Prince Henry the Navigator

thumb|298x298px|Portuguese presence and exploration in Africa and middle east -1415 - 1801

Prince Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (; 4 March 1394 – 13 December 1460), better known in English as Prince Henry the Navigator, was a Portuguese prince, a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and 15th-century European maritime exploration. He is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the third child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.

After procuring the new caravel ship, Henry was responsible for directing the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta, a Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunity offered by the Saharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated with Africa in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend of Prester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. He is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration. The prince died on 13 November 1460 in Vila do Bispo, Algarve.

Early life

thumb|left|upright|The [[Casa do Infante, in Porto, is traditionally considered Prince Henry's birthplace.]]

Henry was the third surviving son of King John I and his wife Philippa, sister of King Henry IV of England. He was baptized in Porto, and may have been born there, probably when the royal couple was living in the city's old mint, now called Casa do Infante (Prince's House), or in the region nearby. Another possibility is that he was born at the Monastery of Leça do Balio, in Leça da Palmeira, during the same period of the royal couple's residence in the city of Porto.

As early as 1410 or 1412, Henry had commissioned his captains to explore the coasts beyond Cape Non, which was considered the limit of the known and charted world in Europe together with Cape Bojador. Little is known of these expeditions, however. Henry was said to have claimed and been granted the right to be the first to land. The quays were expected to be devoid of defenders as the main force would be brought up against the citadel to divert the defenders. He kept them by the gates and sent for reinforcements, which were quickly brought up led by Fernandes de Ataíde, who cheered them on.thumb|right|Prince Henry at the 1415 [[Conquest of Ceuta, considered the beginning of the Portuguese Empire.]]Henry was knighted at Ceuta along with his two brothers by King John, who conferred on them the tiles of dukes, the first time this title was employed in Portugal. Henry was made Duke of Viseu, appointed governor of the Order of Christ, and made responsible for the provisioning of the newly captured city. His first destination was the Holy Land. The ruler of Granada sent seventy four ships, while the forces of Fez managed to breach into the lower town. The governor of Ceuta Dom Pedro de Meneses dispatched to Portugal a request for aid and Henry was sent to organize a relief expedition from Lisbon, while Edward and Pedro prepared to follow him from Lagos and the rest of the Algarve if need be. While there he planned an attack on Gibraltar on the way to Portugal, but a storm scattered the fleet and the attack was called off. They included "news of the passage of merchants from the coasts of Tunis to Timbuctoo and to Cantor on the Gambia, which inspired him to seek the lands by the way of the sea" but also information of "certain tall palms growing at the mouth of the Senegal", obtained from Sanhaja, referred to as "tawny moors" or Azenegues by the Portuguese. Henry held this position for the remainder of his life, and the Order was an important source of funds for his ambitious plans, especially his persistent attempts to conquer the Canary Islands, which the Portuguese had claimed to have discovered before the year 1346.

Prince Peter, Duke of Coimbra, had set out on a diplomatic tour of Europe, with an additional charge from Henry to seek out geographic material. Peter returned in 1426 with a world map from Venice.

In 1431, Henry donated houses for the Estudo Geral to teach all the sciences—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, and astronomy—in what would later become the University of Lisbon. For other subjects like medicine or philosophy, he ordered that each room should be decorated according to the subject taught.

thumb|Prince Henry ordered construction of the Paços Henriquinos (Henrician Palace) at the [[Convent of Christ in Tomar, to serve as his residence when he was appointed as Governor of the Order of Christ in 1420.]]

Henry also had other resources. When John I died in 1433, Henry's eldest brother Edward of Portugal became king. He granted Henry all profits from trading within the areas he discovered as well as the sole right to authorize expeditions beyond Cape Bojador. Henry also held a monopoly on tuna fishing in the Algarve. When Edward died eight years later, Henry supported his brother Peter, Duke of Coimbra for the regency during the minority of Edward's son Afonso V, and in return received a confirmation of this levy.

Henry was the main organizer of the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437 against Salah Ben Salah, which ended in Henry's younger brother Ferdinand being given as hostage to guarantee Portuguese promises in the peace agreement. The Portuguese Cortes refused to return Ceuta as ransom for Ferdinand, who remained in captivity until his death six years later.

Prince Regent Peter supported Portuguese maritime expansion in the Atlantic Ocean and Africa. Henry promoted the colonization of the Azores during Peter's regency (1439–1448). For most of the latter part of his life, Henry concentrated on his maritime activities and court politics. This village was situated in a strategic position for his maritime enterprises and was later called Vila do Infante ("Estate or Town of the Prince").

It is traditionally suggested that Henry gathered at his villa on the Sagres peninsula a school of navigators and map-makers. However modern historians hold this to be a misconception. He did employ some cartographers to chart the coast of Mauritania after the voyages he sent there, but there was no center of navigation science or observatory in the modern sense of the word, nor was there an organized navigational center.

Referring to Sagres, sixteenth-century Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes remarked, "from it our sailors went out well taught and provided with instruments and rules which all map makers and navigators should know."

thumb|"Sagres". Monumental allegorical [[Azulejo|azulejos tile panel in Lisbon dedicated to Prince Henry.]]

The view that Henry's court rapidly grew into the technological base for exploration, with a naval arsenal and an observatory, etc., although repeated in popular culture, has never been established. Henry did possess geographical curiosity, and employed cartographers. Jehuda Cresques, a noted cartographer, has been said to have accepted an invitation to come to Portugal to make maps for the infante. Prestage makes the argument that the presence of the latter at the Prince's court "probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited." Above all, it was highly maneuverable and could sail "into the wind", making it largely independent of the prevailing winds. The caravel used the lateen sail, the prevailing rig in Christian Mediterranean navigation since late antiquity.

With this ship, Portuguese mariners freely explored uncharted waters around the Atlantic, from rivers and shallow waters to transoceanic voyages.

Henry sponsored voyages, collecting a 20% tax (o quinto) on profits, the usual practice in the Iberian states at the time. The nearby port of Lagos provided a convenient home port for these expeditions. The voyages were made in very small ships, mostly the caravel, a light and maneuverable vessel equipped by lateen sails. Most of the voyages sent out by Henry consisted of one or two ships that navigated by following the coast, stopping at night to tie up along some shore.

During Prince Henry's time and after, the Portuguese navigators discovered and perfected the North Atlantic volta do mar (the "turn of the sea" or "return from the sea"): the dependable pattern of trade winds blowing largely from the east near the equator and the returning westerlies in the mid-Atlantic. This was a major step in the history of navigation, when an understanding of oceanic wind patterns was crucial to Atlantic navigation, from Africa and the open ocean to Europe, and enabled the main route between the New World and Europe in the North Atlantic in future voyages of discovery. Although the lateen sail allowed sailing upwind to some extent, it was worth even major extensions of course to have a faster and calmer following wind for most of a journey. Portuguese mariners who sailed south and southwest towards the Canary Islands and West Africa would afterwards sail far to the northwest—that is, away from continental Portugal, and seemingly in the wrong direction—before turning northeast near the Azores islands and finally east to Europe in order to have largely following winds for their full journey. Christopher Columbus used this on his transatlantic voyages.

Madeira

thumb|Depiction of Prince Henry enlisting [[Alvise Cadamosto, who led a voyage to Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canary Islands, before reaching the African mainland.]]

The first explorations followed not long after the capture of Ceuta in 1415. Henry was interested in locating the source of the caravans that brought gold to the city. During the reign of his father, John I, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira were sent to explore along the African coast. Zarco, a knight in service to Prince Henry, had commanded the caravels guarding the coast of Algarve from the incursions of the Moors. He had also been at Ceuta.

In 1418, Zarco and Teixeira were blown off-course by a storm while making the volta do mar westward swing to return to Portugal. They found shelter at an island they named Porto Santo. Henry directed that Porto Santo be colonized. The move to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Castile's efforts to claim the Canary Islands. In 1420, settlers then moved to the nearby island of Madeira.

The Azores

A chart drawn by the Catalan cartographer, Gabriel de Vallseca of Mallorca, has been interpreted to indicate that the Azores were first discovered by Diogo de Silves in 1427. In 1431, Gonçalo Velho was dispatched with orders to determine the location of "islands" first identified by de Silves. Velho apparently got as far as the Formigas, in the eastern archipelago, before having to return to Sagres, probably due to bad weather.

By this time the Portuguese navigators had also reached the Sargasso Sea (western North Atlantic region), naming it after the Sargassum seaweed growing there (sargaço / sargasso in Portuguese).

West African coast

thumb|upright|Prince Henry is the central figure on the [[Monument to the Discoveries in Lisbon.]]

In 1424 Cape Bojador was the most southerly point known to Europeans on the west coast of Africa. For centuries, superstitious seafarers held that beyond the cape lay sea monsters and the edge of the world. However, Prince Henry was determined to know the truth. He was persistent and sent 15 expeditions over a ten-year period to pass the dreaded Cape. Each returned unsuccessful. The captains gave various excuses for having failed. Finally, in 1434 Gil Eanes, the commander of one of Henry's expeditions, became the first known European to pass Cape Bojador.

Using the new caravel, the expeditions then pushed onwards. Nuno Tristão and Antão Gonçalves reached Cape Blanco in 1441. About this year, Henry he informed the Pope of his endeavours and petitioned for a concession in perpetuity to Portugal of any lands that might be discovered beyond Bojador. News of discovery was considered so valuable that a Papal Bull was immediately issued and subsequently confirmed by Nicholas V and Sixtus IV. Prince Henry would later build a small fort on Arguin for the accommodation of the merchants and they established a feitoria there, to where they sent ships annually to sell grain, woollen cloth, linen and silver in exchange for gold dust and slaves. By 1452, the influx of gold permitted the minting of Portugal's first gold cruzado coins. A cruzado was equal to 400 reis at the time. From 1444 to 1446, as many as forty vessels sailed from Lagos on Henry's behalf, and the first private mercantile expeditions began.

Alvise Cadamosto explored the Atlantic coast of Africa and discovered several islands of the Cape Verde archipelago between 1453 and 1456. In his first voyage, which started on 22 March 1455, he visited the Madeira Islands and the Canary Islands. On the second voyage, in 1456, Cadamosto became the first European to reach the Cape Verde Islands. António Noli later claimed the credit. By 1462, the Portuguese had explored the coast of Africa as far as present-day Sierra Leone. Twenty-eight years later, Bartolomeu Dias proved that Africa could be circumnavigated when he reached the southern tip of the continent, now known as the Cape of Good Hope. In 1498, Vasco da Gama became the first European sailor to reach India by sea.

Expedition to Alcácer-Ceguer

Late in his life, Prince Henry participated in an expedition against the north-African town of Kasr es-Seghir, led by king Afonso V. Ksar es-Seguir at the time served as a pirate haven for the Marinid sultan, with whom Portugal was at war.

When the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, Pope Calixtus III called for a Crusade, and the Portuguese king pledged an army. He later found to have been the only monarch to have heeded the call.

Death and legacy

Henry died on the 13th of November 1460, being initially buried in the Church of Saint Mary of Lagos before being subsequently moved to the Monastery of Batalha, where his tomb remains, inscribed by his motto "Talant de bien faire".

Henry is depicted in the Monument of the Discoveries located in Lisbon, featured in the front of the monument.

In 1994, the Prince Henry Society in conjunction with the Portuguese government gifted Prince Henry the Navigator Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

From 1996 until Portugal's adoption of euro in 2002, he was depicted on the obverse of the largest denomination (10,000) note of the Portuguese escudo.

File:Busto do Infante Dom Henrique.jpg|Batalha, Portugal

File:2018 Rio de Janeiro - Fachada do Real Gabinete Português de Leitura - Infante Dom Henrique.jpg|Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

File:Henri le navigateur.jpg|Nantes, France

File:Statue in Porto 02 (cropped).jpg|Porto, Portugal

File:Prince henry new bedford 1 (cropped).jpg|New Bedford, United States

File:DSCI2934 Grüne Flagge am Regierungspalast.jpg|Dili, Timor-Leste

File:GOC London Public Art 2 107 – Henry the Navigator (cropped).jpg|London, United Kingdom

File:Prince Henry the Navigator Monument (Malindi) 03.JPG|Malindi, Kenya

File:Busto de Infante D Henrique en San Juan, Puerto Rico.jpg|San Juan, Puerto Rico.

File:Prince henry statue in Ceuta.jpg|Ceuta, Spain.

File:InfanteDomHenrique15.jpg|São Paulo, Brazil.

File:Lisboa em1018 2103604 (28422849189).jpg|Maritime Museum at Lisbon.

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References

Sources

Ariganello, Lisa. Henry the Navigator : prince of Portuguese exploration (2007); for elementary schools. online
Bradford, Ernle. A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator (1960) online or Southward the Caravels: The Story of Henry the Navigator (UK edition, 1961)
Elbl, Ivana. "Man of His Time (and Peers): A New Look at Henry the Navigator." Luso-Brazilian Review 28.2 (1991): 73–89. online