John Cabot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Cabot.

John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto; fl. 1450–1498) was a Venetian navigator and explorer commonly credited as one of the first early modern Europeans to land on the North American mainland, aboard the Matthew in 1497.

Giovanni Caboto left his birthplace for Venice, Italy in 1461, and was naturalised on 28 March 1476. Although Venice is not his place of birth, for this reason he is known as a Venetian by force of government rights. It is here he acquired his experience with navigation on commercial voyages to Arabia, as well as the idea to sail westward to find a different route to the Spice Islands, the Northern Passage, as it was imagined.

In 1490, with his 3 sons: Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sancto, he left for Bristol, England, and would remain there for the remainder of his life. It is unknown whether he had a hand in the failed expedition of 1491, but it is certain that after the success of Columbus the following year, that he decided to offer the same opportunity to Henry VII, and England, rather than to his other adoptive home in Venice, or to any of the Italian city states. Finally, on 6 March 1496, Henry VII issued letters patent awarding Cabot and his three sons the right to seek islands and countries of the heathen towards the west, east, and north, with five ships under the English flag.

1 Exploration
2 Gallery
3 References
4 External links
5 Further reading

Please help improve this article by expanding this section.
See talk page for details. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded.

After an aborted effort in 1496, Cabot set sail from Bristol on the Matthew in May 1497. The trip was uneventful, and he finally spotted land a month later, landing somewhere on the east coast of Newfoundland on June 24, possibly Labrador, Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island (Canada and Great Britain accept Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as the official landing site). Seeing signs of habitation, he explored south down the coastline. He mapped the North American coastline from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.^[1]

Cabot believed he had reached the northeast coast of Asia, and returned on August 6, 1497. Amidst a positive reception, he planned to return and then continue on to Japan, and received new letters patent on February 3, 1498.

Richard Ameryk, the chief investor in Cabot's second transatlantic voyage, has been proposed as the person from whom the name America derives.^[2] Five ships set sail for Newfoundland the same year, but en route one ship was forced to return after being damaged in a storm. The rest were never heard from again, although some evidence suggests Cabot may have made it to America a second time.^{[citation needed]} Cabot's voyages laid the groundwork for the later British claim to Canada. ^[3]

Cabot Tower (Bristol), distant view	Cabot Tower (Bristol), close up	Cabot Tower (Bristol), close up	Cabot Tower (St. John's)
Cabot Tower (Newfoundland) postage stamp	John Cabot Stamp.	Letters patent for a voyage to discover new lands granted to John Cabot and his three sons by the king of England, Henry VII, at Westminster on March 5, 1496.	A replica of the Matthew in Floating Harbour,Bristol
John Cabot statue, Bonavista Newfoundland