Prince Henry the Navigator
1394-1460
The Father of European Exploration
by Rit Nosotro( )
Although Henry the Navigator is mostly associated with ships and voyages, many people do not realize that he had other titles as well. Prince Henry was not only a royal prince, he was also a soldier, a Duke, a governor and a patron of Portuguese exploration, specifically down the west coast of Africa. Prince Henry of Portugal was born in Oporto, Portugal on March 4, 1394, and was the third surviving son of King João I.
In 1415, he and his father and brothers conquered Ceuta in northern Morroco. After that successful attack, Henry received knighthood and was named lord of Covilham and Duke of Viseu. This conquest inspired twenty-one year old Henry in exploring the rest of Africa.
Three years later, in 1418 Prince Henry began the Institution in Sagres, the first navigational school. There, people learned about map-making, navigation and shipbuilding. It was at this school that Prince Henry the Navigator invented the caravel, a lighter, quicker ship built for sailing further more rapidly than a regular ship used in the Mediterranean Sea.
Prince Henry was determined to see Portuguese explorers round the dreaded Cape Bojador (west of the Sahara Desert, just below the Canaries). Below Cape Bojador was called the Green Sea of Darkness and the prince had troubles convincing his captains to go. According to legend, (this is what Henry's captains believed), the sun was so close to the earth that it burned sailors' skin black and ships caught on fire and the sea was boiling. It took twelve years and fourteen voyages before someone finally reached the equator.
Finally, despite ridicules and many failed attempts, in 1434, a year after King João's death, one of Henry's ships, of which Gil Eannes was commanding, rounded the Cape. Eannes did not see anyone but he did see some plants which he took home for proof that he was the first European explorer to round the cape. The first commercial cargo brought back to Europe from that part of Africa were thousands of sealskins that Eanne's partner collected even further south on another trip.
Prince Henry sponsored these expeditions to spread Christianity, defeat the Muslims, set up trade routes and to make the unknown maps of the West African Coast. Henry declared that his goal was “to extend the Holy Faith of Jesus Christ and bring it to all souls who wish to find salvation.” This was at a time when there were stark differences between the culture and politics of the Western
coast of Africa compared with the Eastern coast of Africa mainly due to the influence of Islam.
Prince Henry tried to find a king named Prester John, who supposedly had written letters (starting as early as 1160) about a large Christian empire over which he ruled. It was described like heaven would be in the Bible, he told of a peaceful and crime-free kingdom where the "honey flows in our land and milk everywhere abounds." He also “wrote” that infidels and barbarians had attacked him and he was asking for help from Christian armies. Pope Alexander III sent his friend to go find Prester John, but he never did. Ever since then, people had been trying to find his kingdom. The letters got more interesting as time moved on. They mentioned a salamander that lived in fire. People now think the letter could have been forged because it copied exactly the description of the palace Thomas the disciple of Jesus gave. Cartographers included his name on maps up till the 17th century, when they finally gave up on him.
The last expedition that Prince Henry sponsored sailed over 1,500 miles down the West coast and returned to Portugal the year Henry the Navigator died. His exploers had blazed the way for Vasco da Gama to round beyond the Cape of Good Hope in1497.
Prince Henry never sailed on any of his expeditions, but because of his generous donations to his country's exploration, he put Portugal in the front to be the first to find a sea route to the Indies. He also had a big part in starting The Great Age of Discovery (1400s-1500s). Because of Henry of Portugal's patronage, the Madeira and Azores Islands were found and Portuguese caravels sailed past Cape Bojador all the way to the Gambia River. Prince Henry's desire to cut out the Muslim middleman and deal directly with the east was soon realized but his desire to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ into sub-Saharan Africa was largely postponed until the days of David Livingston.
MLA Works Cited
“Henry the Navigator.” NNDB 2008. 18 Sept. 2008 <http://www.nndb.com/people/995/000094713/>.
“Prince Henry the Navigator.” Thinkquest 2000. 18 Sept. 2008 <http://library.thinkquest.org/J002678F/prince_henry_the_navigator.htm>.
Col, Jeanda. “Prince Henry the Navigator: Royal Patron of Explorers.” Enchanted Learning 2008. 18 Sept. 2008 <http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/h/henry.shtml>.
Rosenberg, Matt. “Prester John.” About. 18 Sept. 2008 <http://geography.about.com/od/historyofgeography/a/presterjohn.htm>.
