Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
thought that sailing around Africa might be possible. By the time of his
death in 1460, the Portuguese had reached Sierra Leone, within 10\ of the
equator, a feat not achieved since the Carthaginians. It was Bartolomeu
Dias who rounded the Cape of Good Hope, satisfied himself that this was
the southernmost point of the continent, and headed back home with the
welcome news in 1488.
The Spaniards did not sit idly by watching their neighbors strive to
reach the Spice Islands. An Italian adventurer was on the docks to greet
Dias upon his return. The Italian had tried to convince half the royal
houses of Europe to sponsor him on a westward expedition. Christopher
Columbus believed Ptolemy's underestimate of the size of the world and
thought it would be easier heading west to find the spiceries than sailing
eastward. In 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of a newly unified
Spain believed Columbus enough to pay for his first expedition (figs. 6.4-
6.5). Columbus found landfall (probably at Grand Turk in the southern
Bahamas), explored some of the Caribbean islands, and brought back the
welcome news that he had found the Indies. He thought that Cuba was the
island of Cipango (probably Japan) at the eastern extremity of Asia—a
misconception that he took to his grave.
Following Columbus's discovery of the New World, a papal bull allo-
cated all lands to the west and south of Spain to the Spanish king. As a
result, the Portuguese had to redouble their e√orts to find an eastern route
to the spiceries. In 1497 the enterprising and cruel Vasco da Gama sailed
south with a fleet of four small ships and 150 men. Accompanied on the
first leg of his voyage by Dias, he passed the Cape Verde Islands and swung
out to sea at Sierra Leone to avoid the Guinea current and the doldrums.
(Most fifteenth-century sailing involved creeping along coastlines, but Co-
lumbus and da Gama took long leaps of faith—a sign of things to come.) He
rejoined the African coast farther south, rounded the Cape, and fighting
scurvy, storms, and contrary currents, revictualed in Mozambique. At the
port of Malindi (in modern Kenya) he took on board a pilot and crossed the
Indian Ocean, reaching Calicut, the most important trading post in south-
ern India, in May 1498. He was back home six months later, with news of
an eastern route to the wealth of the Orient.
Da Gama left a trail of dead bodies in his wake—there were many more
after his second trip—and began two centuries of Portuguese prosperity
Europe in 1444. He speculated publicly about the possibility of reaching India by sailing
south of Africa.
