European Exploration of the North Atlantic 900-1535
Peter Higgs
4 June 2022
“In the year 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean blue......” So goes the educational rhyme for American children.
Christopher Columbus, or Cristoferens Colon according to his signature, was, by popular consensus, the
discoverer of a continent once unknown to Europeans.
After years of virtual exile, side-lined by the Castilian state with which he entered into dispute, surpassed as
an admired discoverer by Magalhães and Elcano, Vespucci, Verazzano and Cabot, his notoriety as the first
European to arrive in the Americas was restored in the 19th century for North Americans and, by osmosis,
for the rest of the world, emphasised by the popular writer Walt Whitman. (1)
Noble David Cook, Emeritus Professor of History at Florida International University in his essay “The
Columbian Exchange” acknowledged that there were transatlantic voyages before 1492. (2)
Mark Kurlansky, in his fascinating book “Cod.” writes, referring to Basque fishermen in Cape Breton “During
the fifteenth century, most Atlantic fishing communities believed that they had (visited North American
waters). But without physical proof, many historians are sceptical, just as they were about the Viking travels
to North America”. (3)
Especially before the 16th century, very little surviving official documentation existed that recounted the
exploits of sea travellers, merchants or fishermen. Many were simple people, whose activities and lives were
of little interest to those who controlled official records.
Many were illiterate. Several did not return to tell their story or returned and kept silent for various reasons
or simply for lack of audience.
Also, entire libraries disappeared, notably the Portuguese royal libraries. The editors of Monumenta
Henricina lamented the loss of “the personal archive of Infante Dom Henrique, that of the Ancient
Chancellery of the Military Order of Christ, that of the Casa de Guinee and Mina, as well as entire volumes
.... of the Royal Chancelleries” (4)
Jaime Cortesão lamented: “All those who tried to reconstruct with scientific rigor the time of the great
discoveries, encounter the greatest and sometimes insurmountable difficulties…. The clear and unavoidable
insufficiency of the official chronicles”. (5)
Kurlansky stated “many historians are sceptical, just as they were about the Viking travels to North America.”
How so? The Islendingasogur, the Vinland sagas etc., describe in great detail the history of Norselanders in
Atlantic waters. They are essentially stories retained in collective memory, written down and kept for
centuries, but generally ignored by the rest of the world until the 20th century.
There are other, mainly secondary, records: in the United Kingdom, in the Azores, in Germany and
Scandinavia and in Italy, etc. of varying quality, veracity and origin, of Atlantic lands seen or visited over the
centuries.
There are also legends. Stories of lands, people and exploits that are typically a combination of collectively
memorized facts, often related verbally, and jingoistic or bombastic embellishment.
Let us consider the legend of Markland and the legend of the Seven Cities.
In 1345, Friar Galvaneus Flamma in Milan recorded that some sailors from Genoa told him about a land called
Marckalada or Markaland. They heard about this land from Scandinavian fellow mariners. The priest's
document was discovered in 2013 by Professor Paulo Chiesa. (6)
We now know that Markland corresponds to Labrador and Newfoundland and is well recorded in the sagas.
But for the priest and most other Europeans in 1345 the story would be nothing more than legend in spite
of the fact that at the time there were records in Iceland of several voyages there over the decades.
The story of the Seven Cities describes a large island in the Atlantic, called by some the Antilles ("the land in
front”) ... in front of what was supposed to be Cathay.
The island appears, in the form of a slice of bacon, on various cartographic maps. See below excerpts from
maps of Andrea Bianco of 1436, of Bartolomeu Pareto of 1455, of Albino Capeta of 1489 and of Martim
Behaim of 1493.
The legend dates originally from Mediterranean sources of the time of the Roman Empire, but the first
written reference would seem to be from 750 AD from the city of Porto Cale written by an unknown cleric.
This version of the legend is reproduced in the poma mundi (Erdapfel) attributed to Martim Behaim in 1493
where he reproduced exactly the same slice of bacon and wrote in German: “In the year of Christ 734, when
all Hispania has been taken by the infidels of Africa, the island above called Sete Cidades was inhabited by
an archbishop of Porto in Portugal, with six other bishops and other Christian men and women, who had fled
Hispania by boat with their cattle and their belongings and goods. In 1414 a Hispanic ship will have come
close without encountering danger”. (7)
In this essay we undertake to inventory and to evaluate some of these stories, legends and records, to
paint a historical picture of the European affluence in the North Atlantic, from the first voyages of which
there is any record or evidence until the colonial era.
The current or modern version of the discovery of the New World, which emerged in the 20th century, is of
a North Atlantic visited initially by Vikings who discovered the New World and then for some reason
abandoned it and forgot about it, leaving it to be rediscovered by Columbus in 1492.
It is our thesis that well before the Viking langskip's first visit to the New World, there was a sporadic but
continuous European influx into the North Atlantic. And that the Ocean and its “islands and lands” were
known, perhaps poorly or only vaguely, but unknown and forgotten never.
We will examine this issue in the following headings:
1. Ocean currents
2. The Irish and Scots
3. The Norse
4. The Merchants of Bristol (Chapter 1)
5. The Knights of Infante Dom Henrique
6. The Luso-Scandinavian initiative
7. The Flemish and Germans
8. The Merchants of Bristol (Chapter 2) The Italians
9. The Merchants of Bristol (Chapter 3) The Anglo-Azorean Consortium
10. The French
11. A puzzle still unsolved
1. Ocean currents
European vessels, prior to the 15th century when the Arabian triangular sail was adapted to design the socalled Latin sail, were effectively obliged to follow the available ocean currents and winds – a kind of oceanic
expressway.
In the case of the North Atlantic there are two currents that run in opposite directions: The Gulf Stream
further south (see map) is mainly driven by the wind, while the North Atlantic Current is driven by
thermohaline gradients.
The Labrador Current runs from north of Iceland to the west, washing the coasts from Greenland to Baffin
and Labrador and from there down to Newfoundland and New England. Off the coast of the Carolinas, it
descends to a depth that no longer assists the sailor.
The North Atlantic currents: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Off the coast of New England this current runs parallel to the Golf Stream, but in the opposite direction. The
Gulf Stream flows northwards from the equatorial waters to the Gulf of Mexico, Florida then heads to the
west of the Azores where it splits in two. The North Atlantic Current rises to the North and eventually cools
down and becomes the Greenland / Labrador Current, turning to the West. The other branch of the Gulf
Stream turns south east. We call this the North Atlantic Gyre that flows along the African coast to the south
without cooling down.
So, any sailor, even without a sail, could let himself be driven from the north of Europe to the West, provided
he was willing to brave the icy seas of the North. (And any European sailor could let himself be driven along
the coast of West Africa to the south, as did the envoys of Infante Dom Henrique.) On the other hand, any
sailor who wished to sail due West from the Azores or North along the coast of Guiné and Morocco would
(and did) encounter difficulty
The sailor who follows the northern, Greenland, route, when arriving in the seas of the American continent,
could allow himself to drift back towards Europe, via the seas of the Azores, catching the current off New
England.
Those who intend to visit Florida or the islands of the Caribbean can simply take, further south, the Gulf
Stream in both directions. (As Colon did).
So, it is easy to understand how the langskips, equipped with a single square sail, full of hardy men
accustomed to the cold, even with little use of their oars, could visit the Shetland Islands, Orkney, Iceland,
Greenland, Baffin and proceed through Markland and Vinland in trips measured in days. We will report some
of these trips in section #3.
And the history of European discoveries would be incomplete without considering the involuntary voyages
by sailors driven in bad weather by the currents. Giovanni Batista Ramúsio in his work Navigationi et Viaggi,
published in 1550, writes (translated from his original) “So conditions exist in geography which allow a ship
to be swept along and travel through this area on the coast of America since, occasionally, nautical
insufficiency could abandon the ships to the strength of the natural agents” (9).
Letters accompanying Zeno's 14th-century map read: "The fishing boat Frize was swept west by a storm and
reached a land called Estotiland, whose inhabitants traded with "Engroenlandt". This Estotiland was very
fertile and had mountains in the interior. The king of this land had books written in Latin, but he could not
read them. The language used by him and his subjects did not resemble that of the Vikings” (10). For decades
Estotiland appears on cartographic maps, usually north of Labrador. (11)
The Norse discovery of the American continent resulted from an episode of this kind in the year 986 AD. (See
below #3), as well as the Portuguese discovery of Madeira. (see below #5)
How many sailors were driven by the elements to unknown lands and could not return or returned and left
only an oral record of the episode?
2. The Irish and Scots
Recent laboratory studies (“carbon dating”), published in the journal Skirnir, suggest that Iceland was
colonized in the second half of the 7th century, initially by Irish and Scots. The Islendingabók records that the
first Norse settlers of Iceland found a Gaelic monastic colony already established there. There is also evidence
of this colony in the Kverkarhellir cave, discovered in the farm called Seljaland in the south of the island.
There are archaeological indications that there were inhabitants there in the year +- 800, and Christian
crosses of the Hiberno-Scottish style carved on the walls of caves. (12)
DNA studies reveal strong Irish genes in the people of Iceland, but this has nothing to do with these settlers:
it is known that the Vikings, on their way to Iceland, supplied themselves with concubines kidnapped from
Ireland. (13)
So, were there already Irish settlers in Iceland when the Norse arrived? We know that the Irish visited the
Faroes as early as the 6th century. The Irish monk Dicuil wrote in 825, in “De Mensura Orbis Terrae” that
“There are many islands in the sea north of the British Isles, which can be reached in a voyage of two days
and two nights with a high sail and a good wind”, probably referring to the Faroes and Orkneys, inhabited by
Irish and Picts before invaded by Norse. However, he also tells how they got to “Thule” (Iceland). (14)
This Irish presence is confirmed by the sagas: “There were Christians here that the Norwegians called papar
(= priests) who later left, because they could not live with pagans, but left books, bells and crosses, from
which we can confirm that they were Irish”. The Landnámabók saga adds: “they were found in the East in
Papey and Papyli”. (This toponymy “Papey” still exists in Iceland.) The Irish presence is proof of the ease of
navigating the North Atlantic currents, as it is likely that they sailed in coracles, small rowing boats, much
more primitive and insecure than the Norse langskips. (15)
In this section we cannot ignore the legend of St. Brendan. The island of S. Brendan is a mythical island
supposedly visited by the Irish bishop St. Brendan and a contingent of monks in 512 AD. They stayed a year.
In Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, the monk Barino also said that he had visited the place, which was
mountainous and wooded, always sunny, with abundant flora, fruit and plenty of fresh water. (16)
In Ebstorf's Planisphere of 1234, Marcos Martinez refers to the lost island of S. Brendan, admitting that no
one else had seen it. (17)
Colon says in his diary that the inhabitants of Ferro and Gomera (Canary Islands) claim that every year they
see land to the west. Subsequently, expeditions were sent to look for it. The Dutchman Van Linschoten
writes, in 1589, of this beautiful lost land called "San Borondon" one hundred leagues west of the Canary
Islands. Its inhabitants are said to be Christians, but it is not known what nation they are from, nor what
language they speak; The same island, which sometimes appears close to the Canaries, but moves away
when trying to approach it, still lives in Spanish folklore under the name of "San Morondon"”. (18)
The legend appears in several poems and tales during the Middle Ages, romanticized by various authors. The
island was still represented on cartographic maps in the 15th century, including Martim Behaim's Erdapfel.
Is it a true episode and location? It is always possible that the stories refer to some island that is now more
than known, but not identified with the island of the legend, perhaps S. Miguel or Santa Maria or even one
of the Canaries, but we will probably never know.
In 1976, an archaeologist Claus Andreason, working at Nipaatsoq in Greenland, on the site of a XIV th. century
settlement, found a shield with a coat of arms that closely matches that of the Scottish Campbell family of
1330. Kirsten Seaver concludes that expeditions from Scotland to Greenland, with the blessing of King
Magnus, who wanted gyrfalcons that the Norse in Greenland no longer sent, took place around from 1335.
As she put it, "for one sailing the icy waters of the Northern Islands, a voyage to Iceland or Greenland was
nothing special." (30)
3. The Norse
The Norse expanded their territory into the lands visited by the icy currents of the North Atlantic and
Labrador, establishing colonies in the Faroes and Orkneys, Iceland and Greenland and it is generally accepted
today that they were the first Europeans to visit America.
This expansion began in the mid-9th century, caused by population and political instability in Scandinavia.
They arrived in Iceland in 860, completing their settlement by the year 930. (19)
By 975, the island was overpopulated and the people were starving. Eric (the Red) after a dispute, went in
search of lands that he had heard of to the West and he discovered Greenland. An expedition was organized
and in 978 colonization began. (20)
This colony consisted of two settlements with a total of up to 4500 souls, on the east and west sides. One of
these disappeared in the middle of the 14th century and the one in the East held out for a few more decades.
There are several theories regarding the collapse of the colony, but the most credible is that it was caused
by a climate change (cold and drought) that has been confirmed by meteorological science (21)
In 986, a sailor by the name of Bjarni Herjolffson was caught in bad weather on his way from Iceland to
Greenland and found himself in a strange and very different place from the Greenland he knew. From the
climate he judged himself to be far south in a land with great forests. As he returned home along the coast,
the terrain changed; trees were replaced by tundra and then glaciers. (22)
He had apparently discovered Markland. It took a decade before the first expedition was organized to follow
up on his sighting and it was Leif Erickson (son of Eric the Red) who set sail to the West and, passing by the
ice and tundra (=Baffin island) arrived in the place with the magnificent trees (=Markland, which Bristol
merchants later named Labrador as we will see in section #9). Leif Erickson was thus the first transatlantic
traveller. (23)
Karlsene, Snorre and Bjarnne, from Leif Erikson's entourage, travelled further south along the coast. The tale
of this story in the saga describes the first recorded encounter between the inhabitants of the two
continents. The travellers left Furoustrandir* for the South and: “They sailed for a long time and came to a
river, which descended from the interior to a lake and from there to the sea. There were large sandbars at
the mouth of the river, and you could only enter at high tide. Karlsevne and his people then sailed to the
mouth of the river and called the place a 'hop' [i.e., a small enclosed bay]. There they found self-seeding
wheat fields where the land was low, but vines wherever they saw higher land. Every stream was full of fish.
They dug trenches on the coast below the high tide mark, and when the tide went out, there was halibut in
the trenches. In the forest there were a lot of animals of all kinds. They stayed there for half a month enjoying
themselves, not suspecting a thing. They had their cattle with them. But early one morning, when they looked
around them, they saw nine boats of hide and wooden poles were being shaken in the hide canoes (huckeipa)
and they made a noise like threshing and followed the path of the sun. Karlsevne's men took this as a sign of
peace and held up a white shield to them. Then the strangers rowed towards them, and pondered, and
disembarked. There were small [or dark?] and ugly men, and they had ugly hair on their heads; their eyes
were large, and they were wide in the cheeks. And they stayed there for some time, assessing the situation,
and then they rowed to the south of the headland.”
The visitors then built houses in the recently rediscovered village of Anse aux Meadows Newfoundland (24)
*Furoustrandir corresponds to the north bank of the mouth of the St. Laurent. Helluland, Markland and
Furoustrandir were mentioned for the first time in 13th century writings, Vinland as early as the 12th century.
(25)
A map showing the Norse and current toponymies produced by Fridtjof Nansen. The Norse names are in
Italics.
Several expeditions followed, all well-reported in the sagas, some involving sporadic skirmishes with the
Skraeling (probably Beothuk or MicMac) The first notable to be killed was Thorvald, Leif's brother. This
constant threat of war with the Skraeling, and apparently a cooling of the climate, proved enough for the
Norse to abandon the colony.
In 1267, Bjorn Jóhnson made a trip to North Greenland to investigate “the Northern extent of the Eskimos”
taking 4 days by rowing to reach what we now call Melville Bay. (27)
There were more expeditions to Markland, until the disappearance of the colonies in Greenland, mainly to
gather wood, but from the late 14th century for several decades, Greenland was not inhabited by Norse,
who never attempted again to colonize Markland. (26)
However, in 1472 or 4, King Christian I of Kalmar, who was in the process of resolving a dispute with England,
mounted, with the help of his cousin and friend King Alfonso V of Portugal, an expedition to the northern
islands. In the aftermath of this expedition, he placed in Iceland two trusted strongmen Didrick Pyning and
Thorleif Bjornsson. We will discuss this event in section #6.
The celebrated Canadian historian H.P. Biggar claimed that during the 15th century there were many Norse
expeditions to Greenland. (28).
In 1519 the Pope issued a Bull naming Vinzente Pedersen Bishop of Greenland (Garoar) and authorized
Christian II to arm a large fleet to: "reconquer Garoar from the heathen", clearly a crusade. (29)
4. Bristol merchants. (Chapter 1)
The first record of an English boat visiting Iceland was in 1412 (31) although it is quite possible that there
were previous visits, mainly looking for stocfis (cod) the extension of an already established trade between
Bristol and Bergen. This trade continued sporadically until 1450 when King Christian I of the Kalmar Republic,
financially depleted, ordered that any English or Irish ships sailing to Iceland be subject to confiscation.
However, the British ignored this decree and in December of the same year King Henry VI granted William
Canynge of Bristol a license to trade with Finland (which was not part of Kalmar) and Iceland. King Christian
acceded. Canynge took great advantage of this license and when he retired in 1467, as Mayor of Bristol and
the richest man in the city, he left a veritable maritime merchant empire. English sailors until the 1470's were
well acquainted with the North Atlantic routes and while Scandinavia, including Iceland, was experiencing a
period of instability and famine, and Greenland had been abandoned, English merchants flourished. (32)
Later, in competition with the Iberian powers, they searched for the islands and lands of Scandinavian,
Portuguese and Italian legends with the help of adventurous navigators such as Giovanni Caboto and João
Fernandes. We shall revisit them in sections #8 & #9
5. The Knights of Infante Dom Henrique
In August 1415, King D. João I of Portugal and Infante (=Prince) Dom Henrique took the city of Ceuta in
Morocco. This invasion was the first event in a campaign of territorial expansion that was a continuation of
the intuitive process of national consolidation and included, with the blessing of a succession of popes, the
subjugation of non-Christian peoples and the absolute possession of their lands.
It is noteworthy that among the heroes of the battle, recorded by Zurara, was Vasqueannes Corte Real. He
became patriarch of the pioneer family that later explored the American continent. (33).
The consolidation of the Portuguese presence in North Africa took some time and substantial resources.
However, the energy of Infante Dom Henrique and his passion for his enterprise motivated him to send
knights / captains in search of new “yhlas e terras” (= islands and continents). (34)
The Canaries, “The Fortunate Islands” or “Al-Halidat” Islands (= “Eternal”) for the Muslims, were known
before the sec. XIV, but they were not part of the routes contemplated by the Europeans. The Genovese
Vivaldi brothers are thought to have embarked on a voyage of discovery and colonization in 1291, but
disappeared. (35)
Between 1310 and 1336 another Genovese, Lanzarote Malocello, visited the islands, one of which appears
in the final version of Dulcert's cartographic map with his name, the name that survives to this day.
A Bull of November 1344 consecrated the islands as the property of Castile, but King Afonso IV of Portugal
complained, arguing geographical and historical priority. (36) There are indications of an unsuccessful
expedition of conquest led by Lançarote de França, a knight of the house of D. Fernando of Portugal in the
1370’s. (37)
In May 1402, Jean de Béthancourt, a Norman, visited the islands and he and his companions, with settlers,
built the castle of Rubicon. He persuaded the King of Castile to grant him governorship of the islands which
he later granted in turn to Maciot his son. In 1424, a Portuguese fleet commanded by Fernando de Castro
made an invasion attempt that failed and in 1447 the Infante Dom Henrique bought the island of Lanzarote
from Maciot. The Crown of Castile complained about the illegality of this sale and, to avoid a disproportionate
war, the Infante backed down. (38)
From then on Portugal made no further attempt to claim the archipelago that remained under Castilian rule
with the systematic Christianization and/or extermination of the indigenous population, as described in João
de Barros, book I of the Decada I, as Canarias. (39)
In 1497 Portugal and Castile sign the treaty of Alcáçovas, which marked the end of a war of succession in
which Alfonso V gave up any claim to the throne of Castile. As part of the treaty, Portugal was guaranteed
hegemony over its discoveries and conquests in Madeira, Guinee, Mina, Cape Verde, etc. while the Castilian
hegemony over the Canary Islands was also consolidated. (40)
On 25 May 1420 King D. João I had requested Pope Martin V to grant Infante Dom Henrique the governance
and authority over the Portuguese Military Order of Christ, a rebadging of the Portuguese Templars, with the
specific justification that this concentration of power would be necessary to continue the crusade against
the infidel in lands outside Europe. (41)
In 1418 two squires of the Infante, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Teixeira had found the archipelago of
Madeira, without inhabitants. “And, by the addition of the Order of Christ, whose governor and leader he
was at the time of the said community, he gave the said Order all the spiritual of the island of Madeira and
Porto Santo and all the spiritual and temporal of the other islands, of which he made commander, Gonçalo
Velho.”
It is significant that this episode is ANOTHER example of a vessel driven by currents and bad weather,
resulting in the discovery of something unexpected (42) In this case however, the existence of this
archipelago was already known, as it appeared on cartographic maps almost a century before, but no one
had attempted to populate it. Infante Dom Henrique ordered the settlement to begin almost immediately.
In the Letter of Donation of the Islands to the Order of Christ, he writes: “I started populating my island of
Madeira in the year XXXB, and even that of Porto Santo and .... Deserta....”, which would indicate the year
1425. (43)
João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão were appointed captain-donees of Madeira after the discovery of the
Azores.
The knight of Lombard origin, Bartolomeu Perestrelo, was appointed captain-donee of Porto Santo, a
poisoned gift because his and his companions' inability to extract wealth from that rock led the family to
penury. After his death in 1457, the family, in despair, sold the captaincy to Pedro Correia da Cunha, for
300,000 reais plus 30,000 per year. It was recovered in 1473 by royal decree. In 1478, his daughter Filipa
Moniz Perestrelo who had been consigned to a monastry as was typical in the case of the female of-spring
of impoverished nobility, married Cristofer Colon, known to posterity as Christopher Columbus. (44)
This marriage has generated some controversy among historians, which will not be discussed in this essay.
In 1442, D. Henrique supplicated Pope Eugene IV, who issued the Bull Etsi Suscepti consecrating to the
Order of Christ the spiritual guardianship of the lands south of Bojador, initiating a collaboration of the
papacy with the process of discoveries and effectively naming the Infante as supreme commander of this
process. From that moment on, the Portuguese enterprise of discovery and expansion was armed with
leadership and a moral and ethical framework that led to the successes that we still consider extraordinary
today. (45)
Unlike Porto Santo, the island of Madeira prospered and overtook the Canaries as a supplier of sugar to
Europe (46). It appears that the Castilians had over farmed the sugar plantations in the Canaries and
production declined at the same time as the Portuguese were exploiting their newer plantations further
south.
From the 1420s onwards, the Portuguese had begun to visit the Azores sporadically, but these came under
Portuguese dominion in 1452 when Pedro Vasquez de la Fronteira and Diogo de Teive saw them on their
way back from one of their trips to the West in search of the mythical islands.
The colonization (with people and sheep) began during the regency of D. Pedro under the guidance of Infante
D. Henrique. (47)
In April 1443 Gonçalo Velho, Commander of the Order of Christ, received, by the hand of Infante Dom
Henrique, the honour and responsibility of Commander of the Azores Islands, with tax benefits for him and
for the inhabitants. (48) The islands were definitively donated to the Order of Christ, which donation Infante
Dom Henrique reinforced in his will, and the islands were thus controlled simultaneously by the Order and
the Royal family. (49)
On the globe attributed to Martim Behaim (see section. #7) the following text can be seen, translated from
German by António Ferreira Serpa in 1929: “In the year 1431, after the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, when
the Infante Dom Pedro ruled in Portugal , two ships were equipped, supplied with the necessary things for
two years of voyages, by order of Infante Dom Henrique, brother of the King of Portugal, to go to the
discovery of the countries that were behind (sic) Santiago de Finisterre; which ships thus equipped, always
sailed towards the West, almost five hundred leagues from Germany. Finally, one day, they discovered these
ten Islands and having landed on them, they only found deserts and birds so tame that they didn't flee from
anyone, they didn't find any traces of man or quadrupeds, which was the reason why the birds weren't
ferocious. This is why these Islands were named Azores, which means Islands of the Vultures. And to satisfy
the order of the King of Portugal, sixteen ships were dispatched there, the following year, with all species of
domestic animals, distributing them to each Island, so that they could reproduce.” (50)
The various islands were donated to trusted captains of the Order, but the living conditions were hard and
the prospects for enrichment dismal in comparison with the riches discovered in Guinee; later, the grantees
had little interest in living on the islands, preferring to send managers to represent them.
In 1450 the first captain-donee of Terceira was appointed, Jácome de Bruges, a Flemish nobleman of the
house of Winchester, resident of the Hanseatic city from which he took his name, after signing a contract
with the Infante Dom Henrique. (51)
We shall examine the history of the Flemish captaincies of the Azores in section #7.
6 The Luso-Scandinavian initiative
In 1468, relations between Christian I of Kalmar (Union of Denmark, Sweden and Norway) and King Edward
IV of England deteriorated to the point of war. Christian sought to break the predominance of the British of
the North Atlantic trade routes. Two of his agents in this enterprise were pirates from the Hanseatic city of
Hildesheim, Didrick Pyning and Hans Pothorst. (52)
In the mid- 16th century, that is from 1550 onwards, references were made to an expedition that until today
has generated some controversy among historiographers.
In 1909, a letter was discovered in the Danish National Archives written in 1551 by Karsten Grypp, mayor of
the Hanseatic city of Kiel, addressed to King Christian III, grandson of Christian I, in which he states that these
two pirates had set sail on an expedition to “search for new islands and lands in the North” and had erected
a marker on a rock off Greenland opposite Iceland. What is unprecedented in this letter is that he states that
the expedition had been “at the request of his royal majesty the King of Portugal”. That would have been
Afonso V. (53)
Olaus Magnus published in 1555 De gentibus septentrionalis where he describes the exploits of these two
sailors on an expedition to Greenland, confirming the existence of such a marker. (54)
On the globe of Gemma Frisius, produced in 1537, appears, to the southwest of Greenland: "Quij populi ad
quos Joés Scoluus danus peruenit circa annum 1476". Medieval Latin was, like any medieval language,
essentially doggerel; a correct translation would be; "Here are the people that Jon Scolvus, a Dane, visited
around the year 1476." (55)
Gasper Frutuoso, in his sixth book, notes, referring to both João Vaz Corte Real and Álvaro Homem: “…. Those
who came from Terra do Bacalhau, which by order of the king they went to discover….”. (56) Terra do
Bacalhau appears on Renaissance maps as the name for Newfoundland.
Sofus Larsen, a Danish historian, extrapolated in 1925 that this was an expedition by the Scandinavians to
repatriate Greenland and, for the Portuguese, to discover what really existed on the other side of the
Atlantic. (57) D. Afonso V would have ordered, to represent him, the nobleman of Tavira João Vaz Corte Real,
son of Vasqueannes Corte Real of the royal house and knight of the Order of Christ, hero of the capture of
Ceuta (58).
Sofus Larsen and W.S Wallace take the position that there was really an expedition by João Vaz Corte Real
and that, following the logic of Grypp's letter, this expedition should have been led by Pyning and Pothorst.
Larsen echoes Gemma Frisius that the navigator was Jon Skolp or Scolvus. Sofus Larsen concludes (mainly
from the Grypp letter) that Pyning and Pothorst, with the assistance of the navigator Scolvus and
accompanied by Portuguese nobles, made an expedition to the North Atlantic to at least the northern lands
of the American continent. (59)
There is no unambiguous and direct official evidence, which attracts the typically mean-minded criticisms of
routine historians. Samuel Elliot Morrison, a career naval officer and historian, criticized Larsen’s rigorously
researched and analysed history as “an effort to claim pre-Columbian exploration success on the part of one
nation or another” As Kirsten Seaver (who agrees with him) notes. “This … argument Morison often uses in
various contexts”. (60)
But in this specific context the argument makes no sense. It is a fact that João Vaz Corte Real was given the
captaincy of Angra, the best captaincy of Terceira of his choice, in preference to Alvaro Homem and after the
violent disappearance of Jácome de Bruges, the previous holder and, at the same time, of his progeny. Later,
João Vaz Corte Real was also named as hereditary grantee of St. Jorge Island both in recognition of services
rendered. Why would he want the captaincy of an island in the Azores? His family were Alcaides and
landowners in Tavira, the thriving trading and military hub of the new discovries in África. Gaspar Frutuoso
himself attests that a capr+taincy in the Azores was not, in itself, a way to get rich (61)
We should add that Didrick Pyning was given the captaincy of Iceland (hofuosmaor) in 1478 by his King,
possibly jointly with Thorleif Bjornsson, to solve the problem of British incursions into Icelandic waters. They
took the opportunity to turn Iceland into a den of pirates (62)
Regarding the Luso-Scandinavian expedition, Elliot Morrison took the position that while there are no
authenticated official documents, it did not happen. That being so he should have made an effort to explain
the following:
1) King Afonso V had excellent relations with his cousin Christian I of Denmark (Kalmar). (63) The existence
of Vinland and Markland was common knowledge in Scandinavia at the time. It is perfectly reasonable to
assume that the Danish monarch who was eager to finance an expedition to the North Atlantic shared
with his cousin, who has similar interests, knowledge that was common in his country.
2) King Christian I was eager to reclaim Greenland (Kirsten Seaver, surprisingly, disagreed, claiming that King
Christian had no available resources or interest in these lands to the Northeast. However, in another
section of her book she admits that the war with England was triggered precisely because of the rights
to these seas). Christian was concerned that Greenland had been “lost to the infidels” and, as Janus
Møller Jensen states, it is reasonable to assume that this king, who had received the Golden Rose from
the Pope in 1474 in recognition of his services to Christianity, would be as committed to his crusade as
the King of Portugal was to his crusades in Africa. It would be perfectly normal, he added, that the leaders
of Denmark, Portugal and Burgundy, all of whom had similar interests in the Atlantic, who had family
connections and were on friendly terms, and who had collaborated in the Portuguese crusades in Africa,
would have shared ideas including the prospect of reaching the Indies via the North Atlantic. (64)
However, in 1474, King Christian I did not have the resources to finance an expedition to Greenland, but his
friend and cousin the King of Portugal already had access to the riches of Guinee and Madeira.
Christian II, in 1514 asked the Pope for indulgences for individuals who would embark on a crusade to "the
islands on the other side of the Atlantic" to free Greenland from the heathen. The Bull that resulted was
unequivocal: this expedition had the characteristics of a crusade. (65) This preoccupation passed on to
Christian III was what, we presume, sparked Grypp's letter
3) Karsten Grypp, Gaspar Frutuoso, Gemma Frisius and Olaus Magnus did not know each other, but
independently arrived at their coincidental affirmations; all within a hundred years of the supposed event.
4) The Corte Real family was, from the 70's of the 15th century, obsessed with the exploration of lands to
the west of the Azores and it is clear from reading the royal patents that, in the King's mind at least, there
was a recognition that they already had visited them (See below** the text of the patent granted to Gaspar
Corte Real)
It is clear that João Vaz Corte Real knew of the existence of lands to the west of the Azores before 1476 and
that any information prior to a visit on his own initiative could only have been of Scandinavian origin. We
have to admit, however, two possibilities:
1) That the Pyning / Pothorst expedition was not accompanied by Portuguese.
But the Grypp letter suggests that it was the Portuguese King who ordered it (= financed it). His letter was
written to flatter the King of Denmark. The letter was not addressed to anyone in Portugal (it was written in
Flemish), so the reference to the King of Portugal would be a simple statement of fact, or at least of “general
knowledge”. If Grypp made this unequivocal statement, it was because the fact was generally recognized in
the society he kept.
2) That the expedition did not reach beyond Greenland or perhaps Baffin, but that during the trip João Vaz
Corte Real received a tutorial on Markland and Vinland and their riches. Any contact with a senior
Scandinavian mariner would have revealed this information.
This scenario is perfectly consistent with the one we know. In this scenario, João Vaz Corte Real, armed only
with information and geographical indications, would have initiated his own expedition(s) and those of his
children
Janus Møller Jensen is of the opinion that the Luso-Scandinavian initiative originated with D. Pedro as regent
who imagined (in a dream apparently) that India could be reached via Norway. Jensen believes that
simultaneously in Denmark and Portugal it was imagined that India would be reached via Norway, Iceland,
Greenland and so on. He is convinced that this thinking was current in the courts of Kalmar, Burgundy and
Portugal, which had cordial, and familial, relations between them. He admits that even if João Vaz Corte Real
was not on a joint expedition to Markland, that he was certainly on an expedition to the North Atlantic and
also that, according to his son, Cristofer Colon also would have travelled at least as far as Iceland. (66)
Elliott Morrison's knee-jerk accusation of jingoism may have been common, as Kirsten Seaver noted, but
applied to this case, it makes no sense. Certainly Sofus Larsen, the main proponent of the Luso-Scandinavian
expedition, did not need this story to claim discovery of the Americas for his country: the precedence of his
people as “discoverers” of the New World 500 years before the 1470’s expedition no longer in dispute when
he published his first book.
Portugal did not claim this precedence in the Tordesillas negotiations and when the Grypp letter was
discovered in 1906 and Sofus Larsen's book was published, their reception in Portugal provoked total silence.
There was actually an attempt by the cartographers of the Portuguese King to facilitate a claim that the New
World was under Portuguese rule. This is more than evident in the 1500 cartographic map obtained by
Cantino (see below), which this Italian spy acquired for 12 gold ducats in the form of a bribe to whomever
kept it in Torre de Tombo in 1501. On this map, the island that corresponds to the New World appears in the
middle of the Atlantic, that is, with its eastern coast on the Portuguese side of the demarcation line of
Tordesillas (67)
This Map was commissioned by the Portuguese Monarch in 1500 (possibly from Pedro Reinel) precisely to
record the demarcation line. The position of the line is accurate but the position of the New World is not.
A displacement of the east coast of America seems to have been a deliberate royal policy, since after
Tordesillas several letters patent were granted to Azoreans, including Gaspar Corte Real, his brother Miguel,
João Fernandes and João Álvaro Fagundes (in 1521), to discover and possess lands or islands to the west of
the Azores. (68)
**The patent granted to Gaspar Corte Real on May 12, 1500 merits reproduction. It translates as: “we make
it known that for how much Gaspar Corte Real of our house has worked recently with ships and men to
search and discover and find with much effort and expense of his own and danger of his passage to some
islands and land and as a result he wants now to return and undertake to do as much as he can to find these
islands and lands and giving how much we honour these services …… if he finds some island or islands or firm
ground in our own royal service and absolute power, we hold this in good stead and we give our blessing
and donation and we grant him whatever he wishes with regard to the islands or land that he may again find
or discover…..” (69)
Unambiguous. These were return trips or rediscoveries.
We know that in 1500 and 1502, Gaspar Corte Real, armed with the royal patent, continued his explorations.
In 1501 he sent a caravel to Lisbon with captives (the accepted way of proving a discovery of terra incognita).
Cantino, the spy in Lisbon in the service of the Duke of Ferrara, reported the event. H.P Biggar suggested that
they would be Nasquapee from the interior of Labrador. (70) Mark Kurlansky suggests that they were
Beothuk, i.e. from Newfoundland, which we consider most likely. (71)
Gaspar, however, disappeared. In his book “The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of
Jacques Cartier”, Alan Gordon suggested that it was in St Laurent that Gaspar met his fate. If true, it would
have important implications for classifying Cartier's expedition in 1534, as the author indicates. (72)
Miguel Corte Real followed in search of him and also disappeared. There is a legend that he landed in New
England, became head of some tribe of Indians and built the Tower of Newport in the likeness of the Charola
of Tomar. (73) This story is delightfully romantic, but unfortunately has little sustenance. It is based on the
dating of the Newport Tower and surrounding buildings that appear to have been erected by Europeans
before the arrival of French or British settlers. Also offered as evidence are scribbles in Latin script on a stone
(called the Dighton stone) found close to the site. There is no doubt that there were visits by Europeans to
the Americas and possibly to this place before 1534. But the claims that the tower was built by Miguel Corte
Real are still only speculative.
With the death of João Vaz, Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real, the project of conquest by the Corte Real family
of their domain in the New World also died. The eldest brother, Vasqueannes, received royal confirmation
of the family's right to the lands. He intended to equip a fleet to go in search of his brothers, but permission
was refused by D. Manuel, and no other family member followed suit. (74)
However, during the 16th century French, Italian, Flemish and English cartographers produced maps with
the toponymy Corterealis or similar as the designation of the land we now know as Canada.
Map by Cornélius de Jode, 1568, including image of inhospitable natives
Despite the continuation of good relations between the two courts, there was no further cooperation
between Portugal and Denmark in the North Atlantic.
7. The Flemish and Germans
As we have already mentioned, Jácome de Bruges was named the first captain-donee of Terceira in 1450.
In 1466, another Flemish Jobst Van Huertere visited Faial with permission to settle and explore it. He had
been recommended by Isabel Duchess of Burgundy, daughter of D. João I of Portugal, of the house of which
he was a noble servant. (75) He took to the island, which had a small Portuguese population, 13 family
members and friends.
In February 1470 he received from D. Manuel, Duke of Beja, a royal patent as the first captain-donee of the
island. (76) The Flemish tried out several places to settle and finally decided on a place they called Porto Pim
(which means “safe”), in order to have access to the sea. This place came to be called Horta, after its founder.
Huertere achieved a noble marriage with Dona Brites de Macedo, a lady of the royal household. (77)
The Duke of Viseu encouraged more Portuguese to populate the island, including convicted exiles, together
with some Flemish brought by Huertere including Buscamp (Bulcão), Herman (Armão) Pieter Roose (Pedro
Rosa), Cornelius, Vernes, Jannequim, Willen van der Haagen (Silveira) and others.
In 1482 the captaincy was extended to include Pico and Jobst was knighted as a member the duke’s
household, with his name adapted to D'Utra. By 1490 there were already about 1500 settlers living on the
island, most of them Flemish. Jobst had taken pastel flower plants, which flourished there, the blue pastel of
which was much coveted by the cloth dyers of Flanders. (78)
In 1484, a young man appeared in Portugal, looking for spices for the important trading house Hirschvogel,
a Germanic knight from the city of Nuremberg, named Martim Behaim. His father was a city merchant and
burgher, Martim Behaim von Schwatzbach, and young Martim carried with him letters of recommendation.
At this time, King D. João II had excellent relations with Maximilian I of Burgundy, son of Leonor of Portugal.
This mighty ruler was fascinated by the Portuguese discoveries. D. João II took a liking to this presentable
young man, who came from a city famous for his contribution to the science of navigation, and in 1485,
knighted him as a member of his own household. (The idea exists among some historians that Behaim was
made a knight of the Military Order of Christ. This is not the case. The King did not have this authority.)
Behaim was encouraged to go to the Azores, probably initially in search of pastel. He married Jobst van
Huertere's daughter, Joana de Macedo. He would later become Isabel Corte Real's brother-in-law. (79)
In the poma mundi or Erdapfel attributed to Behaim there is an inscription whose translation from the old
German reads:
“The said Islands were populated in 1466, when the King of Portugal donated them, after many requests, to
the Duchess of Burgundy, his sister, named Isabel. At that time there was a great war in Flanders and extreme
poverty, and the aforementioned Duchess sent many people from Flanders, men and women of all
conditions, as well as priests, and everything that befits religious worship, and also ships loaded with
furniture. and utensils necessary for cultivating the land and building houses, and gave them, for two years,
everything they needed to subsist [...], of which there were 2000 people, so that with those who they went
there, and those who were born afterwards formed a few thousand. In 1490 there were still several thousand
people there, both Germans and Flemish, who had set out there in the company of the noble knight Job de
Hürtter, lord of Moerkirchen, in Flanders, my dear father-in-law, to whom these Islands were given to him
and his descendants by the said Duchess in which Islands the sugar of Portugal is produced. The fruits ripen
there twice a year, because there is no winter and all food is cheap, so that many people could still find their
livelihood there.” (80
... a clear incitement to Germanic emigration.
Note: Isabel Duchess of Burgundy was the daughter of João I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster.
In March 1486, D. João II granted Ferdinand D'Ulm, originally from the city of that name, one of the captains
of Terceira Island, a patent to explore and seize the Island of Sete Cidades (Seven Cities), an island of legend
that, we believe, it is an accumulation of islands and lands sometimes seen in the distance or visited by
mariners over the centuries and vaguely remembered or imagined collectively and that we know today as
the American continent and its adjacent islands.
In July, together with João Afonso de Estreito, a rich merchant from Madeira and knight of the Order of
Christ, he received confirmation of this donation, translated as: “ffernam dulmo Knight and captain on the
island of Terceira from Duke Dom Manuel....And he told us how he wanted to give us the discovery of a great
island or islands or mainland along the coast that is presumed to be the island of the Seven Cities” (81)
We recall that it was around this time that King D. João I, after encouraging Colon (a.k.a. Christopher
Columbus) to consider an expedition to the Western Oceans refused to finance it. There may be three
reasons for this:
1. Colon was not popular at court. He was a foreigner of uncertain origin and a braggart. His ideas
regarding navigation were clearly outdated (for those who understood these issues, and D. João's
advisers did)
2. Colombo did not have the means to finance the venture. If we read the patents given to other
explorers, before and after the 1480’s, they all specify that the captain awarded the concession would
finance the expedition himself. D’Ulm had funding possibly from some German source and certainly
that of Afonso de Estreito. What he proposed was the same as Colon, to discover the Western route
to the Indies. It was obviously preferable for Dom João to support the respected and wealthy German
and his partner, a knight of the Order from “his” island of Madeira, in preference to the unpopular
and impecunious Genovese.
3. The discoveries machine that had been set in motion by the Infante Dom Henrique had by now
revealed enough for the king to be convinced that the Indies would be reached by sailing South and
East and this was the prevailing priority in the mind of the king’s advisors, so any suggestion of a royal
sponsorship for an expedition to the West was out of the question. (82)
The king suggested that a “German knight” in the Azores who should be invited to accompany the expedition.
Everything indicates that this was Martim Behaim. (83)
To this day no one has discovered any evidence that the expedition took place. Charles Vanderlinden is
convinced that the expedition was simply cancelled. (84)
Behaim's role in Atlantic explorations has been the subject of debate among historians. There is no doubt
that he travelled with navigators from Infante Dom Henrique's team to Guinee, but probably not on voyages
of exploration. (85)
Maximilian's interest in explorations was the reason for a letter presented by Hieronymus Munzer, also from
Nuremberg, to John II in 1493 through Behaim. In this letter, written with Maximilian's blessing, Munzer and
Behaim proposed to the King of Portugal a Luso-German voyage of discovery to the West towards Cathay in
search of spices and other riches.
Maximilian personally recommended Behaim. This note, in suitable “royal” language, can be translated as
“For if this expedition is successful, praise yourself highly like a god: or another Hercules for you will also
have seven achievements, to this end we recommend as deputy of our king Maximiliano the Lord Martim of
Bohemia singularly for this purpose: and many other wise sailors who sailed the width of the sea making
their way to the islands of the Azores for their industry, by quadrant, portolan, and astrolabe and other
devices [...].” (86) It would appear that the comparison is drawn between the seven labours of Hercules and
the Seven Cities, the current challenge facing the Portuguese King.
As Jurgen Pohle says: “It was this year when the Welsers – and then the Fuggers and other commercial houses
from Augsburg and Nuremberg – settled in Lisbon, building trading posts there and participating directly in
Portuguese colonial trade. It is, at the same time, the beginning of the most intense phase in the history of
Portuguese-German relations in the Age of Discoveries, not only in economic terms, but also in terms of
political and cultural contacts. “(87)
In 1493, Behaim was invited to advise a team of experts assembled by Georg Holzschuer, alderman of the
city of Nuremberg in the construction of a poma mundi, Erdapfel in German. Behaim was invited because of
his knowledge of recent Portuguese discoveries.
If Behaim had been involved in exploration voyages to the west of the Azores, this does not explain why the
resulting Erdapflel, while convincingly correct in relation to recent discoveries off the coast of Africa, in the
case of the West Atlantic, reproduces the same imaginary Atlantic islands and erroneous distances of earlier
medieval cartographers. (88) In this case, strictly speaking, nothing new.
Excerpt from the Nuremberg Erdapfel 1493, showing the North Atlantic in outdated Ptolemaic proportions
similar to those used by Colon
Historians often cite this case to claim that there was no Luso-German expedition to the West at this time or
there was and they did not discover anything. But its anachronism is all the more surprising because Behaim
was family to the Corte Reals by marriage and this family surely had up-to-date knowledge of the islands and
lands to the West.
Cristofer Colon had completed a voyage the previous year where he had supposedly discovered Cipango and
the Indies, but general disclosure of the findings did not arrive in time to influence the construction of the
globe, which was necessarily a lengthy process.
There is always the hypothesis that there was a German expedition, that Behaim took part, and that the
Germans decided to conceal what they found. This conspiracy theory is tempting: above the Portuguese
island of Faial on the Erdapfel is raised the flag of Nuremberg. An indication of loyalty? This hypothesis is
worthy of investigation – but not here.
Excerpt from the Behaim Erdapfel showing the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores
8 The merchants of Bristol (Chapter 2). The Italians
Giovanni Caboto had been born in Venice in +- 1450 and obtained citizenship in 1476. After a few years he
was in financial difficulties and fled to Valencia and then to Seville in search of business, including, in 1494,
a proposed trip like that of Cristofer Colon. He had made this proposal to the kings of Castile before traveling
to England in 1495. (89)
Cabot went to Bristol whose merchants were very active in the waters of the North Atlantic and who had the
funds for the voyage he had proposed, further north than Colon, but still in search of the way to the Indies
via the West. On 5. March 1496, Cabot, now naturalized, received letters patent from King Henry VII granting:
“full and free authority, leaue and power to saile to all parts, countries and seas…. With five ships…. And as
many mariners or men as they will have with them to find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands,
countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before
this time were unknown to all Christians…. We license them to set vp our banners and ensignes in every
village, town, castle, isle, of them newly found. And…… may subdue, occupy and possess, as our vassals and
lieutenants. …..western and northern sea, under our banners, flags, and ensigns…” (90) Funded by the
merchants of Bristol, Cabot, using his naturalized name, made a first expedition of which little is known
except that it was a fiasco; he returned home without discovering anything. (91)
Cabot, in June 1497, in a small boat, the Matthew, accompanied by William Weston in representation of the
merchants, his financiers, set sail for the second time and landed somewhere in North America. There are
several versions regarding the location. Cabot had not made any serious investigation of the land and found
no inhabitants. (This detail is important; bringing captives, as Colon, Gaspar Corte Real and later Jacques
Cartier did, was accepted as the most convincing way of proving a discovery. Failing to do so, Cabot risked
the accusation of not even having gone ashore - or worse.) A few hours later, according to his report, he
returned homeward, sailing close to the coast. (91)
Cabot literally had no idea where he was supposed to have landed. Some claim Newfoundland, others Cape
Breton, others Hudson Bay or Norumbega. (92)
Historian Alwyn Ruddick had studied Cabot for many years. It is generally considered that Cabot disappeared
on his 3rd voyage, but some of his companions were seen in England years later. Ruddick is of the opinion
that he returned to England in 1500, after two years in the North East of the continent, passing the
Chesapeake southwards and reaching the Spanish territories of the Caribbean. This analysis is based in part
on Juan de La Cosa's map showing the North American coast "discovered by the British between 1497 and
1500". She suggested that Giovanni Antonio de Carbonaris and other friars stayed in Newfoundland and
founded a mission, the first medieval mission in North America. (93)
On the map published in 1544 attributed to Sebastião Cabot, discovered in Paris, one can read: “This land he
called Prima Vista..... because I suppose it was that part whereof they had first sighted at sea. The Island
which lieth out before the land, he called the Island of S. John ..... The inhabitants of this island use to wear
beasts skinnes, and have them in great estimation...... In their warres they vse bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts,
woodden clubs and slings. The soile is barren in some places, and yeeldeth little fruit, but it is full of white
lions, and stags farre gretar than ours. It yeildest plenty of fish, and those very great, as seales and those
which commonly we call salmons....... there is a great abundance of that kind of fish the Saluages call
Baccalaos........” We can not take this text as a report of the event. For instance, if the savages called the fish
Baccalaos, they could only have learned this word either from the Bretons or the Portuguese. (94)
Sebastian Cabot, instead of honouring the memory of his father who, despite having effectively achieved
nothing of significance, was received in England with great honours at least in the weeks following his second
voyage, sought to claim the laurels of his father, stating that he accompanied the trip. He would be 13 years
old which makes his presence unlikely or, at the very least, irrelevant.
He managed to convince the merchants Elyot and Thorne to finance him in 1508/9 and explored areas further
north in search of the “North West Passage” through Asia. It is possible that he entered Hudson Strait, but
was confronted with a mutiny and returned. He never got funding again and until the late 1540’s he worked
in the service of the King of Castile without achieving anything important. He returned to England and created
the Muscovy Company, an attempt to find a way to Asia through the waters north of Russia. He died in 1557
without succeeding. (95)
The Cabots are primarily remembered not for feats comparable to other explorers of the time, which they
failed to achieve, but because it was historically useful for England to have a discoverer of Newfoundland,
even a naturalized one, a territory they would later claim as English. Subsequently, England was the main
colonizer of North America and the denominator of North American national culture. (96)
9 The merchants of Bristol, (chapter 3). The Anglo-Azorean consortium
The Corte Reals were not the only inhabitants of Terceira bent on discovering the New World to the west.
João Fernandes Lavrador and Pero de Barcelos had seen the land we know as Labrador on some uncertain
date (possibly in 1492, but certainly before 1498.) (97)
João Álvares Fagundes (from Viana do Castelo) had established himself on the island of Terceira and there
was a connection with the Barcelos family by marriage (98)
On October 28, 1499, D. Manuel granted a charter to Joham Fernandez (sic) with the usual content for
discovering lands to the West, that is, the governance of the land he discovers, with all the inherent rights.
However, as early as 1486, two Portuguese merchants from Terceira, “ffernandus and gunsalus” had
negotiated a shipment of sugar from Lisbon to Bristol in exchange for textiles. (99) This “ffernandus” was the
same João Fernandes of Terceira, nicknamed “Lavrador”, farmer.
On March 19 1501, Richard Wade, John Thomas (merchants of Bristol), João Fernandes, Francisco Fernandes
and João Gonçalves (“Squyers borne in the Isle of Surrys under the obeisaunce of the kyng of Portungale”,
that is, “Squires born in the island of the Azores, subjects of the King of Portugal”), asked Henry VII for a
license to their “well-beloved subjects” and also to the “well-beloved” Azoreans.
Henry VII’s patent states the right to explore: “any town, city, castle, island or mainland, to enter and seize
these same towns, or as our vassals and governors, lieutenants and deputies to occupy, possess and
subjugate these, the property, title, dignity and sovereignty of the same being reserved for us”. An
unequivocal project of colonial conquest, with clauses that clearly placed the Azoreans under English
tutelage, stymying the patent issued by D. Manuel. (100)
The voyages began in 1501, but the rediscovery of Labrador was a disappointment to the English, who
concluded that it was of little value; Diego Ribera's 1530 cartographic map has a legend near Greenland
which translates as “This land was discovered by the English from the village of Bristol, but in it there is
nothing of value. Since the person who first reported him was a Lavrador from the Azores, they gave it his
name” (101)
The commercial climate in Bristol at this time was noxious, with great rivalries between this consortium and
the super-powerful group of Hugh Elyot and the Thorne family who wanted, by any means possible, to
control the fisheries of the New World. This second group had been associated with Cabot's expeditions and
claimed the lands granted by the English king to Sebastian Cabot, Newfoundland). (See item #8). Eventually,
Henry VII ceded to the Elyot lobby and a new patent was signed that effectively excluded João Fernandes.
(102) Francisco Fernandes and João Gonçalves continued to work with Elyot and Thorne until 1505 when
Elyot's business collapsed.
In other words, João Fernandes Lavrador, who had a patent from D. Manuel to take possession of Labrador
for his own benefit, abdicated this to receive a similar one from Henry VII, which gave him access to finance
he did not have. He associated with smart, business-savvy merchants and ended up losing that one as well.
It is obvious that his Portuguese patent was the reason the British accepted him as a partner, but it was also
the reason they distrusted his seniority, and with Henry VII's second patent, they discarded him. (103)
The navigators of Terceira, without the Fernandes’, continue to explore the continent. João Álvaro Fagundes
(from Vianna de Castelo), initially with Pero de Barcelos and settlers from the Azores and Portugal, explored
the islands and St. Paul, near Cape Breton, Sable Island, Penguin Island, Burgeo and St. Pierre and Miquelon
(104)
He was instrumental in setting up a colony that the Portuguese shared at Cape Breton (Mira or Ingonish)
with Basques and Bretons. It was there that he died after returning in bad health from an expedition.
Fagundes, in March 1521, had received a royal patent from D. Manuel similar to that of the Cortes Reais etc.,
but died in 1522. (105) The colony at Cape Breton was abandoned in 1570, leaving a large cross which was
found in 1607 by Samuel de Champlain (106)
In 1506 Pero de Barcelos had launched a legal action to claim hereditary land which, he claimed, had been
stolen from him while on an expedition to waters to the Northeast in the company of his countryman João
Fernandes “Lavrador”. In 1507 Pero de Barcelos died and his son Diogo received a donation from D. Manuel
that corresponded to the disputed land. Diogo would have embarked and discovered “certain islands and
lands” to the West and Diogo and his son Manoel took cattle to their colony. (107). On a map by Bartolomeu
Velho from 1560, discovered in the archives of Angra in the Azores, appears a location called Barcellona on
the south side of Cape Breton, which certainly corresponds to the colony of this family named in recognition
of their father's birthplace. (108)
As the century progressed the British continued their business and expeditions without any collaboration
with the Azoreans and in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert led the first British enterprise to Norumbega with a royal
charter to govern and populate the colony. It was a failure and he died in a shipwreck off the Azores. (109)
Later, in 1585, Elizabeth I granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, Gilbert's half-brother, a comparable charter which
he used to definitively occupy Newfoundland for England. (110)
10 The French
Since at least the beginning 16th century there were fishermen from Britany, as well as Portuguese and
Basque, sailing the waters of the North Atlantic. (111) – in search of Cod. The word Baccalau, according to
the reasoning of some etymologists, is of Breton origin. The designation of the place where the Bretons and
the Portuguese (and the Basques) set up a fishing colony was certainly of Breton origin. (Cap Breton).
The monarchies of France showed no interest in expansion by sea before the 16th century. We should
remember that for many decades France was a battleground with several monarchies and duchies at war
with each other and with their neighbours.
In the late 1520s, a young Breton named Jacques Cartier was on a trade mission. He had been born in
December 1491 in St. Malo, a fishing and merchant village in the Channel. It is believed that he accompanied
Verazzano in 1524 and 1528 and that he had visited the Portuguese colonies in Brazil and at Cape Breton on
these voyages. Verazzano, in the service of the King of France, had explored the coast of the New World of
the Caribbean, north to Newfoundland, and, entering an estuary or the like, was convinced that he had
discovered the way to the East. (112) He reported to his King, who was not in a position to proceed with any
expeditions as Francis I of Valois was, at the time, held captive by his enemy Charles V of Spain.
Cartier had learned Portuguese. In 1532, Jean le Veneur, abbe of St. Malo and Mont St. Michel, a family
friend, proposed to the king an expedition to the New World led by this young man who had been there and
who spoke Portuguese, the language of exploration. So, after Le Veneur himself had negotiated with the
Pope an interpretation of the Bull Inter caetera that devided the New World between Spain and
Portugal. The Pope conceded that a French exploration into the New World was acceptable and Le Veneur
successfully promoted Jacques Cartier to lead an expedition.
Spain was by then enthusiastically engaged further south and Portugal further east.
It was in April 1535, after some difficulty, that the young Cartier set sail for the New World with 122 men.
After 20 days, he reached Newfoundland and then Belle Isle. There he visited the Luso-Breton community in
Cape Breton, counted and recorded 17 European vessels. (113)
So, when Jacques Cartier's expedition, sponsored by King Francis I of France, arrived in Saint Laurent in 1534,
the Portuguese had already established a base at Cape Breton, used by both Portuguese and Basque
fishermen and traders. He knew this because he had already visited the settlement at Ingonish (or maybe
Mira). The treasury of Lisbon was tithing Newfoundland cod (the “dizima”) in 1512.
The name the Portuguese used for Saint Laurent was "Canáda", a place name meaning waterway or route.
This name originated, in this case, from Tavira in the Algarve where "Canáda" still exists as a toponym, from,
according to records in the Municipal Archives, at least since 1483. The name also exists in many localities of
the Azores for streams or routes. (114)
We should remember that the Corte Real family were:
• Mayors of Tavira and .....
• Captains-donee of Terceira in the Azores … in both these places the designation “Canada” is used to indicate
path or stream (115)
• There had been explorers, including other Azoreans, of the American continent decades before Cartier, as
he himself admitted. (116)
• Cartier had learnt Portuguese in contact with these mariners.
An excerpt from the Vallard Atlas depicting the St Lawrence Estuary. The map was produced in 1547 probably in Dieppe by Portuguese mapmakers.( Note that the
map is “upside-down”. The compass Rose is inverted). The St Lawrence is “Rio do Canada” written in Portuguese.
Cartier returned twice more to Canada, but was replaced by Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval (an
aristocrat, something that Jacques Cartier was not) whom King Frances appointed Viceroy of Nouvelle
France. Roberval’s pilot was Jean Alphonse. Jean Alphonse was born João Afonso, and was a navigator in the
service of the Portuguese discovery project, having been on expeditions to Brazil and India before, in 1530,
going to Dieppe, selling his services to the cartographic school in that city as did several other Portuguese
cartographers. (117)
French investment in the new Acadia colony only really took off in 1602 with the arrival of Samuel Champlain
in competition with the English. These, initially led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother Sir Walter
Raleigh, were engaged in almost constant conflict with the French and their Huron and Iroquois allies until
the final resolution at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, above from the place that the
Portuguese and Cartier called Canada … and that the Algonquin called Ke’bec.
11 A unsolved Riddle
On a map by Ruscelli and Gastaldi, the designation “Nurumberg” appears at what is now Maine. This location
appears as Norumbega in several maps from the sec. XVI. The name is still in use today for the location.
Verazzano recorded “Orumbega” that he heard from an inhabitant (118)
Jean Alphonse, Roberval’s pilot, visited the site in 1559 and described inhabitants whose language was similar
to Latin. On Mercator's globe appears “A. de Norumbega” at Penobscot. “A” stands for “Angra”, signifying
inlet or bay in Portuguese.
In 1568 an English sailor, Robert Ingram recounted a story of a voyage across the continent which he was
obliged to undertake after being dropped off by Captain John Hawkins and before being rescued by a French
frigate. He described in great detail his visit to a wealthy, well-organized kingdom at Norumbega with a chief
named Bathsheba who welcomed him. A story Sir Walter Raleigh dismissed as just another drunken sailor’s
tale (119). We should remember that Bathsheba was the name of the wife of the Biblical King David, the
mother of Soloman. Ingram’s story, precisely because of the details disbelieved by Raleigh, seems to have
served to discredit other more plausable versions of a possible European or métis settlement at Penobscot.
There have been several far-fetched and contradictory rationalizations of the name's origin including a
version that it would be Norse. However, no one advocating this hypothesis has been able to identify a record
in the sagas of a Norse colony at the location or any similar name. Verazzano and others considered the
name a combination of indigenous words (120)
In the 1850s Eben Norton Horsford, a successful industrialist and amateur archaeologist, visited the site and
found traces of an abandoned community. He designed and photographed what he thought was a former
Norse colony later used and then vacated by Breton fishermen. By its design and description, the place seems
to have had a stockade or fort.
See below Horsford’s drawings of Norumbega and the Ruscelli / Gastaldi map from 1561.
The surroundings were occupied by Algonquin. (121)
Later, a modern town was built on top of the site; the name of the place is still in use, but the remains
discovered by Horsford were destroyed.
No one has ever suggested this alternative hypothesis: in 1493, as mentioned above, Nuremberg merchants
pressured King João II of Portugal to allow an expedition to the West, sponsored by Maximilian I and German
financiers, including the Fuggers. The facilitators of this initiative would be Hieronymus Munzer and Martim
Behaim, both from Nuremberg. Behaim was installed on the island of Faial where he had married the
captain's daughter, and was the King's trusted man.
In 1493, as we have already mentioned, he had participated in the construction of a poma mundi where the
flag of Nuremberg appears above the Portuguese island of Faial. (See excerpt from his Erdapfel)
There are years missing in Behaim's biography between 1494 and 1507. Was there some initiative by these
Nuremberg burghers that resulted in the toponymy of this place in New England?
As Kirsten Seaver stated: “Everything about Norumbega is in dispute”. (122)
A dispute to be resolved?
Final note
Noble David Cook in his essay “The Columbian Exchange”, while he acknowledged that there were
transatlantic voyages before 1492, also emphasised that none of these had the impact on World history as
did the expeditions of Columbus.
After Columbus had revealed the riches of the Caribbean Islands, including most significantly gold, this set in
motion the process that Cook, quoting A.W. Crosby, called The Columbian Exchange. Other pioneers, such
as Cortez and Pizarro, the English Drake, Rolfe and Raleigh, the French Champlain and the Portuguese Cabral
emulated Columbus. Successively other generations followed suit resulting in a mass migration of Europeans
and their slaves to the New World, accelerating after the Industrial Revolution. They took with them their
plants and their livestock as well as their weapons and their epidemics. (123)
The effect on the indigenous populations was catastrophic. The Taino were exterminated almost
immediately by Columbus, one of the reasons he was cold-shouldered by his royal patrons who were
disgusted by his brutality to natives and colonists alike. A combination of smallpox etc., the sword and the
gun, the substitution of autochthonous agriculture by European mass farming and, in the United States, a
deliberate and declared government policy of genocide, condemned the continent’s surviving indigenous
populations to marginality, with a loss of their identity, religions, culture, land and dignity.
The case of the Canaries was comparable to the Caribbean; the local population was exterminated. The
settlement of Iceland, the Azores and Madeira (and the Cape Verde Islands) was by Europeans of uninhabited
lands. Greenland never received significant numbers of colonists.
The case of Africa should be considered in two phases. Initially the Portuguese, who had a monopoly of the
exploitation of the discoveries of the continent south of Morocco, made no attempt to subjugate the
populations except in the case of the “Sarracens”, who had proven to be traditional enemies. Non-Islamic
peoples were officially considered potential allies. The Portuguese were, in any case, more interested in trade
than in agriculture and the indigenous populations possessed essentially similar antibodies to those of the
Europeans. Even the gold they discovered at Mina they obtained by negotiation.
The Portuguese explorers and traders obeyed a totally different set of norms and discipline to their Spanish
counterparts, being strongly controlled centrally and subject to a well-regimented moral and ethical code.
The number of African slaves taken prior to the Industrial Revolution is measurable in the few thousands,
rather than the millions who were taken later. In the second phase, after the Industrial Revolution, the
European nations, including the Portuguese who seemed to have forgotten their ethical framework of the
XV and XVI centuries, competed with each other to colonize the large swathes of land of the African continent
and take large numbers of slaves to their plantations in the Americas, displaying the same unchristian
behaviour as their counterparts across the Atlantic. However, while there was a loss of culture and a
regression of technical development, the African populations survived extinction partly because of the
inheritance of similar antibodies to the Europeans, but also because European immigration and landgrabbing was significantly more limited.
The Cape Verde islands were uninhabited when they were discovered; these were populated by a few
Europeans initially and by many slaves after the late 1700’s, since the archipelago was a staging post for the
forced mass exodus from Angola to Brazil. Cape Verde is today an example of a slave nation, a nation formed
and governed by the descendants of slaves, as is Haiti and most of the other islands of the Caribbean.
There is, today, no Amerindian independent nation.
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Peter Kirby Higgs