Prince Henry the Navigator
Prince Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator, was a Portuguese prince and a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime exploration. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the fourth child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.
After procuring the new caravel ship, Henry was responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta, the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunity offered by the Saharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated with Africa in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend of Prester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. He is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration. He is also considered to be one of the most responsible for developing the slave trade in Western Europe. The prince died on 13 November 1460 in Vila do Bispo, Algarve.
Life
Henry was the third surviving son of King John I and his wife Philippa, sister of King Henry IV of England. He was baptized in Porto, and may have been born there, probably when the royal couple was living in the city's old mint, now called Casa do Infante, or in the region nearby. Another possibility is that he was born at the Monastery of Leça do Balio, in Leça da Palmeira, during the same period of the royal couple's residence in the city of Porto.Henry was 21 when he, his father and brothers captured the Moorish port of Ceuta in northern Morocco. Ceuta had long been a base for Barbary pirates who raided the Portuguese coast, depopulating villages by capturing their inhabitants to be sold in the African slave trade. Following this success, Henry began to explore the coast of Africa, most of which was unknown to Europeans. His objectives included finding the source of the West African gold trade and the legendary Christian kingdom of Prester John, and stopping the pirate attacks on the Portuguese coast.
File:Porto April 2019-7.jpg|thumb|right|Prince Henry at the 1415 Conquest of Ceuta, considered the beginning of the Portuguese Empire.
At that time, the cargo ships of the Mediterranean were too slow and heavy to undertake such voyages. Under Henry's direction, a new and much lighter ship was developed, the caravel, which could sail farther and faster. Above all, it was highly maneuverable and could sail "into the wind", making it largely independent of the prevailing winds. The caravel used the lateen sail, the prevailing rig in Christian Mediterranean navigation since late antiquity.
With this ship, Portuguese mariners freely explored uncharted waters around the Atlantic, from rivers and shallow waters to transoceanic voyages.
In 1419, Henry's father appointed him governor of the province of the Algarve.
Resources and income
On May 25, 1420, Henry gained appointment as the Governor of the Military Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar, which had its headquarters at Tomar in central Portugal. Henry held this position for the remainder of his life, and the Order was an important source of funds for Henry's ambitious plans, especially his persistent attempts to conquer the Canary Islands, which the Portuguese had claimed to have discovered before the year 1346.In 1425, his second brother the Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra, made a diplomatic tour of Europe, with an additional charge from Henry to seek out geographic material. Peter returned with a current world map from Venice.
In 1431, Henry donated houses for the Estudo Geral to teach all the sciences—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, and astronomy—in what would later become the University of Lisbon. For other subjects like medicine or philosophy, he ordered that each room should be decorated according to the subject taught.
File:98401-Tomar.jpg|thumb|Prince Henry ordered construction of the Paços Henriquinos at the Convent of Christ in Tomar, to serve as his residence when he was appointed as Governor of the Order of Christ in 1420.
Henry also had other resources. When John I died in 1433, Henry's eldest brother Edward of Portugal became king. He granted Henry all profits from trading within the areas he discovered as well as the sole right to authorize expeditions beyond Cape Bojador. Henry also held a monopoly on tuna fishing in the Algarve. When Edward died eight years later, Henry supported his brother Peter, Duke of Coimbra for the regency during the minority of Edward's son Afonso V, and in return received a confirmation of this levy.
Henry functioned as a primary organizer of the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437 against Çala Ben Çala, which ended in Henry's younger brother Ferdinand being given as hostage to guarantee Portuguese promises in the peace agreement. The Portuguese Cortes refused to return Ceuta as ransom for Ferdinand, who remained in captivity until his death six years later. Prince Regent Peter supported Portuguese maritime expansion in the Atlantic Ocean and Africa, and Henry promoted the colonization of the Azores during Peter's regency. For most of the latter part of his life, Henry concentrated on his maritime activities and court politics.
Vila do Infante and Portuguese exploration
According to João de Barros, in Algarve, Prince Henry the Navigator repopulated a village that he called Terçanabal. This village was situated in a strategic position for his maritime enterprises and was later called Vila do Infante.It is traditionally suggested that Henry gathered at his villa on the Sagres peninsula a school of navigators and map-makers. However modern historians hold this to be a misconception. He did employ some cartographers to chart the coast of Mauritania after the voyages he sent there, but there was no center of navigation science or observatory in the modern sense of the word, nor was there an organized navigational center.
Referring to Sagres, sixteenth-century Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes remarked, "from it our sailors went out well taught and provided with instruments and rules which all map makers and navigators should know."
The view that Henry's court rapidly grew into the technological base for exploration, with a naval arsenal and an observatory, etc., although repeated in popular culture, has never been established. Henry did possess geographical curiosity, and employed cartographers. Jehuda Cresques, a noted cartographer, has been said to have accepted an invitation to come to Portugal to make maps for the infante. Prestage makes the argument that the presence of the latter at the Prince's court "probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited."
Henry's explorations
Henry sponsored voyages, collecting a 20% tax on profits, the usual practice in the Iberian states at the time. The nearby port of Lagos provided a convenient home port for these expeditions. The voyages were made in very small ships, mostly the caravel, a light and maneuverable vessel equipped by lateen sails. Most of the voyages sent out by Henry consisted of one or two ships that navigated by following the coast, stopping at night to tie up along some shore.During Prince Henry's time and after, the Portuguese navigators discovered and perfected the North Atlantic volta do mar : the dependable pattern of trade winds blowing largely from the east near the equator and the returning westerlies in the mid-Atlantic. This was a major step in the history of navigation, when an understanding of oceanic wind patterns was crucial to Atlantic navigation, from Africa and the open ocean to Europe, and enabled the main route between the New World and Europe in the North Atlantic in future voyages of discovery. Although the lateen sail allowed sailing upwind to some extent, it was worth even major extensions of course to have a faster and calmer following wind for most of a journey. Portuguese mariners who sailed south and southwest towards the Canary Islands and West Africa would afterwards sail far to the northwest—that is, away from continental Portugal, and seemingly in the wrong direction—before turning northeast near the Azores islands and finally east to Europe in order to have largely following winds for their full journey. Christopher Columbus used this on his transatlantic voyages.
Madeira
The first explorations followed not long after the capture of Ceuta in 1415. Henry was interested in locating the source of the caravans that brought gold to the city. During the reign of his father, John I, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira were sent to explore along the African coast. Zarco, a knight in service to Prince Henry, had commanded the caravels guarding the coast of Algarve from the incursions of the Moors. He had also been at Ceuta.In 1418, Zarco and Teixeira were blown off-course by a storm while making the volta do mar westward swing to return to Portugal. They found shelter at an island they named Porto Santo. Henry directed that Porto Santo be colonized. The move to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Castile's efforts to claim the Canary Islands. In 1420, settlers then moved to the nearby island of Madeira.
The Azores
A chart drawn by the Catalan cartographer, Gabriel de Vallseca of Mallorca, has been interpreted to indicate that the Azores were first discovered by Diogo de Silves in 1427. In 1431, Gonçalo Velho was dispatched with orders to determine the location of "islands" first identified by de Silves. Velho apparently got as far as the Formigas, in the eastern archipelago, before having to return to Sagres, probably due to bad weather.By this time the Portuguese navigators had also reached the Sargasso Sea, naming it after the Sargassum seaweed growing there.