The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

along the coast of Yucatan and Mexico, for a passage through to the southern ocean. The disastrous adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda, Diego de Nicuesa, and Juan de la Cosa, on the Isthmus of Darien, between the years 1507 and 1511, brought into more intimate contact the steel weapons of the chivalrous hidalgos with the naked bodies of the savages. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, after a toilsome journey across the Isthmus in 1513, was rewarded by the first view of the Pacific Ocean, of which he took possession for the king of Spain on the twenty-fifth of September. The white sails of Córdova Grijalva, and Garay, descried by the natives of Yucatan and Mexico in 1517–19, were quickly followed by Cortés and his keen-scented band of adventurers, who, received by the unsuspecting natives as gods, would have been dismissed by them as fiends had not the invasion culminated in the conquest of Mexico. During the years 1522–24, Cortés made expeditions to Tehuantepec, Panuco, and Central America; Gil Gonzales and Cristobal de Olid invaded Nicaragua and Honduras. Nuño de Guzman in 1530, with a large force, took possession of the entire northern country from the city of Mexico to the northern boundary of Sinaloa; and Cabeza de Vaca crossed the continent from Texas to Sinaloa in the years 1528–36. Journeys to the north were made by Cortés, Ulloa, Coronado, Mendoza, and Cabrillo between the years 1536 and 1542. Hundreds of Roman Catholic missionaries, ready to lay down their lives in their earnest anxiety for the souls of the Indians, spread out into the wilderness in every direction. During the latter part of the sixteenth century had place—the expedition of Francisco de Ibarra to Sinaloa in 1556, the campaign of Hernando de Bazan against the Indians of Sinaloa in 1570, the adventures of Oxenham in Darien in 1575, the voyage round the world of Sir Francis Drake, touching upon the Northwest Coast in 1579; the expedition of Antonio de Espejo to New Mexico in 1583; Francisco de Gali's return from Macao to Mexico, by way of the Northwest Coast, in 1584; the voyage of Maldonado to the imaginary Straits of Anian in 1588; the expedition of Castaño de Sosa to New Mexico in 1590; the voyage of Juan de Fuca to the Straits of Anian in 1592; the wreck of the 'San Agustin' upon the Northwest Coast in 1595; the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino towards California in 1596; the discoveries of Juan de Oñate in New Mexico in 1599, and many others. Intercourse with the natives was extended during the seventeenth century by the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino from Mexico to California in 1602; by the expedition of Francisco de Ortega to Lower California in 1631; by the journey of Thomas Gage from Mexico to Guatemala in 1638; by the voyage round the world of William Dampier in 1679; by the reckless adventures of the Buccaneers from 1680 to 1690; by the expedition of Isidor de Otondo into Lower California in 1683; by the expedition of Father Kino to Sonora and Arizona in 1683; by the expeditions of Kino, Kappus, Mange, Bernal, Carrasco, Salvatierra, and others to Sonora and Arizona in 1694–9; and by the occupation of Lower California by the Jesuits, Salvatierra, Ugarte, Kino, and Piccolo, from 1697 to 1701. Voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dampier in 1703–4; by Rogers in 1708–11; by Shelvocke in 1719–22, and by Anson in 1740–4. Frondac made a voyage from China to California in 1709.

      The first voyage through Bering Strait is supposed to have been made by Semun Deschneff and his companions in the year 1648, and purports to have explored the Asiatic coast from the river Kolyma to the south of the river Anadir, thus proving the separation of the continents of Asia and America. In 1711, a Russian Cossack, named Popoff, was sent from the fort on the Anadir river to subdue the rebellious Tschuktschi of Tschuktschi Noss, a point of land on the Asiatic coast near to the American continent. He there received from the natives the first intelligence of the proximity of the continent of America and the character of the inhabitants; an account of which will be given in another place. In 1741, Vitus Bering and Alexei Tschirikoff sailed in company, from Petropaulovski, for the opposite coast of America. They parted company during a storm, the latter reaching the coast in latitude fifty-six, and the former landing at Cape St. Elias in latitude sixty degrees north. The earliest information concerning the Aleutian Islanders was obtained by the Russians in the year 1745, when Michael Nevodtsikoff sailed from the Kamtchatka river in pursuit of furs. A Russian commercial company, called the Promyschleniki, was formed, and other hunting and trading voyages followed. Lasareff visited six islands of the Andreanovski group in 1761; and the year following was made the discovery of the Alaskan Peninsula, supposed to be an island until after the survey of the coast by Captain Cook. Drusinin made a hunting expedition to Unalaska and the Fox Islands in 1763; and, during the same year, Stephen Glottoff visited the island of Kadiak. Korovin, Solovieff, Synd, Otseredin, Krenitzen, and other Russian fur-hunters spent the years 1762–5 among the Aleutian Islands, capturing sea-otters, seals, and foxes, and exchanging, with the natives, beads and iron utensils, for furs.

      OCCUPATION OF CALIFORNIA.

      A grand missionary movement, growing out of the religious rivalries of the two great orders of the Catholic Church, led to the original occupation of Upper California by Spaniards. The work of Christianizing Lower California was inaugurated by the Jesuits, under Fathers Salvatierra and Kino, in 1697. When the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767, their missions were turned over to the Franciscans. This so roused the zeal of the Dominicans that they immediately appealed to Spain, and in 1769 obtained an edict, giving them a due share in the missions of Lower California. The Franciscans, thinking it better to carry their efforts into new fields than to contend for predominance at home, generously offered to cede the whole of Lower California to the Dominicans, and themselves retire to the wild and distant regions of Upper California. This being agreed upon, two expeditions were organized to proceed northward simultaneously, one by water and the other by land. In January, 1769, the ship 'San Carlos,' commanded by Vicente Vila, was dispatched for San Diego, followed by the 'San Antonio,' under Juan Perez, and the 'San José,' which was unfortunately lost. The land expedition was separated into two divisions; the first under Rivera y Moncada departed from Mexico in March, and arrived at San Diego in May; the second under Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra reached San Diego in July, 1769. Portolá with his companions immediately set out by land for the Bay of Monterey; but, unwittingly passing it by, they continued northward until barred in their progress by the magnificent Bay of San Francisco. Unable to find the harbor of Monterey, they returned to San Diego in January, 1770. In April, Portolá made a second and more successful attempt, and arrived at Monterey in May. Meanwhile Perez and Junípero Serra accomplished the voyage by sea, sailing in the 'San Carlos.' In 1772, Pedro Fages and Juan Crespi proceeded from Monterey to explore the Bay of San Francisco. They were followed by Rivera y Moncada in 1774, and Palou and Ezeta in 1775; and in 1776, Moraga founded the Mission of Dolores. In 1775, Bodega y Quadra voyaged up the Californian coast to the fifty-eighth parallel. In 1776, Dominguez and Escalante made an expedition from Santa Fé to Monterey. Menonville journeyed to Oajaca in New Spain in 1777. In 1778, Captain Cook, in his third voyage round the world, touched along the Coast from Cape Flattery to Norton Sound; and in 1779, Bodega y Quadra, Maurelle, and Arteaga voyaged up the western coast to Mount St. Elias. During the years 1785–8, voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dixon and Portlock, and by La Pérouse, all touching upon the Northwest Coast.

      French Canadian traders were the first to penetrate the northern interior west of Hudson Bay. Their most distant station was on the Saskatchewan River, two thousand miles from civilization, in the heart of an unknown wilderness inhabited by savage men and beasts. These coureurs des bois or wood-rangers, as they were called, were admirably adapted, by their disposition and superior address, to conciliate the Indians and form settlements among them. Unrestrained, however, by control, they committed excesses which the French government could check only by prohibiting, under penalty of death, any but its authorized agents from trading within its territories. British merchants at New York soon entered into competition with the fur princes of Montreal. But, in 1670, a more formidable opposition arose in the organization of the Hudson's Bay Company, by Prince Rupert and other noblemen, under a charter of Charles II. which granted exclusive right to all the territory drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. Notwithstanding constant feuds with the French merchants regarding territorial limits, the company prospered from the beginning, paying annual dividends of twenty-five and fifty per cent. after many times increasing the capital stock. In 1676, the Canadians formed the Compagnie du Nord, in order the more successfully to resist encroachment. Upon the loss of Canada by the French in 1762, hostilities thickened between the companies, and the traffic for a time fell off. In 1784, the famous Northwest Company was formed by Canadian merchants, and the management entrusted to the Frobisher brothers and Simon M'Tavish. The head-quarters of the company were at Montreal, but annual