The expression “Great Navigations” is used to refer to the various maritime expeditions organized in the 15th and 16th centuries, mainly by Portugal and Spain. They helped to mark the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age, resulted in the discovery of a new continent to be explored by Europeans, America, and in a great impetus for the increase of Europe’s trade with Asia and Africa.
The start of this crazy race across the seas was encouraged by the taking of the city of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. “That’s where most of the European trade with the East passed. When the city fell under Muslim control, it was necessary to find new ways to trade with Asia”, says historian Josh Graml, from the Museum of Navigators, in Newport News, in the United States. In addition to this economic issue, other reasons boosted the Great Navigations.
One of them was the spirit of the Renaissance, an artistic and scientific movement that began in the 15th century and which began to question the traditional thinking of the Middle Ages, the views on the geographic limits of the planet, in addition to encouraging the search for new learning. “Due to the Renaissance, carpenters and shipyards had become better able to build stronger ships,” says Graml. There were still religious reasons (the idea of spreading Christianity around the world) and political reasons (the conquest of new territories was a way to expand empires).
Only with so many incentives like that is it possible to understand how the navigators of the time embarked on dangerous sea journeys. Until then, geographical knowledge was limited and many legends circulated about sea monsters and oceans that opened up to swallow ships. Naval technologies were primitive and diseases decimated the crews, victims of the precarious living conditions on board the ships.
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sea adventurers
At the end of the 15th century, the world gained new frontiers with the voyages of five men.
Pedro Alvares Cabral
Commander of a fleet of 13 ships, Cabral left Lisbon in March 1500 with the aim of reaching India. The following month, a deviation in route led him to land on the coast of what is now Bahia. After ten days in newly arrived Brazil, he continued his journey and reached the Indian coast in September of the same year. But the end of the expedition was marked by incidents and the death of Bartolomeu Dias, who was in the fleet.
precious tip
Instructed by Vasco da Gama, who had already been to India, Cabral was instructed to head southwest around Africa, avoiding the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, subject to few winds, the so-called “calmarias”. The route would also allow Cabral to recognize lands that had already been sighted from afar by previous expeditions.
Christopher Columbus
Born in Genoa, Italy, he wanted to reach India by heading west, not around Africa. Columbus sought support for the journey in several countries, but only Spain agreed to finance it. In the midst of his journey to the East, however, he stumbled upon America in 1492. He is considered the “discoverer” of the New World, even though Vikings had visited the continent 500 years earlier.
Vasco da Gama
His first trip to India began in 1497 and, in the following year, the Portuguese navigator crossed the Cape of Good Hope and reached his destination. Reaching the Indies was important because only there could the Portuguese obtain spices such as pepper and nutmeg, items that, in Europe, were worth as much as silver and gold. The maritime route to the East opened by Vasco da Gama would help Portugal to become a world power.
Bartolomeu Dias
He led the first expedition to cross, in 1488, Cape of Storms, later renamed Cape of Good Hope (in the extreme south of Africa). The curious thing is that Bartolomeu Dias did not realize the feat, as he passed through the cape during a strong storm. He could have made it to India, but a crew mutiny forced him to return to Portugal.
Ferdinand Magellan
Despite being Portuguese, he also sailed under the flag of Spain. It was from this country that, in 1519, he left to circle South America, discovering the passage to the Pacific Ocean, which was named the Strait of Magellan. He died in 1521 in the Philippines before the expedition ended, but 18 survivors of his crew arrived in Spain in 1522, completing the pioneering complete navigation around the planet.
fatal diplomacy
After circumnavigating South America during his round-the-world trip, Magellan arrived in the archipelago that is now the Philippines. There, he signed the first alliance of the Spanish crown with chiefs of native tribes of the Pacific Ocean. He also went on to convert some tribal leaders to Christianity. But his performance as public relations was not so efficient, so much so that Magalhães ended up being killed after discussions with some natives of the region.