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In 1297, with the reconquista completed, king Dinis of Portugal took personal interest in exports and in 1317 he made an agreement with Genoese merchant sailor Manuel Pessanha (Pesagno), appointing him first Admiral of the Portuguese navy, with the goal of defending the country against Muslim pirate raids.[27] Outbreaks of bubonic plague led to severe depopulation in the second half of the 14th century: only the sea offered alternatives, with most population settling in fishing and trading coastal areas.[28] Between 1325 and 1357 Afonso IV of Portugal encouraged maritime commerce and ordered the first explorations.[29] The Canary Islands, already known to Genoese, were claimed as officially discovered under patronage of the Portuguese but in 1344 Castile disputed them, expanding their rivalry into the sea.[30][31] In 1415, Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese aiming to control navigation of the African coast. Young prince Henry the Navigator was there and became aware of profit possibilities in the Trans-Saharan trade routes. For centuries slave and gold trade routes linking West Africa with the Mediterranean passed over the Western Sahara Desert, controlled by the moors of North Africa. Henry wished to know how far Muslim territories in Africa extended, hoping to bypass them and trade directly with West Africa by sea, find allies in legendary Christian lands to the south[32] like the long-lost Christian kingdom of Prester John[33] and to probe whether it was possible to reach the Indies by sea, the source of the lucrative spice trade. He invested in sponsoring voyages down the coast of Mauritania, gathering a group of merchants, shipowners and stakeholders interested in new sea lanes. Soon the Atlantic islands of Madeira (1419) and Azores (1427) were reached. In particular, they were discovered by voyages launched by the command of Prince Henry the Navigator. The expedition leader himself, who established settlements on the island of Madeira, was João Gonçalves Zarco.[34] At the time, Europeans did not know what lay beyond Cape Non (Cape Chaunar) on the African coast, and whether it was possible to return once it was crossed.[35] Nautical myths warned of oceanic monsters or an edge of the world, but Prince Henry's navigation challenged such beliefs: starting in 1421, systematic sailing overcame it, reaching the difficult Cape Bojador that in 1434 one of Prince Henry's captains, Gil Eanes, finally passed. A major advance was the introduction of the caravel in the mid-15th century, a small ship able to sail windward more than any other in Europe at the time.[36] Evolved from fishing ships designs, they were the first that could leave the coastal cabotage navigation and sail safely on the open Atlantic. For celestial navigation the Portuguese used the Ephemerides, which experienced a remarkable diffusion in the 15th century. They were astronomical charts plotting the location of the stars over a distinct period of time. Published in 1496 by the Jewish astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician Abraham Zacuto, the Almanach Perpetuum included some of these tables for the movements of stars.[37] These tables revolutionized navigation, allowing to calculate latitude. Exact longitude, however, remained elusive, and mariners struggled to determine it for centuries.[38][39] Using the caravel, systematic exploration continued ever more southerly, advancing on average one degree a year.[40] Senegal and Cape Verde Peninsula were reached in 1445 and in 1446, Álvaro Fernandes pushed on almost as far as present-day Sierra Leone. In 1453 the fall of Constantinople to the hands of the Ottomans was a blow to Christendom and the established business relations linking with the east. In 1455 Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Romanus Pontifex reinforcing previous Dum Diversas (1452), granting all lands and seas discovered beyond Cape Bojador to king Afonso V of Portugal and his successors, as well as trade and conquest against Muslims and pagans, initiating a mare clausum policy in the Atlantic.[41] The king, who had been inquiring Genoese experts about a seaway to India, commissioned then Fra Mauro world map, which arrived in Lisbon in 1459.[42] In 1456 Diogo Gomes reached the Cape Verde archipelago. In the next decade several captains at the service of Prince Henry - including the Genoese Antonio da Noli and Venetian Alvise Cadamosto - discovered the remaining islands which were occupied still during the 15th century. The Gulf of Guinea would be reached in the 1460s's. Portuguese exploration after Prince Henry In 1460 Pedro de Sintra reached Sierra Leone. Prince Henry died in November that year after which, given the meager revenues, exploration was granted to Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes in 1469, who in exchange for the monopoly of trade in the Gulf of Guinea had to explore 100 miles (161 kilometres) each year for five years.[43] With his sponsorship, explorers João de Santarém, Pedro Escobar, Lopo Gonçalves, Fernão do Pó, and Pedro de Sintra made it even beyond the hired. They reached the southern Hemisphere and the islands of the Gulf of Guinea, including São Tomé and Príncipe and Elmina on the Gold Coast in 1471. In the Southern hemisphere, they used the Southern Cross as the reference for celestial navigation. There, a thriving alluvial gold trade was found among the natives and Arab and Berber traders and in 1481, the recently crowned João II decided to build São Jorge da Mina factory. In 1482 the Congo River was explored by Diogo Cão,[44] who in 1486 continued to Cape Cross (modern Namibia). The next crucial breakthrough was in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, which he named "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas), anchoring at Mossel Bay and then sailing east as far as the mouth of the Great Fish River, proving that the Indian Ocean was accessible from the Atlantic. Simultaneously Pêro da Covilhã, sent out traveling secretly overland, had reached Ethiopia having collected important information about the Red Sea and Quenia coast, suggesting that a sea route to the Indies would soon be forthcoming.[45] Soon the cape was renamed by king John II of Portugal "Cape of Good Hope" (Cabo da Boa Esperança), because of the great optimism engendered by the possibility of a sea route to India, proving false the view that had existed since Ptolemy that the Indian Ocean was land-locked. |
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