It was a cool Sunday afternoon in early spring and we found ourselves strolling through a park in Lisbon, Portugal.We were engaged in one of our favorite travel activities; people watching. There was a lot to look at: fathers and children kicking soccer balls, mothers pushing carriages, children playing together under the watchful eyes of parents, groups of chatting senior citizens walking arm in arm, and young lovers with their heads close together, sitting on benches absorbed with each other. It seemed that the whole population of Lisbon was out- of -doors enjoying the fine day and we were glad to be there with them.

Scattered among the predominantly European looking population were Africans, Chinese, Brazilians, and people from India. We couldn’t tell whether these non-Europeans had been born in Portugal or had recently emigrated. One thing we did know, though, was that they all spoke Portuguese in their home countries and we could probably pinpoint their places of origin reasonably well. The Chinese would have come from Macau on the south China coast not far from Hong Kong. Africans might have originated from Angola on the west coast or Mozambique on the east coast of the continent. Goa on the west coast of India was another place of origin of people we saw. Brazilians looked more or less like the European Portuguese, but spoke the language with a different accent. Even though we do not speak or even understand much Portuguese we could detect the difference. Coming from the United States, we are accustomed to seeing mixed populations like this, so what was different here? Such a group in the United States might have come from anywhere, but these people were mainly from former Portuguese colonies around the world. Their home countries are now independent or part of China or India, but they were once included in the first European colonial empire.

Little Portugal, sitting off to one side in the southwestern corner of Europe, was once a great colonial power. To understand how this happened we must go back to the early 15th century and examine the life of Henry, the third son of King John I and Philippa of Lancaster, an English princess. Prince Henry was born in 1394 into a medieval Europe. At the end of his life in 1460 the Renaissance, that great rebirth of the arts and learning, was beginning in Europe and Henry was partially responsible for helping to get it started. He did so by launching the age of European maritime exploration of the rest of the world. He was a complex character of strong medieval Christian beliefs combined with a modern scientific curiosity.

Africa was the object of Prince Henry’s interest. In 1415 he and his older brothers participated in Portugal’s first overseas military adventure, the capture of the Moorish city of Ceuta. Surrounded by what is now Morocco, Ceuta is less than twenty miles across the Strait of Gibraltar from the Rock itself. This trading city was a terminus for trans-Saharan caravans bringing ivory, gold, and slaves from the south. There were people in Ceuta who could inform Henry about the interior of Africa and the places of origin of their wealth. He learned things most Europeans knew nothing about and, he understood that there were civilizations south of the Sahara Desert.

Prince Henry’s curiosity about Africa was aroused and he realized that overland travel and trade by Christians was impossible. In his mind, the sea offered a way to develop trade and find heathens to convert. He hit on the idea of sending expeditions to sail down the African coast and in 1420 the first of many such voyages was sent out from the port of Lagos in southern Portugal. A few miles to the west of the port of Lagos, Henry began the construction of what is often referred to as his “school” on the windswept peninsula of Sagres. He had living quarters for himself and a group of specialists he invited to live and work there. Among the sea captains were astronomers, cartographers, mathematicians, and instrument makers from Portugal and beyond. He gathered specialists regardless of their religions and had Muslims and Jews as well as Christians working together. The object was to conduct a systematic ocean exploration of the African coast and the end result was a kind of medieval NASA program.

The object of the modern NASA program was to construct vehicles to take people to the moon and return them alive. Prince Henry’s program was to explore the African coast and return to report and sail again another day; each voyage further than the last. Most of the specialists in our NASA program lived near Cape Canaveral and worked at the Cape where the rockets were launched. Prince Henry’s team lived and worked on the peninsula of Sagres and his ships sailed from the nearby port of Lagos in southern Portugal. His sea captains used their experience of long coastal voyages to modify the ships they sailed. Eventually they produced the caravel, which was sea worthy, but could sail in shallow coastal waters. These vessels were a great improvement over earlier ones because they could sail with the wind or against it. Similarly, in the modern NASA program there was a great emphasis on the development of rockets, capsules, and, eventually, space shuttles.

President Kennedy set the goal of reaching the moon and returning safely. Prince Henry set the goal of exploration of the African coast, always urging his captains to go beyond points reached earlier by themselves or other captains. Mainly, he wanted his captains to return with trade goods and information for the Sagres cartographers. The modern NASA effort was focused purely on exploration. Prince Henry’s efforts involved trade because it was crucial in financing the exploration. Until 1441 the only trade goods available to the Portuguese captains were provided by the numerous colonies of sea lions discovered in places on the African coast. The pelts and oil from these creatures didn’t make Henry rich, but it was a beginning. Starting in 1441 the expeditions encountered people living on the coast. In that year, for the first time, they captured twelve persons and returned them to the port of Lagos. Thus it was that the first slave market in Europe came to be located there. A long sad history for Africa began at that time, but that’s another story.

By the end of his life in 1460 he was bankrupt, but his expeditions had reached the present day Sierra Leone about 2,400 miles south of Lagos. It was still about 4,000 miles to the southern tip of Africa from there, but Henry died not knowing that. The islands of Madeira and Cape Verde off the African coast had been discovered and the Azores, out in the Atlantic, had been found and settled. He launched Portugal as a maritime power and, under him, captains gained and passed on the experience which would carry their caravels around Africa to India and beyond by the end of the 15th century. He is recognized in Portugal as being responsible for taking the first steps, which led to the establishment of its overseas possessions. He is, therefore, ultimately responsible for the presence of the Asians, Africans, and South Americans we saw in the park that spring day.




ILLUSTRATIONS
Photos by Simon Baker
1.The model of a caravel may be seen in the Naval Museum in Lisbon. This type of ship was developed by Prince Henry’s sea captains and was very well suited to both coastal and deep-sea sailing. The addition of triangular or lateen sails of the type used by Arabs, made sailing into the wind much easier than with entirely square rigged vessels.

2.The Sagres Peninsula, seen in the top center, was the site of Henry’s palace. It was here that he lived and worked. It faces the open Atlantic and is subject to all the storms that blow in those parts. Sir Francis Drake destroyed the original palace buildings, in 1589. England was at war with Spain; Portugal, having been absorbed by Spain, was subject to attack.

3.This statue of Prince Henry the Navigator sits in the entrance to the Naval Museum in Lisbon. His right hand holds an early navigational tool called a quadrant. At sea these were used to help determine latitude by measuring the angle of the Pole star or sun above the horizon. Henry himself did not go to sea but was given the title “Navigator” because he was the organizer and driving force behind a systematic exploration of the west coast of Africa.