Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/569

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NODA
NOGARET

he continued to visit these converts, always going on foot from one colony to another. Wiien the Portuguese colony was in danger of ruin from the attacks of the Tamayos, Nobrega offered to go among the savages and try to obtain peace. He was accompanied by the nnssionary Jose de An- chieta {q. v.), and was successful in his mission. Nobrega was afterward regarded as the savior of the colony. He was for twenty years before his death provincial of the Jesuits in Brazil, during which period he established numerous residences and colleges, and was instrumental in civilizing a large part of the country. Among his works are a series of letters that describe his missionary work in Brazil. They were written between 1545 and 1555, and a translation into Italian was published at Venice (1559). He also wrote " Carta escrita da Citade de San Salvador de Bahia no anno de 1550, ao P. Geral," Latin translation (Louvain, 1569). A large number of manuscripts containing Nobrega's letters and diaries, written in Brazil, are preserved in the library of the Jesuit college at Lisbon. His life has been written by Charles Sainte Foy.


NODA, Tranquiliiio S. de (no-dah), Cuban au- thor, b. in Guanajay in September, 1808 ; d. in Ha- vana in May, 18G7. He began his literary career in 1827 by an exhaustive memoir on the cultivation of the coffee-plant, to which a first prize was awarded by the Sociedad economica of Havana. In 1831 he passed his examination as land-surveyor, and began to survey the western part of Cuba, drawing maps of several parts of the island. By this time he began also to write papers on the history of Cuba, which were published in "Memorias de la Sociedad Economica." In 1838 he wrote " Cartas a Silvia," a collection of interesting papers about the traditions, legends, geography, and natural history of Cuba. He made a voyage to Yucatan in 1839, and the re- sults of his investigations in that country were em- bodied in his •' Apuntes sobre Yucatan." He also wrote " Educacion Elemental " (1847), and " Eco- nomia Politica aplicada a Cuba" (1859). The gov- ernment intrusted him with several important com- missions relating to the statistics and topography of the island. To his efforts were due the opening of new roads, the establishment of new lines of steamers, and the creation of several scientific and learned societies to develop the agricultural and in- dustrial resources of Cuba. In 1863 he began the publication of an historical novel, "Habaguanex," the last cacique of Havana, which he left incomplete. Among his other literary works are •' El Atlante Cubano," " Nuevo Arte de Taquigrafia," numerous scientific papers on various subjects, sketches for two dictionaries of African languages, and transla- tions in verse of Voltaire's tragedies "Adelaide Duguesclin " and " Jules Cesar."


NODAL, Bartolome Garcia and Gonzalo (no- dal), Spanish navigators, b. in Pontevedra, prov- ince of Galicia, at the beginning of the 17th cen- tury. Philip III., being very uneasy on account of the facility with which the Dutch crossed in twenty-four hours from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the Strait of Le Maire, tried to close the route by building forts on both sides, and equipped two ships for the purpose, commanded by the brothers Nodal, appointing Diego Ramirez de Arellano as pilot and cosmographer. They left Lisbon, 27 Sept., 1618, and touched at Rio Janeiro, whence they sailed on 6 Dec. The Nodals were the first that took exact soundings of the gradual slope of the South Atlantic. On 6 Jan., 1619, they discov- ered islands, which they called Los Reyes. They arrived on the 19th at the Cape of Virgins, on the 22d at Cape Le Maire, which they called San Vi- cente, and soon afterward they discovered the Bay of Buen Succeso, where they anchored. After de- termining the latitude of Cape Horn, they discov- ered a small number of islands, which they called Diego Ramirez, and which were during a century and a half the most southern land that was known. They returned to Europe in July. 1619, after a voyage of nine months. Although Philip III. was not wholly satisfied with the result of the voyage, the Spanish discoveries in South America "were completed by it. The Nodals published a narra- tive, with several charts, entitled " Relacion del viaje que hicieron los capitanes Bartolome Garcia y Gonzalo de Nodal al descubrimiento de un es- trecho nuevo" (Madrid, 1621 ; Cadiz, 1766).


NOEL, Nicolas, French physician, b. in Rheims, 27 March, 1746; d. there, 11 May, 1832. He was the son of poor laborers, and apprenticed in his youth to a blacksmith, but, as he showed a taste tor science, the vicar of his parish became inter- ested in him. and obtained for him a fellowship in the Paris university. Noel had not finished his studies when he came to the United States in 1776, and, offering his services to congress, was ap- pointed surgeon of a regiment in Gen. Nathanael Greene's division. He served afterward in the same capacity on board the frigate '• Boston," organized the military hospitals in Philadelphia, and was present at the fall of Yorktown in 1781. On his return to France in 1784 he became house surgeon of the Hotel Dieu of Rheims, entered the army in 1792, and was appointed in 1793 inspector of mili- tary hospitals in Belgium, but resigned in 1795, and returned to Rheims, where he founded an academy of medicine and a botanic garden. Among his works are "Journal d'un chirurgien pendant la guerre pour I'independance des colonies anglaises de I'Amerique du Nord " (Rheims, 1787); "Traite historique et pratique de I'inoculation " (1789); and " Dissertation sur la necessite de reunir les con- naissances chirurgicales et medicales" (Paris, 1804).


NOGARET, Stanislas Henry Lucien de, French colonist, b. in Marseilles in 1682; d. in Paris in 1759. His father was a well-known magistrate, and he was educated for the bar, but, being- of an adventurous turn of mind, he left college when scarcely sixteen years old, and, enlisting in the army, served in Canada for several years. Being assigned in 1716 to Louisiana, he was appointed by Bienville {q. v.) commander of Fort Rosalie, which had been built a few months before. The French afterward began settlements in the basin of the lower Mississippi, which the Natchez, Yazoo, and Chickasaw Indians destroyed several times, but Nogaret formed an alliance with the Choctaws that enabled the French to hold out against their opponents till 1729, when the Natchez stormed and burned Fort Rosalie and murdered nearly all the settlers, only a few escaping with Nogaret to the Choctaw villages. A few months later Nogaret, at the head of a force of French and Indian allies, re-entered the country, drove out the Natchez, and rebuilt the fortress. During the following years the French extended their possessions. Nogaret contributed much to the welfare and improvement of the new colony, and founded also several establishments in the Choctaw territory. The death of his father and eldest brother left him in 1735 heir to a large estate, and, returning to France to take possession of it, he became a director of the Louisiana company. Nogaret published "Precis des etablissements fon des dans la vallee du Mississippi par le Chevaner Le Moyne de Bienville, suivi d'une histoire des guerres avec les Indiens Natchez" (Paris, 1738).