The Portuguese claimed they discovered Brazil in April 1500 when Pedro Alvares Cabral sighted South America during the second Portuguese voyage to India; however, 15th- and early-16th-century manuscripts indicate Portugal had already known about Brazil. Why would the Portuguese know about Brazil but keep it secret? The answer lies in the Portuguese and Spanish race to find India at the end of the 15th century. While the Portuguese concentrated on searching for India by sailing the Atlantic around South Africa, the Spaniards and Christopher Columbus chose to look in the Caribbean. To understand why Portugal reached Brazil and hid it, one must delve into a secret Portuguese plan to keep Spain from beating Portugal to India.

Starting in the 1420s, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sent the first European ships down the West African coast. Prince Henry was not searching for India, instead he sought to discover the extent of Muslim territory, find the source of West African gold, and form an alliance with the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. Prince Henry envisioned forming a military alliance with Christian Ethiopia, then damming up the River Nile, and turning Egypt into a desert. European and African Christians would unite to destroy Islam by sailing across the Red Sea and sacking Mecca. [1] Prince Henry never destroyed Islam and he died in 1460, the same year his mariners discovered the uninhabited Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Senegal.

The Portuguese quest for India began in 1481, when King João II ascended the throne. João II was trained in geography, cosmology, cartography, mathematics, and the maritime sciences, and he devoted his reign to finding India. Sailing to India would enrich his poor country by transporting Asian spices, medicines, silk and precious stones directly to Portugal, thus, bypassing Muslim and Italian middlemen who monopolized the trade from India. As soon as he became king, João II constructed Elmina fortress on the Gold Coast of modern-day Ghana. Elmina supplied Portugal with tons of gold, which financed the country’s search for India. Elmina and the colony in the Cape Verde Islands became bases for ships to sail down the West African coast. [2] In 1482 Diego Cão sailed from Portugal to the Congo, and in 1487 Bartholomeu Dias sailed to South Africa and the Indian Ocean—coincidentally both men stopped in Elmina. [3]

In 1488 Bartholomeu Dias returned to Portugal after rounding South Africa, and navigating into the Indian Ocean. Dias showed Portugal the way to India. However, Dias sailed along the West African littoral, and his route was too slow to be economically profitable to sail to India. King João II wanted a faster way to reach the Indian Ocean, and he decided to map shipping lanes through the South Atlantic. It made sense for the king to utilize the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands and Elmina fortress which were the closest Portuguese bases to South Africa.

Mapping the South Atlantic presented Portugal with unique maritime challenges, because ships sailing south of the equator lost sight of constellations in northern skies, and they also encountered different Atlantic winds and currents than those found north of the equator. Unlike the Atlantic north of the equator, the South Atlantic had no archipelagos where ships could anchor in safe harbors and get fresh water, supplies and victual. The Azores, Canaries, and Cape Verdes made it easy for ships to find their way because the archipelagos consisted of many islands scattered over a wide section of the Atlantic Ocean. The South Atlantic lacked archipelagos, and sail-ships that navigated by dead-reckoning easily got lost. [4] Portuguese mariners charting the South Atlantic also had to find new Atlantic currents that flowed south from the equator and then ran eastward at the latitude of South Africa. Such currents only flow off the coast of Brazil.

ARCHIVAL EVIDENCE OF SECRET PORTUGUESE VOYAGES FROM THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS, 1491 TO 1493

The first clue that the Portuguese sailed secret voyages of discovery from their Cape Verde Islands toward Brazil emerged during the decade (1488-1498) after Bartholomeu Dias returned from South Africa, and when Portugal reached India. During that decade of silence, Portuguese archival records described no voyages of exploration into the Atlantic. It is inconceivable that after Bartholomeu Dias returned from South Africa in 1488, King João II of Portugal changed the name Cape of Tempest to the Cape of Good Hope and then stopped searching for India. Are we to believe that in 1497-1499, Vasco da Gama sailed from Portugal to India and back, without anyone mapping his route?

A search of Portuguese archival documents written during this decade of silence (1488-1498) reveals many manuscripts have mysteriously vanished. During the early 20th century, Braamcamp Freire published a list of surviving documents of D. João II’s Chancery Office (Chancelaria Real), extant in the National Archives of the Torre do Tombo, beginning 3 October 1481 (D. João II ascended the throne on 28 August of that year). But all document of 1485 are missing and as the last documents listed are dated 11 December 1492, and the king died on 25 October 1495, all documents of 1493, 1494 and 1495 that is, the last three years of his reign, just when he was occupied with the last stage of the preparation for the discovery of the sea route to India, are also missing. [5]

Although these documents have vanished from the Portuguese national archive, other manuscripts describe Portuguese Atlantic voyages. The same scholar, Braamcamp Freire, discovered in the National Archives of the Tore do Tombo, in Lisbon, two bundles of late 15th century documents referring to the ship-biscuit supplied to numerous vessels before they sailed from Lisbon, which he published and commented upon. Ninety-eight of these documents are dated 1488 and 1489, five 1490 and a further three 1494; they refer to 80 fleets and single-ships, mostly caravels, which went to various places on the African coast between Morocco and the Congo. [6]

Biscuits baked in the king’s royal ovens in Portugal fed sailors sailing long-distance Atlantic voyages—in fact, they dipped them in wine. Records of one such fleet appeared in the chronicles of King João II (1481-1495). In 1489 a Muslim prince named Bemoym converted from Islam to Christianity when King João II informed him that he could receive Portuguese military aid, only if he became a Christian. [7] Upon Bemoym’s conversion, João II dispatched a fleet to West Africa, ostensibly to assist him in defeating his brother and taking control of the Wolof kingdom. However, just before the fleet reached Senegal, the Portuguese commander killed Bemoym, whom he accused of treason. Many of the ships in the fleet sailed into the South Atlantic. Because King João II did not reprimand Commander Pero Vaaz da Cunha, it is possible the king used Bemoym as sacrificial lamb to send a Portuguese fleet to secretly map the South Atlantic. [8]

Evidence of other Portuguese voyages into the South Atlantic, during this decade of silence (1488-1498) emerged from the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands. King João II died in 1495, and a year later his successor, King Manuel I (1495-1521), audited the account of the Cape Verde colony, when he saw no royal revenues for the years 1491, 1492, and 1493. The royal auditor stated that the customs officers had collected a lot of cash and articles for stocking and equipping ships, namely: 49 bombards and laxartixas (large gun and small cannon) 2 barrels of (gun) powder…ship’s shrouds, rods, sails, anchors, fogareos (torchs) grapnels, iron chains, cabels, oars for caravels and barcas (types of ships) rigging, one old barca, 2 old ships’ hulls and 29 empty pipes for water. [9]

Cape Verde customs officers did not collect ship hulls as taxes from merchants. Therefore, the ship hulls probably belonged to the Portuguese crown. In addition, the royal auditor reported “879 quintals and a half arrobe of biscuits which were sent to him from Portugal.” [10] That was equivalent to 52,740 kilograms or enough to supply fleets of ships. [11] The royal auditor concluded that all the taxes and merchandise were used on some undisclosed project for King João II. This suggests King João II used his Cape Verde colony as a naval-base to supply ships sailing secret voyages into the Atlantic.

KING JOÃO II DIRECTING SECRET VOYAGES FROM HIS CAPE VERDE ISLANDS TOWARDS BRAZIL

Christopher Columbus said King João II told him a mainland existed beyond the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands, and that is why he sailed there in 1498, during his third voyage to the Americas. [12] When Columbus reached the Cape Verde Islands, he recorded in his onboard log,

“Some principal inhabitants told (Columbus) of a mysterious island that appeared southwesterly of Fogo, and which D. João II had planned to discover, and towards which canoes filled with merchandise from the West coast of Africa had been seen to navigate.” [13]

This suggests that King João II dispatched ships from the Cape Verde Islands toward Brazil. Columbus had extensive communication with the Portuguese king. He first met the king in 1485 when he proposed sailing to India for Portugal and again in 1488 when he returned from Spain, at the king’s invitation to meet Bartholomeu Dias in Lisbon. [14] Then in March 1493 when Columbus returned to Europe from his maiden voyage to the Americas, he stopped in Portugal and spent a week with King João II. When Columbus finally arrived in Spain, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella claimed the New World he found in the Caribbean. The Spanish monarchs appealed to Pope Alexander VI, a corrupt Spaniard, who issued a series of bulls favorable to Spain. [15] However, King João II challenged both the Spaniards and the pope, and he claimed the lands found by Columbus as Portuguese territory. João II cited the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas, which stated that all territories south of the Spanish Canary Islands belonged to Portugal. The Caribbean, where Columbus had sailed, was south of the Canary Islands.

Pope Alexander VI drew a longitudinal meridian through the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands, running from the Artic to the Antarctic. Everything west of the line went to Spain, and everything east belonged to Portugal, except the Canary Islands. King João II rejected the papal meridian, and opened direct negotiations with Spain. The Portuguese king proposed to accept the papal line, if Spain agreed to move it 960 nautical miles to the west. Spain agreed to the Portuguese proposition with the caveat that if any land was discovered 20-days sail west of the Cape Verde Islands it would belong to Spain. Since no land was discovered 20-days sail, west of the Cape Verde Islands, the Tordesillas protocol became the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese territories. [16]

The Tordesillas boundary gave Brazil to Portugal, six years before its discovery, because the boundary line ran through South America. During the fifteenth century, European mariners could not calculate longitude at sea; [17] therefore, it made no sense for King João II to insist on moving the papal boundary into the mid-Atlantic, unless he knew there was land out there. At the time, Portugal was the only European country navigating south of the equator; therefore, Spain had no idea land lay east of the Tordesillas boundary line, and south of the equator. Furthermore, by redrawing the treaty line 960 nautical miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, King João II blocked Spain from sailing around South Africa to India. [18]

Portugal only acknowledged Brazil in 1500, a year after Vasco da Gama returned from India, when claiming Brazil would not show Spain that Portugal was sailing around South Africa to the real India. After he returned from India, Vasco da Gama wrote the sailing instructions for Pedro Alvares Cabral’s voyage to sail to India. Cabral followed those instructions and ran into Brazil. [19] A comparison of the onboard logs of da Gama’s maiden voyage to India and Cabral’s onboard log shows da Gama sent Cabral to Brazil. According to his onboard log, in 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed from Portugal straight for the Portuguese Cape Verde Island of Santiago, where he loaded fresh water, and victuals, and adjusted his sails. Da Gama departed Santiago Island and sailed southeast towards Sierra Leone in West Africa: he then navigated southwest into the South Atlantic. [20] Da Gama instructed Cabral to sail from Portugal to the Cape Verde Islands, but warned him about a plague in Santiago Island, and suggested Cabral should stop instead at another Cape Verde Island, São Nicholau.

On the one hand, Cabral followed da Gama’s advice and sailed toward São Nicholau Island, located in the western section of the archipelago. According to his onboard log, on 22 March 1500 he spotted São Nicholau Island, but did not stop. Following da Gama’s instructions, Cabral sailed due-south of São Nicholau. [21] Da Gama, on the other hand, had anchored at Santiago Island, in the eastern section of the archipelago, and sailed southeast towards Africa. Thus, Cabral crossed the equator west of the point where da Gama traversed the line. That is why Cabral ran into Brazil, whereas da Gama missed the South American landmass. However, da Gama’s onboard log showed that he, too, was close to Brazil. On his maiden voyage to India da Gama reported that about a month after departing the Cape Verde Islands, he spotted land birds, flying to the west. Although he was off the Brazilian coast, da Gama never saw land.

After Cabral ran into Brazil, he dispatched a ship back to Portugal to inform the crown of his discovery. While other Portuguese mariners received rewards when they found new lands, Cabral got nothing. This suggests the Portuguese already knew about Brazil when Cabral found it. Are we to believe that the Portuguese sailed three years (1497-1499) from Portugal to India and back, before they sailed one month from their Cape Verde colony to Brazil? Furthermore, it makes no maritime sense that Vasco da Gama’s route to India took him so close to Brazil, but no other Portuguese mariners had sailed there before, in preparation for the maiden Portuguese expedition to India.

WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION THAT THE PORTUGUESE KNEW ABOUT BRAZIL BEFORE ITS OFFICIAL DISCOVERY IN 1500

There are written accounts of Portuguese voyages to Brazil before 1500. Around 1507 the Portuguese cartographer and royal administrator Duarte Pachecho Pereira wrote that in 1498 King Manuel I of Portugal ordered,
“us to discover a very large landmass with many large islands adjacent, extending 70º North of the equator…to 28 ½ º on the other side of the Equator towards the Antarctic Pole…Thus if from the shores and coast of Portugal or from the Promontory of finis terra or from any other point of Europe, Africa or Asia we sail across the ocean due West and East through 36 degrees of longitude, which is eighteen leagues to the degree are 648 leagues, we find this land…there is found much excellent (wood called) Brazil.” [22]

A look at Cabral’s onboard log shows he measured the distance from the Cape Verde Islands to Brazil at 660 to 670 leagues, [23] which is very close to the 648 leagues of Pereira’s western landmass. This suggests that Pereira’s cryptic language described an expedition from the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands to Brazil, two years before its official discovery.

A second Portuguese author also described sailing to Brazil before its official discovery. In 1514 the Portuguese mariner Estevam Fróis was sailing along the northern coast of South America when Spaniards captured him. They accused the Portuguese mariner of sailing in Spanish territory, or on the western side of the boundary established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The Spaniards imprisoned Fróis in Hispaniola. Writing from his prison cell, Fróis claimed that he had been sailing along the Brazilian coast for twenty years. [24] His chronology placed Fróis in Brazil in 1494, the very year when King João II was negotiating the Treaty of Tordesillas with the Spanish monarchs, some six years before the Portuguese officially discovered Brazil

CONCLUSION

Archival records from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries show the Portuguese knew about Brazil years before 1500, when they officially discovered the South American landmass. Because the Portuguese were the only Europeans sailing south of the equator during the fifteenth century, they saw no reason to acknowledge they found Brazil, which is south of the equator. If the Portuguese had informed Spain that they discovered Brazil before they reached the real India, then the Spaniards would have learned that the Portuguese were trying to sail around South Africa to India. King João II of Portugal kept Brazil hidden from Spain in order to have Spain and Columbus search for India in the Caribbean. That gave him time to chart a route through the South Atlantic to South Africa.

The Portuguese Cape Verde colony was Europe’s closest Old World settlement to the Americas before 1492. The distance from the Cape Verde Islands to Brazil is 4,516 kilometers or 2,806 miles, which was a one-month sail for fifteenth century ships. The word “Brazil” means wood—a valuable dye-producing wood. However, to Portugal, dye was not as important as the Atlantic currents running off the Brazilian coast. The currents flow in a counterclockwise gyre, which propelled sail ships south along the Brazilian coast and then east to South Africa. If the Portuguese had told Spain about Brazil before Vasco da Gama sailed to India and returned to Europe, they risked showing Spain the shipping lanes running off the Brazilian coast to South Africa, and then into the Indian Ocean to India. Portugal kept the discovery of Brazil secret from Spain and the world because Brazil held the maritime key to sailing from Europe, through the South Atlantic, to South Africa and India. Africa and Brazil were linked together, even before the official discovery of Brazil.

* Trevor Hall is Associate Professor of African History. He completed his Ph.D., at The Johns Hopkins University with a dissertation on early-modern Cape Verde Islands.

ENDNOTES

[1] Gomes Eanes Da Azurara, Crónica De Guiné (Lisboa, 1937), 43-47.
[2] J. Bato’Ora Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, São Jorge Da Mina, 1482-1637 (Lisboa, 1993), 45-77.
[3] Charles Verlinden, Cristophe Colombo Et Barthélemy (Lisboa, 1970), 9-38.
[4] J. H. Parry, The Discovery of the Sea (Berkeley, 1974), 139-163.
[5] Armando Cortesão, The Mystery of Vasco Da Gama (Coimbra, 1973), 175.
[6] Ibid., 167.
[7] Ruy De Pina, Croniqua Do Muy Eycellente Rey Dom Joham O Segundo (Lisboa, 1792), 90-97.
[8] A. Teixeira Da Mota, “D. João Bemoim e a Expedição Portuguesa ao Senegal em 1489” (Luanda, 1971), 63-111.
[9] John W. Blake, Europeans In West Africa, 1450-1560 (London, 1942), 1: 87-88.
[10] Ibid.
[11] One quintal = 60 kg., according to Humberto Leitão and J. Vicente Lopes, Dicionário Da Linguagem De Marinha Antiga E Actual (Lisboa, 1974), sv. “quintal”, 442.
[12] Gianni Granzotto, Christopher Columbus (Norman, 1987), 231.
Samuel E. Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, A life of Christopher Columbus (Boston, 1983), 520.
[13] Pierre d’Ailly, Ymago Mundi, 1480-1483 (Paris, 1930), 1: 206-211.
[14] Vander H. Lindel, “Alexander VI and the Demarcation of the Maritime and Colonial Domains of Spain and Portugal, 1493-1494” (1916).
[15] Elaine Sanceau, D. João II (Porto, 1959), 389-402.
[16] W. G. L. Randles, “Portuguese and Spanish Attempts to Measure Longitude in the 16th Century” (Coimbra, 1985), 5-21.
[17] Rand McNally, Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries (New York,1990), 35.
[18] Vasco da Gama, Instruções Para A Viagem Da Armada Chefiada Por Pedro Alvares Cabral”
[19] (Lisboa, 1983), 234-238.
[20] José Pedro Machado and Viriato Campos, Vasco da Gama E A Sua Viagem De Descobrimento (Lisboa1, 1969), 112-115.
[21] Pêro Vaz De Caminha, “Carta a El-Rei Dom Manuel Sobre o Achamento de Brasil, 1 de Maio 1500” (Lisboa, 1974), 31-33.
[22] Duarte Pachecho Pereira, Esmeraldo De Situ Orbis, 1507-1508 (London, 1937), 12-13.
[23] Caminha, “Carta a d El-Rei,” 33.
[24] Alexandre G. Da Naia, “Cristbal Colón Instrumento Da Política Portuguesa De Expansão Ultramarina” (Lisboa, 1950), 59.

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