By Alessandro Giustolisi
Every year, Portugal sent several navigators to search the south, but the most remarkable trips were those of Diogo Cão who arrived at the Congo River and the Angolan coast around 1480; Bartolomeu Dias who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa in 1488, saying he found the way to circumnavigate Africa but eventually returning home; and finally, in 1497, Vasco da Gama who passed the Cape of Good Hope. He reached the southwestern coast of India, in Calicut, now called Kozhikode on May 20, 1498, opening the door for Portugal to become the biggest trader between Europe and Asia for about 200 years.
The interesting thing is that in 1479, Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Alcáçovas under which Spain got control of the Canary Islands and Portugal took possession of the Azores Islands, Madeira, Porto Santo and the West African coast, including the Cape Verde Islands. Portugal, having taken control of the Atlantic Ocean, with possession of the area from the Azores to Cape Verde, could explore more easily without having to journey further to the west.
In 1494, the next treaty, the Treaty of Tordesillas, was signed after the official discovery of some islands Columbus thought to be part of the Asian continent. This treaty was an agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagers. Portugal was able to keep an area between Brazil and Indonesia where all the best trading was possible and Spain retained all the undiscovered territories from Indonesia, past the Pacific and up to Brazil. The demarcation line that divided the New World is commonly known as La Raya. All lands east of that line were claimed by Portugal; all lands west of that line were claimed by Spain.
Before 1494, Portugal could move very easily in the western seas. It had control of the Azores, Madeira, and Cape Verde, so any voyage west of the Azores or Madeira was legitimate travel and the Portuguese had no competitors.
Even after the treaty, nobody in Europe knew the exact measure of the earth and any geographically good reference in Asia, so anything on the other side of the world remained abstract. The Treaty of Tordesillas appeared to be a big success for Portugal and very little for Spain since they got only a few islands. Or was there more to the story? Spain knew through Columbus there was already more to be discovered.
In 1421, a map from the Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano, who worked for the Portuguese, described some islands in the west Atlantic Ocean as the Antillia group west of the Azores – the first described islands that connected with the Antilles name of our Caribbean islands – and more north, the island of Satanazes (“island of wild peoples”) could be very well some populated islands with indigenous people.
In Portuguese, ante ilha means “fore-island”, so the name Antillia likely came from that. Somebody had to go to the Ante Ilha of Portugal to give such a name.
The Pizzigano map, dated 1421, contains islands in the North Atlantic Ocean in the west of Spain and Portugal including Portuguese discoveries and legendary islands such as Antillia.
Detail of north Atlantic islands in the 1421 map of Pizzigano which depicts Antilia (large red rectangle).
The Cantino planisphere or world map was brought from Portugal to Italy in 1502 by Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara. It showed in detail what today are the east coast of North America, the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, The Bahamas, Venezuela, the coast of Brazil, the coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and India, ending with a not precise coast of Burma and Sumatra. This had to be put together from many years and miles of voyages of many years. The first official voyage to the western Atlantic, in October 1492, was by Columbus and he was back home a year later. All other official voyages from Spain and Portugal westward only started after the return of Columbus in 1493. Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil only in 1500, and Amerigo Vespucci only realised in 1501 that there was a new continent. It was therefore impossible to have so much detail represented in a map in 1502.
Since Cantino was working for the King of Portugal, all details on the map came from other non-official sources in Portugal. Portugal therefore knew of all those new territories in North America much longer before.
The Cantino planisphere, completed in 1502, depicts the world as it became known to the Europeans after the great exploration voyages to the Americas, Africa and India.
The world map of 1542 by French cartographer Jean Rotz is the best example of how even Far East Asia was well detailed. Since at that time, only the Portuguese had reached Indonesia, we can see very clearly the possibility that the Portuguese knew of the Australian coast. But considering the famous La Raya line decided in the Treaty of Tordesillas which passed around that latitude, it was logical for the Portuguese to keep that a secret. There is a confirmation with the Vallard atlas showing that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendoca led a fleet of four ships to Botany Bay on the east Australian coast in 1522, 250 years before James Cook.
This 1542 map shows the world with a clear coast of Australia that was officially only discovered after 1700.
Considering these facts and that the Portuguese were only interested in trade and not in developing underdeveloped countries, it is certain that they visited the Americas but focused on the Asian market. Having Spain next door, which was much more populated and better armed, Portugal needed to create some political territorial treaties with Spain, offering a slice of the earth, but keeping the best part. I am certain the Portuguese visited the Americas before Columbus; they knew of its existence. More proof of this is that they asked the Pope to move the demarcation line in the Treaty of Tordesillas, the La Raya, more westward to include more western territories of Brazil. Brazil was a large mainland with possible riches and where all winds were pushing their ships on the way past South Africa to India. Interestingly enough, Alvarez Cabral officially only discovered Brazil in 1500 on the way to Africa, six months after the treaty was made.
The results of this treaty are still evident throughout the Americas today. For example, all Latin American nations are predominantly Spanish-speaking countries with the exception of Brazil where Portuguese is the national language. This is because the eastern tip of Brazil falls east of the La Raya line, and was where the majority of Portuguese colonisation occurred. The borders of modern Brazil have expanded since the 1506 expansion of the Treaty of Tordesillas. This suggests the Portuguese never reached the Yucatan Peninsula and the Central Andean mountains where they would encounter the Mayan and Incan civilisation, the only developed civilisations at that time in the new continent that could have changed interest in the Americas.
Unfortunately, all the archives were destroyed and all the historical facts from this era were lost in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Portugal being a small country but already a large empire, kept its discovery of new territories out of public knowledge to avoid competition. Some secrets may have been documented elsewhere but, in my opinion, the Portuguese government will follow tradition in not disclosing anything. Today, Portugal has special ties with the United Kingdom with which it had an alliance for centuries. They still needed to have good relations with Spain since they shared the only land border with the rest of Europe.
This foreign policy helped Portugal to preserve its empire for centuries, but the principle of secrecy of new unknown territory was another pillar of strength, preventing others from occupying other potential colonies.
In all this, there is another important chapter that I believe is very important – the true origin of Columbus.
A statue of Christopher Columbus in Cuba, Portugal.
Columbus’ nationality is not clear, and there are various claims, including that he was Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, or Spanish. While the original narrative is that he was Italian, there is no documentation about him exploring the Mediterranean, only the Atlantic Ocean. We know he could speak Portuguese and Spanish for sure, but possibly also North Ligurian (from Genova), Latin and Hebrew, yet all we have from him was mostly written in Spanish mixed with Portuguese. It must also be noted that two Jewish bankers partially financed his first voyage. In all places Columbus landed in the New World, he gave names related to existing places, in Portuguese. That could be from Galicia as well since the language in that Spanish region is closer to Portuguese than Castilian (Spanish). The name of the largest island he found was Cuba, the same as the unique city of Cuba in the Alentejo region of Portugal, founded long before the discovery of Cuba in the Caribbean. The second largest piece of land he found was Hispaniola, where he founded the Fort of Nativity (Fuerte la Navidad), calling this location “La Isabela” in honour of Queen Isabela of Spain who partially financed his voyage and invested him as the second authority after the Queen in all discovered territories.
In 1479, Columbus married Filipa de Moniz, daughter of the Governor of Porto Santo, a Portuguese island close to Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, an obligatory stop for all navigators sailing southwest. After the death of the governor, it was said that among his belongings were documents such as letters and maps of some seamen or navigators mentioning other islands and territory, without any reference to official already discovered territory. This suggests that Columbus already knew about some other territory and the possible distance. On his first voyage, Columbus ordered that ships travel day and night till a certain distance, but after that distance, only by day, which indicated he had knowledge of a territory at a determined distance.
Today, we have some new information supported by DNA tests that suggest Columbus was related to the Conde da Ribeira Grande de Portugal and Dom Duarte Pio of Braganca families, all descendants of the King of Portugal Dom Joao I. The theory of Columbus being Portuguese suggests his original name is Salvador Fernandes Zarco, born to Isabel Gonsalves Fernandes Zarco and the illegitimate son of Dom Infante Fernando, Duke of Beja.
From the 18th century, the family of Conde da Ribeira Grande used the surname Gonsalves Zarco, like Columbus’ mother who had Sephardic Jewish origin but converted following the edict at that time. Columbus’ true identity could have been hidden because of who his father was and his mother’s Jewish roots.
Putting all this information together, it is logical to conclude that Columbus hid his origin and his sons and descendants did the same. He might have been Jewish, and hiding those origins to avoid persecution or the seizure of his assets. Alternatively, he could have been Spanish.
Columbus marrying the daughter of a Governor in a Portugal region, having a noble title or connected to noble families confirmed the hypothesis that his biological father was the Duke of Beja, the same area where Cuba town is and where he could have been born, and the same name he gave to the first large island he found on his first voyage. There is a possibility that Columbus knew about the new territories he said he discovered but to make sure he could have the authority to be able to govern them and pass them on to his sons, he needed to be invested by a monarch from Portugal or Spain to ensure he had those warranties. Alternatively, which to me is more credible, he could have been a spy for the Portuguese, working under the threat of his Jewish origin being exposed. My theory is that the Portuguese knew about the New World and sent him to Spain to divert that country from a path that would take it there.
After his first voyage, Columbus returned first in 1493 to Lisbon and not to Spain. This is a strange coincidence. The other ironic fact was that the king of Portugal was the first to receive the news about some new islands with new populations never seen before and he himself sent a letter with the news to the Queen Isabel of Spain that reached before Columbus arrived by sea to Spain to meet her.
In my opinion, we can consider Leif Erikson (The Lucky) the first historical personality from the Old World documented to have visited the Americas, unbeknownst to him. But Portugal was the first country that recognised it as a new continent in approximately 1440, having probably visited it in early 1400, although we don’t know the exact date and who was the navigator. Two key elements confirming this is the Treaty of Alcáçovas in 1479, where Portugal retained all exclusive area from the Azores to Cape Verde Islands, being the absolute owner at that time of all the Atlantic Ocean till the Tordesillas Treaty in 1494 when they gave it up to Spain – a U-turn that can only be explained by the fact that with Spain expanding next door, there was more need to achieve peace and cooperation in getting the Muslims out from South Spain and North Africa, and having Portugal understand there was only ‘wild’ territories (the Americas) before Asia. Their interest was in distracting Spain and encouraging it to have an interest in the West rather than the East which was the route to India and the rest of Asia. For Portugal, Columbus could just have been a pawn in this tremendously brilliant geopolitical move to convince Spain about the goodness of the new Western territories.
Portugal kept secret the existence of the Americas to surprise Spain and sent Columbus to encourage them to explore the West. I believe Columbus was the first historical personality from the Old World to make official the news about its existence before all mentioned before. The irony of history is that Spain, more powerful than Portugal, had an empire in America and the Pacific but lost almost everything in 1820, while Portugal, much smaller and with a small army, maintained its empire until 1975, the longest colonial empire ever existed (over 550 years).
Even the name “Barbados” has the same meaning as bearded man in Portuguese and Spanish. Due to all these facts, I have the conviction that there is a significant possibility that Barbados and other Caribbean islands were visited between 1430 and 1450, most likely by the Portuguese, long before Columbus’ discovery. Perhaps one day, some books, maps or archaeological findings will confirm this as will our children’s education about the discovery of the Americas.
Alessandro Giustolisi is a former travel industry executive and the owner and operator of Antillean Atlantic.
Editor’s Note: The so-called “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492, a pivotal event in world history with far-reaching implications, should be viewed in its proper historical context. The lands Columbus encountered in the Caribbean had already been inhabited by diverse indigenous civilisations for millennia. Further contact, and later subjugation of indigenous peoples through European colonisation in North, Central and South America, revealed civilisations of remarkable diversity and complexity from hunter-gatherer groups to complex cities. Historians generally accept that “Os Barbados” was so named by the Portuguese Pedro Campos on a voyage to Brazil in 1536. The process of DNA verification of Christopher Columbus which began in 2003 with confirmation of the explorer’s remains and his relatives is ongoing, depending on advances in forensic science, and is not yet complete. DNA scientists have said they expect to reach irrefutable conclusions this year when Columbus’ established biography as either Genovese or elsewhere in southern Europe will either be confirmed or debunked.
