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Updated: June 22, 2025
The relation which is here offered to the public, we believe for the first time in the English language, is only an abridged account of four voyages made by Americus Vespucius to the New World, as written by himself, in which he expresses his intention of publishing a more extensive work, wherein all the events of these four voyages were to be related at large.
In 1503, Americus Vespucius discovered the Bay of All Saints, and took home a cargo of Brazil-wood, monkeys and parrots; but no permanent settlement was effected upon the shores of the new continent, and the rich treasures of this great country remained for some years longer buried and unknown to man, for the wild Indians who lived here knew not their value.
'What ar- re ye goin' to do f'r ye'ersilf, Snowball, says I his name was Andhrew Jackson George Wash'n'ton Americus Caslateras Beresford Vanilla Hicks, but I called him 'Snowball, him bein' as black as coal, d'ye see I says to him: 'What ar-re ye goin' to do f'r ye'ersilf? I says.
The difference of latitude between Cape St Augustine and the Rio Grande, is 24 degrees, or 480 leagues, and their difference of longitude 17 degrees or 340 leagues. The circumstances in the text would indicate that Americus had now run down the eastern coast of South America, almost to the entrance of the Straits of Magellan.
He returned to Spain in February, 1500, where he had been preceded by Americus Vespucius and B. Roldan on the 18th of October, 1499. The most southerly point that Hojeda had reached in this voyage was 4 degrees north latitude, and he had only spent fourteen weeks on the voyage of discovery, properly so called.
Lat. 32° S. as in the text, would bring this voyage of Americus all down the coast of Brazil almost to the mouth of the Rio Grande, or of St Pedro, now the boundary between Portuguese America and the Spanish viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. Obviously the same cape which was called St Vincent only a little way before, and which now receives its true name.
Perhaps the island of St Matthew, which is nearly in the latitude indicated in the text, and about the distance mentioned from Sierra Leone; yet it is difficult to conceive how they could get there with a storm at S.S.W. as the course is S.S.E. from Sierra Leone. Such is the literal meaning of the original, yet I suspect Americus here means his largest boat.
Perhaps Americus went as a pilot; he certainly was not the leader in any expedition. But he seems to have written to his friends interesting accounts of what he had seen. In one of these letters Americus seems to have written boastfully of how he had found lands which might be called a new world.
He is a Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the world, that he divided his estate among his brothers, ran the same hazard as Americus Vesputius, and bore a share in three of his four voyages that are now published; only he did not return with him in his last, but obtained leave of him, almost by force, that he might be one of those twenty-four who were left at the farthest place at which they touched in their last voyage to New Castile.
But nothing is less certain, and Humboldt's opinion has hitherto appeared to the best writers to offer the largest amount of probability. Americus Vespucius made three other voyages. At the close of this latter year, Giuliano Bartholomeo di Giocondo induced Vespucius to enter the service of Emmanuel, King of Portugal, and he accomplished two more voyages at the expense of his new master.
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