of Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas (its most famous victim would be the Grand Inca himself). – And then north to the Great Lakes and south to the Argentine pampas. Wherever this went it killed as many as half its victims, and more if there were large numbers of children (70% of its victims were less than two years of age). The disease would be returning at least once a generation after that, clearing a swath of despair and destruction through the American native tribes as no army in history has ever been able to do — a great facilitation to the European conquest. Between 1519 and 1605 the enslaved native population of “New Spain” would decline due to all causes –such as exploitation and despair as well as disease– from some 25,000,000 to an estimate of perhaps 1,000,000.2

2. Allowing as is usual in such racial or racist calculations that persons with the slightest degree of color taint, even 1/64th, are not to be included in the untainted or white category. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1526

While searching on behalf of the Spanish for a southwest passage through the maze of Western Hemisphere land masses that proved to be blocking the way, Captain Sebastian Cabot sailed up the Río Paraná into Paraguay.

The Portuguese landed on Papua New Guinea. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1527

Captain Sebastian Cabot, who had not abandoned his project to discover a direct route to Asia through the maze of Western Hemisphere land masses blocking the way, discovered the Rio Plata.

Robert Thorne the younger, who died in this year, never made it to Newfoundland, but did write some letters urging that a route to Asia be found by exploration of Newfoundland (he is referred to in error as “Andrew Thorn” by John Josselyn). His letters would be reprinted by Hakluyt in 1582. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

New-found-land discovered by one Andrew Thorn, the Southern part but 600 leagues from England.

John de Ponce for the Spaniard took possession of Florida.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

FLORIDA HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1530

Regnier Gemma Frisius proposed that longitude could be calculated by means of a difference of times. Hey, sharp idea!

Captain Sebastian Cabot, after discovering the Rio Plata, returned to Spain. Meanwhile Edward VI had come to the throne of England and, recognizing the captain’s value to his nation’s maritime supremacy, issued an arrest warrant to secure “one Shabot, a pilot.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1544

Captain Sebastian Cabot published a map of the world with remarkable detail.

CARTOGRAPHY

THE MAP IS NOW IN PARIS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1548

Learning that King Edward VI of England had issued an arrest warrant for “one Shabot, a pilot,” Captain Sebastian Cabot produced himself before the royal court — and no, he did not get himself escorted to the Tower of London!

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673. LONDON

Henry The Eighth dyed.

Edward the Sixth King of England began to Raign.

Sebastian Cabota made grand Pilot of England by Edward the Sixth.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

However, in this year Brian O’Connor was taken to the Tower of London (he would escape in 1552). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1549

It was under King Edward VI of England that the left hand came to be understood as the “marriage” hand, and the 3d finger of that hand as the ring finger.

Clement Adams engraved a wall map for Captain Sebastian Cabot, portraying the coast of America and crediting the father John rather than the son Sebastian with its discovery. According to Purchas, this was hung in “His Majesties Gallerie” at Whitehall. It would presumably have been destroyed in the fire that consumed this palace in 1698, but the inscription on said map has been preserved in Hakluyt: “In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, 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. He called the land Terra Primum Visa, because, as I conjecture, this was the place that first met his eyes in looking from the sea. On the contrary, the island which lies opposite the land he called the Island of St. John, — as I suppose, because it was discovered on the festival of St. John the Baptist. The inhabitants wear beasts’ skins, and the intestines of animals for clothing, esteeming them as highly as we do our most precious garments. In war their weapons are the bow and arrow, spears, darts, slings, and wooden clubs. The country is sterile and uncultivated, producing no fruit from which circumstance it happens that it is crowded with white bears, and stags of an unusual height and size. It yields plenty of fish, and these very large; such as seals and salmon: there are soles also above an ell in length; but especially great abundance of that kind of fish called in the vulgar tongue, Baccalaos. In the same island also, breed hawks, so black in their color that they wonderfully resemble ravens; besides, there are partridges, and eagles of dark plumage.”

January 6, Sunday (1548, Old Style): King Edward VI of England provided Captain Sebastian Cabot with a pension of £166 13s. 4d. per annum. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1550

The midpoint of this century marked the beginnings of what would become known as the “Newfoundland cod triangle.”

January 19, Sunday (1549, Old Style): King Charles V of Spain summoned Captain Sebastian Cabot to return to Spain (which the captain seized upon as an opportunity, bargaining to remain under English colors and being granted additional emoluments including reissue of the lost charter that had been granted by King Henry VII, and becoming president of a company of merchants having exploration as its object). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1553

Captain Sebastian Cabot organized an attempt at a Northeast Passage. In the name of “The Governor of the Mysterie and Companie of the Merchants Adventurers” (later renamed “The Muscovy Company”) Sir Hugh Willoughby, Richard Chancellor and Stephen Burroughs managed to open trade with Tsar Ivan through the Russian seaport of Archangel. In the Kara Sea, struggling to find a route to Cathay (China), they discovered the Russian Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya, which they denominated “Gooseland,” and there perished. Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673. Edward the Sixth dyed.

Mary Queen of England began to Raign.

Sir Hugh Willoughby, and all his men in two Ships in his first attempt to discover the North-east passage, were in October frozen to death in the Haven called Arzima in Lapland. From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

THE FROZEN NORTH Arctic Explorations

Date Explorer Nation Discovery

1501 Gaspar Corte Real Portuguese Newfoundland

1536 Jacques Cartier French St. Lawrence River, Gaspe Peninsula

1553 Richard Chancellor English White Sea

1556 Stephen Burrough English Kara Sea

1576 Martin Frobisher English Frobisher Bay

1582 Humphrey Gilbert English Newfoundland

1587 John Davis English Davis Strait

1597 Willem Barents Dutch Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemyla

1611 Henry Hudson English Hudson Bay HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

Arctic Explorations

Date Explorer Nation Discovery

1616 William Baffin English Ellesmere and Devon Islands

1632 Thomas James English James Bay

1741 Vitus Bering Russian Alaska

1772 Samuel Hearne English Coppermine River to the Arctic Ocean

1779 James Cook British Vancouver Island, Nootka Sound

1793 Alexander Mackenzie English Bella Coola River to the Pacific

1825 Edward Parry British Cornwallis, Bathurst, Melville Islands

1833 John Ross British North Magnetic Pole

1845 John Franklin British King William Island

1854 Robert McClure British Banks Island, Viscount Melville Sound

September 9, Saturday (Old Style): When it became evident that in England the queenship was going to fall to Lady Mary Tudor, King Charles V of Spain made another attempt to induce Captain Sebastian Cabot to return to Spain. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1556

February 23, Sunday (1555, Old Style): A new company for discovery was formed in England with Captain Sebastian Cabot as president. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1557

At about this point Sebastian Cabot died in London.

Repton Grammar School was funded in Derbyshire in the English Midlands.

Attendance at the anatomizations of the bodies of criminals became compulsory for members of the Company of Barber Surgeons.

The “=” sign was first introduced by a mathematician, Robert Recorde. His book was THE WHETSTONE OF WITTE, and this new notation was intended “to auoide the tediouse repetition of these woordes: is equalle to.” (Well, we have spellchecker computer programs now — but those Brits still don’t know how to spell. :-)

Early Spring: The new company formed in England for discovery, of which Captain Sebastian Cabot was president, embarked upon a further exploration. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

May 27, Thursday (Old Style): Captain Sebastian Cabot resigned his royal pension.

May 29, Saturday (Old Style): The royal pension of Captain Sebastian Cabot, from which he had resigned two days earlier, was reinstated (we lack any further information on the life trajectory of this person). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1583

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed into a crowded harbor in Newfoundland and took possession in the name of the British. For the nonce, this worked. The British would however fail in their attempt to settle Newfoundland, for the same reasons as the Jacques Cartier effort of 1541 had failed: starvation and bitter cold.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

However, the result of these failures would be that both Britain (John Cabot and Sir Humphrey Gilbert) and France (Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier) would be laying claim to the Maritimes and its cod by right of discovery. THE FROZEN NORTH

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

Sir Walter Rawleigh in Ireland.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted a plantation in some remote parts in New-England.

He perished in his return from New-found-land.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1831

The Harvard Library published a list of its maps: HARVARD MAP COLLECTION

Richard Biddle’s A MEMOIR OF SEBASTIAN CABOT, WITH A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY. ILLUSTRATED BY DOCUMENTS FROM THE ROLLS, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED (London, 1831; Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1831), a careful study which David Henry Thoreau would check out and use as source material for remarks in CAPE COD. BIDDLE ON SEB. CABOT

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1832

Patrick Fraser Tytler’s HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY ON THE MORE NORTHERN COASTS OF AMERICA ... (London). SEBASTIAN CABOT

William Durkee Williamson’s THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF MAINE; FROM ITS FIRST DISCOVERY, A.D. 1602, TO THE SEPARATION, A.D. 1820, INCLUSIVE. WITH AN APPENDIX AND GENERAL INDEX (Hallowell: Glazier, Masters & Co.). WILLIAMSON ON MAINE

Henry Thoreau would make notes from this in his Canadian Notebook and in his Indian Notebook #10, and would incorporate references into CAPE COD (182, 191) and THE MAINE WOODS (320-325). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1836

George Payne Rainsford James’s A HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE AND OF VARIOUS EVENTS CONNECTED THEREWITH, WHICH OCCURRED DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD III. KING OF ENGLAND. During the final years of King William IV’s reign this author served as Historiographer Royal and in that capacity created several official pamphlets.

Patrick Fraser Tytler’s HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY ON THE MORE NORTHERN COASTS OF AMERICA ... (New-York). SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1838

A group of undergraduates had in September 1835 begun to publish a magazine of their own writings and would continue this effort until June 1838. The undergraduate David Henry Thoreau had taken no part in such activity. At this point the group reissued the accumulating materials as a 3d book volume:3 HARVARDIANA, VOL. IV

Volume IX of the Reverend Professor Jared Sparks of Harvard College’s THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY OF AM. BIOG. IX

This volume encompassed three contributions:

•LIFE OF BARON STEUBEN by the Reverend Francis Bowen LIFE OF BARON STEUBEN

•LIFE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT by Charles Haywood, Jr. LIFE OF SEBASTIAN CABOT

3. There would be three such volumes, labeled Volume I, Volume II, and Volume IV. There does not seem to have been a Volume III published in this book form (apparently it was produced only in monthly magazine form) and no electronic text as yet exists, for the Volume I that had been published. The editorial board for this final volume consisted of Rufus King, George Warren Lippitt, Charles Woodman Scates, James Russell Lowell, and Nathan Hale, Jr., and they worked out of student room #27 at Massachusetts Hall. The illustration that they used on the cover page of their magazine was of University Hall: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

•LIFE OF WILLIAM EATON by Professor Cornelius Conway Felton LIFE OF WILLIAM EATON HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1855

September 17, Monday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, Richard Biddle’s A MEMOIR OF SEBASTIAN CABOT, WITH A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MARITIME DISCOVERY. ILLUSTRATED BY DOCUMENTS FROM THE ROLLS, NOW FIRST PUBLISHED (London, 1831; Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1831).

BIDDLE ON SEB. CABOT

He would copy from this into his first Canada Notebook and into his Indian Notebook #9, and references to this reading are to be found in CAPE COD:

RICHARD BIDDLE SEBASTIAN CABOT

SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

SEBASTIAN CABOT

CAPE COD: Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long before PEOPLE OF the seventeenth century. It may be that Cabot himself beheld it. CAPE COD

SEBASTIAN CABOT

Thoreau would make an entry in his Canadian Notebook, as follows:

Prefixed to Ortelius’ THEATRUM is a list of geographers whose charts he is acquainted with. Looking it over hastily for those relative to America — I noticed Ptolemy Gemma Frisius UNIVERSI ORBIS TABULAM Medebach ORBIS TERRARUM Diego Gutierus, AMERICA.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

The reference to “Ptolemy” may have been either to Claudius Ptolemy’s untitled copperplate engraving world map engraved at Rome for the 1478 edition of his circa-150CE GEOGRAPHY, which still exists,

or to an untitled world map prepared from that in 1482/1486 and preserved now in Ulm, Germany: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

The reference to “Gemma Frisius” is to an untitled woodblock world map CHARTA COSMOGRAPHICA, CUM VENTORUM PROPRIA NATURA ET OPERAVIONE by Gemma Frisius dating to 1540 which has since been lost, but which we can still inspect as reprinted in a reduced form in Peter Apianus’s COSMOGRAPHIA in its 1544 and 1553 editions:

The reference to “UNIVERSI ORBIS TABULAM” is to a wall map of the world by Frederik de Wit, NOVA ORBIS TABVLA, IN LUVEM EDITA, A.F. DE WIT which appeared in about 1660: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

The reference to “Medebach ORBIS TERRARUM” is to THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, SIVE ATLAS NOVUS; IN QUO TABULÆ ET DESCRIPTIONES OMNIUM REGIONUM..., a volume dating to 1645 which was found in Medebach, Germany: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

The reference to “Diego Gutierus, AMERICA” is to Diego Gutiérrez’s and Hieronymus Cock’s 1562 AMERICAE SIVE QUARTAE ORBIS PARTIS NOVA ET EXACTISSIMA DESCRIPTIO: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

Thoreau also checked out Volume I of the New Series of the TRANSACTIONS OF THE HISTORICAL & LITERARY COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, FOR PROMOTING USEFUL KNOWLEDGE (Philadelphia: Printed and Published by Abraham Small, No. 112, Chestnut Street, 1819) and copied comments by Mr. Peter Stephen DuPonceau on the general character and forms of the languages of the native American tribes into his Indian Notebook #9. AMER. PHIL. SOC. 1819

He carefully copied the North American eastern seaboard portion of Sebastian Münster’s “Americae sive novi orbis, nova descriptio” from ORTELII THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM, published in Antwerp in about 1570. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

This is the portion that Thoreau carefully traced, and copied down the assigned placenames for:

You can view his actual tracing at:

http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_surveys/161.htm HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1897

Samuel Edward Dawson’s THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS: LATEST PHASES OF THE CONTROVERSY (Ottawa: James Hope). VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS CAPT. JOHN CABOT SEBASTIAN CABOT HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1968

Students rioted in Paris and other cities all over Europe.

Hervé, R. & A Rossel: MAPPEMONDE DE SÉBASTIAN CABOT ... 1544 (Paris).

CARTOGRAPHY

THE MAP IS NOW IN PARIS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

1997

Loren Pennington’s THE PURCHAS HANDBOOK: STUDIES OF THE LIFE, TIMES, AND WRITINGS OF SAMUEL PURCHAS, 1577-1626 : WITH BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF HIS BOOKS AND OF WORKS ABOUT HIM (Hakluyt Society, London, 2 volumes). SEBASTIAN CABOT

Mark Kurlansky’s COD: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE FISH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (NY: Walker & Company).

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John and Sebastian Cabot HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: September 25, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF CAPE COD:JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.