Henry the Navigator

The Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) launched the first great European voyages of exploration. He sought new lands and sources of revenue for his kingdom and dynasty and searched for eastern Christian allies against Islam.

Born at Oporto on March 4, 1394, Henry was the third son of John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster. He grew to maturity at a time when John I was bringing to a close a confused period of civil strife and war with Castile and securing Portugal's independence. The conflicts of this period had left the nobility decimated and impoverished and the monarchy's revenues greatly depreciated. Thus the ruling families began to look abroad for new worlds of wealth, land, and honors to conquer.

John and his sons became involved in a threefold movement of Portuguese expansion, comprising the campaign to conquer Moorish North Africa; the movement to explore and conquer the Atlantic island groups to the west and south; and the exploring, trading, and slaving expeditions down the West African coast. These ventures were united not by geographical curiosity but by Henry's overreaching desire to continue abroad the traditional Portuguese crusade against Moors and Berbers in the peninsula itself. He hoped also to catch Islam in a gigantic pincers movement by joining forces with the mythical "Indies" Christian kingdom of Prester John, the wealthy and powerful priest-king of medieval legend. The Prester's domains had been variously located in present-day India and in East Africa (Ethiopia).

North Africa and the Atlantic Islands

King John wished to satisfy the avarice and lust for battle of his warriors; Prince Henry and his brothers wanted to prove their manhood and strike a blow for the faith on the battlefield. A campaign launched in July 1415 during a civil war in North Africa left the port of Ceuta stripped of its navy. Henry was knighted and made Duke of Viseu. With the fall of Ceuta the Portuguese learned of the long-established gold trade with black Africa conducted by caravan across the Sahara. Gold hunger had been growing in late medieval Europe in response to the growth of commerce, but Portugal had lacked gold coinage since 1383. Prince Henry may thus have sought to tap the supply at its source by venturing down the West African coast.

Henry's first sponsored voyages of exploration were to the Atlantic islands of Madeira and Porto Santo (1418-1419); colonization followed. These islands, as well as the Azores and Canaries, had been known to the earlier Middle Ages; they were now rediscovered and exploited by the Portuguese (the Azores ca. 1439), except the Canaries, which fell under the control of Castile. The Cape Verde Islands, much farther to the south, were discovered and settled in 1455-1460. Colonization of these islands was important for the entire subsequent history of Iberian expansion: they provided bases for voyages to the New World and for the development of practices used later in American colonization. More immediately, they brought in returns on capital loans extended by Prince Henry to island settlers.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese involvement in North Africa was proving to be a costly and dangerous undertaking. During Henry's disastrous attempt in 1437 to conquer Tangier, the Moslems roundly defeated the Portuguese and took Prince Henry's younger brother, Fernando, as a hostage against the return of Ceuta. Over the objections of Henry and his eldest brother, Duarte (then king), the royal council refused to make the trade, and Fernando lived out the rest of his days in a dungeon at Fez.

African Voyages

The repeated probes made down the West African coast at Henry's behest constitute the most significant achievement of his career. Only the most important of these expeditions will be mentioned here.

After many unsuccessful attempts Gil Eannes in 1434 rounded Cape Bojador on the North African coast. This point was the southernmost limit of previous European exploration, and Eannes's feat in sailing beyond it—and returning—constitutes the most important navigational achievement of the early Portuguese maritime enterprise. Further voyages under Nuno Tristão led to the rounding of Cape Blanco (1442), the occupation of Arguin Island (1443), and the discovery of the mouths of the Senegal (1444) and Gambia (1446) rivers. Cape Verde was attained by Dinas Dias in 1444, and the islands of that name were first visited by Alvise da Cadamosto in 1555. The mouths of the Geba and Casamance rivers were discovered by Diogo Gomes in 1456, and in 1460 Pedro da Sintra reached Sierra Leone. A total of about 1,500 miles of African coast had been explored by these expeditions.

The economic and political consequences of African "discovery" were momentous. The Portuguese obtained an ever-increasing flow of gold through trade with inhabitants of the coastal regions and in 1457 resumed minting gold coins. With a coarse African red pepper (malagueta) the Portuguese made their first incursion into the Italian monopoly of the spice trade. However, the most important long-range economic development was the beginnings of the African slave trade, which became significant after 1442. The Portuguese obtained slaves through raids on coastal villages and trade with the inhabitants of Gambia and Upper Guinea. In this way the Portuguese, at the very beginning of Europe's overseas expansion, provided the "woeful solution" for the problem of colonial labor power.

Equally important for future patterns of colonization were developments in economic, religious, and political policy. At this time the papacy commenced to issue its long series of bulls defining the rights of the colonizing powers. The Portuguese crown was awarded an exclusive monopoly over both present and future exploration, commerce, and conquest all the way to South Africa and the "Indies," as well as a spiritual monopoly over these same regions.

Henry supported and defined the missions of his captains and patronized map makers and others who could make practical contributions to the progress of discovery. But he sponsored no "school" of pure science and mathematics, and his reputation as a patron of learning has been grossly inflated. Henry died at Vila do Infante near Sagres on Nov. 13, 1460.

Further Reading

There are several biographies of Prince Henry, of which one of the best is C. Raymond Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator: The Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. (1895; new ed. 1923). The standard work on Portuguese expansion in the 15th century is Edgar Prestage, The Portuguese Pioneers (1933), but this should now be supplemented with C.R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825 (1969). The history of Portugal in this period is best conveyed by H. V. Livermore, A New History of Portugal (1947). The history of European expansion overseas from the 15th through the 17th century is considered in Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420-1620 (1952), and J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (1963).

Additional Sources

Age of exploration and discovery: Prince Henry and the Portuguese navigators (1394-1498), Philadelphia, Westminster Press 1969.

Chubb, Thomas Caldecot, Prince Henry the Navigator and the highways of the sea, New York, Viking Press 1970.

Fisher, Leonard Everett, Prince Henry the Navigator, New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1990.

Jacobs, William Jay, Prince Henry, the Navigator, New York, F. Watts, 1973. □

Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), Prince of Portugal, was the third son of John I of Portugal and grandson of John of Gaunt. He gained military renown when the Portuguese captured Ceuta from the Moors in 1415 and, as a fervent Christian, was an ardent crusader against Islam. However, some of the military campaigns he was later involved in were less successful. The expedition he sent in 1424 to capture Gran Canaria from its indigenous inhabitants ended in humiliation; his ambitions to oust the Moors from Granada never came to anything; and his attempt to capture Tangiers in 1437 was a disaster, particularly as he reneged on his agreement to return Ceuta to the Moors, a volte-face which led directly to the death of his younger brother whom he had handed over as a hostage. But his determination to expand Portuguese trade and territory elsewhere, under the guise of spreading Christianity amongst the heathen, was more successful. It also brought him the fame, though not the fortune, he was almost certainly seeking.

Ceuta's garrison, for which Henry became responsible, had to be provisioned from Portugal. This led to the development of the caravel, and it was not long before Henry began to send some of his out into the Atlantic to search for the places he had heard about and which were marked on the early charts he studied. Some like Brasil were fictitious, but Madeira was rediscovered by his ships during the 1420s, as almost certainly were the Azores, and Henry's financial support of the colonization of these islands paid him handsome dividends, though he spent lavishly and died in debt.

But Henry is best remembered for his patronage of a succession of seamen, Portuguese and others, who from 1434 onwards made voyages of discovery down the west coast of Africa (Guinea) in search of gold and slaves, and who in the 1450s found the first islands of the Cape Verde archipelago. His captains brought back little gold, but the number of slaves captured or traded made these ventures well worthwhile. At the time of Henry's death this exploration by sea had reached present-day Gambia, and later led to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz and the sea route to India.

Henry's sobriquet, ‘the navigator’, is something of a misnomer. He was no sailor and historians now dismiss the stories of his school of navigation at Sagres. ‘Far from teaching practical navigation to his pilots as the myth has it,’ writes one ( P. Russell , Prince Henry ‘The Navigator’: A Life (2001), 238
), ‘it is much more probable that at first it was they who taught the Prince about their craft, so enabling him to relate his book knowledge of astrology, astronomy and cartography to the needs of practical navigation, even though he had little direct experience of the latter … His own unshakeable self-confidence that it was his destiny to succeed as a sponsor of oceanic exploration communicated itself to mariners and sea-going knights and squires alike, even before the caravel started to trade profitably in Guinea. All these people trusted Henry because they believed, probably not always correctly, that he knew what he was about. It was also a touch of genius on his part to exploit the religious and chivalric sentiments of the squires of his overlarge household by offering them the chance to win in great waters, as crusaders for the Faith on remote African shores, the fame and glory they sought.’

Henry the Navigator (1394–1460)

Prince of the ruling Aviz dynasty of Portugal, the third son of King John I, and leader of Portuguese exploration of the African coasts. In the early fifteenth century, Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula were the scene of frequent attacks by pirates based in North African ports. To thwart these attacks, in 1415, Henry planned and took part in the conquest of Ceuta, on the North African coast. There the Portuguese encountered the lucrative trade in gold and slaves across the Sahara Desert. Inspired by the possibilities of joining this trade, and by the legend of a Christian king known as Prester John, said to rule somewhere in Africa, Henry sponsored voyages of exploration down the Atlantic coast of Africa.

In 1419, Henry was named as the governor of Algarve, the southernmost province of Portugal. From his headquarters on the Sagres Peninsula, at the southwestern limit of Europe, Henry planned explorations into unknown reaches of the Atlantic Ocean and helped develop a new kind of ship, known as the caravel, that was lighter and nimbler than the heavy ships used as freighters by the Portuguese in the Mediterranean. Henry paid for the explorations he sponsored through his appointment as governor of the Order of Christ, a religious order holding estates and benefices throughout the kingdom, and through his right to one-fifth of all the trading profits from lands he discovered.

Leaving from the port of Lagos, the Portuguese fleets set out to rescue and ransom Portuguese prisoners of the Barbary Coast pirates. The small caravels sailed down the coast of Mauretania and returned with slaves, thus beginning the era of European slave trading. Henry's fleets discovered Madeira and, in 1427, the Azores Islands, which were soon colonized by Portugal. In 1434 Gil Eannes rounded Cape Bojador, up to that time the southernmost limit of European exploration. An expedition led in 1437 by Henry to Tangier, however, ended in failure when the Portuguese were defeated by the Moors and Henry's brother Fernando was made a prisoner.

Portuguese ships later reached Cape Blanco, the mouth of the Senegal River, and Cape Vert, eventually reaching the sub-Saharan coasts that lay beyond the limits of Muslim-held Africa. The trade in African gold greatly enriched the kingdom of Portugal, which began minting the famous gold coins known as cruzeiros in 1457. In addition, the establishment of bases closer to the prevailing westerly trade winds greatly eased the task of navigating across the Atlantic to the Americas. Eventually Portuguese navigators would push well beyond Africa—to Brazil in South America as well as the Indian Ocean and the Spice Islands.

See Also: Aviz, House of; Camoes, Luis Vaz de; exploration

Henry the Navigator 1394–1460, prince of Portugal, patron of exploration. Because he fought with extraordinary valor in the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta (1415), he was created duke of Viseu by his father, John I, king of Portugal. The Moroccan campaign inspired Henry with a desire to extend his knowledge of Africa. In 1416 he established at Sagres in SW Portugal a base for explorations, later adding a naval arsenal and an observatory and a school for the study of geography and navigation. The nearby port of Lagos provided a convenient harbor. One of his navigators rediscovered the Madeira Islands (1418–20), and by degrees the west coast of Africa was explored. Cape Bojador was reached in 1434, Cape Blanco was passed in 1441, and the Bay of Arguim was discovered in 1443. When Henry's captains returned with slaves and gold, African exploration, long derided, became very popular; from 1444 to 1446 between 30 and 40 vessels sailed for the W African coast under the prince's authority. His navigators discovered the Senegal River and rounded Cape Verde (1444) and finally (1460) reached a point near the present Sierra Leone. The abuses of the slave trade caused Henry to forbid the kidnapping of blacks in 1455. Henry played an important political role in the minority of Alfonso V, establishing his brother Pedro as regent. His position as grand master of the wealthy and powerful Order of Christ (Portuguese successor to the Knights Templars) increased his influence, and much of the revenue for his ventures was derived from his ecclesiastical tithes. His military reputation, dimmed by a disastrous expedition (1437) against Tangier, was recovered by a subsequent Moroccan campaign (1458), and he was offered the command of several foreign armies. Henry's chief importance, however, lay in his notable contributions to the art of navigation and to the progress of exploration, which provided the groundwork for the development of Portugal's colonial empire and for the country's rise to international prominence in the 16th cent.

Bibliography: See biographies by E. D. S. Bradford (1960), R. H. Major (1967), C. R. Beazley (1895, repr. 1968), and E. Sanceau (1969).

Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) Portuguese prince, the third son of John I of Portugal and grandson of John of GAUNT. He did not himself undertake any voyages of exploration, but was the patron of a succession of Portuguese seamen who made voyages of discovery among the Atlantic islands and down the west coast of Africa as far south as Cape Verde and the Azores, which led, after his death, to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and the sea route to India. With the aim of finding a new route to the Indies, as governor of the Algarve he established a school at which navigation, astronomy, and cartography were taught to his captains and pilots, and constructed the first observatory in Portugal.

Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) Portuguese prince. A son of John I, he sponsored Portuguese voyages of discovery to the Atlantic coast of Africa, which later led to the discovery of the route to India via the Cape of Good Hope.