Portugal: Notable Explorers and Merchants

1394 - 1460 - Prince Henry the Navigator (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

  • He devoted his wealth and his enemies to maritime exploration

    • He brought cartographers from Sicily and elsewhere to train his sea men

    • He found shipwrights to build craft strong enough to remain at sea in rough weather

  • He systematically explored the African coast

  • The navigational enterprises with which he came to be associated began with a crusade against the Moors (Muslims) of North Africa

• He

  • remained a virgin throughout his life

  • was the third son of King John of Portugal and Philippa, the daughter of England’s John of Gaunt

  • grew up at a time when the Moors (Muslims) had been driven from Portugal and most of Spain where the crusading spirit was still vigorous

  • saw himself as a Christian knight dedicated to the struggle against Islam, his vision having carried him beyond old horizons

• He

  • encouraged the settlement of Porto Santo and Madeira

  • granted two islands in the Azores to his nephew and prince-heir Fernando

  • assigned the spiritualities of the Madeira islands to the Order of Christ

  • sent ship after ship out from his palace-observatory at Sagres to sail beyond the sandy bulge of the cape

  • sent expeditions southward along the West African coast

  • claimed the Azores and Madeira island groups, and dreamed of reaching the legendary Christian kingdom ruled by a priest king, Prester John, which was believed to exist in the heart of Africa but never found it

• His captain Eannes had rounded the feared Cape Bojador, on the coast of West Africa, fulfilling the namesake’s most fervent ambition

  • His captains told of tales of the dangers of their journeys, terrified of the legends of the Sea of Darkness which lay beyond the cape

    • It was a place where white men turned black and the currents would prevent any ship from returning

  • He sent his squire Eannes out to this awesome place last year, but he, like the others, failed to conquer his fears and got no further then the Canary Islands

  • Eannes eventually rounded the cape, having founding no indication of human habitation there, bringing back only some plants called St. Mary’s roses

  • The importance of Eannes’ voyage was that he had disproved the belief that ships could not sail the seas beyond Cape Bojador; and thus the way south had opened

  • In response, the namesake reacted promptly to Eannes’ news, having sent him to sea again along with another shop commanded by his cupbearer, Afonso Baldaya, with orders to explore beyond the cape

• He

  • had many experts from many nations studying navigation at his court

  • provided for Masses to be said for his soul and then made his will

  • died, and his remains were taken to the church of St. Mary at Lagos

• After his death, his navigators had explored the coast of Africa as far south as the rugged mountain chain they called Sierra Leone; the Christian message having been carried to the heathens there

1427 - Diego de Silves (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

• He discovered the Azores Islands

1400s - Antão Gonçalves (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

• He explored the Gold River, having passed the Sahara coast

1452 - 1486 - Diogo Cao (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

• He explored the mouth of the Zaire River and set up a stone column there that marked his arrival

• He landed in Angola, and explored the mouth of the Congo River, leaving four of his officers to make contact with the king of Kongo and in which four Portuguese Catholic missionaries arrived in Angola, south of the mouth of the Zaire River

• He returned again to the Kongo, where he reached Banza, where they converted the crown prince to Christianity, baptizing him as Afonso

  • There was little doubt that the Portuguese missionaries under the namesake’s watch had their work cut out for them

1400s - 1500 - Bartholomew Dias (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

• He went on a two-year voyage down the West coast of Africa, where he famously went around the Cape of Good Hope

  • He sailed so far south that the North Star vanished below the horizon

  • For 13 days, a strong wind carried him out to sea and still further south

  • When at last he was able to turn back, he found the lie of the land was to the east, not the south; and had discovered the way round Africa

  • He continued on his new course to the east and sighted native herdsmen with cows and went ashore

  • He was unable to understand the language and the natives were so alarmed at the sight of the ships that they drove their animals inland

  • He had told the king that he named the great cape, with its table-like mountain, the Cape of Storms

  • However, King John II wished it to be known as the Cape of Good Hope, because it gave promise of discovering a sea route to India

1460 - 1524 - Vasco de Gama (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer

• He, on the orders and sponsorship of King Manuel of Portugal, set sail for and successfully arrived in India (by going around the Cape of Good Hope and Africa)

  • He had four ships with 20 guns and and 170 well-armed men

    • As it turned out, this was a wise precaution given that the Arab Muslim traders, fearing the Christian Portuguese will challenge their already-established monopoly of trade with the Hindus, were already seeking to set the king of Calicut against the Portuguese newcomers

  • He sailed round the Cape of Good Hope

  • He reached Quelimane on the Sofala Coast

  • He then reached Malindi in Kenya, after calling at Kilwa and Mombasa

  • He then arrived off Calicut, on the Malabar coast

    • When he ashore he took presents for the King of Calicut including hats, striped cloth, strings of coral and a case of wash hand-basins

    • However, the King of Calicut had scorned him, saying that he had claimed he had come from a rich country but all he had brought were cheap trinkets

• He became the first European to discover a rea route round the Cape of Good Hope to India

  • During the long voyage, he encountered many difficulties and dangers that tested both his seamanship and his qualities as a leader

    • After battling against hurricanes on its way round the Cape, his expedition met with Muslim hostility at almost every port of call in East Africa

      • At Mombasa, Muslims pretended to be Christians in order to get on board and prepare for an armed attack on the ships

      • The namesake had to bombard Mozambique before he could obtain supplies of fresh water

    • At Malindi, however, a friendly welcome awaited him and his crew and they were able to recruit Ibu Majid, an experienced Gujarati seaman, who piloted them across the Indian Ocean

    • The namesake returned to Lisbon in Portugal with half a dozen Indians to show to King Manuel

1460 - 1526 - Pedro da Covilhao (All Facts)

• Portuguese Explorer and Diplomat

• He left Lisbon for Africa where we went overland in search of Prester John’s (mythical) connection with the Indian spice trade

  • After travelling widely in the Levant, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden; he arrived in Ethiopia, via Zeila

  • Upon reaching Ethiopia, he was detained by the emperor there

• He went on an expedition which took him as far as the Sofala Coast of southeast Africa and as far east as Calicut in India, before returning back to Cairo (in Egypt)