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Portugal Early Voyages
Portugal's maritime expansion began in 1415 when João I
seized Ceuta in Morocco, the western depot for the spice
trade.
The military campaign against Ceuta was launched for
several
reasons. First, war in Morocco was seen as a new crusade
against
the Muslims that would stand Portugal well with the
church.
Second, there was a need to suppress Moroccan pirates who
were
threatening Portuguese ships. Third, the Portuguese wanted
the
economic benefit that controlling Ceuta's vast market
would bring
to the crown. Finally, the campaign against Ceuta was seen
as
preparatory to an attack on Muslims still holding Granada.
The
possession of Ceuta allowed the Portuguese to dominate the
Straits of Gibraltar.
After the conquest of Ceuta, Prince Henry the
Navigator, who
had participated in the campaign as an armed knight,
settled at
Sagres on the extreme end of Cape St. Vincent, where in
1418 he
founded a naval school. He continued to direct Portugal's
early
maritime activity. As the master of the Order of Christ,
Prince
Henry was able to draw on the vast resources of this group
to
equip ships and pay the expenses of the early maritime
expeditions. Prince Henry was motivated by scientific
curiosity
and religious fervor, seeing the voyages as a continuation
of the
crusades against the Muslims and the conversion of new
peoples to
Christianity, as well as by the desire to open a sea route
to
India.
Shortly after establishing his school, two of Prince
Henry's
captains discovered the island of Porto Santo, and the
following
year the Madeira Islands were discovered. In 1427 Diogo de
Silves, sailing west, discovered the Azores archipelago,
also
uninhabited. Both Madeira and Porto Santo were colonized
immediately and divided into captaincies. These were
distributed
to Prince Henry's captains, who in turn had the power to
distribute land to settlers according to the Law of the
Sesmarias.
Prince Henry's plan required the circumnavigation of
Africa.
His early voyages stayed close to the African coast. After
repeated attempts, Gil Eanes finally rounded Cape Bojador
on the
west coast of Africa in present-day Western Sahara in
1434, a
psychological, as well as physical, barrier that was
thought to
be the outer boundary of the knowable world. After passing
Cape
Bojador, the exploration of the coast southward proceeded
very
rapidly. In 1436 Gil Eanes and Afonso Baldaia arrived at
the
Senegal River, which they called the River of Gold when
two
Africans they had captured were ransomed with gold dust.
In 1443
Nuno Tristão arrived at the Bay of Arguin off the coast of
present-day Mauritania. These voyages returned African
slaves to
Portugal, which sparked an interest in the commercial
value of
the explorations, and a factory was established at Arguin
as an
entrepôt for human cargo. In 1444 Dinis Dias discovered
the Cape
Verde Islands, then heavily forested, and Nuno Tristão
explored
the mouth of the Senegal River. In 1445 Cape Verde was
rounded,
and in 1456 Portuguese arrived at the coast of present-day
Guinea. The following year, they reached present-day
Sierra
Leone. Thus, when Prince Henry died in 1460, the
Portuguese had
explored the coast of Africa down to Sierra Leone and
discovered
the archipelagoes of Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape
Verde
Islands.
Data as of January 1993
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