Why Americans Speak English: Foiled by the Fickle Finger of Fate

By Richard Balmert

This informative and engaging historical novel uniquely turns a complicated study into interesting reading of American history.

All the characters are the creation of the author and entirely fictional. The exceptions, of course, are those public figures mentioned by name.

This is the saga of a family of Renaissance Florence that had re-awakened the culture of education, ideas, art, and governance with responsibility. The world suddenly opened to exploration and adventure.

The book brilliantly intertwines historical fact with gripping fictiona novel of politics, love, intrigue, and passions that rule human lives while spanning four centuries of a most unusual family deeply and personally involved with the age of discovery of the Western
Hemisphere, an unknown mass that encompassed almost half of earths land mass to the founding of the United States of America.

Picture yourself with Marco Polo and the Emperor of China, or talking with Christopher Columbus in his cabin aboard the Santa Maria sailing an unknown ocean, or observing the remarkable Leonardo da Vinci when he required funds to visit the King of France, or perhaps listening to the discussions in the Court of St. James of plans of King Charles to rid England of undesirables and populate the Land Grants in the new American colonies.
Western Civilization is replete with wars with little or no reason, with intrigues where monarchs make momentous decisions with little thought but having enormous unintended consequences, where a storm is able to change the course of history and the reader becomes involved in the drama. Almost as the wind changes, history bends and for America, it determines its language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503559479

Richard Balmert

Richard Balmert is a native of Maryland and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University. After graduation and residing along the East Coast—in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York—he was drawn to the early history of the United States and the wide diversity of the old immigrant populations of Baltimore, Philadelphia, northern New Jersey, and New York City. Later, calling South Bend, Indiana; Fort Madison, Iowa; and Colorado Springs home provided the opportunity to observe the interests of a different, diverse population, piquing an interest in people in foreign lands that were immigrants here but who now call English their language and inculcating a desire to travel. Visiting almost every country in Europe produced a fervor for art, which always remains. As with his characters in his book, the urge to understand people expands, resulting in extended visits to Asia (China, India, Southeast Asia), Fiji Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. He finds the Middle East—from Turkey to Israel to Egypt to Morocco—especially fascinating because of its ancient history. Now having visited all fifty states and residing around our country, he discovered California, lecturing on art and history and becoming a docent at a museum of fine art in San Diego, where he now resides. Richard Balmert writes with an ease and intuitive understanding that appeals to a wide swath of readers. His book, Why Americans Speak English, is designed not as a boring history but as a fascinating study of human nature, tainted with wit, attraction of men to women, love, and the suffering and hardship experienced by those who travel far to find a better life in America. For Americans who never really learned their history, this new book ties together the threads to an understanding on how peoples could come together, throw off their allegiances to a former nationality, and produce a new nation with a common language—even if it took the fickle finger of fate.

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Copyright © 2015 by Richard Balmert.

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Rev. date: 06/11/2015

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Florence, Italy—1450

Chapter 2 Lagos, Portugal—March 1492

Chapter 3 Palos, Spain—June 1492

Chapter 4 Valladolid, Spain—1506

Chapter 5 Lagos, Portugal—1535

Chapter 6 Mexico City, New Spain—1538

Chapter 7 New Spain Expands North—1565

Chapter 8 Portugal Comes to the Americas—1580

Chapter 9 The French Connection—1588

Chapter 10 France Comes to Canada—1534

Chapter 11 The French Connection Continued—1609

Chapter 12 Yves Marceau in Canada—1615

Chapter 13 New France—1633

Chapter 14 Acadia, Nova Scotia—1755

Chapter 15 The Dutch Republic Is Formed—1585

Chapter 16 The Dutch Come to America—1626

Chapter 17 The British Are Coming—1620

Chapter 18 English Claims in America—1630

Chapter 19 The Talcotts of England—1650

Chapter 20 French and Indian War—1756

Chapter 21 The Revolution Comes—1776

Chapter 22 The Fickle Finger of Fate

Interlude

The Letter

The Meeting

Appendix A Wars in Europe before 1776

Appendix B Significant Dates before 1776

FOR THE PARENTS

Of the millions of Immigrants

Who braved the Ocean

To make America

American

PREFACE

W HY AMERICANS SPEAK English , although a novel, outlines how certain unrelated historical events with unintended consequences resulted in an important and indelible imprimatur on the language and culture of one of the most powerful and influential nations of the world—the United States of Ame rica.

This book is fictional, and the adventures of all the members of the various descendants of the Marciari family are imaginary. However, the events depicted were created in historical context and, although not claimed to be free of error, represent an honest attempt to portray the culture of the times and places. Throughout, this work describes and quotes recognizable historical figures. Their words, of course, are not factual but perhaps likely to be those that particular person might have said under similar circumstances.

Have you ever wondered why, of all the languages in the world, people living in a remote, unknown land sparsely inhabited by peoples of a different race without a written language would become a major nation and speak the English language? Naturally, Americans, specifically the people who live in the United States, would say that English was the language of their forefathers, the ones who settled in America at a time where only a few Native Americans lived in that vast newly discovered continent. As we shall see, this premise omits many salient events. For those European countries demonstrating interest and determination, which would succeed in stamping its culture and language on the United States? As we know, England prevailed, but why England?

It is the purpose of this historical novel to answer that query.

Beginning in thirteenth-century Italy, the Renaissance transformed the cultural history of Europe. After the Dark Ages, this rebirth of civilization brought back the appreciation of the humanities—sculpture, painting, writing, music, and architecture. A new class of people, the merchant class, rose, changing rules, regulations, and laws, conferring a new freedom to the populace of the city-states of Italy. Resulting prosperity gave an impetus to learning and exploring beyond the boundaries of their parochial lives. Consider Marco Polo, the representative of the Doge of Venice in 1271, who embarked on a voyage to Constantinople from which he launched his momentous exploration of Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet, China, Southeast Asia, and India over a period of nearly a quarter of a century before returning to Venice. So began many voyages to explore all the Mediterranean Sea and the European and African coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. An unknown America waits discovery by the developed countries of Europe.

Heroic deeds or altruistic thinking of individuals or small groups often describe the history of America. However, in the real and mundane world in which we live, outcomes are, more often than not, the results of events far beyond the control of those that are the most affected.

The significant factors influencing the language of Americans were the political developments throughout Europe during the critical time when the civilized world of Europe first became aware of two vast land continents never before known. To appreciate this influence, we need to look at the many wars among the European countries from the late Renaissance to the American colonists’ War of Independence in 1776.

Unfortunately, the search for noble endeavors frequently wilts in the light of man’s more capricious nature, the desire for power often exemplified by war.

This novel attempts to relate the significance of reckless desire for conquest in Europe to the determination of the language and culture of America. Because of its relevance to the development of American culture and language, a listing of the various European wars of the period are in appendix A.

European countries shared many of the same or similar values in language, religion, form of government, and economy, but the differences among them were of such significance as to cause almost uninterrupted warfare for four centuries. These disagreements are worthy of examination as they became the essential ingredients of America’s destiny. Pertinent to the story are events occurring over this period. To place these in proper context, I urge the reader to refer periodically to the appendix B, Significant Dates before 1776.

In life, things happen. Sometimes momentous and sometimes small, the outcomes have momentous influence on the future, and there is no turning back.

With the historical background of Europe in mind, Dr. Vincenzo Marciari, professor of history in Florence, Italy, sets out to investigate how his own intrepid family may, in some way, had an effect on the development of the future United States of America. It is a seven-century chronology of the Marciari family from Florence, Italy.

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Figure 1-A

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Figure 1-B

INTRODUCTION

A LTHOUGH I AM an Italian, I have extraordinary regard and respect for America and its people. My dear wife, Fiora, may she rest in peace, always wanted to travel. Of course, we had visited most of the capitals of Europe, but to Fiora, this was not authentic travel. She really craved to see Ame rica.

As a professor of history living in Florence, Italy, I had an opportunity to visit China, and my wife and I joined a tour to that mysterious country. We had paid directly to the Chinese government for the complete three-week tour. An incredible event occurred in June 1989, a few months before our scheduled departure: the uprising in Tiananmen Square. The Chinese consul in Rome cancelled the reservation! Although it was to be a group tour, in my mind, reimbursement must not be an option, insisting China honor the contract as it was the only time I could travel. Amazingly, they did!

In place of the regular tour, the consul offered an individual tour to travel around China with a delightful young Chinese woman who spoke reasonable Italian.

I was under the impression you were to be American. We only give special tours to Americans, but at the last minute, when we learned you were Italian, I was pressed into service to honor our commitment.

It turned out that she was most courteous, and we enjoyed spending our three weeks with her as our special guide. Strangely, she was an officer in the Chinese navy. While the regular guides all speak English, no Italian-speaking guides were available. Fortunately, I do speak English, and all went well. I tell you this entire convoluted story because of America. Our guide had never been there, but when, as a child, her father, also a naval officer, took her to see the American president Richard Nixon, she made America her major focus of study. On the last day we were together, she made an astounding statement: God really did bless America.

How can you, a Communist, a Chinese, and a naval officer, say that? I don’t understand.

She answered, God is the metaphor for an all-intelligent being or unknown nature, who smiled on America, a place where land and weather combine to produce all the food and water a nation could want. Here is a country never burdened with the overpopulation that most of the rest of the world endures and has all the natural resources it could possibly need. America strangely does not want to govern the rest of the world as did you Romans or the Greeks or the Spanish, the English, the Japanese, and the Germans. The people are pleasant and generous. I really must go there someday.

And so did I, but I digressed.

My research, as a teacher of history, became earnest as I simultaneously became absorbed in my own genealogy. My father became gravely ill and wanted to tell me all he knew about the Marciari family. Why do old people wait until they are ready to leave this world to pass along this sort of information? Is it a trade secret or information that the government might use against us? What rubbish! However, I was very anxious to learn all the family history I could. During our talks, Father related a strange event he had not spoken about before.

It was during World War II, when my father was a soldier in Benito Mussolini’s army. He had survived the campaign in northern Africa and was then defending Sicily against the invading American and British armies that had landed with thirteen divisions in July 1943. The Italian army defending Sicily consisted of four divisions in addition to a force of local, lightly armed coastal defense militia. Two German divisions held off the invaders until they recognized the gravity of the situation and quickly moved from the island to the Italian mainland.

Our troops, quickly overrun, surrendered, and my father was wounded. Medics carried wounded Americans to a field hospital, and a young American lieutenant saw my father and ordered the corpsmen to carry him to the hospital also. A few days later, this officer came by and, seeing my bandaged father on a cot, asked in Italian, How do you feel, soldier?

My astonished father exclaimed, You speak Italian? Where do you live? What is your name? I want to thank you.

The soldier smiled. Lieutenant Marciari. Vince Marciari, from Baltimore.

That’s my name too! Father shouted as he was leaving.

Yeah, sure. After the war, come on over, and we’ll share a bottle of Chianti. He laughed as he rushed away.

Before the month was out, the Fascist Party leadership deposed Benito Mussolini with an interim government, placing the former dictator under arrest. German paratroopers rescued and moved him to northern Italy. Although the Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies, the Germans maintained control of northern Italy for almost another year, that is, until June 5, 1944, and the grand invasion at Normandy when the German troops withdrew from Italy in an attempt to protect the fatherland.

My father was never able to visit America, but his story heightened my enthusiasm to seek out any American cousins that I might have and learn all the more of that great country far to the West.

For many years, I had been interested in our family history and had papers and letters tracing the family back to the Renaissance. As I learned more about my history, I soon discovered how diverse it became over the centuries. My progenitors expanded into a number of varied European cultures from which the Marciari name came to become a part of the American scene, thus prompting me to write this novel about the unusual events that took place within my own family structure.

Vincenzo L. Marciari

Lucca, Italy

CHAPTER 1

Florence, Italy—1450

Afonso Arrives in Florence from Lisbon, Portugal

I T WAS LATE afternoon. Vincenzo Marciari heard a knock at the open door to his s tudy.

Señor! Señor!

What is it, Furio?

There is a young man here.

Yes. And?

He has a strange accent.

Oh!

But, señor, he says he is your grandson.

The elderly gentleman rose, pushed his chair back, and shuffled toward the open door.

Well then, Furio, bring him up to my room.

In a few minutes, Furio brought the young man to the study. Vincenzo greeted him.

You must be the son of my son, Martino, yes?

My name is Afonso, and yes, my father is Martino.

Vincenzo gave the boy a great bear hug and said, I have longed for the day when I could meet you. It has been so many years. You have a brother, yes? Is he younger or older? I cannot recall. You have a sister also. Is that correct? And your father, my Martino, how is he? Your mother? I have never met her. Oh, it has been so many years and so many questions! Tell me! Tell me! I must hear it all. Please sit down. Furio! Furio! Bring us some food and some wine. Hurry!

Plunging into a chair, Vincenzo retrieved a handkerchief, blew through his nostrils loudly, then mumbled with a waving arm, Sit down, boy.

Afonso looked about and, not finding a chair, sat on the floor and crossed his legs.

Tell me everything, all about my family.

Afonso, looking somewhat weary but so relieved at the kind of reception he received from his grandfather, began his story.

My father, Martino, told me very little of his life here in Florence as he left this city at an early age. I know quite a bit about him after he arrived in Portugal, but almost nothing before then. Could you tell me about his life in Florence?

Vincenzo thought for a few minutes, took his hand from his chin, and scratched his head. Your father was the first of my children—a beautiful, dark-haired, brown-eyed, and wondrous boy. He was born in the year of our Lord 1398. What a wonderful time to be alive! The dreadful plague that began some fifty years before was all but a dreadful nightmare. One has no idea of what a plague does to a city and those who remain afterward.

Weariness came over the old squire as he recounted horrible events and a disease that took his grandmother and two aunts, as well as so many friends, neighbors, and relatives. As Vincenzo explained, this Great Mortality, as it was referred at the time, came to the Middle East with the caravans from the Far East sometime in 1347. Genoa had become a leading seaport of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Genoese had a flourishing colony at Caffa on the Black Sea in Crimea. From here, they exercised a monopoly on all the Black Sea trade. According to reports, a fleet of these trading ships hurriedly left Caffa when sickness broke out. By the time the fleet reached Messina, all the crew were either infected or dead.

No one knew the cause, but the ships must carry evil demons. Ships grounded on shorelines, with no one aboard remaining alive. Looting of these lost ships also helped spread the disease. From there, the Plague spread rapidly to our entire great peninsula. In the crowded towns, people died by the hundreds, and bodies were thrown into hastily dug ditches, with some families being completely wiped out in but a few days. In our beloved city of Florence, about one-half of our entire population died from the Plague. In a few years, the disease had spread north, sparing an occasional area. Sometime after four or so years, the Plague wore itself out in Norway.

How horrible! Afonso exclaimed. Was there no escape? Why did so many people die? Will the Plague return? What can stop such a pestilence?

So many questions, but I will try to explain as best as I can. I was fortunate to be able to attend the University at Bologna and so knew several professors there. Upon visiting not so long ago, I also inquired about the Plague and its origins. While no one really knows, there is a theory that proceeds along this line. What the disease actually is, no one could venture a guess, but perhaps rodents carried it. Since it was generally agreed that the Plague was first noted along the Black Sea area near the great trading center of Constantinople, it could be surmised that it started somewhere in Asia along the well-known Silk Road from China.

But what made it so deadly?

Vincenzo continued, "We do know that in China, the continuing widespread wars and great conquests of the Mongols seriously disrupted farming, leading to years of famine with many, many early deaths, which would naturally attract and increase the population of rats.

"There is a theory—mind you, just a theory—that a serious climate change throughout our world had also occurred. There was, in the north part of Europe, about one hundred years ago, an extended warming period that accounts for a great explosion in population. The farming areas simply could not keep up with population, and when serious warming of our world continued, famine had to result. In the autumn of 1314, heavy rains began to fall, leading to several years of cold and wet winters. The already weak harvests of the North suffered further, and the long famine persisted, leading to an even more disastrous food shortage, and the scarcity resulted in hunger, malnutrition, and a mounting human vulnerability to disease. The Great Famine, as it was called, was the worst in European history, significantly reducing the population.

"What was it, you may ask, that caused this unusual warming? Again, there are only theories. Some believe that the sun, which warms us all, is moving closer to us. Others think there is something different in the air. The difference, they say, is that there are so much more cows, pigs, and sheep to feed the growing population. We all know what these animals, let alone us humans, put into the air every day.

Nevertheless, Afonso, my boy, all that was long, long ago. Today, we are all in reasonably good health, and today is a beautiful June day in Florence, is it not?

Vincenzo’s long and arduous account of the Great Plague was interrupted many times by questions from the incredulous Afonso, as well as by calls for more food and, of course, more wine.

"And now, my boy, about your dear father … I well remember that September day in 1418 when my brother, your father’s uncle Carlo, went to Genoa. Your father, Martino, was but nineteen years of age, about your age today. Carlo was a close friend of Giovanni de Bicci. Giovanni was not born into a wealthy family, but as a young man, he soon showed enormous understanding of the world where we live, especially how the wool business operates.

"As we know, Genoa, for many, many years, has been the leading developer of sea explorers and shipmasters. Their ships and Genovese crews traversed the mare nostrum of Rome, our Mediterranean Sea, from the Black Sea to your Portugal and as far north up the coast to England. On his numerous trips to that city on the River Thames, the ever-inquisitive Carlo learned that in England and nearby Ireland, there existed countless farms raising sheep and harvesting their wool. With this information, the studious Giovanni—through experimentation, determination, and very hard work—found a new and more efficient way of dyeing and processing wool, making products in great demand throughout Europe. So began a very profitable wool business of importing wool from England to Florence, processing and shipping the fabric back to the North.

"With the profits from the wool business, Giovanni opened a banking business, an acceptable enterprise in Florence. After all, the Bardi family had been long-standing banking leaders. By 1397, a year before your father was born, with more money to lend and establishing an institution known for honesty and fairness, his family, known as the Medici family, was soon to become the leading lender throughout Italy. Tomorrow, we will see the beautiful church this outstanding family is building for our city—the Church of San Lorenzo.

"I go off on a tangent. We were talking about your father. On one of his trips to Genoa, your father’s uncle, my brother Carlo, took your father with him to that seaport. As I said, Martino was barely nineteen but was very mature for his age. Hearing so much in family discussions about the faraway places of Cadiz and Lisbon and London, he had an uncontrollable urge to see these places for himself. He told his uncle Carlo that he had signed on with a ship leaving for England the next morning. Carlo, of course, refused to give permission without my own approval. Nevertheless, Martino secretly made his way to the ship and sailed for England before dawn. Although I have received a few letters over these many years, I have not seen my Martino since he left for Genoa with his uncle Carlo. Happily, I have another son, your uncle Giuseppe, who has stayed here in Florence and helped in the business.

And now, Afonso, tell me all about your family and what brings you here now to Florence.

The young man took a sip of wine, closed his eyes with his fingers, and slowly began. "Where shall I begin? In recent years, my father, Martino, has told some of his life after leaving Genoa. He said that he really enjoyed the long boat trip, stopping only at Cadiz and Lisbon before reaching London. Apparently, London did not impress him, or perhaps he did not know how to examine what English life was like. He did not understand the language, and it rained most of the time he was there.

"On the return, the ship suffered severe damage from the storms but finally reached Lisbon for repairs. The damage had been extensive and required several months to fix. During the stay in Lisbon, my father loved the cool sea air and enjoyed meeting the people of Portugal, as their language was