AFRICA
Ceuta: The First
Step
The first step forward in Portuguese expansion was the
assault on the Moor port of
Ceuta in 1415. King João I
(John I) and his sons had organised this expedition to conquer
Ceuta that lay across the Straits of Gibraltar on the coast
of North Africa. It was an expensive enterprise that failed to
recover the cost of the expedition or the three thousand men
left by Prince Pedro to garrison the town. Although a
financial failure, the fall of Ceuta greatly added to
the prestige of King João I, his sons and to Portugal. This
experience in North Africa would stimulate the minds of the
Princes Pedro and Henry, each would become a life-long
supporter of overseas expansion.
The Search for Gold &
Slaves
During this period there had been a shortage of gold that
increasingly hindered the growth of European trade. Ceuta
had been a part of a centuries-old traffic in the products
of the trans-Saharan caravan routes that provided a source
of gold rumoured to have originated in a wealthy nation that
lay across the Sahara Desert known as Guinea. The
possibility of gold in this new land was too tempting for
the Portuguese to resist. They pursued the idea of
discovering a sea route to Guinea that would allow them to
by-pass the caravan route that was controlled by their
enemies the Moors. Prince Henry was able to use his royal
status to gain the Crown's permission for numerous
expeditions that focused on gaining immediate profit by
virtue of raiding and trading usually at the expense of Arab
merchantmen. These types of expeditions were the norm until
1420 when the Portuguese sailors discovered and colonised
the island of Madeira and the Azores.
These two islands were invaluable ports of call for
future Portuguese expeditions since the Spanish had
previously claimed the Canary Islands. Numerous individuals
led these expeditions some of whom were foreign captains
like Alvise da Cadamosto, who willing to sail under
Prince Henry's patronage. The most successful explorers of
Prince Henry's captains were usually his own squires and
associates like João Gonçalves Zarco,
Tristão Vaz, and Bartolemeau Perestrello.
In 1434 Gil Eanes, another one of the prince's
squires, led the expedition that was the first to sail
beyond the Cape of Bojador. This was a monumental
accomplishment because it destroyed the fixed belief that
the ocean beyond Bojador was unnavigable. Eanes was quickly
sent out again and found evidence that the coast was
inhabited and the possibility for raiding and trading arose.
Progress along the coast was interrupted for four years
because of the Portuguese failed expedition to Tangier, the
death of King Duarte, and the struggle over the regency.
With the death of King João I, his son Duarte assumed the
throne and granted Prince Henry a "royal fifth" from the
profits of all voyages and decreed that no expedition could
sail beyond Cape Bojador without a license from the Prince.
King Duarte died after a short reign of five years, leaving
his six year old son Afonso V as his heir. Prince Pedro took
control of the state by becoming Afonso's regent. He quickly
confirmed Prince Henry's grant and gave him permission to
colonise the Azores. Under Prince Pedro's regency the
Portuguese completed King Duarte's secret experiment in ship
design that resulted in the evolution of a new type of ship
known as the caravel.
In 1441 the expeditions began again using the new type of
ship. Prince Henry's chamberlain, Antão Gonçalves,
led an expedition to acquire a cargo of seal skins and oil
with orders to go further into the unknown. On one occasion
Gonçalves sought out a village along the Rio do Ouro and
took several captives back to Portugal. This was the
beginning of what would become the African Slave Trade.
Another one of Henry's captains, Nuno Tristão,
would discover the Bay of Arguim. Here Henry had a fort
constructed in 1448 that would become the centre of trade
with the African states of the interior. Tristão also
found the end to the desert and reported the beginning of a
lush green country. This inspired Dinis Dias raised enough
capital to have Prince Henry grant him a license and a
caravel. He sailed pass the Senegal River eventually
arriving at the Cape of Verde that was the western limits of
the African continent.
Not all the expeditions succeeded. Nuno Tristão
died after being attacked with poison arrows by the
inhabitants of a village he and his men were attempting to
raid for slaves, leaving only five survivors to return home.
Despite Tristão's death the voyages continued thanks
to the rewards offered by the Regent Pedro and Prince Henry
who recognised the potential of the African trade. Merchants
like Fernão Gomes shared this vision and
actively financed their own expeditions. In Gomes' case he
petitioned the Crown for the exclusive rights to handle the
trade of West Africa since the Crown was distracted by the
Castilian war of succession that brought Isabella and
Ferdinand to the Spanish throne. Gomes' ventures quickly
grew into a thriving pepper trade that in turn led to his
sailors' discovery of the gold-producing region of the Gold
Coast (modern Ghana). When King João II (John II) succeeded his
father, King Afonso V, to the throne of Portugal, he renewed
the Crown's support of overseas exploration that had fallen
by the wayside of his father's administration. Within four
years King João II had personally sponsored, rather than
simply granting a license, three expeditions led by Diogo
Cão and Bartolomeu Dias that accomplished
more in four years than his predecessors had in forty. These
voyages reflected the change in policy from simply expanding
overseas trade to finding a specific sea route to India.
In 1482 King João II sent out Diogo Cão on the
first of two voyages. He discovered that the African
continent turned south and ran for thousands more kilometres
before eventually turning. Cão came to the Kingdom of
the Congo where he began a trading relationship that would
recoup the cost of the voyages. Bartolomeu Dias continued
this exploration by rounding the southern extremity of the
African continent in
1488, naming it the Cape of Good Hope. In 1484 King João II had rejected the proposals of
Christopher Columbus who then sought out the patronage of
Queen Isabella of Spain. With Columbus' discovery of the
Caribbean and America, Isabella immediately requested that
Pope Alexander VI endorse a series of bulls that divided the
world into two parts by a line drawn from north to south one
hundred leagues west of the Azores. King João II rejected
this location of this line and opened negotiations with Spain
immediately, the result was the Treaty of Tordesilla
of 1494. Pope Alexander's line was moved to 370 leagues
west of the Cape Verde Islands.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Treaty of Tordesilla,
King João II died in 1495 from pneumonia. His cousin, King
Manuel the Fortunate, assumed the throne and continued to
support the search for a seaway to the Indies. He appointed
Vasco da Gama as the leader of the expedition that
would discover the route to the Indian Ocean that rounded
the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. This new route marked the
beginning of a new era of direct contact between Europe and
Asia. During his reign King Manuel was the ruler of the
greatest empire of his time and benefited from a growing
African trade and the golden harvest of the Indies.
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