The voyage of Verrazzano : $b a chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in AmericaMurphy, Henry Cruse
History
The voyage of Verrazzano : $b a chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in America
Murphy, Henry Cruse
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 1485-1528
The people whom they saw on their first landing, and who are stated
to have been for the most part naked, are described as being black
in color, and not very different from Ethiopians, (di colore neri
non molto dagli Etiopi disformi) and of medium stature, well formed
of body and acute of mind. The latter observation would imply that
the voyagers had mixed with these natives very considerably in order
to have been able to speak so positively in regard to their mental
faculties, and therefore could not have been mistaken as to their
complexion for want of opportunity to discover it. The precise place
where they first landed and saw these black people is not mentioned
further than that the country where they lived was situated in the
thirty-fourth degree of latitude. From this place they proceeded
further along the coast northwardly, and again coming to anchor
attempted to go ashore in a boat without success, when one of them,
a young sailor, attempted to swim to the land, but was thrown, by
the violence of the waves, insensible on the beach. Upon recovering
he found himself surrounded by natives who were black like the
others. That there is no mistake in the design of the writer to
represent these people as really black, like negroes, is made
evident by his account of the complexion of those he found in the
harbor of the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40", who are
described as essentially different and the finest looking tribe they
had seen, being "of a very white complexion, some inclining more to
white, and others to a yellow color" (di colore bianchissimo; alcuni
pendano piu in bianchezza, altri in colore flavo). The difference
between the inhabitants of the two sections of country, in respect
to color, is thus drawn in actual contrast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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