Viva Verrazzano!

 

April 17, 2024 marks the quincentennial (500 year anniversary) of Giovanni da Verrazzano's entry into New York harbor. The Florentine navigator was exploring North America on assignment for King Francis I of France at the time. He mapped the entire east coast from Florida to New Brunswick, Canada. 

Verrazzano is doubly important to this correspondent for in addition to the New York City geographical landmarks he also discovered Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, the region where I'm from. There is a Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge there, just as there is a Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connecting Brooklyn  and Staten Island. These belated efforts to honor the explorer occurred in part to address a historical wrong. Compared with Henry Hudson (who arrived here in 1609, nearly a century later), and Christopher Columbus, who arrived in the Caribbean in 1492 and paved the way for the exploration of what became Latin America, Verrazzano is little recognized. Columbus receives the bulk of the annual celebration, though these days many wish he didn't, as he was responsible for the enslavement, torture and death of many of the Native People he encountered. Italian Americans glommed on to Columbus as their big national hero in the late 19th century. Verrazzano was a lesser known figure at the time, whereas Columbus had opened a door to the Americas. Verrazzano's voyage also had the bad fortune to take place at the same time as two other historic events: Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, and the Spanish conquest of Mexico. It gets lost in the shuffle. 

But those explorers had not visited the part of North America that became the United States. Verrazzano did. Furthermore, Verrazzano's encounters with Native Americans appear to have been cordial and diplomatic. To my delight, he cited the Narragansett and Wampanoag people of my home state to have been his favorite of all the tribes he met. Heartbreakingly, the continent was highly populated at the time of Verrazzano's visit. But by the time settlers arrived in Jamestown and Plymouth a century later, only a small fraction of that population remained, due to the diseases that had been brought by trappers, traders, and fisherman. (Undeniably true fact seldom cited by any commentators: something like 90% of the Native Americans who died after the arrival of Europeans were lost to disease. The genocide that is often spoken and written about was inflicted on the surviving population, who were no longer numerous enough to defend themselves, as they once had been). No one is certain what became of Verrazzano; some believe he was killed by local Caribs on the island of Guadeloupe in 1528, during his third voyage. 

Old habits die hard but still Verrazzano still seems more worth celebrating than Columbus. Today's benchmark is being observed at noon with a gathering of folks at the Verrazzano memorial in Battery Park. The 1909 sculpture (pictured above) features a bust of Verrazzano, with a second female figure designed to represent the spirit of discovery. I wish I'd known about this event yesterday. I would have attended! If you're in NYC you still have time to get over there.