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| - In late March, Columbus departed England on his third voyage to the lands he and Cabot discovered, which came to be collectively referred to as Vinlandia. After a rough trip over the sea in the ten ships he commanded, he arrived in early June along the coast of the Gulf of Saint Wenceslas, and found a very different scene from his previous voyages. Instead of the occasional fishermen, he found whole villages clinging to the coasts as people reaped the bountiful sea. Using the experience he gained from his previous two voyages, Columbus quickly opened a dialogue, trading metal fishing hooks for furs, which proved considerably more profitable due to the timing, as the locals acquired furs over the winter and needed fishing equipment for the summer more than they needed furs. This time, Columbus refrained from kidnapping natives, as he was considerably outnumbered this time and needed their support in what he had planned: travelling up the river he noted earlier. Giving local natives gifts in exchange for their help as guides and using a ship with a low draft, he travelled up the river. The river, which he named the Saint Wenceslas River, travelled on a nigh steady course southwest, with some erratic bumps and twists along the way. Over the next five weeks, as Columbus sailed down the river, he noticed the climate shift to a warmer, more humid type. He also noted a shift in the language, becoming less and less familiar to him the farther south he travelled. Eventually, he reached a point where the people on the eastern side of the river were completely unintelligible to him, and seemed to be hostile to his guides. After the new people launched a raid on his camp, whether to capture his guides or his crewmen, he decided that he had seen enough and sailed back down the river to his ships. When he returned, he found that the locals had become sick with some disease that involved pustules on the skin. Recognizing the disease as influenza, Columbus and his men tried to help but nothing they did helped, nor any of the locals' traditional remedies. The locals, believing Columbus had brought the disease to them, reacted violently against him and he was forced to leave prematurely, though he still carried the rich stocks of furs from his transactions. Concurrent with Columbus' adventures in the Gulf of Saint Wenceslas, Cabot and a fleet of six ships, had returned to his previous location, and to a very similar sight as Columbus farther north, with large groups of locals fishing along the coast. Quickly opening trade, he acquired a large wealth in furs and began talks about travelling up the river he had visited earlier. The locals agreed to help him travel the river, which he named Saint Francis River after the saint's feast day that he discovered it. Using local canoes and hiring local guides, he made his way up the river, while his men scouted farther south, but not before being ordered to return within a month to pick him up. As he travelled up the river, he received a glimpse into the locals' lifestyle. He saw that they primarily relied on hunting and gathering, foraging depending on the seasons, living in domed huts made of wood. After three weeks of travelling the river, John Cabot turned back to the sea to his crew, but not before leaving a small stone tablet commemorating the king at the farthest point he had travelled. When he returned he found that his ships had travelled south along the coast and had reached a strange peninsula that stretched out and up, forming a kind of hook. Interactions with the local tribes revealed a remarkable cultural continuum tha stretched from north to south, with the people all speaking similar languages, akin to French and Catalan, and having a very similar culture, with the same lifestyles as those farther north. After conglomerating their charts together, Cabot quickly stocked up on supplies, including furs and some natives, and soon departed home for England. When they returned to England, King Henry was quite impressed with the amount of furs they had brought back, immediately calculating the riches the furs represented. However, the thing that interested him most turned out to be Cabot's report on local subsistence and soil conditions, which indicated that it might be possible for the English to grow crops in the area, meaning that they could make their colonies self-sufficient in terms of food, cutting costs significantly. However, Columbus' reports on the effects of disease proved to be a double-edged sword for Henry to consider: it opened the potential for England to reduce the local populations, so they posed less of a threat to the initial colonies, but it also meant that the locals could start trouble if they believed the diseases were caused by the colonists. Columbus' reports on the apparent antagonism between the locals and the raiders opened the possibility to further relationships with the locals despite the devastation caused by the new diseases: with reduced numbers, their enemies would have a tactical advantage, so the locals would be searching for something to even the odds again, which the English could provide via weapons and supplies. To test this out, Henry planned another expedition to launch within a few years to give the diseases time to travel through the group, and leave the locals relatively vulnerable to their enemies, to see if their weakened military state would persuade them to seek an alliance with England. On March 24, 1504, Columbus and Cabot made another voyage across the Atlantic, this time carrying cargo ships filled with guns, ammunition, and gunpowder ingredients, among other goods. After nine-weeks of travel, slowed by storms and disease, they arrived at their respective destinations. In the Gulf of Saint Wenceslas, Columbus found a much smaller group fishing than he had seen barely three years before, and a much angrier one at that. They had not only received diseases from direct dealings with Columbus and his crew, but also from the clothing and blankets they had received due to the fomites, as well as dealing with those that had managed to recover, which surprised Columbus to a degree. This meant that the disease spread far and wide across the area among their friends and neighbors, until eventually they had burned the pieces hoping to rid themselves of the disease, though this only prevented it from spreading farther via this particular route. Hoping to curry favor and perhaps forgiveness, Columbus offered to give them a new means to defend themselves against their enemies, the ones whose language Columbus did not recognize. Unfortunately for Columbus, while the locals were impressed by the power that his matchlock guns possessed, they were not impressed enough because they had lower range, accuracy and reload time when compared to their best archers, even when wielded by the best of Columbus' crewmen. Also, their style of fighting was different from the Europeans and Asians. Instead of armies forming lines across a battlefield, the locals raided each others' camps and sites. This meant that stealth and surprise was more important than numbers or firepower, and the loud noise that the firearms produced undermined these elements considerably. Finally, the guns had a potential reliability problem: they had to keep the match lit for it to work, which meant that for those attempting to lay an ambush, the light and smoke could give them away. The only advantages the guns possessed over bows and arrows were their penetration power, their lower learning curve, which was what won them the advantage over archery in Eurasia, and the psychological effect on those unfamiliar with them. In the end, the locals acquired the guns more for hunting than for warfare, as their greater power meant that even the biggest prey could not escape, though their warriors did make use of them as well, fighting alongside the archers. This enabled Columbus to repair the diplomatic damage the diseases had caused and slowly negotiations resumed. This time, Columbus, and his crew, thanks to the captives they had taken, had a strong enough grasp on the local language to conduct talks instead of being limited to trade. Meanwhile, in the south, Cabot had returned to find a very different landscape than before. Thanks to trade and kin connections among the locals, the diseases that Columbus and his crew introduced farther north had travelled southward, decimating the population, and souring relations with the natives. After convincing them that the ship they had heard of, the apparent origin of the disease, was not affiliated with him, he offered the natives matchlocks for warfare and hunting. The natives assessed the matchlocks on the same criteria as their neighbors to the north and came to the conclusion that on their own, the guns left much to be desired. Still, their power was impressive enough that many matchlocks were given, though the secret of making gunpowder remained safely in English hands, leaving the natives dependent on them for trade and supplies. This would prove very important in the early colonies and their dealings with the natives. Upon their return to England, they discussed with King Henry their next course of action. Columbus wanted to settle along the northern route, with the endpoint on the Gulf of Saint Wenceslas for direct access to the fur trade. Cabot, on the other hand, suggested establishing a fishing colony on the first island Columbus visited to make the colonies more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports from home, thus cutting costs. The king decided Cabot's suggestion made more sense economically and asked him to begin preparations for the colony. He asked Columbus to embark on one final voyage to the north to see what lay north of the gulf. He wanted to know if there was land or sea north of the gulf. If it was the latter, perhaps it would lead to Asia via the north. Columbus, now quite old and sick with arthritis and ophthalmia, decided to turn down the king's request, and was instead assigned to oversee the burgeoning colony while John Cabot was assigned the voyage to the north. On their last voyage in April of 1506, Columbus journeyed to the island that he first encountered, now named Newfoundland, where he oversaw the first colonists disembarking from their ships. After some quick repairs and recuperation for Cabot's ships, Columbus gave him the latest charts of the Gulf and bade him good luck. Over the next seven weeks, Cabot and his ships hugged the coast as they travelled north. They noted a gradual turn in the coast heading west-northwest. The climate grew increasingly cooler, though the summer months kept it within tolerable levels. They took careful notes of what they saw along the way, including the many fjords and islands, and they eventually came to a turning point, where the land abruptly turned south before giving way to the sea again, in the form of a large bay. A cursory look of the gulf proved that the area was too cold for trees or crops, though there were still small villages along the coast, and that the other side gave way to a strait heading west-northwest. Cabot attempted to open talks with the locals, but their language proved incomprehensible to him. The long trip and the unfamiliarity with the terrain also took its toll on the ships, and the dwindling supplies took its tool on his men. After a quick restocking of supplies via trade with the locals, exchanging food and animal hides for metal tools, in mid autumn of 1506, Cabot turned eastward for the nascent colony on Newfoundland. Fortunately for his return journey, the strong current flowing southeast from the north expedited his journey and he returned within three weeks as opposed to six on his journey north.
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