Prince Henry, known as the Navigator, was the third son of the Portuguese King Joao I. His interest in ocean exploration led him to two great ambitions: to make Portugal a great maritime power and to reach the riches of India, Malaya and beyond by sea.
Such a route had great importance for European merchants who were cut off from the land route to the fabulous riches of the East after 1453 when the Muslim Turks captured Constantinople, capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Prince Henry’s Explorations Under Way
By that time, Prince Henry’s explorations had been under way for many years. His searches began in 1418, when his first fleet sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean bound for the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira.
In the years that followed, Henry sent expedition after expedition with orders to sail round Cape Bojador. This, though, was a time when many people, particularly seamen, thought the Earth was flat and that to sail too far meant falling over the edge. This may have explained why all Prince Henry’s expeditions returned to Portugal with some excuse for not implementing his instructions.
In 1434, after fourteen failures, an exasperated Henry summoned the navigator Gil Eannes and told him that if he did not sail round Bojador, he need not bother to come back. Apparently spurred on by this threat, Eannes succeeded and found that the waters beyond Capt Bojador were “as easy to sail as the waters at home”.
The Portuguese, now emboldened, extended their explorations by 1436 as far as Rio de Oro. That same year, Prince Henry set up his headquarters at Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, the southernmost tip of Portugal. At Sagres, Henry gathered about him the best navigators, astronomers, mathematicians, geographers and shipwrights and trained navigators and seamen for future voyages.
Slaves and Gold Dust from the African Coast
After that, with each voyage, more and more of the African coast was explored. In 1441 an expedition reached Cape Blanco on the coast of Mauretania and brought back slaves and gold dust. With that, people in Portugal became much more interested in Henry’s work. With the money and help they offered him, he was able to fit out large fleets.
In 1446, Henry’s navigators explored as far as the mouth of the River Salum and got to within a few miles of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone itself was reached in 1460, the year Prince Henry died. Eleven years later, Portuguese sailors crossed the equator at the Gulf of Guinea.
Round Africa and into the Indian Ocean
Joao II, Henry’s great-nephew, who became King of Portugal in 1481 actively encouraged further explorations. In 1488, Bartholomeu Diaz rounded the extreme southern tip of Africa and entered the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, King Joao had sent other explorers overland. One of them was Pedro to Covilhao, a Portuguese Jew, who in 1487 reached Aden through Egypt and the Red Sea. Covilhao then sailed from Aden to Calicut (Kozhikode) and Goa on the west coast of India.
Together with the knowledge gained in the previous seventy years, the reports of Covilhao and Diaz made convincing proof that Prince Henry’s great dream was about to come true. All that was needed now was for a navigator to make the journey from Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, to the west coast of India. The man chosen for the task by Joao II was Vasco da Gama.
Vasco da Gama Sets Sail, Bound for India
On July 8, 1497, da Gama sailed from Lisbon but it took four months, until November 4, before his four ships reached St. Helena Bay, just north of the Cape of Good Hope. They left to sail round the Cape twelve days later.
The Portuguese ships had to fight strong headwinds, and it was November 22 before the plains of southern Africa fell away behind them. Da Gama sailed on up the east African coast but found the Muslim inhabitants of Malindi (Kenya) very unfriendly. They were so hostile that da Gama had to force the sultan to give him pilots who could guide him across the Indian Ocean.
Completing the Historical Voyage
It was April 24, 1498 before the Portuguese were able to depart Malindi. Four weeks of ocean voyaging passed before the west coast of India appeared on the horizon. But at last, on May 20, over ten months after leaving Lisbon, the Portuguese reached India and Vasco da Gama went ashore at Calicut, where he founded a trading post.
Da Gama arrived back in Portugal in September 1499 and was given a hero’s welcome. He was awarded the title Admiral of the Indian Seas and was raised to the Portuguese nobility as a Dom or Lord. He was also made Count of Vidigueira, a title specially created for him by the Portuguese king.
Sources
Rutsala, David The Sea Route to Asia: The Adventures of the Portuguese Explorers, from Prince Henry the Navigator to Bartholomeu Dias and Vasco De Game (Exploration & Discovery) ( Mason Crest, 2002) ISBN-10: 1590840461/ISBN-13: 978-1590840467
Carreiro, Carlos, Portugal's Golden Years: The Life and Times of Prince Henry "The Navigator" (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co. Inc., 2006) ISBN-10: 0805968547/ISBN-13: 978-0805968545
Website: European Voyages of Exploration: Introduction
Brenda Ralph Lewis - My interest in history dates from childhood. I am presently the author of 120 books and hundreds of articles, all on historical ...
