In April 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano had a chance to establish Catholicism as a religious presence in New York but failed because he didn’t back up his claim with a settlement.
He was exploring the area now known as New York Harbor and noted the river later called the Hudson River. He slowly inched along because he was searching for a route to China and India. He wrote, “My intention on this voyage was to reach Cathay and the extreme eastern coast of Asia, but I did not expect to find such an obstacle of new land as I have found.”
The explorer wrote that he met native peoples “dressed in birds’ feathers of various colors and they came toward us joyfully, uttering loud cries of wonderment…”.
Although Verrazzano did not speak any Indian languages, he somehow concluded that the natives were in need of a nation-state with laws and Catholicism. He wrote, “We think they have neither religion nor laws.”
So, he filled the alleged religious and legal void by claiming the area for France and Catholicism, naming North America “Francesca,”
However, Verrazzano did not stay long enough to learn how to tell the natives about their supposed good fortune of becoming part of France and having a religion that they could claim. Instead, he explored the coasts of Manhattan, Staten Island, Long Island, and elsewhere and then sailed on.
Verrazzano’s transcience made his claims for France and Catholicism invisible to the natives and very weak in European circles. Some historians feel that the explorer lost an opportunity to shape the future of America. If he had set foot on Manhattan and left men to stay, America would have at least started out as Catholic rather than Protestant. Even among New Yorkers, the knowledge about the explorer faded.
When city fathers decided to honor the explorer’s early contact with New York City’s land, they curiously named a bridge with a spelling of the explorer’s name that used only one “z” in their spelling: Verrazano. This provoked a long-running controversy over what was the correct spelling. The historical evidence seems to be that it was spelled both ways. But perhaps it is a fitting commentary on what happened later to the explorer as he sailed through the southern Caribbean.
He was downsized.
On his third trip to the New World, he visited the West Indies. Going ashore probably on the island of Guadeloupe in 1528, he met with a local group of Caribs. They welcomed him–to their banquet. He got eaten by the cannibals. Whoops!
(There is another less likely story that he was executed for piracy under another name by the Spanish.)
In 2018, New York State officially changed the name to include two “z’s”, giving the explorer back at least his full nomenclature, if not his full physical height.
The quotes are from ” The Written Record of the Voyage of 1524 of Giovanni da Verrazano as recorded in a letter to Francis I, King of France, July 8th, 1524.” For more on Verrazzano, see Lawrence C. Wroth. 1970. The voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano, 1524-1528. New Haven, Published for the Pierpont Morgan Library by Yale University Press.
Illustration based on a book illustration held by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “John Verazzani. Verrazzani. Fig. 17.–Portrait of Verazzano.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1840 – 1899. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/434d7ff0-bcab-0130-12c5-58d385a7bbd0
