The Portuguese Pioneers

Front matter

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STACKS G 282 z 1967

Introduction

HE geographical position of Portugal invited her

to become a maritime power, but with a population of only one and a quarter million it could hardly have been expected that she would, in the words of R. H. Major, discover half the world in the course of a century. This wonderful achievement-of a-small and poor nation, though recognised by historians, is less widely known owing to lack of a monograph than it deserves to be, and even the Portuguese themselves have produced no adequate and comprehensive work on the subject since that of Jodo de Barros in the sixteenth century, continued by Diogo do Couto. Most satisfactory instalments are, however, contained in the Historia de Portugal, edited by Professor D. Peres, now in course of publication, and in the three folio volumes of the recently issued Historia da Colonisagéo do Brasil. The first modern scholarly account of Portuguese Exploration by sea in any language was that of Major in 1868, which has long been out of print, and since then we have had the publications of Professor Sir Raymund Beazley on Prince Henry and studies of individual voyages by E. G. Ravenstein, Dr. J. Mees, H. Harrisse, Dr. Franz Hiimmerich, and Dr. H. P. Biggar. Much new material has also been collected and printed in Portugal in the last sixty-five years, and important inedited texts have been published, such as Esmeraldo de situ orbis, the earliest sailing-guide

INTRODUCTION to the west and south coasts of Africa; but comparatively little of this material has been made available for English readers. The information contained in these works often supplements the narratives of the Portuguese official historians and it has been used in the present book, the scope of which is suggested by its title. All the recorded voyages of discovery down to the end of the fifteenth century are described, but from then until the middle of the sixteenth, when the narrative ends, only the more important. Space would not allow minor coastal ventures to be included, nor indeed is their number and extent fully known; hundreds of Rutters exist in MS. in public and private libraries, in Portugal and elsewhere, for the most part unread. This book, though much shorter than the first edition of Major, contains matter then and much later unknown, especially in Chapter XIV. Thanks especially to the researches of Snr. Joaquim Bensaude and his reprints of old and rare nautical guides, it is clear that, in addition to the discovery of lands and seas, the. Portuguese developed for themselves the science which made it pos- — sible, and that they did not derive their knowledge from foreigners, save at the beginning of their maritime activities.

The world-map shows the coasts and principal Sires found or visited by them until the middle of the sixteenth century, and it follows modern Portuguese maps of the same kind, but with some omissions. For instance, the discoveries of Magellan in his voyage of circumnavigation are not marked, because they were made under the Spanish flag. The second map is derived from Major and the fourth from one in Ravenstein’s work on Vasco da Gama, but the outward route as there shown has been slightly deflected at Terra Alta to secure x

INTRODUCTION exactitude. It should be observed that both the routes traced are conjectural, since the authorities give no precise information, and it is possible that da Gama took a course nearer to the coast of Brazil on his way to the East. The third map marks only the points referred to in the text and not the many others reconnoitred and named by the two navigators.

My wife, Dr. J. A. Williamson, and Mr. V. T. Harlow read the proofs, and I have to thank them for useful criticisms and information. Professor E. G. R. Taylor and Mr. E. A. Reeves kindly looked through Chapter XIV and used their special knowledge of some of the matters there treated to make corrections, while Mr. E. Heawood has been good enough to identify the position of towns in the interior of Africa no longer existing.

Since the remarks on page 156 were written, the Portuguese government has resolved to commemorate the life-work of Prince Henry by erecting a more imposing monument at or near Cape St. Vincent. This decision has been taken in response to suggestions which have been frequently made by Portuguese and foreigners, and I am very pleased to be able to announce that a debt long due is to be paid. E. P.

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Contents

CHAPTER

I. Il

VIII.

Ix.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

THe Royat anp Mercuant Navy, AnD Eary VoyaGEs , Z ; , i : >

THe Expepirion to Ceuta. THe Arms oF Henry THE NAVIGATOR

Maperra, THE CANARIES AND THE AZORES, From Bojyapor To Cape VERDE

First Voyace oF ALvisE DA CADAMOSTO

SEconD VoyaGE or Capamosto. Drioco Gomes AND ANTONIO DA Nout. Discovery OF THE Care VERDE ISLANDS

Lire at Ceuta. THE Congugst OF ALCACER. Henry’s DeatTH AND CHARACTER ; -

THe Twenty YEARS AFTER PRINCE HENRY’S DeEaTH

ProGREss UNDER JOHN II. ‘THE Voyaces oF Dioco CAo. THE SEARCH FOR PRESTER JOHN. Tue Voyace oF BarTHoLomMew Dr1as

WESTWARD EXPLORATION Tue First Voyace or Vasco pa GAMA NortH America, BRAzIL AND THE ORIENT

INDEX . ;

xiil

PAGE

1. THe Wortp: Coasts AND PLACES DISCOVERED OR VISITED BY THE PORTUGUESE

2. THe West Coast oF AFRICA, ILLUSTRATING THE Voyaces OF HENRyY’s SEAMEN

3. THE Voyacss or Dioco CAo anp BaRTHOLOMEW

Dias

4. THe Voyacrs or Vasco pa GAMA AND PEDRO

ALVAREZ CABRAL

MAPS

XIV

.

FACING PAGE

THE ROYAL AND MERCHANT NAVY, AND EARLY VOYAGES

EW facts are recorded about the early maritime his-

tory of the kingdom of Portugal, but we know that in addition to coastal navigation trade was carried on with the North of Europe and with the Mediterranean countries, principally from Lisbon and Oporto, which were busy commercial centres. Portuguese merchants founded a factory at Bruges and frequented Marseilles in the twelfth century, while in the thirteenth they were established in the French Channel ports. In 1226 more than 100 safe-conducts were granted them in England. To this as to other countries Portugal sent hides, skins, dried fruits, oil, cork and wine. The first king, Afonso Henriques (1128-85), must have had a primitive navy, for tradition says that D. Fuas Roupinho captured a fleet of Moorish galleys off Cape Espichel, seized others at Ceuta, and later on in a fight with fifty-four Moorish vessels in the Strait of Gibraltar was defeated and killed. In 1189 Sancho | contributed forty galleys, galliots and other vessels to a crusading fleet for the capture of Silves, capital of the Algarve. Sancho II is reputed to have established an arsenal, and under Afonso III a fleet of large ships of the royal navy, some at least of which had been built in Lisbon, took part in the

1 For the trade between these two countries vide Shillington and Chapman, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal (London, 1907).

investment of Faro. Documents of his reign describe various kinds of vessels under the names of barks, ships and caravels, and the designation maves, meaning vessels of a fair tonnage, appears for the first time.

Under Diniz, the greatest of the medieval kings, the fighting and mercantile marine developed considerably and vessels were graded downwards in size as naves, navios and baixeis; barcas of 100 tons and upwards sailed to Spain, France, Normandy and England; and in 1293 this monarch accepted a generous suggestion of his merchants that it was for ‘God’s service and the good of the land’ that they should pay a tax on the goods they exported. Diniz had a pine forest planted near Leiria to protect the fields from the invasion of sand from the shore and supply wood for shipbuilding, and he encouraged the latter by conferring the privilege of knighthood on officers and even on artisans employed on constructions. It is possible, as some chroniclers say, that he kept a regular fleet at sea to guard the coast against pirates, and we know that he was the first to appoint an admiral in the person of Nuno Fernandes Cogominho, a fact which shews that the navy had already attained a certain importance. When Cogominho died, the King applied for a substitute from Genoa, then the leading naval power, whose subjects were employed by the kings of Castile and France to reorganise their navies. His choice fell on Manoel Pessanha, or Pezagno, a noble and a man of repute in his profession, who in the contract made with him on 1 February 1317 undertook to provide twenty sabedores do mar,1 to command the galleys, which then formed the fighting force. The office was expressed to bea hereditary one, and with it went the grant of a large

1 Men with experience of the sea.

tract of land in Lisbon with the privileges of a couso, that is exemption from the ordinary jurisdiction of the King’s officers of justice, and a salary of 3000 /ibras (480,000 reis). The admiral must have soon earned the confidence of the monarch, for in 1319 the town and castle of Odemira was bestowed on him. In 1320 he went as ambassador to the Pope at Avignon to ask for a subsidy for the fleet, and in 1322 he received an increase of salary. Four years later Afonso IV sent him on a diplomatic mission to Edward II of England to negotiate a marriage between his daughter and the future Edward III which did not take place, and in 1337 he commanded the fleet which was defeated by the Castilians in a battle off Cape St. Vincent.

The admiral had brought over to Portugal members of leading Genoese families, and the first ocean voyage of which we have a record was probably carried out under their auspices. It took place in 1341 and its destination was the Canaries, which were known to the ancients as the Fortunate Islands and had been visited by the Lisbon wanderers, or Maghrurin from Moslem Spain, some time before the capture of Lisbon in 1147. In 1270 the Genoese Malocello rediscovered them and built a castle there, and the island which bears his name appears with the Genoese flag on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century maps. It is possible that he was followed by the brothers Vivaldi in 1291, for Petrarch refers to an armed Genoese fleet which had reached the group a generation before. According to the account of the poet Boccaccio,! based on letters of Florentine merchants at Seville, the expedition of 1341 consisted of two vessels supplied by the King of Portugal and

1 Printed several times and lastly by Signor R. Caddeo in Le navigazioni atlantiche di Alvise da Cd da Mosto (Milan, 1929).

a smaller vessel manned by: Florentines, Genoese, Castilians and other Spaniards. It was led by a Genoese, Niccoloso da Recco, and a Florentine, Angiolino de Corbizzi, and left Lisbon on 1 July. The little fleet carried horses, arms and warlike engines for storming towns and castles; it went in search of the islands, said to have been already found, and on the fifth day, with a favourable wind, land was seen.

Recco estimated that the islands were about 900 miles from the city of Seville. The first island appeared to be almost 150 miles in circumference. It was rough and stony, but full of goats and other animals, and the men and women were naked and savage in their habits. There the mariners obtained most of the skins that they took back, but they dared not penetrate into the interior. When they reached a larger island, a great multitude came down to the shore to meet them. Some, superior to the rest, were clothed in goats’ skins coloured yellow and red, and as far as could be seen from a distance, the skins were fine and soft and sewn with much art. To judge from their actions, these people seemed to have a ruler to whom they shewed respect. They evinced a desire to trade, and the smallest of the vessels drew near to the shore, but as the Europeans did not understand a word of the language, they dared not disembark. Some of the islanders, however, swam off to the ship and were seized and taken back to Europe. Rounding the island, the mariners found the northern part better cultivated than the southern. The houses were built of square stones with wonderful art, and covered with large and beautiful pieces of wood. Finding the doors shut, the mariners broke them open with stones, which so enraged the inhabitants that they filled the air with their cries. The houses were clean inside, as if they had been whitewashed. A little temple was also found, without any painting or other ornament except a stone statue of a man with a ball in his hand, who wore an apron of palm leaves.

This they seized and carried to Lisbon. On leaving this island they saw several others in the distance, ten, twenty and forty miles off, and went to a third where they found nothing but very lofty trees. Another contained many streams and excellent water, but as it was deserted they did not penetrate far into it. Next they saw an island with rocky mountains covered generally by clouds, but in clear weather it looked very beautiful and appeared to be inhabited. Afterwards they passed over to many other islands, some inhabited, others not. Five of the islands were thickly inhabited, and the languages of these people were so different that the inhabitants of one island did not understand those of another, and they had no ships or other means of intercommunication except by swimming. On a further island a marvellous thing appeared, a mountain which was thought to be 30,000 feet high, the whole of it rocky, with what looked like a white citadel on the top. They sailed round this island and, thinking it was an enchantment, dared not land. The islands were not rich, and the expense of the voyage was scarcely covered by what they took home. The four men whom they carried away were young and handsome. The island where they were captured was called Canary, the most populous of all, and the inhabitants were addressed in various languages, but understood none of them. They were robust, brave and seemed very intelligent; when spoken to by signs, they replied in the same manner like mutes; they sang sweetly and danced almost in the French manner; they were gay and agile, and more civilised than many Spaniards. When they came on board, they set themselves to eat figs and bread, which latter they consumed with relish, although they had never eaten it before; they refused wine and drank only water; they also ate wheat and barley as well as cheese and meat, which were abundant and of good quality. They gave evidence of great good faith and loyalty among themselves, for if one of them received anything to eat, before consuming it he divided it into equal portions and gave a share to each of his companions. The married women wore aprons like the men, but the maidens went naked and unashamed.!

The expedition returned in November, bringing with it, in addition to the four natives, a quantity of goatand sheep-skins, tallow, fish oil, red wood and the bark of trees for dyeing.

The account given by Boccaccio, though informing on the nature of the islands and their inhabitants, is silent on other points, and is evidently only a summary of the letters with important omissions. It is unfinished in the only MS. known and suggests many questions which it does not answer. Nevertheless Professor Sir C. R. Beazley is no doubt right in considering this military and exploring expedition as official and the first sent out by a European state.

It had no immediate sequel, probably because a claimant to the islands arose. By medieval law the Pope had the right to dispose of newly found and unoccupied lands, and on 15 November 1344 D. Luis de La Cerda, Count of Talmond and great-grandson of Afonso X of Castile, received from Pope Clement VI a grant of the Canaries under an annual tribute. The Pontiff

1 The islands visited are supposed to have been Fuerteventura, Grand Canary, Ferro, Gomera and Teneriffe, but eighteen in all are mentioned, and some writers think that the expedition also went to the Azores.

cautiously reserved the rights of third parties, and he wrote to various monarchs, including Afonso IV, asking them to assist the donee. In his reply the King of Portugal stated that his subjects had been the first to discover the islands and that he had intended to send another expedition to conquer them, but that wars with the Moors and Castile had prevented it. Some historians interpret this to mean that the first expedition took place previous to these wars; if so, the voyage of 1341 would be the second. Afonso felt himself aggrieved by the grant to D. Luis, considering that as he and his people had begun the conquest he should have been invited to complete it before others. However, he expressed his readiness to bow to the Papal decision. Notwithstanding this, documents exist to shew that King Fernando reasserted the Portuguese claim in 1370 by bestowing Lanzarote and Gomera on his admiral Lancarote de Franca, and as the natives and Castilians prevented the latter from taking possession, the King in 1376 gave him certain monopolies in Portugal while confirming him in the post of Captain of the same islands. In the fifteenth century, as we shall see, Prince Henry made many attempts to obtain possession of the whole group.

No record exists of ocean voyages during the second half of the fourteenth century, except to the Canaries, but it would be rash to conclude from the silence of the chroniclers that other voyages did not take place. These men made it their business to write of wars and other events touching kings and great lords.? Discovery and

1 These documents were first printed by Professor Fortunato de Almeida (Historia de Portugal, vol. iii, p. 759 et seq.). Doubts have been cast upon their genuineness by Snr. Alfonso de Dornellas, and the fact that they are not registered in the Torre do Tombo needs explanation. : 2 Zurara only recorded the voyages due to the initiative of Prince Henry.

trading ventures did not interest them, and if undertaken by private individuals would not be mentioned. But unless the voyages continued, the maritime activity displayed early in the fifteenth century and the enthusiasm with which Prince Henry and his followers devoted themselves to the work becomes the more remarkable.

Under Afonso IV, Manoel Pessanha was succeeded in the command of the galleys, or war fleet, by his sons, but the names of two more admirals appear, which indicates that the navy had increased. Under Pedro I, Langarote Pessanha led squadrons to the help of the King of Castile against Aragon in 1359 and 1364, and naus appear for the first time both in war and commerce; in the reign of Fernando they carry artillery. At the battle of Saltes in 1381, the Portuguese fleet consisted of twenty-one galleys, one galleot and four aaus. The expenditure of Fernando on warships and arsenals found adverse critics in the Cortes of 1372, but those of 1376 shewed interest in the development of the mercantile marine, and the Letter of Privileges he granted on 6 June 1377 seemed to have carried out the views then expressed. This document and the enactment creating a shipping company are matters of such consequence in Portuguese maritime history that they deserve to be described rather fully.

Lisbon was then a free port and as many as 400 or 500 vessels are said to have lain before the city at once, while 100 or 150 loaded salt and wine in the neighbourhood. These vessels were mostly owned by foreigners, and the Portuguese envied the profits made on their freights, while the King desired an increase of the merchant navy so that he could use it in time of war. His ordinance therefore provided that all

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who built ships of above 100 tons burden might cut and transport to Lisbon from the royal forests both wood and masts without payment. They were not to pay tithe on the material brought from abroad for constructing and equipping them, and the tithe due from those who bought vessels and from foreigners who sold them to his subjects was remitted. Moreover he made a present to the owners of the ships, on the first voyage they undertook with cargo from the realm, of all the dues on the merchandise they carried, whether it belonged to them or others. In addition, he gave them half the tithe on all the clothand wood brought from Flanders, France and elsewhere. Furthermore, he exempted them from the obligation to provide horses and do military service by sea or land, save with himself, and they were not to pay tribute, tallage nor excise, save in the work of the walls of the towns where they dwelt. If it happened that the ships which they built or bought perished on the first voyage, these privileges were to endure for the benefit of those who lost them for the three following years if they built or bought others, and as many times as they built or bought them; and if two in partnership built or bought any ship, both were to have these same favours.

Many took advantage of these privileges, according to Fernio Lopes, so that the land was better guarded and its natives became richer on account of the many cargoes that were carried, and as the King wished to increase the number of such ships and prevent ruin to their owners by their wreck, he decided upon the formation of a company to which all of them were to belong. A record was to be kept of all the decked vessels in the realm of above fifty tons, with the date on which they were built, the price they cost, their value and the

II day when they were launched.’ All the profit of these ships was to belong to their owners and mariners, who were to pay two crowns per cent to the purse of the company on all trading profits. The money so raised was to constitute an insurance fund for the benefit of the members, and the King framed detailed regulations to provide for the large variety of claims that might arise.

These regulations exercised an important influence on the formation of sea law in the Mediterranean! and later on, in 1474, similar privileges were granted to constructors of ships by Afonso V.

The navy suffered such losses of material and men in the wars of the reign of Fernando that it had to be entirely reconstituted by John I, a process which took many years. When the Castilian investment of Lisbon by land and sea seemed imminent, a squadron of twelve galleys and seven ships was hastily equipped in the Tagus and sent to Oporto lest it should be entrapped by the superior forces of the enemy, and in fact it left the river only just in time. It was reinforced by other vessels in the Douro, and seventeen galleys and the same number of ships were able to break through the Castilian blockade of the Tagus, though the enemy were in largely superior strength, and a few days later mustered sixty-one ships, sixteen galleys, one galleass and various carracks. When the King of Castile retired and the Master of Aviz was seeking an alliance with England, he equipped a fleet of six galleys and eleven ships to assist John of Gaunt in the prosecution of his claims to the throne of Castile. The ships were of unusual size and build, the galleys large and strong;

1 J. A. Goris, Les Colonies marchandes méridionales a Anvers de 1488 a 1567 (Louvain, 1925), p. 179. 12 the biggest had 300 rowers and the smallest 180. Later on, when the Duke of Lancaster left the Peninsula, he was taken to Bayonne by a Portuguese squadron. The truce of 1402 and the peace of 1411 were utilised to add considerably to the number of ships of the fighting and commercial marine, the latter being rendered necessary by the increase in trade; Portuguese vessels of relatively large tonnage transported wine to England and fetched cereals from Italy. Nevertheless when the expedition to Ceuta was being discussed, the King recognised that his naval resources were quite inadequate to transport the number of troops required and he was obliged to hire a large number of foreign vessels. The chronicler Zurara says that fifteen new galleys and fifteen foists were built in the Tagus, while the fleet organised in the Douro by Prince Henry consisted of seven galleys and various ships, but in a charter of King Duarte to Oporto it is stated that the city supplied seventy ships and darcas for the enterprise. The number is credible, for Oporto then enjoyed a primacy over other places in shipbuilding. According to Matthew of Pisa, author of the official chronicle of the expedition in Latin, the fleet for Ceuta numbered sixty-three ships, fifty-nine galleys and one hundred and twenty smaller vessels; a large proportion of them were hired foreign craft, and they included eight nausand two barcas from England and others from Biscay, Galicia and Flanders.! The hire of these foreign vessels was paid in salt, which, as we have seen, was one of the principal products of Portugal, and it was bought at a low price in Lisbon by the authorities. As in the time when Crusading fleets came and aided in the work of

1 Vide J. de Salas, Dos Cartas sobre la expedicion a Ceuta in O Instituto, vol, Ixxxi, p. 317. 13 reconquest against the Moors; so now contact with sailors from the Northern countries and from Galicia and Biscay must have taught the Portuguese useful lessons in the art of navigation, which with their native quickness and power of imitation they would easily learn, and it may have given some of them a stimulus to undertake voyages previously undreamt of.

From an inventory of the contents of the ship S. Christovam when it returned from Ceuta, we find that it had three compasses, which shews that when the voyages organised by Prince Henry were about to begin his vessels were prepared to sail out of sight of land. Compasses were in fact used in the Mediterranean at a much earlier period.

1 This and other details relating to naval matters are derived from Os Portugueses no mar by Snr. Quirino da Fonseca (Lisbon, 1926). The designations of the various types of vessels have generally been left in the original language, because Portuguese writers differ as to their meaning and a translation might therefore be erroneous.