The Lost Cods (II) - The West

The first europeans that with no doubt arrived in North America were the viking. They went through the Arctic, established colonies in Greenland and at least also in Newfoundland. This contact would end and as it seems Europe and America remained separated until the Discovery Ages.

The Portuguese explorations in the beggining of the XV century did not happend in the coastal zones, as it is commonly said. The discovery of Azores proves it and if we analise the distance between the Corvo and Flores islands in Azores and Newfoundland we see that half of the way to America was discovered... With the rise of the exploratory skills of the Portuguese ships the discovery of Amercia would just be a question of time...

Generally, the discovery of America is pointed to Columbus in 1492. And not by Portugal, the only country supporting the exploration, but curiously (or not...) by Portugal's only neighbour, Castile. This story and the rest of it is well know and we will return to it later.

There is a question that makes sense to ask: did Portugal discovered America before Columbus' voyage in 1492? Just for exmaple see that Corvo and Flores islands were discovered in 1451. In these 40 years no one tried to navigate to the west?

As it is expected, the remains of those voyages don't exist or are not very clear. Another very important point enters here and is often forgotten: the secrecy. The reasons to the Portuguese secrecy in the XVth century can be very obvious or not, but one thing is certain: it existed. Do any one believe that between Bartolomeu Dias voyage in 1488 and Vasco da Gama's in 1498 nothing was explored in the South Atlantic? (The voyage of Gama is shown in black in the picture). Vasco da Gama was in a very important mission (reach India) but did not followed Dias' way, he follows a new one... what if some terrible weather conditions existed in this new way? The only explanation I find is that explorations were made in the South Atlantic in these 10 years and that Gama followed the best way that was found in these exploratory voyages. But if that happened, then some voyages were hidden. After all, eve Bartolomeu Dias' voyage is only known due to some "information leaks"...

In the next post we will analise some of these "phantom voyages" to lands in the west.