John Cabot & The Voyage Of The Matthew

By Craig: These days we live in a world where there is no frontier. Humans have been to the Poles. They have conquered the greatest Himalayan summits and have even been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Indeed, if one looks for a frontier in the year 2013 one must look to the stars. I have often wondered what the explorers of ancient times felt as they sailed into the unknown. There was St. Brendan, an Irish monk who might have sailed to the Americas in an open boat as early as the 6th century and saw many wondrous and mysterious things including a giant silver pillar which may have been an iceberg. There was Leif Ericson the Scandinavian explorer who found a place described as "Vinland" in the 11th century. Then there was Abubakari II of the African kingdom of Mali who  sailed with a great fleet of ships into the unknown in the early 14th century. What were these great explorers thinking as they sailed off into uncharted waters? One of these explorers who is often forgotten today was an Italian navigator who sailed for England in the late 15th century.

Not much is known of the life of John Cabot. He was probably born in Genoa sometime around 1450. At some point Cabot received an education and learned the maritime trade. He was a skilled pilot who traveled extensively in the Mediterranean and traded with the Arab merchants for spices which were eagerly sought in Europe and brought in a lot of wealth for the middle men who were bold enough to fetch them. In Cabot's day sailing was a dangerous occupation. Sailors often lived short but adventurous lives. There were many ways men died at sea. Sometimes their ship might be caught in a fierce storm and founder. They might be attacked by pirates, or merely died of one of the many diseases that thrived on the unsanitary confines of a ship especially on a long voyage. A common ailment which was not understood was scurvy. This was a vitamin deficiency that caused the victim to lose his teeth, bleed from the gums and eventually succumb to jaundice if the person did not go mad first.

Cabot was almost certainly aware of Christopher Columbus' successful voyage to the East Indies and believed that he could find a shorter route by sailing at a more northerly latitude. The common misconception that early explorers believed the world to be flat is ludicrous. The world was known to have a spherical shape since at least the days of Ptolemy. There were, however, some uneducated individuals who harbored this belief and some of the sailors believed it. They also believed in giant sea monsters like the Kraken who could reach out of the water with it's long tentacles and pull a ship under the waves to a watery grave. The legends of the Kraken were probably based upon sightings of giant squids.

Cabot set out on his voyage from Bristol England in May of 1497. He had the sponsorship of the English king Henry VII after he had been rejected by the Spanish and Portuguese royal courts. He had attempted to sail sometime during the summer months of 1496 but for some reason or two which may have had something to do with a dispute among his crew he was forced to return to England. However, this second voyage was a lot more successful. He sailed on a small 50 ton caravel called the Matthew. It is not exactly clear exactly where Cabot landed in North America, but it is generally assumed that it was either Newfoundland or Labrador. There is some speculation that he may have even sailed as far south as Maine, but this is dubious. Most of what is known of Cabot's voyage comes from a few letters that were written shortly after his return to England in the summer of 1497. 

                                                                       John Cabot

Cabot is known to have set foot on land only once during this voyage. On June 24, a party of men landed and claimed this new land for the King of England. Cabot's party did not venture inland and saw no human beings. They did, however find evidence of human activity in the form of an old fire pit and crude tools. Cabot did not dally long on shore as he was afraid of a potential encounter with native hostiles. One of the more interesting observations of Cabot took place shortly after setting sail again. While cruising along the coast he was said to have witnessed "two forms running on land one after the other." What these two "forms" were remains a mystery to this day. The ship was far off shore and it was impossible to tell if the two forms were humans or some type of animals.

Cabot's return voyage to England took only 15 days due to the swift Atlantic current. He was granted an audience with King Henry who granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds sterling. an interesting side note to the voyage of John Cabot took place 500 years after his voyage when a replica of the Matthew set sail out of Bristol in 1997 covering the route thought to have been taken by the original Matthew.