14 50 – 1750
v o ya g e s o f d i s c o v e r y
Spitsbergen
o c e a n
St
o c e a n
t
i
h
c
Nagasaki
Cuba
islands
Drake
s
re
Pi
Lo
ais
a
Malacca
Borneo
Sumatra
Moluccas
New Guinea
Ma
ge l
lan
A T L AN T IC
o c e a n
Columbus 1492
Caribbean Sea
A
Columbu
15
26
a
151
9–2
1
h
c
a
Magellan was a Portuguese soldier and adventurer who
had taken part in four expeditions to India and Malaya. He quarreled with the Portuguese king, Manuel I and left the
country in 1514 to enter the service of Spain. In 1519 he proposed a voyage west to the Spice Islands, which
promised great wealth to Spain if successful. Magellan set
out in 1519 with five ships and about 260 men. He sailed
south across the Atlantic, and in November 1520 through
the straits that now bear his name and into the Pacific. He then crossed the ocean, the first European to do so,
reaching the Philippines in April 1521, where he was
killed in a local war. His deputy, Juan Sebastian del Cano,
took charge, eventually returning to Spain in September
1522 with only one ship and 17 members of the crew.
New technology, new worlds
Armed with this new maritime
technology, the Portuguese tentatively
explored the coast of Africa. Diogo Cão
sailed around the Gulf of Guinea and
then headed south, exploring the
Congo River before making his final
landfall at Cape Cross in what is now
Namibia in 1486. Two years later,
Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of
Good Hope and sailed into the Indian
Ocean, while in 1498 Vasco da Gama
crossed the Indian Ocean to Calicut in
southern India. These expeditions
india
a
Philippine
islands
Macao
Hainan
8
7–9
149
ma
a
G
da
Gu
i ne
a
150
0
Calicut
00
15
Malindi
Kilwa
Malacca
i n d i a n
o c e a n
Dra
Sofala
Sumatra
80
577–
ke 1
an
del C
Cape Cross
de
A b re
Java
Madagascar
o
Moluccas
Borneo
)
ll an
a ge
of M
ath
e
d
r
(afte
u 1511
2
–2
21
15
Cape of Good Hope
Puerto San Julián
November 27, 1520
t the start of the 15th century,
European knowledge of the
world was surprisingly limited.
Sailors used world maps based on
the cartography of Ptolemy, a Greek
geographer who had died 13 centuries
earlier, in 168 CE. Europe, the
Mediterranean, and western Asia were
reasonably well mapped, but Africa was
vague in shape, as no one knew how
far south it stretched, and the Americas
were missing altogether. Poor ship
design that restricted oceangoing
voyages and primitive navigation
instruments kept ships close to the
coast. At best, navigators used dead
reckoning—intelligent guesswork based
on speed through the water, winds, and
currents—to assess their location.
c
98
7–
149
ma
FERDINAND MAGELLAN
A
i
KEY
Isla de Chloe
Ferdinand Magellan on first entering the Pacific Ocean,
In little over a century, European navigators left their continent and sailed the world, opening up new
sea routes to India and the east. They discovered a continent previously unknown to them, and began a
process that eventually resulted in the total European colonial and economic domination of the world.
JAPAN
River Plate
Strait of Magellan
P ortuguese e x p l orer ( 1 4 8 0 – 1 5 2 1 )
6
152
ral
Voyages of Discovery
a
Goa
Gulf
of
Loa
a u s t r a l i a
The development of the oceangoing
caravel (see right) by the Portuguese
and new navigation instruments
transformed this situation. The
magnetic compass, the astrolabe, which
measured the height of the Sun at
noon, and the cross-staff and quadrant,
which measured the height of a star,
all helped navigators determine their
latitude, or how far north or south
they were. Lack of accurate marine
chronometers (see p.282) meant that
longitude—distance east or west—was
not accurately calculated until the mid18th century.
r
ral
Cab
Cab
This map shows the major European ocean voyages
of the 15th and 16th centuries. Each line color
corresponds to the country of the explorer, whose name and expedition date
appear above the line. Arrows indicate the direction of travel, and major ports
or stopovers are indicated with white dots.
f
Cape Sierra Leone
isa
Lima
“ May the ocean always be
as calm and benevolent as
it is today. In this hope I
name it the Pacific Ocean.”
i
CHINA
Madagascar
Panama
s o u t
m e r i
s
Nagasaki
4
s 1502–0
Acapulco
a
E
a
da G
Java
80
1577–
P
PORTUGAL SPAIN
151
9–2
1
Loaisa 1526
Bahamas
EURO
Canary
Islands
ellan
151
5–1
6
Macao Philippine
FRANCE
Cartier 1534–36
Montreal
a
Archangel
england NETHERLANDS
Cabot 1497
e 157
7–80
p a c i f i c
a
r
r
nce
Novaya Zemlya
53
15
Drak
JAPAN
N o
m e
re
aw
.L
l
ea
–R
rte
Co 500
1
CHINA
Hainan
ICELAND
by
gh
–16
a
ice
pack
nter
of wi
Frobisher 1576
Lab
ra
of winter pack
Limit
ice
Expedition routes
224
sla
nd
Mag
i
Limit
r
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
s
97
–
596
nts 1
Bare
do
THE FIRST SUCCESSES
One of Henry’s navigators discovered the
Madeira Islands in 1418–20 and the Azores in
1427–31. As the navigators returned home
with gold and slaves, African exploration
became very popular. By the time of his death in
1460, the Portuguese had discovered the Senegal
River, rounded Cape Verde, and sailed east
toward the Gulf of Guinea.
a
ack ice
Pires 1515
Baf
fin
I
In the 15th century the Portuguese explored
the east coast of Africa.
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
Prince Henry of Portugal captured Muslim Ceuta
on the north coast of Africa in 1415 and was
eager to extend his knowledge of the continent.
The next year he set up a navigation school at
Sagres to provide Portuguese sailors with a
center for exploration. Here they learned the
necessary skills of navigation, seamanship,
and cartography to enable them to venture
overseas. Each year he sponsored a voyage
south to explore the African coast, each voyage
sailing farther south than its predecessor.
Limit of summer p
greenland
Limit of summer pack ice
Wi
ll o
u
A R C T IC
B E F O R E
Spanish expeditions
Portuguese expeditions
English expeditions
French expeditions
Dutch expeditions
lateen (triangular) sails;
later caravels had more
efficient square sails
Cape Horn
opened up a new trade route to Asia by
sailing east around Africa. Portugal’s
neighbor and rival Spain was anxious
to share in this potential source of
wealth. In 1491, Christopher Columbus,
Genoese by birth, persuaded Queen
Isabella (see pp.226–27) to support
a voyage across the Atlantic in order
to find a westerly route to Asia.
He set sail in 1492 with three ships,
using dead reckoning to calculate his
position. Like other navigators of his
day, he knew that the world was
round—it is a myth that the common
belief of the time was that the world
was flat—but accepted Ptolemy’s
incorrect calculation of its size. Thus
when he stumbled upon the islands
of the Caribbean (see pp.228–29) he
assumed these were outlying islands
of Asia. Three further voyages, in
1493–96, 1498–1500, and 1502–04,
failed to convince him that he had
found not Asia but a previously
unknown continent—the Americas.
Columbus in context
Columbus has been much criticized in
recent years both for his geographical
ignorance and for his treatment of the
native populations as governor of the
first Spanish colony in the West Indies
on Hispaniola (modern-day Dominican
Republic). While the Europeans viewed
Columbus’s journey as a success, since
he had “discovered” a new world, it
was in fact the beginning of an
extended period of hardship for the
sophisticated empires of Central and
South America and the other peoples of
the continent. However, had Columbus
not made this first landing, another
navigator would have done so within
a few years. But he was first, and as a
pioneer, he opened up the prospect of
European expansion overseas.
Around the world
The desire to seek new trade routes to
Asia continued to preoccupy European
sailors and merchants. The Spanish
explored a route to the west. In 1519
Ferdinand Magellan (see left) set out
to sail to the rich Spice Islands (the
Moluccas in modern-day Indonesia).
In so doing he started a voyage that, after
his death in 1521, was completed by
his deputy, who, with the 17 surviving
members of the crew, became the first
Europeans to sail around the world.
carvel construction,
with fore and aft
planks flush to
each other
The caravel
The Portuguese voyages of the 15th century were made
possible by the development of the caravel, so named
because of its flush-planked carvel construction. The
caravel was lighter than its predecessors and more
seaworthy, enabling it to venture far from land. A small
ship, only 60 ft (20 m) long, it carried a crew of about 25.
Both routes to Asia were arduous, so
French and English navigators explored
the coast of Canada hoping to find a
northwest passage to Asia, a feat not
achieved until the Norwegian Roald
Amundsen completed the voyage in
1906 (see pp.320–21). English and
Dutch navigators also sought a northeast
passage around the top of Siberia—
again, a feat not achieved until 1879
by Finn Nils Nordenskjöld.
rounded hull
with high bow
and stern
A F T E R
Competing Spanish and Portuguese
discoveries in the Americas and Asia created
a clash between these two maritime nations.
TREATY OF TORDESILLAS
In 1494 Pope Alexander VI negotiated a treaty
that divided the world along a line drawn
south across the Atlantic Ocean: west of the line
was Spanish, east was Portuguese. The treaty was
useful when the Portuguese began to colonize
Brazil, but problems arose in the Spice Islands of
Southeast Asia. The treaty was vague about what
happened on the other side of the world.
225