The Negro Trail Blazers of California/Chapter 1
THE NEGRO TRAIL BLAZERS
OF CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER I
Discovery of the Name of California
We are told by historians that for centuries before California was discovered every explorer started out to find the Northwest Passage to the Indies, and the seven cities of Cibolia. These cities were reputed to be rich in turquoise and gold. I think even in this day if explorers were told that somewhere, undiscovered, there were cities with houses of gold and pillars of turquoise, they would sacrifice every thing, even life if necessary, that they might behold such beautiful cities on earth.
Consequently, when Columbus sailed on his fourth voyage of discovery he wrote a letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (original note in "His Level Best" by Hale). This letter contained the following in regard to the South Seas, then undiscovered, and known to us as the Pacific Ocean: "I believe if I should pass under the Equator in arriving at this high region of which I speak, I should find a milder temperature and a diversity in the stars and in the waters. Not that I believe that the highest point is navigable, whence these currents flow, nor that we can mount them, because I am convinced that there is the Terrestrial Paradise, which none can enter but by the will of God.
Immediately following Columbus's letter, Mr. Hale quotes from Dante's "Divina Comedia," and Longfellow's Notes to the "Purgatories" to prove that Columbus had these writings in mind when he made use of the passage referring to the "Terrestrial Paradise, which none can enter but by the will of God." The writer would not attempt to say these writings influenced his words or his great, though unsuccessful, attempt to discover the Northwest Passage or were the cause of his speaking thus, but if we follow the trend of discovery and occupation on this coast we will find Columbus's words like the notes of a beautiful symphony ringing through it all "None can enter but by the will of God." This letter was written by Columbus in the year 1503, and in the year of 1510, there was published in Spain a romance called "La Sergas de Espladian" by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, translator of Amadis of Gaul. In this novel the author speaks of the "Island of California." The name is spelled the same as it is today. It has been said that Cortez had the romance in mind when he discovered and named the peninsula in 1535. For this statement we have the authority of the historian Herrera.
California! What a charm the name carries with it! There seems to be a romantic inspiration in the very pronunciation, but whence did it originate? We are told that for years scholars debated its origin; one tracing it to the Latin, another to the Greek, others claiming that it was given by the natives.
The reading public refused to accept as satisfactory any of the statements offered until after Mr. Edward Everett Hale read a paper before the American Antiquarian Society at a meeting held in Boston, April, 1862. In this paper Mr. Hale told of having read a Spanish romance called "La Sergas de Espladian" by Garcia de Montalvo. In this book the author speaks of the "Island of California," with the same spelling for the name "California." Mr. Hale explained that the failure of the great authors to find the origin of the name "California" was because that "after 1542, no edition of the 'Sergas of Espladian' was printed in Spain so far as we know until 1575, and after that in 1587, and none for two hundred and seventy years more. The reaction had come when the Curate burned the books of Don Quixote. He burned this among the rest. He saved Amadis of Gaul, but he burned Espladian. We will not spare the son for the virtues of the father." These words show Cervante's estimate of it as early as 1605.
Mr. Hale further stated that when he read this romance pertaining to the Island of California, and noted the similarity of spelling, there were only two copies in the world, one copy in Mr. Ticknor's collection in the Public Library of Boston, Mass., and another copy in the Congressional Library in Washington, D. C. Mr. Hale, in "His Level Best,"
gives a chapter from this romance, an extract of which is now quoted: CHAPTER CLVII. LA SERGAS DE ESPLADIAN
"Know ye that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very near the Terrestrial Paradise which is peopled with black women without any men among them, because they were accustomed to live after the fashion of the Amazons. They were of strong and hardy bodies, of ardent courage and of great force. The island was the strongest in the world from its steep rocks and great cliffs***Their arms were all of gold and so were the caparisons of the wild beasts which they rode after having tamed them, for in all the island there is no other metal but gold.
"They lived in caves very well worked out of the rocks with much labor. They had many ships in which they sailed to other climes to carry on their forage to obtain booty***The various Christian knights assembled to defend the Emperor of the Greeks and the city of Constantinople against the attacks of the Turks and the Infidels and on this occasion the Queen of California and her court entered this war."
The discovery of the name is equally as interesting as the land of California. The story of the ox-team and prairie schooner to California after the discovery of gold readily recalls to mind the words of Columbus, "None can enter but by the will of God." It has been said that in the trail of the ox-team to California or "The Eldorado," meaning "the home of the Gilded One," were strewn with the bleaching bones of persons who lost their lives trying to reach the land of California.
Columbus longed to discover what he thought must be a land very near the Terrestrial Paradise. Let the reader compare his wish to the oft repeated expression that "California is next door to heaven;" an expression frequently made by eastern tourists after their first winter in California. The modern writers speak of the land of California as the "Land of Heart 's Desire." It is so generous to mankind. It can supply almost the entire United States with its deciduous and citrus fruits, its cotton, rice, gold, silver and quicksilver. Any time of the year, somewhere in California there are fresh vegetables growing. Nature seems to be inexhaustible in its desire to please mankind and supply his every wish.
If one is of an artistic temperament he can have that instinct developed without the aid of any other teacher save a constant view of the beautiful valleys, lofty mountains, and glorious and bewitching sunsets. The great variety of wild flowers which in the spring time cover like a carpet the foothills and valleys of the high Sierras, scattered with the gold of the poppies, the blue of the Lupin, wild violets and buttercups make a picture of perfect harmony. Few artists can paint a picture of spring in California and tell with It has been said that following the rainy season, the brush half of its inspiring beauty. It has been said that following the rainy season, the wild flowers on Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco are of so many varieties that it is given for a fact that three hundred and twenty-five different kinds and colors adorn its dells and canyons.
Aside from wild flowers, California abounds in majestic palms, and magnolias, crepe myrtle and pepper trees. The shrubbery and small flowering trees of every species known to civilized man from all parts of the United States, Japan and Australia grow in California in all their beauty as they would in their native land.
The part of Columbus's wish in the letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella: "I believe that if I should pass under the Equator in arriving at this high point of which I speak, I should find a milder temperature and a diversity in the stars and in the waters; Not that I believe that the highest point is navigable whence these currents flow, nor that we can mount them, because I am convinced that there is the Terrestrial Paradise, which none can enter but by the will of God." The people of the entire world are realizing this wish now that the Panama Canal has been completed and vessels are thereby enabled to pass through the Equator and not under in passing through the locks and waters of the canal.
The repeated and unsuccessful attempt of the French Government to cut the canal, and the difficulty the American Government encountered in the terrible battles between the forces of nature and the engineering skill of the American civil engineers, however, led as if by the will of God to a final completion of a navigable canal. Note Columbus's words, "None can enter but by the will of God."
Let the reader compare the fictitious California as given in the Spanish romance, and the present-day American State of California. The fictitious California was supposed to be rich in gold and so is the real California. The fictitious supposed to have been the home of beautiful black women with strong and hearty bodies. The writer challenges the world to produce more beautiful women than the State of California. They are strong and hearty, because they engage in almost every kind of outdoor exercise often acquiring a heavy coat of tan. This does not worry them in the least, for they immediately proceed to sleep out of doors by night, confident in the fact that if too much golf and tennis has produced this tan, the glorious fog comes in through the Golden Gate and down the valley and kisses roses into their cheeks making them the most beautiful and healthy appearing in all the world.
If Columbus had ever reached California he would not only have thought it was very near the "Terrestrial Paradise," but he would have said with Joaquin Miller:
"Be this my home till some fair star
Stoop earth-ward and shall beckon me,
For surely God-land lies not far
From these Greek heights and this great sea.
My friend, my lover trend this way
Not far along lies Arcady."