Historia, filosofía-biografia-pensamiento

Bolivar y Amestoz. Entretanto la Providencia parecia proteger los dias del Libertador en Jamaica, alejando de su pecho el puñal traidor que habia de atentar contra ellos. Un español, pagado por Don Salvador Moxo, que había sustituido a Cevallos mientras un viaje de este a la Peninsula, logro seducir en Kingstown a uno de los sirvientes de Bolivar; y cierta noche, acercándose a la hamaca en que solia dormir, clavo su acero homicida en el corazon de la persona que alli estaba acostada. Al iay! lanzado por la victima Bolivar se levanto, hizo preso al criminal y lo entrego a la justicia, que oida la confesion del infiel servidor le condeno a sufrir la ultima pena. Este incidente necesita una explicacion. El Libertador y un emigrado de Caracas amigo suyo, llamado Amestoz, acostumbraban dormir en la misma habitación. El primero se acostaba en una hamaca y el segundo en una cama. Pero aquel dia, en que el calor fue extraordinario, habiéndose retirado Amestoz mas temprano se acosto en la ha...

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS , THE SPANISH COURT. 1492. While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa Fe, the capitulation was signed, that opened the way to an extent of empire, compared with which their recent conquests, and indeed all their present dominions, were insignificant. The extraordinary intellectual activity of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, after the torpor of ages, carried them forward to high advancement in almost every department of science, but especially nautical, whose surprising results have acquired for the age, the glory of being designated as peculiarly that of maritime discovery. This was eminently favored by the political condition of modern Europe. Under the Roman empire, the traffic with the east naturally centred in Rome, the commercial capital of the west. After the dismemberment of the empire, it continued to be conducted principally through the channel of the Italian ports, whence it was diffused over the remoter regions of Christendom. But these countrie...

The subsequent year Cabot made a second voyage, inspecting the American coast northward till icebergs were met, southward to the vicinity of Albemarle Sound. Possibly in his first expedition, probably in the second, John Cabot was accompanied by his more famous son, Sebastian. For many years after the Cabots, England made little effort to explore the New World. Henry VII. was a Catholic. He therefore submitted to the Pope's bull which gave America to Spain. Henry VIII. had married Catherine of Aragon. He allowed Ferdinand, her father, to employ the skill and daring of Sebastian Cabot in behalf of Spain. It was reserved for the splendid reign of Elizabeth to show what English courage and endurance could accomplish in extending England's power. See also: 1506-1513

In 1604 De Monts arrived on the coast of Nova Scotia and erected a fort at the mouth of the St. Croix, New Brunswick. He also made a settlement on the shore of the present harbor of Annapolis, naming it Port Royal, and the country around it Acadia. De Monts is famous largely because under him the Sieur de Champlain, the real father of French colonization in America, began his illustrious career. He had entered the St. Lawrence in 1603. In 1608 he founded Quebec, the first permanent colony of New France. The next year he explored the lake which perpetuates his name. In 1615 he saw Lake Huron, Le Caron, the Franciscan, preceding him in this only by a few days. Fired with ardor for discovery, Champlain joined the Hurons in an attack upon the Iroquois. This led him into what is now New York State, but whether the Indian camp first attacked by him was on Onondaga or on Canandaigua Lake is still in debate. These were but the beginning of Champlain's travels, by which many other Frenchme...