Себастьян Кабот: Венециялық саяхатшының өмірі мен жаңа аймақтарды ашуы

Venetian explorer (c. 1474 – c.1557)

Sebastian Cabot (Italian and , sebaˈstjaːno kaˈbɔːto; lang es, Gaboto or Cabot; 1474 – December 1557) was a Venetian explorer, likely born in the Venetian Republic and a Venetian citizen. He was the son of Venetian explorer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) and his Venetian wife Mattea. After his father's death, Cabot conducted his own voyages of discovery, seeking the Northwest Passage through North America on behalf of England. He later sailed for Spain, traveling to South America, where he explored the Rio de la Plata and established two new forts.

Accounts differ as to Sebastian Cabot's place and date of birth. The historian James Williamson reviewed the evidence for various given dates in the 1480s and concluded that Sebastian was born not later than 1484, the son of John Cabot, a Venetian citizen credited with Genoese or Gaetan origins by birth, and of Mattea Caboto, also Venetian. Late in life, Cabot himself told Englishman Richard Eden that he was born in Bristol, and that he travelled back to Venice with his parents at four years of age, returning again with his father, so that he was thought to be Venetian. At another time, he told the Venetian ambassador at the court of Charles V, Gasparo Contarini (who noted it in his diary), that he was Venetian, educated in England. They are believed by some historians, including Rodney Skelton, still to have been minors since they were not mentioned in the 1498 patent their father also received. John Cabot sailed from Bristol on the small ship Matthew and reached the coast of a "New Found Land" on 24 June 1497. Historians have differed as to where Cabot landed, but two likely locations often suggested are Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

In 1504 Sebastian Cabot led an expedition from Bristol to the New World, using two ships: Jesus of Bristol and Gabriel of Bristol. These were mastered by Richard Savery and Philip Ketyner, respectively, and fitted out by Robert Thorne and Hugh Elyot. They brought back a certain amount of salted fish, which suggests the voyage was at least partly commercial and that other expeditions may also have included fishing. Cabot was granted an annuity of £10 on 3 April 1505 by Henry VII for services "in and aboute the fyndynge of the new founde landes". In 1508–09 Cabot led one of the first expeditions to find a North West passage through North America. He is generally credited with gaining "the high latitudes", where he told of encountering fields of icebergs and reported an open passage of water, but was forced to turn back. Some later descriptions suggest that he may have reached as far as the entrance of Hudson Bay. According to Peter Martyr's 1516 account Sebastian then sailed south along the east coast of North America, passing the rich fisheries off the coast of Newfoundland, going on until he was "almost in the latitude of Gibraltar" and "almost the longitude of Cuba". This would imply that he reached as far as the Chesapeake Bay, near what is now Washington, D. C. Returning home "he found the King dead, and his son cared little for such an enterprise". This suggests Sebastian arrived back in England shortly after the death of Henry VII in April 1509 and the accession of Henry VIII, who did indeed show much less interest in the exploration of the New World than his father. By 1512 Cabot was employed by Henry VIII as a cartographer, supplying the king with a map of Gascony and Guienne. In the same year he accompanied the Marquess of Dorset's expedition to Spain, where he was made captain by Ferdinand V. Cabot believed that Spain was more interested in major exploration, but his hopes of getting Ferdinand's support were lost with the king's death. In the turmoil afterward, no plans would be made for new expeditions, and Cabot returned to England. The scholar and translator/civil servant Richard Eden, who came to know Cabot towards the end of his life, ascribed to the explorer 'the governance' of a voyage of c.1516 under English flag. This has been accepted and elaborated by a number of English writers, particularly of the turn of the nineteenth century. Rodney Skelton, author of Cabot's entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, while the historian Alwyn Ruddock transferred Eden's story of the opposition to Cabot's plans of Thomas Spert, future master of the king's ship Mary Rose, to the explorer's voyage of 1508–9.

Believing that King Ferdinand II of Aragon was giving more financial support to exploration than the English, Cabot moved to Spain from England in 1512. When King Ferdinand died in 1516 it ended a period of exploration and Cabot returned to England. By 1522, he was once again working for Spain as a member of the Council of the Indies and holding the rank of Pilot Major, where he supervised naval and navigator training, etc. Cabot secretly offered his services to Venice in communications with the Council of Ten. He promised to undertake to find the Northwest Passage to China for Venice if they would receive him. In the spring of 1529, he returned upriver to Espíritu Santo, which he discovered had been overwhelmed and burnt by the Indians during his absence. He recovered the cannon and returned to San Salvador. At a council on 6 August 1529, he decided to return to Spain. Cabot sailed with García to São Vicente. Purchasing 50 slaves there, he traveled along the coast of Brazil before heading across the Atlantic, reaching Seville on 22 July 1530, with one ship and 24 men. He was arraigned on charges from the Crown, by Rojas, and by the families of Rodas and Méndez. He was condemned by the Council of the Indies on charges of disobedience, misadministration, and causing the death of officers under his command. He was sentenced to heavy fines and a two year banishment to Oran in North Africa. During these proceedings, however, the Emperor of Spain had been absent in Germany. Upon his return, Cabot presented him with descriptions of the region. Although no pardon is recorded and the fines were still paid, it is known that Cabot never went into exile. He retained the post of pilot major of Spain until 1547. Without losing either title or pension, he left Spain and returned to England.

In the year 1553, Cabot discussed a voyage to China and re joining the service of Charles V with Jean Scheyfve, the king's ambassador in England. In the meantime Cabot had reopened negotiations with Venice, but he reached no agreement with that republic. After this he acted as an advisor for "English ventures for discovery of the Northwest Passage. He became governor of the Muscovy Company in 1553 and, along with John Dee, helped it prepare for an expedition led by Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor. By February 1557, he was replaced as governor of the Muscovy Company. He was recorded as receiving a quarterly pension, which he was first paid in person. Someone picked up for him in June and September 1557, and no one was paid in December, suggesting that he had died by then. It is not known if the marriage between Sebastian and Catalina produced offspring. But since the Spanish wills of both Catalina (1547) and Sebastian (1548) name nieces of Catalina as their heirs, it is unlikely that by the time of Catalina's death, the pair had children surviving from their marriage. Sebastian Cabot, acting as Catalina Barba y Medrano's guardian, appointed attorney Fernando de Jerez on June 22, 1523. Cabot fulfilled his duties by arranging Catalina Barba y Medrano's property schedule and assigning Cristóbal Maldonado to handle her affairs. The reason for Cabot becoming Catalina Barba y Medrano's guardian is unclear, but during uncertain times, men often appointed trusted colleagues. Despite legal provisions allowing wealthy women like Doña Catalina de Medrano to choose guardians, Cabot couldn't have been appointed by her. Pedro Barba, Catalina Barba y Medrano's father and a relative of Amerigo Vespucci, likely chose Sebastian Cabot as the guardian before sailing for Havana. Pedro Barba might have respected navigators, possibly due to his family connections. Cabot's unresolved debt to Catalina Cerezo escalated hostilities when seeking Pedro Barba's inheritance, leading to Catalina Cerezo questioning Catalina Barba y Medrano's legitimacy. Cerezo, resentful of Cabot's unpaid debt and suspecting a pre existing relationship, contested Catalina Barba y Medrano's legitimacy, recognizing it as an obstacle to inheritance. The result was that the influential geographical writer Richard Hakluyt represented his father John Cabot as a figurehead for the expeditions and suggested that Sebastian actually led them. When new archival finds in the nineteenth century demonstrated that this was not the case, Sebastian was denigrated, disparaged by Henry Harrisse, in particular, as a man who willfully appropriated his father's achievements and represented them as his own. Because of this, Sebastian received much less attention in the twentieth century. But other documentary finds, as summarized above, have demonstrated that he did lead some exploratory voyages from Bristol in the first decade of the sixteenth century. The Italian gunboat Italian gunboat Sebastiano Caboto was named for Cabot.