Product Code Database
John Cabot ( ; 1450 – 1499) was an Italians navigator and exploration. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.
His surname, derived from the Latin caput (= head), refers to a type of fish,"Cabos" was in Medieval Latin a fish with a large head, which gave rise in Occitan and French to the forms "cabotz" and "chabot". Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales, article "chabot", accessed 20 July 2024. and was perhaps a nickname which became hereditary.
Cabot was born in Italy, the son of Giulio Caboto and his wife; he had a brother Piero. Gaeta (in the Province of Latina) and Castiglione Chiavarese (in the Province of Genoa) have both been proposed as his birthplace. Technical Documentary "Caboto": I and Catalan origins have been proved to be without foundation. The main evidence for Gaeta are records of a Caboto family residing there until the mid-15th century, but ceasing to be traceable after 1443.Roberto Almagiá, Commemorazione di Sebastiano Caboto nel IV centenario della morte (Venice, 1958), pp. 37–38.
Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish envoy and Cabot's contemporary in London, described him in a letter to the Spanish Crown in 1498 as "another Genoese like Columbus". John Cabot's son, Sebastian, said his father originally came from Genoa. Cabot was made a citizen of the Republic of Venice in 1476; as citizenship required a minimum of fifteen years' residency in the city, he must have lived in Venice from at least 1461.
Once he gained full Venetian citizenship in 1476, Cabot would have been eligible to engage in maritime trade, including the trade to the eastern Mediterranean that was the source of much of Venice's wealth. He presumably entered this trade shortly thereafter. A 1483 document refers to his selling a slave in Crete whom he had acquired while in the territories of the Sultan of Egypt, which then comprised most of what is now Israel, Syria and Lebanon.This is not sufficient to prove Cabot's later assertion that he had visited Mecca, which he said in 1497 to the Milanese ambassador in London. Primary Sources: "Raimondo de Raimondi de Soncino, Milanese Ambassador in England, to Ludovico Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, 18 December 1497, The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol In this Mediterranean trade, he may have acquired better knowledge of the origins of the Eastern merchandise he would have been dealing in (such as spices and silks) than most Europeans at that time.
"Zuan Cabotto" is mentioned in a variety of Venetian records of the late 1480s. These indicate that by 1484 he was married to Mattea and already had multiple sons. His sons were Ludovico, Sebastian and Sancto. The Venetian sources contain references to Cabot's being involved in house building in the city. He may have relied on this experience when seeking work later in Spain as a civil engineer.
Cabot appears to have got into financial trouble in the late 1480s and left Venice as an insolvent debtor by 5 November 1488. He moved to Valencia, Spain, where his creditors attempted to have him arrested by sending a lettera di raccomandazione a giustizia ("a letter of recommendation to justice") to the authorities.M. F. Tiepolo, "Documenti Veneziani su Giovanni Caboto", Studi Veneziani, xv (1973), pp. 585–597 While in Valencia, "John Cabot Montecalunya" (as he is referred to in local documents) proposed plans for improvements to the harbour. These proposals were rejected, however.M. Balesteros-Gaibrois, "Juan Caboto en España: nueva luz sobre un problema viejo", Revista de Indias, iv (1943), 607–627 Early in 1494 he moved on to Seville, where he proposed the construction of a stone bridge over the Guadalquivir river. He was contracted to build it and worked on the project for five months,until the bridge was abandoned following a decision of the City Council on 24 December 1494. "John Cabot in Seville, 1494", The Smugglers' City, Dept. of History, University of Bristol After this Cabot appears to have sought support in Seville and Lisbon for an Atlantic expedition, before moving to London to seek funding and political support.Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508 (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), pp. 23–27. He probably reached England in mid-1495.
Historians had thought that, on arrival in England, Cabot went to Bristol, a major maritime centre, to seek financial backers. Evan T. Jones, "The Matthew of Bristol and the financiers of John Cabot's 1497 voyage to North America", English Historical Review (2006) This was the only English city to have had a history of undertaking exploratory expeditions into the Atlantic. Cabot's royal patent, issued by the Crown in 1496, stated that all expeditions should be undertaken from Bristol, so his primary financial supporters were probably based in that city. In any case, it also stipulated that the commerce resulting from any discoveries must be conducted with England alone, with goods being brought in only through Bristol. The Commercial Policy of England Toward the American Colonies: the Acts of Trade , p. 38; in Emory R. Johnson, T. W. Van Metre, G. G. Huebner, D. S. Hanchett, History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce of the United States – Vol. 1, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1915 Although those goods would be free of other duties, the King was to receive one-fifth of the profit. This would have made Bristol into a monopoly port, with sole right to engage in colonial trade. In stating this, Henry VII of England was presumably influenced by Iberian practices: Portugal having made Lisbon into such a monopoly port, while Spain was in the process of doing the same thing with Seville.
In the late 20th century, British historian Alwyn Ruddock found documentation that Cabot went first to London, where he received some financial backing from its Italian community. She suggested one patron was Father Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to Adriano Castellesi, the papal tax collector. Ruddock also suggested that Carbonariis accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition. She further suggested that the friar, on good terms with the King, introduced the explorer to King Henry VII. Beyond this, Ruddock stated that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London. As Ruddock ordered the destruction of all her research notes on her death in 2005, scholars have had to duplicate her research and rediscover documents.Evan T. Jones, "Alwyn Ruddock: John Cabot and the Discovery of America", Historical Research Vol 81, Issue 212 (2008), pp. 231–234. The Cabot Project was formed at the University of Bristol in 2009 to research Cabot and the Bristol expeditions. The Cabot Project Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, of the University of Florence, found some of Ruddock's documentation, confirming that Cabot received money in March 1496 from the Bardi family banking firm of Florence. The bankers located in London provided fifty nobles (£16 13s. 4d.) to support Cabot's expedition to "go and find the new land". This payment from the Florentine merchants would have represented a substantial contribution, although it was not enough to finance the expedition completely.
On 5 March 1496 Henry VII gave Cabot and his three sons letters patent Primary Sources: "First Letters Patent granted by Henry VII to John Cabot, 5 March 1496", The Smugglers' City, History Dept., University of Bristol with the following charge for exploration:
Those who received such patents had the right to assign them to third parties for execution. His sons are believed to have still been minors at that time.
There was a widespread belief among merchants in the port that Bristol men had discovered the island at an earlier date but had then lost track of it. In a private letter to a colleague (Prof. David B. Quinn), Ruddock maintained that she had found evidence in Italian archives that Bristol men had discovered North America before 1470. As the island was believed to be a source of brazilwood (from which a valuable red dye could be obtained), merchants had economic incentive to find it.
The John Day letter of winter 1497–98 provides considerable information about Cabot's second voyage. Day is believed to have been familiar with the key figures of the expedition and thus able to report on it. If the lands Cabot had discovered lay west of the meridian laid down in the Treaty of Tordesillas, or if he intended to sail further west, Columbus would probably have believed that these voyages challenged his monopoly rights for westward exploration.
In addition to these letters, Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found another, written on 10 August 1497 by the London-based bankers of Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis. This letter has yet to be found. From various written comments made by Ruddock, the letter did not appear to contain a detailed account of the voyage.Evan T. Jones, Quinn papers: Transcripts of correspondence relating to the Bristol discovery voyages to North America in the fifteenth century", p. 16. Note: Based on Ruddock's letter to Quinn on 1 May 1992, she thought that the bank was Venetian; Condon and Jones found documentation in August 2010 suggesting this conclusion was incorrect and that it was Florentine. Ruddock said the letter contained "new evidence supporting the claim that seamen of Bristol had already discovered land across the ocean before John Cabot's arrival in England." She contended that Bristol seamen had reached North America two decades before Cabot's expedition. Douglas Hunter, "Rewriting History: Alwyn Ruddock and John Cabot", extended July 2010 version of article by same name published in Canada's History, April 2010; accessed 24 April 2015
It is likely that two ranking Bristol merchants were part of the expedition. One was William Weston, who had not been identified as part of Cabot's expedition before the discovery of a new document in the late 20th century by historian Margaret Condon. In 2009, historian Evan Jones published this document: a letter from Henry VII ordering the suspension of legal proceedings against Weston because it was the King's intent that Weston would shortly undertake a voyage for the King to the "new founde land".Margaret Condon & Evan T. Jones, 'Henry VII’s letter to John Morton concerning William Weston’s voyage to the new found land' This was probably the voyage under Cabot's patent, making William Weston the first Englishman to lead an expedition to North America.Evan T. Jones, 'Henry VII and the Bristol expeditions to North America: the Condon documents', Historical Research, 27 August 2009 In 2018, Condon and Jones published a further article that showed that Weston and Cabot had been jointly rewarded by the king in January 1498, suggesting that the explorers were working together before the start of the second voyage. The same article revealed that Weston received a £30 reward after he returned from his successful 1499 voyage.
Leaving Bristol, the expedition sailed past Ireland and across the Atlantic, making landfall somewhere on the coast of North America on 24 June 1497. The exact location of the landfall has long been disputed, with different communities vying for the honor. Historians have proposed Cape Bonavista and St. John's, Newfoundland; Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia; Labrador; and Maine as possibilities. Since the discovery of the John Day letter in the 1950s, it seems most likely that the initial landfall was either on Newfoundland or nearby Cape Breton Island. This is because Day's letter implies that the coastline explored in 1497 lay between the latitudes of Bordeaux, France and Dursey Island in southern Ireland. The initial landfall seems to have taken place close to the southern latitude, with the expedition returning home after reaching the northern one.Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508 (University of Bristol, 2016), pp. 43–44.
Cabot is reported to have landed only once during the expedition and did not advance "beyond the shooting distance of a crossbow". Pasqualigo and Day both state that the expedition made no contact with any native people; the crew found the remains of a fire, a human trail, nets, and a wooden tool. The crew appeared to have remained on land just long enough to take on fresh water; they also raised the Venetian and Papal banners, claiming the land for the King of England and recognising the religious authority of the Roman Catholic Church.P. D'Epiro, M. D. Pinkowish, "Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World", pp. 179–180 After this landing, Cabot spent some weeks "discovering the coast", with most "discovered after turning back".
The explorer was fêted; Soncino wrote on 23 August that, similar to Christopher Columbus, Cabot "is called the Great Admiral, and vast honour is paid to him and he goes dressed in silk, and these English run after him like mad". Such adulation was short-lived, for over the next few months the king's attention was occupied by the second Cornish uprising of 1497.
Once Henry's throne was secure, he gave more thought to Cabot. On 26 September, just a few days after the collapse of the revolt, the king made an award of £2 to Cabot.Evan T. Jones, "Bristol, Cabot and the New Found Land, 1496–1500" in P. E. Pope and S. Lewis-Simpson (eds.), Exploring Atlantic Transitions: Archaeologies of Permanence and Transience in New Found Lands (Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 29–30. On 13 December 1497, the explorer was awarded a pension (or salary) of £20 per year.Margaret M. Condon and Evan T. Jones, "The grant of a pension of £20 per year to John Cabot, 13 December 1497" (University of Bristol, Explore Bristol Research, 2011) This was to be payable from customs receipts collected in Bristol. The pension was backdated to March 1497, to make clear that Cabot was in the king's service at the time of his expedition. Despite the royal grant, Bristol's customs officers initially refused to pay Cabot his pension, forcing the explorer to obtain an additional warrant from the king.Margaret M. Condon and Evan T. Jones, Warrant for the payment of John Cabot’s pension, 22 February 1498 (University of Bristol, Explore Bristol Research, 2011) On 3 February 1498, Cabot was given new letters patent covering the voyage 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, 3 February 1498, from Avalon Project and to help him prepare another expedition.
In March and April, the king also advanced a number of loans to Lancelot Thirkill of London, Thomas Bradley, and John Cair, who were to accompany Cabot's new expedition.
This suggests that Cabot intended to engage in trade on this expedition. The Spanish envoy in London reported in July that one of the ships had been caught in a storm and been forced to land in Ireland, but that Cabot and the other four ships had continued on.
For centuries, no other records were found (or at least published) that relate to this expedition; it was long believed that Cabot and his fleet were lost at sea. However, at least one of the men scheduled to accompany the expedition, Lancelot Thirkill, is recorded as living in London in 1501.
It is not known whether Cabot died during the voyage, returned safely and died shortly after, or arrived in the Americas and chose to remain there, perhaps remaining with the Indigenous people in a similar manner to Étienne Brûlé.
The historian Alwyn Ruddock studied Cabot and his era for 35 years. She suggested that Cabot and his expedition successfully returned to England in the spring of 1500. She claimed their return followed an epic two-year exploration of the east coast of North America, south into the Chesapeake Bay area and perhaps as far as the Spanish territories in the Caribbean. Her evidence included the well-known world map of the Spanish cartographer Juan de la Cosa. His chart included the North American coast and seas "discovered by the English" between 1497 and 1500.Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508 (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), p. 2.
Ruddock suggested that Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis and the other friars who accompanied the 1498 expedition had stayed in Newfoundland and founded a mission. If Carbonariis founded a settlement in North America, it would have been the first Christian settlement on the continent and may have included a church, the only medieval church to have been built there since the Norse settlements in Greenland.Evan T. Jones (2008), "Alwyn Ruddock: John Cabot and the Discovery of America", first published online 5 April 2007, Historical Research, Vol. 81, No. 212, May 2008, pp. 242–249.
The Cabot Project at the University of Bristol was organized in 2009 to search for the evidence on which Ruddock's claims rest, as well as to undertake related studies of Cabot and his expeditions. "The Cabot Project", University of Bristol, 2009. The lead researchers on the project, Evan Jones and Margaret Condon, claim to have found further evidence to support aspects of Ruddock's case, including some of the information she intended to use to argue for a successful return of the 1498 expedition to Bristol. These appear to place John Cabot in London by May 1500, although Jones and Condon have yet to publish their documentation.
The project is collaborating on an archaeological excavation at the community of Carbonear, Newfoundland, located at Conception Bay and believed the likely location for Carbonariis's possible mission settlement. The Archaeology of Historic Carbonear Project, carried out by Memorial University of Newfoundland, has conducted summer fieldwork each season since 2011. So far, it has found evidence of planter habitation since the late 17th century and of trade with Spain through Bilbao, including a Spanish coin minted in Peru. Peter E. Pope and Bryn Tapper, "Historic Carbonear, Summer 2013", Provincial Archaeology Office 2013 Archaeology Review, 2013, Vol. 12, pp. 127–133, accessed 24 April 2015 Mark Rendell, "17th-century coins unearthed in Carbonear" , The Telegram, 17 April 2014, accessed 24 April 2015.
King Henry VII continued to support exploration from Bristol. The king granted Hugh Eliot, Robert Thorne, and his son a bounty of £20 in January 1502 for purchasing the Gabriel, a ship for an expedition voyage that summer. Later in 1502 or early 1503, he paid Eliot a reward of £100 for a voyage, or voyages, in "2 ships to the Isle of new finding," as Newfoundland was called. This amount was larger than any previously accounted for in royal support of the explorations. Around this time the Bristol-based explorers established a formal company, backed by Letters Patent, called the Company Adventurers to the New Found Land. This conducted further expeditions in 1503 and 1504.Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, Cabot and Bristol's Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480–1508 (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016).
In 1508–09, Sebastian Cabot undertook a final voyage to North America from Bristol. According to Peter Martyr's 1516 account, this expedition explored a section of the coast from the Hudson Bay to about Chesapeake Bay. Following his return to England in 1509, Sebastian found that his sponsor, Henry VII, had died and that the new king, Henry VIII, had little interest in westward exploration.
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
|
|
