Spanish and Portuguese Voyages

(Ralph Davis)

The Portuguese and Spaniards had constantly been in contact with the Atlantic waters and had more experience than any other European nation about the Atlantic islands. They were engaged in trade with Morocco and fished in the Atlantic. Their voyages did not go beyond the Sahara. The Sahara marked the limit of their regular voyaging.

They could not have gone further anyway because the ships and navigation of the time were not adequate to meet the problems entailed in long voyages down such a long coast such as that of Africa.

1291 and 1348 Italians and Catalans made failed attempts to sail further south.

The Canary Islands were discovered after 1400 and some Spaniards settled their as well. Soon the nation with humble backgrounds, Portugal with its adventurers and seamen was the one to explore the West African coast and settle their extensively and not the affluent Mediterranean traders.

Davis refutes the reasons given by others for the Portuguese engaging themselves in these explorations which are of political and technical nature. He says that there was a definite tension in Europe due to the Turkish expansions and threat to various east European nations and but these hardly influenced the Portuguese. In opposing the technical reasons he says that, the chronology of maritime innovation will not support the view that exploration began because the means to carry it out had ripened. On the contrary, technical innovation was called forth by the urgent needs of oceanic exploration after it had taken the decisive strides southwards.

He says that explorations began with quite primitive means with no navigational instruments beyond compass and log and ships which were not rigged in a way to face the wind systems of the Atlantic coast.There were decisive improvements in the ships and navigational methods in the middle of the 15th century when the Portuguese had already ventured south beyond Sahara coast. These improvements enabled explorations to penetrate farther but had no part in its commencement.

So Davis says that neither ideological crusading nor technical changes can account for the sudden 15th century achievement in exploration by a hitherto insignificant nation. Portugal was a poor and small country with a mountainous terrain.

The extent of the export trade in oil, cork, fruit, wax and honey and the need for corn fostered the growth of the Portuguese shipping industry. The economical craft which it used found favor with the merchants of the great Mediterranean trading cities-Genoa, Barcelona ,Florence-and were widely employed in their carrying out trade.

Portuguese fisheries were well developed and extended far beyond native waters to the North African and Irish coasts. Enterprise in Portugal was directed towards the sea and adequate resources existed not only for exploration but also for the vigorous exploitation of new discoveries whether on the African coast or Atlantic islands.

Portuguese urban and trading interests were so strong that in 1385 they even achieved some measure of political influence as well. Early 15th century Portugal therefore had a vigorous and large trading and shipping interest and weakened nobility.

Down to 1437 conquest and settlement pre-dominated in Portugal expansion.

  • In `1415,Morocco was invaded by the Portuguese but it proved to be economically fruitless.
  • 1420,The first Portuguese colonists landed in Madeira.
  • 1425-27, attempt at Canaries settlement.
  • 1425,Azores rediscovered and settled in 1430

It was only in 1434 that Cape Bojador was overcome and with this explorations achieved momentum. The overcoming of this barrier also brought about decisive changes to the Portuguese vessels and the lateen-rigged Caravel (usually identified as a perfect vessel for explorations) was evolved.

 i

The explorations paid off at last, trade in slaves started to flourish in the newly discovered lands beyond Cape Bojador.There was a rush to join in this slave trade. Numerous vessels from Portugal started to facilitate this trade in slaves and in 1448 the Portuguese found it necessary to build a fort on the island of Arguim to control the slave trade and was the center of their activities for a few years.

In 1475-79 Portugal began a systematic organization of African resources signalized by the building of a fort at Elmina on the Gold Coast to control operations in the richest center of the gold trade.

In the Treaty of 1479, following Portuguese wars with Castile, Castile acknowledged that west Africa was an entirely Portuguese sphere.The Gold trade was reserved to the crown and traders were allowed only under royal licenses.

The formerly poor and insignificant Portugal thus came under the eye of Europe with its flourishing trade in Gold,ivory and pepper. These products were brought to the European markets for the first time and drew the attention of wealthy outsiders.

The crowning achievement of the Portuguese in this period was however, the opening of the sea route to India.

Colombus(who discovered the Americas)a Genoese in the service of Spain owed everything to Portuguese methods and experience. Columbus owed all his useful background to Portugal where he first arrived through the accident of a shipwreck.

Castile was a much richer and larger state than Portugal.

(C.R.Boxer)

Prince Henry, The Navigator=Infante Dam Henrique

The main impulses behind what is known as the ‘age of discovery’ evidently came from a mixture of religious, economic, strategic, and political factors.

The four main motives which inspired the Portuguese leaders (whether kings, merchants, prince or nobles) were in chronological but in overlapping order and in varying degree

 1)crusading zeal against the Muslims

2)The desire for guinea gold

3)the quest for Prester John(The legends of Prester John (also Presbyter Johannes) were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient)

4)the search for oriental spices

The Portuguese captured Ceuta in 1415.It has been suggested that the fertile corn-growing region of the hinterland formed and attraction for the Portuguese, whose own country was even then normally deficient in cereals but a Muslim description of Ceuta states that the city had to import corn from elsewhere.

 Ceuta was likewise one of the terminal ports for the trans-sahara gold trade.

The capture of Ceuta enabled the Portuguese to obtain some information anout Negro lands of the Upper Niger and Senegal rivers where the gold came from.

The crusading impulse-which in so far as the Portuguese are concerned was exclusively directed against the Muslims of Morocco-and the search for Guinea gold were soon reinforced by the quest for Prester John.The legend of Prester John arose from a forged letter purporting to be from Prester John stating that he was a mighty Christian priest-king who could save Europe from the Muslim invaders.It was believd that if he was found and his support mustered then conquering the Moors would be an easy task.

The motivations behind the Portuguese discoveries is clearly apparent from the wording of the Papal Bulls which were precipitated during the lifetime of Prince Henry and his immediate successors. The three most important Bulls were the Dum diversas of 18 june 1452, the Romanus Pontifex of 8 January 1455,and the Inter Caetera of 13 March 1456.These Bulls dealt specifically with the Portuguese explorations and exhorted them to undertake more of those. Boxer has analyzed the bulls and they clearly mirror the spirit of the ‘age of discovery’. The cumulative effect of these Papal bulls was to give the Portuguese and in due course the other Europeans who followed them a religious sanction.

The Bulls also reflect the initiative taken by the crown of Portugal and by Prince Henry in directing and organizing the work of exploration,conquest,colonization and exploitation.

Madeira-Sugar production

Azores-Corn production

Feitoria –trading posts set up in west Africa by the Portuguese

What was perhaps of most consequence was that a great quantity of the Guinea gold which entered Lisbon and was there coined was re-exported to pay for corn and manufacture good which Portugal needed.

With the resources derived from the flourishing gold and slave trades with Guinea the Portuguese took up the search for Prester John.The Portuguese believed that it was somewhere beyond the river Nile.

The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and the discovery of a sea route to India by Vasco da gama got the Portuguese seriously interested (1480s) in the possibility of taping Asian spice trade at it source. Till then their relatively modest demand for Asian spice had been satisfied by those which they got from the Venetian who purchased them from the Muslim merchants of the Mamuleke empire in Egypt and Syria. Venetian-Mamuleke spice monopoly was thus broken by the Portuguese with the discovery of the spice mine that was Asia.

(J.H.Parry)

Aztecs

  • powerful empire in central Mexico
  • created the empire by conquering other civilizations
  • religion based on human sacrifice

Tenochtitlan

  • Aztec capital
  • located on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco
  • about 400,000 inhabitants in 1500
  • Mexico City is on the ruins of Tenochtitlan

Incas

  • powerful empire along the Pacific coast of South America (capital in modern-day Peru)
  • built beautiful cities in the Andes Mountains

Mayans

  • Located on the Yucatan Peninsula
  • No central government, made up of independent states.
  • Mayan land did not have many resources, Spain wanted additional workers for their other lands.
  • Some believe that the civilization collapsed because of a 200 year draught.

conquistadors

  • means conquerors
  • term for the Spanish explorers who conquered Native American civilizations
  • most important conquistadors:
  • Hernan Cortes- conquered the Aztec empire (1521)
  • Francisco Pizarro-conquered the Inca empire (1532)

Spanish Armada

  • largest naval fleet in the world
  • created to invade England and bring it back to Catholicism
  • about half the fleet was destroyed by the English navy and bad weather.
  • marked the decline of Spain and the rise of England

Line of Demarcation

  • established by the pope in 1493 to settle land disputes in newly discovered lands
  • Portugal got all land to the east of the line
  • Spain got all land to the west of the line
  • the line was moved several times by later treaties like:Treaty of Tordesillas gave Portugal more land.

(A random timeline from the Internet)

Famous Early Spanish Explorers (1492 – 1520)

1492: Christopher Columbus voyage to America, the New World, was financed by the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain

1492: Christopher Columbus visits the Dominican Republic, which he names Hispaniola ( translates as Little Spain)

1492: Haiti and Jamaica discovered by Christopher Columbus

1493: The island of Montserrat, in the Caribbean Sea, was named after the mountain by Christopher Columbus

1494: Spain and Portugal claimed the lands of the New World

1496: Spaniards set up first Spanish colony in the Dominican Republic and Santo Domingo was founded by Bartholomew Columbus, which subsequently served as the capital of all Spanish colonies in South America

1498: Christopher Columbus landed in Venezuela

1502: Columbus sails on his fourth and last voyage to the New World (Honduras and Panama)

1502: Spanish explorer Rodrigo de Bastidas visits Panama, which was home to Cuna, Choco, Guaymi and other indigenous peoples

1502: Christopher Columbus lands at “Cariari,” now known as Puerto Limon

1513: Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Spanish explorer, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and claimed the Pacific Ocean for Spain

1516: Juan Diaz de Solis became the first European to land in Uruguay

1517: Spanish expedition under Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba (1475-1526) lands on the Yucatan coast in Mexico

1519: Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) founds Veracruz in Mexico

1519: Cortes enters Tenochtitlan and captures Moctezuma II ( aka Montezuma ) in Mexico

Famous Spanish Explorers in the New World (1520 – 1570)

For specific facts and information about America please refer to Colonial America

1520: The Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led an expedition into Peru

1523: Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado led a Spanish expedition from Mexico and invaded Guatemala

1524: Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado lands in El Salvador in Guatamala

1525: Spain begins conquest of Puerto Rica (Rich Coast)

1528: Juan de Zumarraga (1468-1548) arrives as bishop of Mexico City and begins native conversion to Catholicism

1535: Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro overthrew the Incan Empire and Ecuador came under the rule of Spain

1535: The Spanish conquistadors colonize the area of Venezuela

1536: 1538 Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada (1509-1579) led an expedition into the Andes and obtained massive amounts of emeralds and gold in Colombia

1540: Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca was appointed governor of the Brazilian province of Rio de la Plata

1541: Pedro de Valdivia begins Spanish conquest of Chile and founds Santiago

1542: Spain invades Belize and conquest occurs

1545: The Spanish conquer Bolivia

1546: Rebellion and the Spanish are forced to leave Belize

1547: Cuba is colonised by the Spanish

1555: The Spanish claimed the Montserrat Islands

1561: Santa Cruz was founded by the Spaniard Nuflo de Chavez

1561: Spain’s Juan de Cavallon leads the first successful Costa Rican colonisers

1567: The Spanish re-conquest of Belize 

(Some stuff about Spain)

Modern Spain was originally composed of a number of independent kingdoms and it was not united until 1479 when both Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ascended to their thrones. Their marriage in 1469 joined together the royal houses of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon. Although Isabella was crowned queen of Castile in 1474 she had to fight a civil war to secure her throne. The entire kingdom finally came under her control in 1479. That same year, 1479, Ferdinand’s father King John II of Aragon died and the couple became the joint sovereigns of Aragon and Castile. Imperial Spain was born from this “Union of the Crowns.” This union was regarded as a union of equals although each kingdom preserved its own social, political, and economic realities according to its own unique history. Aragon was an empire in decline while Castile’s star was just beginning to rise under its energetic young queen. Isabella was a devout Christian and this religious conviction motivated her fanatic campaign to expel the Moors and Jews from Iberian and spread Christianity to the rest of the world. Ferdinand, on the other hand, focused on Aragon’s Italian possessions and a series of royal marriages with the other royal houses of Europe. Through Isabella and Ferdinand these two kingdoms would share the same foreign policy and become partners instead of rivals.

The proclamation of Isabella I of Castile jointly with her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, at that time king of Sicily, as kings of Castile drove to a war with Portugal solved with the Treaty of Alcáçovas (4 September 1479). The Portuguese gave up their claims to the Canary Islands but were secured in their sovereignty over Madeira, Azores and the Cape Verde islands, and over the trade of Guinea,[19] from the south of the Cape Bojador,