North America's transatlantic history begins with a long Native period of discovery, exploration, adaptation, and intelligent evolution. These maps show you the general shape of the Eastern American and Western European worlds as the second transatlantic period opens. The second transatlantic includes several phases of exploration, trade and attempted colonization by different groups of Europeans.

     Already you can see the enormous American-historical horizons opening before us with the 21st century "AD." These are not limited to the "AD" period of European time-calculation. The evidence mounts with every year that "ancient Europeans" visited America and possibly New England in "BC" times. Some scholars---see this site's Bibliography and Links---argue that "Minoans," Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, medieval Irish monks and/or others visited America before the first sure Viking voyages. The physical clues for each of these vary greatly in authenticity: most require far more analysis and contextualizing; and books and web sites that treat them vary accordingly, from "New Age" vagueries to reviewed and respected works of promising precision.

     Cahill and others bring us detailed records of Viking encounters with Native Americans---sometimes charming and mutually beneficial, other times violent on both sides. Neither kind of encounter defines the period: it's just normal human intercourse, generally tolerant and predictably "flawed." But the stones you see above---again from a site in Weymouth, Massachusetts---are one example of these new encounters, and bring us the essential facts of what they were like.

     The great grinding-rock you see above represents one such Native American place. If those figures cut into the other nearby stone (made more visible with white chalk) are authentic Viking inscriptions, they mark yet another Norse attempt to communicate at least to their colleagues---what, we don't know and may never cease debating. (You can compare these figures with others using works by Cahill, Barry Fell and James L. Guthrie)

     With the PBS Nova documentary Search for the Lost Red Paint People, you can learn about the research-frontiers of Native American presence along the "prehistoric" Arctic Circle and north-European coasts. (Who taught whom to sail the seas? The answer is not decided.) As we travel toward Euro-historical time-periods, we do know that transatlantic contacts grew more frequent. Native Americans and Europeans began to learn how (and how not) to conduct themselves in face-to-face encounters.

     On all sides, the pioneering had only begun. Once the respective geographies were established, the transatlantic's human frontiers demanded even more resourcefulness. "It matters" because this is still true today. The Earth is round and (like it or not) brings us together. The more we acquire perspective grounded in facts, the more we know how to right wrong choices and build the world everybody wants. Or what's an education for?

     "These people will make excellent servants," wrote Columbus after the welcome of his first American voyage: he returned the next year with chains, attack-dogs and an army of plunderers, intending (as Todorov shows) to finance more futile invasions of "The Holy Land." In isolation, these facts have served to make 500 years of horrific American injustices seem 'inevitable"; and with foundations in such unquestioned ignorance, they were. But ignorance is not written in our bones. Awareness is. Ignorance is imposed by certain cultural elites for "advantages" over others. Today we can see factual examples of "other approaches" that put "tradition" in full relief, that prove this about the past and so the present. How did different transatlantic intentions and methods make a different America possible?

     The contest between Rebirth and Harsher Discipline was already moving Europe's authorities against the infamously international Templars. By the 1380s too, the British Isles saw serious popular rebellions against kings and Church-authorities abusing privileges. More than once, local citizens killed the offenders outright: medieval social mores ("Everybody knows their place") were beginning to fray as "outside" perspectives seeped in and "down." Seven decades earlier, Templars had become the first powerful citizens of whom the Church made "horrible examples of free thought" (in Joyce's phrase), by public executions---Jacques du Molay the first in 1314. According to Sinclair biographies and two films (one produced by Canadian Television, the other by kinsman Andrew Sinclair), the multiple disturbances answered in time by The Inquisition turned Henry's eyes to the west. He had no reason to be sure there wasn't a place where freedom and "true spirituality" could coexist.

     The letters of Antonio Zeno contain today's Zeno Narrative---an increasingly respected account of a voyage, in 1398-99, to "Estotiland," "Novia Scotia" and the Northeast by him and Nicolo in the company of 12 ships (200-300 men) and Prince Henry Sinclair himself. Zeno's letters---their geography, the confirmed American landmarks that they name, and the physical objects discovered through their study on both sides of the Atlantic---continue to stand the tests of time and scrutiny.

     Following their own North Atlantic guides, the Zeno/Sinclair expedition reached Chedabucto Bay/Guysborough Harbor in Novia Scotia that summer of 1398. (A proud monument stands there as of 600 years later.) Like all those before them, the company explored southwards along the coast. They made contact with Native American Micmacs (remembered in their traditions too, collected in Silas Tertius Rand's Legends of the Micmacs and commemorated today). They attended a Native gathering "where 'twas time for holding the great and yearly feast with dancing and merry games." By Spring 1399 the Zenos and Sinclair reached the Merrimack River region just north of Boston and, in the company of Pawtucket, Pennacook and other people, explored as far inland as Prospect Hill in Westford, Massachusetts.

     Back in Nova Scotia a Venetian-made cannon had fallen overboard: you can see it there today. In the Sinclair family's Rosslyn Chapel (built in the 1450s) you can see carved images of Aloe Cactus, Maize (Indian Corn) and other uniquely-American species. And while in the "Westford" area, one of Henry Sinclair's knights suddenly died: most scholars agree that you can see his image carved (by Templar tradition) into a rock near his unknown grave. Every detail of this "Westford Knight's" image in stone has its match in Scotland, from the make of his sword to the family-heraldry of his shield. Not surprisingly, other stone-carvings including a 14th-century ship cohere with the Sinclair story.

     The last leg south in the voyage took them among the inviting islands of Narragansett Bay. There---not least because the Tower's dimensions are based on the Scottish "Ell Stick"---this company most likely erected Newport Tower. According to Carslon (who does not necessarily accept Sinclair as its builder), it "could have been built over the course of one sailing season." This latitude sites the Tower straight across "the unknown" from the mouth of the Mediterranean to Jerusalem itself. We know it had little military value. But Carlson observes a strange fact for a Tower built so quickly: "the astronomical observations observed by [scholars such as Penhallow and many others] might have required at least 40 years of stargazing to define." Newport Tower has an otherwise-puzzling arrangement of windows and more built into it. Whoever raised it had worlds of learning at their fingertips:

     Did the ancestors of Metacomet, the New World's King Philip, share their knowledge with astronomers from across the Ocean? Did a line of students of the Icelandic astronomer Star Oddi carry the information to Vinland for further use? Did the legendary inhabitants of Vitramannaland apply Druidic lore to aid newly arrived Christian brothers in laying out the Tower? Had the surviving Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem defected to a new Paradise in the wake of the Vikings? Had they been accompanied by Cistercian monks, who were known to be skilled architects, engineers and astronomers, to help realize their dreams? Were their refuges known to later brethren, now surviving as Scottish masons or Portuguese Knights of Christ, to Henry Sinclair or Miguel Cortereal?                (Suzanne Carlson, "Loose Threads"

     Henry Sinclair and the Zenos returned to their European homes. After many more years (including 13 children) Henry was killed in battle against the English. The immediate demands of that life must have prevented his American return and development of his intentions. We may best understand Newport Tower as a monument to them. As the film 'The Prince and The Grail' shows, a man devoted to these traditions knew 'The Grail' not as material treasure but as universal brotherhood: as a way to live spiritually, now, in harmony with all things, in that 'Kingdom of God' that men do not see spread upon The Earth. The obvious "sacred architecture" and natural alignments of the Tower stand for a "new America" as they mark the voyage. "What is the fruit of The Wasteland?" asks Templar doctrine: it is "Nourishment for all pilgrims."

     Likewise, the increasingly dangerous demands of European authorities for religious and social conformity must have played a great part in the Narrative's publication only as "late" as 1558. The Zeno/Sinclair expedition had enjoyed no direct royal backing as Columbus had. The Zeno map did circulate; but it took till 1492 for Europe's elites to become so financially desperate as to acknowledge the existence of other worlds. Yet the dream that men like Henry Sinclair called "Jerusalem" found expression far later. In 2000 the Sinclair family, the Micmacs and a body of international scholars held commemorative ceremonies and conferences in Henry's honor. That spirit continues to challenge us.