Portuguese maritime exploration
Portuguese maritime explorations resulted in numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese on journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, Canada and Brazil, in what became known as the Age of Discovery.
Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along the coast of West Africa under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator, whence Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to the Indian subcontinent, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil.
History
Origins
In 1297, King Dinis of Portugal took personal interest in the development of exports and organized that of surplus foreign production to European countries. On May 10, 1293, he instituted a maritime insurance fund for Portuguese traders living in the County of Flanders, which were to pay certain sums according to tonnage, accrued to them when necessary. Wine and dried fruits from Algarve were sold in Flanders and England, salt from Setúbal and Aveiro was a profitable export to northern Europe, and leather and kermes, a scarlet dye, were also exported. Portugal imported armor and munitions, fine clothes, and several manufactured products from Flanders and Italy.In 1317, King Dinis made an agreement with Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha, appointing him first Admiral with trade privileges with his homeland in return for twenty warships and crews, with the goal of defending the country against Muslim pirate raids, thus laying the basis for the Portuguese Navy and establishment of a Genoese merchant community in Portugal. Forced to reduce their activities in the Black Sea, the Republic of Genoa had turned to North Africa for trade in wheat and olive oil and a search for gold – navigating also into the ports of Bruges and England. Genoese and Florentine communities were established in Portugal, which profited from the enterprise and financial experience of these rivals of the Republic of Venice.
In the second half of the fourteenth century outbreaks of bubonic plague led to severe depopulation: the economy was extremely localized in a few towns, and migration from the country led to the abandonment of agricultural land and an increase in rural unemployment. Only the sea offered opportunities, with most people settling in fishing and trading areas along the coast. Between 1325 and 1357 Afonso IV of Portugal granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet and ordered the first maritime explorations, with the help of Genoese, under command of admiral Manuel Pessanha. In 1341 the Canary Islands, already known to Genoese seafarers, were officially rediscovered under the patronage of the Portuguese king, but in 1344 Castile disputed ownership of them, further propelling the Portuguese naval efforts. The first victims of slave raids by Portuguese and Spanish were the Guanches of the Canary Islands, a people of Berber origin, who put up fierce resistance but were reduced to near extinction by pillaging and enslavement.
Atlantic exploration (1418–1488)
In 1415, the Portuguese occupied the North African city of Ceuta to gain a foothold in Morocco and control shipping through the Strait of Gibraltar. They also hoped to extend Christianity and provide an outlet for Portuguese nobles looking to gain riches and honor in war. Among the participants of the action was the young Prince Henry the Navigator. Appointed governor of the Order of Christ in 1420, while personally holding profitable monopolies on resources in Algarve, he took the lead role in encouraging Portuguese maritime exploration until his death in 1460. He invested in sponsoring voyages down the coast of Mauritania, gathering a group of merchants, shipowners, and other stakeholders interested in new opportunities for maritime trade. Later his brother Prince Pedro granted him a royal monopoly of all profits from trading within the areas discovered.In 1418, two of Henry's captains, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira were driven by a storm to Porto Santo an uninhabited island off the coast of Africa which may have been known to Europeans since the 14th century. In 1419 Zarco and Teixeira made a landfall on Madeira. They returned with Bartolomeu Perestrelo, and Portuguese settlement of the islands began. There, wheat and later sugarcane were cultivated, as in Algarve, by the Genoese, becoming profitable activities. This helped both them and Prince Henry become wealthier.
A Portuguese attempt to capture Grand Canary, one of the nearby Canary Islands, which had been partially settled by Spaniards in 1402 was unsuccessful and met with protestations from Castile. Although the exact details are uncertain, cartographic evidence suggests the Azores were probably discovered in 1427 by Portuguese ships sailing under Henry's direction, and settled in 1432, suggesting that the Portuguese were able to navigate at least from the Portuguese coast.
At around the same time as the unsuccessful attack on the Canary Islands, the Portuguese began to explore the North African coast. Sailors feared what lay beyond Cape Bojador at the time, as Europeans did not know what lay beyond on the African coast, and did not know whether it was possible to return once it was passed. Henry wished to know how far the Muslim territories in Africa extended, and whether it was possible to reach the source of the lucrative tran-Saharan caravan gold trade and perhaps to join forces with the long-lost Christian kingdom of Prester John that was rumoured to exist somewhere to the east.
In 1434, one of Prince Henry's captains, Gil Eanes, passed this obstacle. Once this psychological barrier had been crossed, it became easier to probe further along the coast. Within two decades of exploration, Portuguese ships had bypassed the Sahara. Westward exploration continued over the same period: Diogo de Silves discovered the Azores island of Santa Maria in 1427 and in the following years Portuguese mariners discovered and settled the rest of the Azores.
Henry suffered a serious setback in 1437 after the failure of an expedition to capture Tangier, having encouraged his brother, King Edward, to mount an overland attack from Ceuta. The Portuguese army was defeated and only escaped destruction by surrendering Prince Ferdinand, the king's youngest brother. After the defeat at Tangier, Henry retired to Sagres on the southern tip of Portugal where he continued to direct Portuguese exploration until his death in 1460.
In 1443, Prince Pedro, Henry's brother, granted him the monopoly of navigation, war, and trade in the lands south of Cape Bojador. Later this monopoly would be backed by the Papal bulls Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex, granting Portugal a trade monopoly for the newly discovered countries.
The caravel, an existing ship type, was used in exploration from about 1440. It had a number of advantageous characteristics. These included shallow draft, which was suitable for approaching unknown coasts, and an efficient combination of hull shape and lateen rig, which gave a fast-sailing vessel which had better windward sailing ability than other vessels of the time.
Portuguese navigators reached ever more southerly latitudes, advancing at an average rate of one degree a year. Senegal and Cape Verde Peninsula were reached in 1445. In the same year, the first overseas feitoria was established under Henry's direction, on the island of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania. It was created to attract Muslim traders and monopolize the business in the routes traveled in North Africa, starting the chain of Portuguese feitorias along the coast. In 1446, Álvaro Fernandes pushed on almost as far as present-day Sierra Leone, and the Gulf of Guinea was reached in the 1460s.
Exploration after Prince Henry
As a result of the first meager returns of the African explorations, in 1469 king Afonso V granted the monopoly of trade in part of the Gulf of Guinea to merchant Fernão Gomes, for an annual payment of 200,000 reals. Gomes was also required to explore of the coast each year for five years. He employed explorers João de Santarém, Pedro Escobar, Lopo Gonçalves, Fernão do Pó, and Pedro de Sintra, and exceeded the requirement. Under his sponsorship, Portuguese explorers crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere and found the islands in the Gulf of Guinea, including São Tomé and Príncipe.In 1471, Gomes' explorers reached Elmina on the Gold Coast, and discovered a thriving overland gold trade between the natives and visiting Arab and Berber traders. Gomes established his own trading post there, which became known as “A Mina”. Trade between Elmina and Portugal grew in the next decade. In 1481, the recently crowned João II decided to build São Jorge da Mina fort and factory to protect this trade, which was then held again as a royal monopoly.
In 1482, Diogo Cão discovered the mouth of the Congo River. In 1486, Cão continued to Cape Cross, in present-day Namibia, near the Tropic of Capricorn.
File:Iberian_mare_clausum_claims.svg|thumb|Iberian mare clausum claims during the Age of Discovery.
In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope near the southern tip of Africa, disproving the view that had existed since Ptolemy that the Indian Ocean was separate from the Atlantic. Also at this time, Pêro da Covilhã reached India via Egypt and Yemen, and visited Madagascar. He recommended further exploration of the southern route.
As the Portuguese explored the coastlines of Africa, they left behind a series of padrões, stone crosses inscribed with the Portuguese coat of arms marking their claims, and built forts and trading posts. From these bases, the Portuguese engaged profitably in the slave and gold trades. Portugal enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the Atlantic slave trade for over a century, exporting around 800 slaves annually. Most were brought to the Portuguese capital Lisbon, where it is estimated black Africans came to constitute 10 percent of the population.