Christopher Columbus :: Chapter I Portuguese Voyages of Discovery The Youth of Columbus His Arrival at Lisbon

Chapter I Portuguese Voyages of Discovery The Youth of Columbus His Arrival at Lisbon

The ancient Greeks were not the only nation which imagined there was a region in the Atlantic Ocean, an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the sea highway, now called the Straits of Gibraltar. The traditions of other people tell of a land where only happy mortals dwell. Greek poetry assigned this region to the ocean, which was supposed to surround the world as it was known at that time. The Romans also believed in this distant western land, and in the Christian Middle Ages these same traditions were carefully preserved. It was told that many an adventurer sought these Islands of the Blest but never returned home.

The seafarers of the Middle Ages must have been timid navigators for they never reached the open sea but contented themselves with cruising along its shore. At last the Genoese and Venetians, whose cities were very prosperous in the fourteenth century, because of their expanding commerce, ventured out of the Straits of Gibraltar. Their course, however, was not southward but north of the straits which connect the Mediterranean Sea with the ocean, for it is well known that the Venetians in 1318 reached Antwerp by vessel.

Simultaneously with these efforts of the Italians to reach the north, the Portuguese were striving to discover a passage to the rich Indies in vessels manned almost entirely by Italian sailors. The Genoese also undertook independent voyages of discovery. Two ships which passed through the Straits of Gibraltar at the close of the thirteenth century never came back. A Genoese expedition at the beginning of the fourteenth century discovered the Canary Islands, but the explorers declared they were not the Islands of the Blest. Before the year 1335 a Portuguese vessel returned to Lisbon from the Canaries with products of the soil and kidnapped natives. In July, 1341, two large and well armed vessels, under command of a Genoese and a Florentine, reached the Canaries in five days from Lisbon. They held possession of the islands until November. It is also known that Europeans stopped for some time at Teneriffe,[1] where they found almost naked but fierce natives who lived in stone houses, tilled the soil, and worshipped idols. About the close of the fourteenth century thirteen friars attempted the conversion of the natives of the larger Canaries but were massacred by the savages.

About this time the islands of Madeira and the Azores were discovered but they were uninhabited. The Canaries alone had inhabitants, called Guanches.[2] These Guanches lived upon seven islands, but, as there were no means of communication between them, they knew little of each other. Their dialects indeed were so different that they could not understand one another. Wheat and barley were cultivated. The natives on the islands of Gomera and Palma went naked, lived in caves, and subsisted upon roots and goats’ milk, and were dangerous enemies with their stone weapons and horn-tipped spears. The natives on the larger Canaries were the most civilized and had two large cities and thirty-three communities. Their two kings were at constant variance. The warlike Guanches were only subjugated after fierce encounters, for they climbed with the ease of goats and were such fleet runners that they could overtake the hare. When asked about their origin, they replied: “After the submission of our ancestors the gods placed us in these islands, left us here, and forgot us.”

Remarkable success crowned the explorations of the Portuguese owing to the enterprise and zeal of the Infante, Henry,[3] third son of King John the First, who was surnamed by posterity “The Navigator.” His lean, angular person hardly bespoke his real greatness. His perseverance and indomitable resolution were apparent alone in his clear, open look. He was a man of great abstemiousness. Wine never passed his lips. He spent his revenues upon exploration and conquests on the west coast of Africa. The voyages of the Portuguese discoverers began in the Autumn of 1415 but the first navigators returned after reaching Cape Bajador, for they dared not venture out into the open sea because of the breakers and dangerous ledges. Four years later two explorers, driven out to sea by a storm, reached the island of Porto Santo, previously discovered by the Italians, and from there went to Madeira, or the “Forest Island,” as it was called. It was not until 1434 that Cape Bajador was circumnavigated by a daring man who had offended the Infante and by this exploit regained his favor. He brought back flowers in earthen vessels to prove that floral beauty was not lacking on the other side of the dreaded cape.

Further attempts were made in succeeding years. The Portuguese continually advanced and once brought home fish nets which they had taken from the natives to prove that the lands beyond the Cape were inhabited. Soon they penetrated to regions where they found gold-dust and other valuable products, which were taken in honor of the Infante. In consideration of the tremendous expense and the incalculable exertion involved in these voyages the matter of profit was alone taken into account. Naturally no heed was paid to their scientific importance. Explorations beyond the Cape at last proved very profitable and many vessels returned with large cargoes of slaves, for Europeans at that time were not ashamed of man-stealing. They hunted their human victims openly and even used dogs to run down their prey. Slavery was not abhorrent to them. They thought it natural that God should reward their man-stealing with success. A chronicle of the year 1444 says: “At last it pleased God to compensate them for their great suffering in His service with a glorious day’s efforts, for altogether, in men, women, and children, they captured one hundred and sixty-five head.”

An important discovery in the year 1445 removed many erroneous conceptions. Dinas Diaz in that year sailed farther south than any navigator had gone before. He passed Cape Blanco, reached the southern line of the Great Desert, and found a region green with palms, and people with black skins. The spot he discovered was called the “Green Cape.” He proved that the theory that the tropics were uninhabitable was false. Aristotle had maintained that the tropical regions must be unpeopled because the overpowering heat of the sun’s rays would destroy all vegetation. Other scholars, among them Ptolemy, were of the same opinion. The theory indeed was so universally accepted at the beginning of the fifteenth century that many a bold adventurer was deterred from making explorations in that direction.

In the same year, however, the Senegal, which Diaz had passed unobserved, was discovered on a second voyage. The river was declared to be a branch of the Egyptian Nile. In the following year the Portuguese met with a serious disaster on the African coast. Two vessels, owing to the misplaced confidence of their commanders in the negroes, ventured too near and were greeted by a shower of poisoned arrows. The wounded explorers died after reaching Lisbon, two months later, without having seen anything but sky and water. This disaster, however, did not deter other brave navigators from undertaking further explorations beyond the Green Cape, though they dreaded the poisoned arrows of the natives more than any hardships or perils of the sea.

About this time the Azores were colonized by the Portuguese, for these islands had been so little disturbed by man that even the birds could easily be taken by the hand. Henry, the Infante, bestowed the islands upon the explorers as an hereditary tenure.

In the second half of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Alfonso the Fifth, we have very inadequate reports of the progress of Portuguese exploration. We know, however, that the explorers advanced along the rivers of West Africa, especially the Gambia, which stream they ascended to transact business with caravans from the Soudan. It was at that time the European world began traffic in the great and rich resources of Central Africa. On the thirteenth of November, 1460, the Infante died, and the prosperity which had attended Portuguese explorations languished. History has honored him with the surname “Navigator,” though he took no personal part in exploration. Under his encouragement, the Portuguese, who before his time had timidly returned home from Cape Bajador, became bold seafarers. Discoveries rapidly advanced in his lifetime but Alfonso the Fifth wasted his inheritance. He gave no thought to new explorations for those already made were yielding him rich returns. The sugar plantations in Madeira brought him large profits, slaves were exchanged for horses, and the coast supplied great store of gold-dust, musk, ivory, and ginger. Notwithstanding their discouragement, the explorers pushed farther south. Before the close of the fifteenth century they found the Zaira, the Congo of our maps. King John the Second, like “Navigator” Henry, was greatly interested in sea voyages and the sciences. Under his patronage Bartholomew Dias, in 1486, left Lisbon with two small vessels and a supply boat, sailed south, and passed the mouth of the Congo. As the wind was contrary he put out to sea but was so driven about by storms that at last he found the coast of Africa on his left. He had rounded the southern extremity of the Dark Continent and, finding land, he kept on in a northerly direction.[4] His sailors, however, refused to go farther and insisted he should return. As he could not conciliate them, he began the home voyage reluctantly, passing again the mysterious cape, which he named Tormentoso, the name being subsequently changed by John the Second to Good Hope, and reached Lisbon in December, 1487, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days. Dias was poorly rewarded for his great discovery. He was not given command of a fleet a second time, but served as a simple captain under Cabral,[5] the discoverer of Brazil, and, in rounding the Cape of Good Hope during a fearful storm, May 23, 1500, was drowned.

Even before Dias had found the Cape of Good Hope an Italian explorer, named Cristoforo Colombo, appeared at the court of John the Second. When subsequently he made Spain his home, he was called Colon.[6] He is best known by his Latin name, Columbus. This extraordinary man was born at Genoa in the year 1456.[7] Genoese contemporaries assure us his father, Domenico, was a wool-comber. Domenico had four children: three sons, Cristoforo, Bartolomeo, and Giacomo (Diego),[8] and one daughter, of whom it is only known that she married an Italian innkeeper. From his earliest youth Christopher loved the sea. As a lad he showed promise of being a skilful sailor and brave man. He was active and courageous, had no delight in indolence or effeminate luxuries, and despised all delicacies which tickle the palate and weaken the health. His highest ambition was to secure all the knowledge he could so as to be of some service to his fellow men. In a short time he learned the Latin language, in which all the scientific books of the time were written, and, although a boy in those days could learn but very little of the sciences, compared with what can be done to-day, yet he acquired sufficient knowledge of them to become an authority. His father, who was comfortably well off, sent him to the University of Pavia where he studied geography, geometry, astronomy, and drawing. At fourteen he had made such advances that he was qualified to become a ship captain and go to sea. He exerted his utmost effort to investigate the ocean and its routes. The saying, “as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined,” well applies to him. He determined to become a great seafarer and from his earliest youth adhered to the determination until it was fully realized.

Our young hero had his first experience in the Mediterranean Sea, for the voyages of his people at that time did not extend farther. It was much too confined a sphere, however, for a spirit which burned with the desire to accomplish unprecedented achievements. After a voyage to the northern ocean, during which he reached Iceland and gathered valuable experience, he entered the service of a kinsman, a sea-captain, who had fitted out a few vessels at his own expense, with which he cruised at one time against the Venetians, at another against the Turks, seeking to capture their galleys. Upon one of their cruises, the young Columbus would have lost his life had not Providence preserved it for high purposes. In a stubborn fight with the Venetians, in which our young hero performed prodigies of valor, his ship as well as those with which it was engaged took fire. Columbus found himself in a desperate situation but even with death staring him in the face he had no fear. He boldly plunged into the sea, clutched a floating oar, and with its help swam safely to the shore, two miles distant. He landed upon the Portuguese coast and, as soon as he had rested, made his way to Lisbon.

This event had a marked influence upon his future career, for in the Portuguese capital his knowledge and ability were of great service in securing friends among seafarers, with whom plans were discussed for the discovery of a passage to the East Indies. An event soon happened which greatly promoted the ambitious purpose of his life. He married Felipa Perestrelli, daughter of a sea-captain, one of the early colonists and first governor of Porto Santo. This gave him possession of the diaries and charts of his experienced father-in-law, and as he studied them day and night his desire to visit these newly discovered islands grew stronger. He once more went on shipboard, made a voyage to Madeira, and for some time carried on a lucrative business, visiting the Canaries, the African coast, and the Azores in the meantime.

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