You know that Portugal led the
European Age of discovery with several important sea going expeditions down the
west coast of Africa under the auspices of Prince Henry the Navigator. Why did
Portugal lead Europe in overseas exploration and expansion? Why did Henry
support multiple expeditions? Especially since they were expensive and mostly
ended in failure? What ultimately led to success and gave Portugal an
early lead?
At the beginning of the fifteenth
century Portugal had a population of one and a quarter million and an economy
dependent on maritime trade with Northern Europe. Although Portugal lacked the
wealth and population of its contemporaries, it would lead the European
community in the exploration of sea routes to the African continent, the
Atlantic Islands, and to Asia and South America over the course of the sixteenth
century.
Several
factors contributed to Portugal becoming the pre-eminent European pioneer in
maritime exploration.
Often, members of the aristocracy such as Prince Henry the
Navigator, were also investors. The aristocracy used
their political position to facilitate the Crown's granting of royal sanctions
that regulated the voyages of exploration made by the merchant community.
Portugal was fortunate to have kings who recognized the kingdom's dependency on
overseas trade and assisted in its expansion in every possible way. The
stability of the monarchy was essential to the establishment of sustainable
economic growth, thus the stability of the Portuguese monarchy gave the kingdom
a seventy-year head start over the Spanish who were distracted by a civil war
and the Reconquista of Granada. It was not until Columbus' voyage in 1492 that
the Spanish were finally in a position to challenge Portugal's predominance in
exploration.
Much of the credit should go to Prince Henry the Navigator's
mother, Philippa of Lancaster.
While the English and French were
fighting the Hundred Years war (which started in 1337) Ferdinand I of Portugal
fought three wars with Castile, losing each one and bankrupting the country.
After losing the last war (138182) Ferdinands daughter and
heiress, Beatrice was married to the King of Castile. Portugal would thus have
gone to Castile on Ferdinands death, but a national revolution gave the
throne to Ferdinands half brother, Joćo I. As a result Castile invaded
Portugal.
The Archbishop of Braga, primate
of the church in Portugal made an agreement with Prince John of Gaunt, son of
England's king, Edward III, and arranged that John's daughter, Philippa of
Lancaster, would be married to the 28-year-old King Joćo I and become queen
of Portugal in exchange for England's aid against Castile. King Joćo I was
forced by necessity to agree to these terms although he had no intention of
fulfilling his part of the agreement.
Initially the king retreated to
the country for two months with his mistress and their two illegitimate
children, and sent back protestations that his monastic oath would prevent his
ever contracting a marriage. He was Master of Avis - a crusading order of the
church (like the knights Templars and the Hospitaliers) and therefore was
supposed to be celibate. John of Gaunt immediately produced a letter from the
pope absolving the king of his vows of celibacy but the king continued to
avoid the marriage.
On February 2, 1387 John sent the
king a demand, delivered by an army of England's best troops, that the
marriage take place at once or England would withhold from Portugal a loan
that was desperately needed. King Joćo I finally capitulated and later that
month, on Candlemas Day, the Archbishop of Braga united the sullen king with
the mortified princess in a resplendent ceremony. In public the royal couple
played their parts but in private King Joćo treated his bride harshly.
After the ceremony he left her at once for the camp of his army and plunged
into the campaign against Castile.
Philippa was older than King Joćo
I by a few years and had already been refused by several other royal
bachelors, notably by King Charles VI of France and Albert, Duke of Bavaria.
Despite these rejections Philippa would prove herself to be an extraordinary
ruler and mother of a great empire. She had received a remarkable education as
a girl studying under the Flemish poet Froissart 
, the foremost chronicler of
medieval courts. Another of her tutors was the Friar John, the great pioneer
in physics and chemistry, who presumably developed in her a sense of critical
inquiry that was to become one of her outstanding characteristics. Her mentor
was Geoffrey Chaucer, an close friend of her father's. Her father's confessor
was the reformer John Wycliffe, who was Professor of Philosophy at Oxford and
the first translator of the Bible into English. He also played a role in
molding Philippa to be free of superstition thus enabling her to become
a tolerant and enlightened leader.
King Joćo I initially refused to
accept Philippa as his wife because he felt forced to go through with the
marriage. Thus he avoided her and sought solace between campaigns from his
mistress in Lisbon.
This situation reminded Philippa of her father's own
mistress who dominated her childhood home to the detriment of her mother.
Philippa was determined not to go through the same humiliating experience in
her own household. She waited patiently until the king was away at the
battlefront, and sent a group of clerics and knights to the house where his
mistress lived. The mistress was then committed to the convent of Santos where
the king could not get to her. Philippa took pains to make certain that her
rival was treated with every respect and given a dignified establishment with
an ample allowance. Philippa then adopted the king's two illegitimate children
and reared them with her own children as they were born. Eventually Philippa
gained her husband's respect and affection. She bore him ten children.
Over the next two generations King
Joćo I delegated the administration of civil affairs to Philippa while he
guarded the kingdom's frontiers. Because of her close relationship to the
English throne, Philippa was able to improve the diplomatic and commercial
bonds between the two kingdoms. She was also able to improve internal
relations between the Portugal's middle class and the aristocracy, as well as
the relations between the Christian and Jewish communities.
By the year 1410, Philippa and Joćo
had ruled Portugal together for a quarter of a century, during which the
kingdom had been constantly at war with Castile and the Moors. All trade,
finance, and taxation were designed as war measures. The law at the time
compelled every able-bodied man not serving in the armed forces to labor for a
certain number of days per year on the walls and defenses of his home town. In
addition, all male non-combatants were required to serve some weeks annually
in the watchtowers and observation posts on the inland borders with Castile
and along the seacoast to defend against Moorish raiders. The expense of this
extended warfare and the lack of metallic material for coins exhausted the
royal treasury, forcing Philippa to issue a bizarre fiat money, in the form of
leather tokens, as legal tender.
In 1411 there was a political change
in the enemy kingdom of Castile and the situation drastically changed.
Suddenly Portugal was largely at peace.
With peace came the totally
upheaval of Portugal's war economy. Thousands of soldiers, sailors, mechanics,
and shipyard workers were thrown into unemployment.
The royal councilors
feared the danger of a civil war from the domestic turmoil of peace and
suggested a foreign war as a diversion.
Others advisors pushed for a
resumption of hostilities against Castile.
Another suggestion was to send an
army to help the emperor of Austria against the Turks but King Joćo vetoed
sending the kingdom's defenders so far away.
Philippa proposed sending an
armed expedition to the Muslim kingdom of Fez (Morroco) in order to reach the
kingdom of Prester John, the fabled African Christian ruler. Philippa believed
that an alliance with Prester John would give Portugal access to the Indian
sources of spices and oriental products, thereby destroying the monopoly of
Egypt and Venice over the spice trade.
Although the majority of the royal
council harshly criticized Philippa's proposal, history eventually proved her
right as her successors, King Joćo II and King Manuel the Fortunate, both
implemented similar policies of pursuing the Indian trade.
Philippa's
proposal was not based on a whim but on facts inspired by her extensive
readings of the most respected scholars of that age including:
the
written account by the Greek historian Herodotus of a voyage around Africa
from the Red Sea, south through the Indian Ocean, and north up the Atlantic to
Gibraltar, made centuries before by Phoenician galleys at the command
of the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho.
the Roman historian Pliny
who chronicled a southerly voyage along the southwestern African coast by a
Carthaginian named Hanno. This voyage was also chronicled
by Herodotus
She was also aware of the voyages of Lief Ericson
across the Atlantic to Greenland that led her to assume that the ocean could
be traversed safely without fear of superstitious monsters.
Philippa probably
studied the popular account of Marco Polo's expedition to the Orient.
All of
these sources corroborated the personal testimonies of hundreds of Genoese,
Venetians, Byzantines, Jewish, and Moorish merchants who all traveled from the
eastern coast of Africa to the Malabar coast of India where they traded in the
bazaars of Calicut.
Using her vast knowledge the queen not only
conceived of the bold plan of an invasion of North Africa, but she also
painstaking worked to win political support for it among the royal council.
On
her suggestion, spies were sent to Ceuta to report back concerning the
feasibility of her plan. One spy returned with information about the great
south central African market and the importation of gold through Timbuktu, the
hub of that particular trade network. This was some of the first information that
Europeans had about the source of Arab gold, until this point they had
believed that the gold was brought from India. The importance of this
discovery was immense because the Arabic states were the only suppliers for
gold-starved Europe, now the capture of Ceuta became an even more attractive
option since it could potentially save Portugal's crippled economy.
With this information Philippa
believed that the Florentine bankers could be persuaded to finance her
invasion, she was correct and the bankers joined the enterprise. Philippa then
sought the good will of the clergy and their assistance in winning popular
support for the invasion. Once the blessing of Rome was secured, the queen had
to convince her husband to authorize the undertaking. At this time King Joćo
I was tired of war and considered the stronghold of Ceuta impregnable. He
flatly refused the lure of gold and religious glories. Philippa then enlisted
the aid of her three oldest sons, all eager to win the spurs of knighthood, to
convince their father. Eventually King Joćo I yielded once he realized that
his wife had managed to convince the majority of her former detractors of the
logical and potential of her proposal.
It took three years of active
preparation before the army and fleet were ready for the invasion. At this
stage Philippa stepped aside to allow her husband and sons to take over the
planning of the expedition. She was now over sixty years old and exhausted
from the task of financing and assembling the expedition. Disaster struck when
Philippa contracted the plague and failed to recover. When she knew her end
was near, she called her children to her. On her deathbed Philippa made her
three oldest sons and daughter swear a solemn vow to carry out her dream of
trying to gain an alliance with the kingdom of Prester John and through this
gain access to the Indies. On July 25, 1415, Philippa was dead, but the fleet
of over two hundred vessels carried out her invasion and successfully
conquered Ceuta.
Prince Henry the Navigator
Prince Henry the Navigator was the
fifth child and fourth son of King Joćo I (John I) and Queen Philippa. Henry
was somewhat of a paradox: a dreamer, a scholar, and a monk who nevertheless
possessed the instincts of a businessman. Essentially, Prince Henry was a
religious man, committed to breaking the hold of heathens and securing the
triumph of Christianity in Africa.
The crusading legacy of Portugal
exerted tremendous influence during Prince Henry's time. The expulsion of
Islamic North Africans from the Algarve was still a part of the living memory
of most Portuguese, and the four great military orders, St. John, Santiago,
Aviz, and Christ, still occupied their castles throughout the Portuguese
realm. The importance of these military orders cannot be understated, for
Prince Henry's own connections to the Order of Christ would play a significant
role during the early years of Portuguese expansion.
Suppression of the Knights
Templars and the Order of Christ
The Order of Christ was the
Portuguese derivative of the Knights Templar who were one of the orders of
crusading knights that in the previous two centuries had assumed the
responsibility of keeping open the routes to the Holy Land.
When accusations of sodomy,
blasphemy, and witchcraft were leveled against the Templars in the early
fourteenth century, the Templars were quickly condemned. On Friday, October
13, 1307, the king of France gave orders to arrest all Templars residing
within his domains and called upon the Pope to issue a Bull outlawing the
Order throughout Christendom.
The history of Templars in
Portugal, however, was different. The Templars had helped to expel the North
Africans from the Algarve, and King Diniz could not forget this service.
Rather than ignoring the Pope's instructions, King Diniz modified them. The
knights were allowed to escape from Portugal. King Diniz seized and occupied
the property of the Templars and established his own national order, The
Military Order of Christ. The new knights continued to wear the Templar's
crusading cross as their emblem and frequented the Portuguese Court.
Another influence on Prince
Henry's behavior was the search for knightly honor. Like many European courts
of the time, chivalric traditions were very important. It was this moral and
ethical code that governed practically all conduct and in which the
aristocracy looked for achievement. Under the influence of English chivalry,
King Joćo introduced coats-of-arms, crests and mottoes for members of the
Portuguese Court. For himself, the king chose the motto "Il me plaīt",
"He pleases me". Following the king's lead, Prince Henry chose
"Talent de bien faire". Talent did not mean power, nor did it mean
faculty. Rather, it meant "desire". The desire to do well.
Ceuta
The city of Ceuta, lay opposite
Gibraltar, and served as the launching point for pirates operating in the
straits, and was the port where many Christian prisoners began their tenure as
slaves. It was the northern terminus of caravan routes and a center of North
African trade activities. It was a logical target.
When Portuguese ships entered
Ceuta in 1415, the city was unprepared and fell to the Portuguese with
relative ease. Nonetheless it was an expensive enterprise and despite
the wealth of the caravan town the Portuguese failed to recover the cost of
the expedition or the three thousand men left to garrison the town. Although a
financial failure, the fall of Ceuta greatly added to the prestige of King Joćo,
his sons and to Portugal.
The Europeans were completely
ignorant of what lay beyond Cape Bojador. The two captains Prince Henry chose
for his first expedition of exploration were not experienced sailors. Perhaps
the selection was deliberate, for it seemed unlikely that any experienced
sailor who had come into contact with the myths and legends surrounding sea
travel would willingly sail into the unknown. They returned without
success.
Prince Henry
persevered and sent expedition after expedition into the "Sea of
Darkness", as they called unknown water, in a fifteen-year attempt to
round Cape Bojador. Even though he exhorted his captains with promises of
increased reward and glory, it was not until 1434 that Gil Eanes (sometimes
spelled "Eannes") managed to round the Cape. The physical distance
traveled was not what was significant about this voyage. Rather, what was
important was that Eanes traveled beyond Cape Bojador and returned to
Portugal, eliminating in one broad stroke many of the myths and legends about
the "Sea of Darkness".
A number of
explanations have been offered as to why it took Portuguese sailors so long to
accomplish this task. The two most significant problems were that those ships
which navigated along the shores of the African coast risked running aground
and those who attempted to steer into the open water and strayed too far could
be blown out to sea. Eanes succeeded because he did not attempt to sail in
sight of land. Rather, Eanes charted a wide course into the Atlantic before
altering his course and turning back towards Africa. When Eanes encountered
land again, Cape Bojador was behind him.
Wind
As word spread throughout Europe
of the Portuguese expeditions, sailors, astronomers, cartographers, and
geographers began to arrive at Sagres to offer their services to Prince Henry.
There were Christians, Jews, and Arabs - Prince Henry had discovered the
Arabs' superior navigational skills while at Ceuta years before - and what
emerged at Sagres was not so much a school of navigation as much as it was a
community of scholars, under the direction of Prince Henry, who joined
together to conquer the unknown.
FINANCIAL REALITIES OF EXPLORATION &
COLONIZATION: THE DEBACLE AT TANGIER
As the exploration of
the African coast proceeded, the Portuguese colony at Ceuta was rapidly
becoming a drain on the national treasury and it was realized that without the
city of Tangier, possession of Ceuta was worthless. When Ceuta was lost to the
Portuguese, the camel caravans switched to Tangier as their destination.
Ceuta rapidly became an isolated community. The cost of garrisoning generated
further losses, a situation that might be reversed if Portugal were to capture
Tangier. There was, however, another reason to launch a military campaign
against Tangier. Prince Fernando, Prince Henry's youngest brother, was only
eleven years old when the Portuguese captured Ceuta and he had not won his
spurs in battle like his older brothers. After much prodding, and some court
intrigue, Prince Henry managed to convince his brother the king to begin
preparations for an attack on Tangier in 1436.
In stark contrast to
the attack on Ceuta years before, the Portuguese assault on Tangier was poorly
conceived and badly executed. When the Portuguese fleet set sail in August
1437, it contained only 6,000 troops; Portuguese planners originally estimated
that it would take 14,000 soldiers to comprise an adequate striking force.
Furthermore, no attempt was made by Prince Henry to disguise his intention to
attack the city, and the North Africans were well prepared to turn back the
Portuguese. Three times Prince Henry attempted to assault the city, and all
three times his armies were repulsed.
Only after his
chaplain deserted him and told the North Africans the details of the new
assault did the full measure of the futility of his attacks grip Prince Henry.
Realizing that his position was hopeless, Prince Henry asked the North African
leader, Sala-ben-Sala, to dictate his terms for surrender. The North African's
terms were harsh: an exchange of hostages - Prince Henry's brother, Prince
Fernando, for one of Sala-ben-Sala's sons - and the Portuguese would have to
abandon the city of Ceuta. The exchange of hostages was a show of good faith
easily agreed upon by the two leaders but it soon became clear that
Sala-ben-Sala would have to wrestle Ceuta from the Portuguese. Sala-ben-Sala
declared that the Portuguese would have to abandon Ceuta before Prince
Fernando would be released. When the Portuguese protested, and reminded the
North Africans that they were holding one of the king's sons, Sala-ben-Sala
replied that he had many other sons and that he did not particularly care for
the one the Portuguese were holding. Thus, Prince Henry had to make a
decision, either he could sacrifice the city of Ceuta to obtain his brother's
release, or he could keep Ceuta and condemn Fernando to imprisonment. The city
of Ceuta was deemed to be an important outpost of Christianity against the
infidel and even the Pope advised against trading Ceuta for Prince Fernando's
life. The city could not be sacrificed for one man, even for the brother of
the king of Portugal. Prince Fernando died in captivity four years
later.
Prince Henry returned
devastated from the debacle at Tangier. After a year, He resumed his
exploration of the sea with new-found vigor determined to avenge the defeat
and humble the Muslims by conquering the whole of Africa. Prince Henry
committed himself to finding the fabled Prester John in order to bring the
battle directly to his enemies.
An incredible
patchwork of hearsay and rumor contributed to the legend of Prester John but
what was significant about Prester John for Prince Henry was not the land of
riches that could be found within the borders of Prester John's kingdom, but
the belief that a Christian king had managed to establish and sustain
an empire in the heart of Muslim-held territory. Therefore, locating and
allying with Prester John meant delivering a devastating blow to the Muslims.
Old
World Contact's Prester John
Henry sent an
expedition in 1441 to "make peace" with the indigenous populations
of North Africa. Instead after sailing as far as Cabo Branco (Cape
Blanco), his captains returned with ten prisoners. One of the prisoners
happened to be the chief of the tribe by the name of Adahu. Fortunately for
the Portuguese, Adahu spoke Arabic and could communicate with an Arabic
translator.
Upon returning to
Sagres, Adahu described what he knew of Africa and the land-based trade
routes. The questioning of Adahu was undoubtedly an exciting exercise for
Prince Henry; for the first time since the capture of Ceuta, Prince Henry was
able to verify the information gathered by explorers with Adahu's first-hand
knowledge. The capture of Adahu also marked the beginning of the use of the
indigenous population as interpreters for subsequent voyages.
An envoy was sent to
the Pope to report the information gathered by Prince Henry and to request
that the Portuguese Prince be granted spiritual jurisdiction over all the
lands he "discovered" to the south. Prince Henry also wanted that
those who lost their lives on these voyages be considered to have died while
on a crusade. The Church agreed and these concessions were matched by the
Portuguese monarch. Prince Henry was given a charter entitling him to
one-fifth of the profits of the expedition, normally a prerogative reserved
for the Crown. All captains sailing down the African coast must first seek
Prince Henry's permission.
Certainly, Portugal
was interested in developing markets and resources to stimulate its economy.
The reality, however, is that for the first twenty years, the revenue gathered
from such voyages was negligible, leading some to speculate that the financing
for the voyages must have come from a private source, including Prince Henry's
own fortune. Although the main source of his revenue was not available until
later in his life - the product of the concessions granted to him by the
Portuguese Crown - it must be remembered that Prince Henry had control over
the Military Order of Christ. Thus, the Military Order of Christ may have
supplied the bulk of capital required to finance the early years of Prince
Henry's explorations. The use of funds from a religious order made it
imperative that exploration should be justified as having a high religious
purpose, such as the conversion of heathens to Christianity or inflicting
damage on Islamic territories. After 1443, it is possible to argue that
exploration became self-sufficient with the profits from trade and commerce
making voyages profitable. For example, merchants could expect a fourfold
profit when trading in cloth.
Prince Henry
instituted many of the practices that would become standard features of
European exploration. By systematically exploring the African coast, Prince
Henry inaugurated a policy of exploration that built on the knowledge of
previous voyages. Instead of remaining content with the extent of existing
knowledge, Prince Henry used the end of one voyage as the beginning for the
next. By using interpreters, Prince Henry was able to build an effective
and reliable source of information about the areas to be explored by
Europeans. Interpreters also significantly contributed to the European voyages
of exploration by allowing Europeans to communicate with indigenous
populations in a peaceful manner. Such relations were important to
establishing friendly trade and gathering information.
THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS
The Atlantic Islands
were the birthplace of the Portuguese colonization pattern of exploration,
settlement, agricultural conversion of lands, the institution of the
plantation model (donatary captaincy), and the incorporation of African
slave labor on a large scale. The first recorded Portuguese expedition into
the Atlantic took place in 1341 with its destination being the Canary Islands
that were known to the ancient Greeks as the Fortunate Islands. The expedition
successfully returned to Lisbon with a cargo of four indigenous people, fish
oil, red wood and skins. Despite this success there was no immediate follow up
to this expedition.
Portuguese
ventures at sea then consisted of raiding and trading with towns along the
known coastline of Northern Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean. This
continued until the era of Prince Henry when the Canary Islands became
important as a supply way-station for expeditions sailing the Canary route
that was the shortest course to the West African coast. One of Prince Henry's
early expeditions into the Atlantic occurred in 1420 with the rediscovery of
Madeira. Prince Henry instigated its colonization because it was uninhabited
and could easily be converted to the agricultural production of wheat and
sugar.
Madeira, one of the earliest colonies to
incorporate the plantation system for the production of sugar
By 1500 Madeira was
the leading producer of sugar and had incorporated a plantation system that
depended heavily on African slave labor. The Azores were discovered in 1427
and colonized with criminals by Prince Henry and his associates. Again the
pattern of agricultural production that incorporated the plantation model and
slave labor was successful in producing wine, wheat, and sugar. Due to their
location, the Azores also became an important way-station for the rapidly
expanding African slave trade. This pattern of discovery and settlement was
repeated in 1460 with Fernao Gomes' discovery of the Cape Verde Islands, and
in 1470 with the discovery of Saõ Tomé. It is important to note that the
Portuguese efforts in Africa and Asia were aimed at building trading posts
rather than permanent settlements, in this regard the Atlantic Islands were
unique until the discovery and settlement of Brazil in 1500.
| The Canaries
|
The Azores
|
CCD >
HIS 201 > Conquest >
Discovery
