Untitled - Digitizing America

Courage Does Not Prevail
nother ltalian, Giovanni Caboto,
the Anglicized sea captain and geographer, John
Cabot, explored our coast from its northern boundaries
to the Carolinas. ln 1497 he established
England's claim to "this New World."
But the first attempts at colonization began with
Juan Ponce de Leon, who discovered the "island
of La Florida" during the first week of April, 1513.
No priests accompanied this voyage, but as a
Catholic layman, Ponce himself dedicated this
land to God.
ln September of 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa
braved the hostilities of natives, swamps, jungle
creatures, and polluted water to struggle from
Panama to the Pacific Ocean. Only about half of
the two hundred or so in his party survived.
The first authenticated visit of priests to our shores
occurred in 1521 when Ponce de Leon finally carried
out a commission given him seven years earlier
by King Ferdinand V. He was to secure possession
of this new land and to bring priests to
@nvert the lndians, who were to be treated well.
Ships burdened with livestock, agricultural tools,
and weapons sailed from Puerto Rico to the Gulf
C,oast. The passengers had barely disembarked
when they were besieged by lndians. Narrowly
escaping death, they set sail for Cuba, their mission
aborted.
Just two years later, an ltalian, Giovanni Verrazano,
made France's first New World discov-
eries, exploring most of our eastern coast and
becoming the first white man to enter what is now
New York Harbor. His next trip to these strange
lands proved fatal. Carib Indians in Brazil cannibalized
him.
Subsequent colonization attempts were shortlived.
Those not shipwrecked or felled by disease
on the long ocean voyage found unendurable
hardships where they hoped to find gold and
silver. lllness, exposure, starvation, hostile savages,
took their toll. The biographies of these
amazing Christians-religious and laymenrelate
stories of almost incomprehensible horrors.
One such ill{ated expedition came to a satisfactory
conclusion in 1534, when the four remaining
men of a party originally numbering four hundred
plus eighty horses and four fully equipped ships,
were sheltered by a friendly lndian tribe. Cabeza
de Vaca and his companions, among them El
Negro Esteban, an African Moor, the first Negro of
record in our country, had wandered through the
wilderness for six years, leaving behind the bodies
of their fellow pioneers, scenes of bloody massacres,
and the bones of horses they had eaten to
forestall starvation. Where they encountered natives
who befriended or enslaved them and were
able to learn their dialects or to communicate
through signs, Cabeza de Vaca would preach to
them, pray over and aid their sick, even perform
baptisms.
1L& .*
'J& ^"?:
I'd i
il7,,
q,:
--tr| [ .-, &