The causes of Portuguese maritime expansion

1. introduction

We are beginning our study of Brazilian colonial history. This whole process is characterised by the problematisation of the various causes that motivated the so-called Portuguese maritime and commercial expansion.

This historical event is of paramount importance if we want to critically understand the process that culminated in the “discovery” of Brazil and, of course, its subsequent colonisation.

This process is the result of a complex historical phenomenon that began in Portugal at the beginning of the 15th century.

However, in order to understand it, we must study the changes that took place in Europe from the 12th century onwards, because it was at this time that the European continent began to change as a result of the agricultural expansion and the commercial renaissance that had taken place during the Middle Ages.

All these factors will contribute significantly to the change in mentality that will give rise to the Renaissance, which will contribute to the beginning of what is known as the maritime and commercial expansion.

It was the pioneering spirit of the Portuguese that led to the conquest of various regions, thus ushering in a new era that would change the known world until the 15th century.

It was the Portuguese who were mainly responsible for the conquest of the African coast, the discovery of the sea route that provided an alternative route to India and, most importantly for us, the conquest of Brazil.

In this sense, we must realise that the conquest of Brazil was not the result of chance, but rather of a historical process that began much earlier and led to profound changes in both Portugal and Brazil.

2. Portuguese maritime and commercial expansion was no accident

The process that led to Portugal’s maritime expansion and consequent conquest of Brazil was very well planned, as Portugal had been researching and improving its shipbuilding and maritime navigation techniques since the beginning of the 15th century.

3. Why did Portugal take the lead in maritime expansion?

This project was made possible by several factors, including

• the early achievement of national unity
• The geographical position that favoured the great navigations;
• the difficult access of Portuguese lands to the rest of Europe
• the internal stability that allowed investment in maritime projects.

Infante Dom Henrique o Navegador

But it was the Sagres School and the creation of a professional structure for the discoveries that made the difference. By concentrating national energies and resources, Portugal, a poor, sparsely populated and relatively backward country, was able to successfully carry out the task of discovery.

The Portuguese state was one of the first modern states founded on the European continent.

Its political, economic, cultural, religious and, above all, identity basis was the result of the struggle against the Moorish, which allowed the emergence of the centralised state.

Moors – Arab peoples who lived in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.

From the 13th century onwards, a series of battles defined some of Europe’s borders, which in the case of France, England, Spain and Portugal have remained roughly the same to this day.

Within these borders, the Portuguese state was born as a centralised political organisation, whose dominant figure – the prince – and the bureaucracy on which he relied, took on their own contours, not to be confused with the social groups, even the most privileged, such as the nobility.

This process lasted for centuries and reached its climax between 1450 and 1550.

This process allowed the unification of the medieval fiefdoms, facilitating the capitalisation of the state and the consequent investment in a naval fleet that would provide logistical support for Portugal’s future maritime and commercial expansion.

In addition, the Iberian Peninsula, on which Portugal was located, offered a privileged geographical position that allowed it total control of the Atlantic Ocean.

Portugal asserted itself as an autonomous country in all of Europe, with a tendency to look outwards.

The Portuguese already had experience of long-distance trade, gained in the 13th and 14th centuries, although they were still no match for the Venetians and Genoese, whom they were about to surpass.

In fact, before the Portuguese took control of their international trade, the Genoese invested in its expansion, transforming Lisbon into a major commercial centre under their hegemony.

The commercial experience was also facilitated by Portugal’s economic involvement with the Islamic world of the Mediterranean, where the progress of trade can be measured by the increasing use of currency as a means of payment.

Undoubtedly, the attraction of the sea was enhanced by the country’s geographical position, close to the Atlantic islands and the coast of Africa.

Given the technology of the time, it was important to have favourable sea currents, and these began precisely in Portuguese ports or those in south-western Spain.

In the 15th century, Portugal sought political unification because of a sense of identity, as the Portuguese realised that the only way to build a strong kingdom was through an autonomous and unified state.

Historical maps showing the development and territorial expansion of Portugal

Throughout the 15th century, Portugal was a unified kingdom and less subject to upheavals and disputes, unlike France, England, Spain and Italy, which were all involved in dynastic wars and complications.

The Portuguese monarchy was consolidated by a history that had one of its most significant points in the revolution of 1383-1385.

Following a dispute over the succession to the Portuguese throne, the commercial bourgeoisie of Lisbon revolted. This was followed by a great popular uprising, the “revolt of the little people”, as the chronicler Fernão Lopes put it.

The revolution was similar to other events that were shaking Western Europe at the same time, but it had a different outcome from the peasant revolts that were being crushed by the great lords in other countries.

Portuguese maritime expansion was in the interests not only of the ruling class but also of the working classes. This factor further fuelled the process.

At the beginning of the 15th century, Portugal’s internal conditions provided an excellent opportunity, because expansion was in the interests of all the social classes that made up the contradictory Portuguese society.

For the people, expansion was above all a form of emigration and represented what emigration had always represented for them: the possibility of a better life and the liberation of the “little people”, who had always been a heavy burden and from whom they too had always sought to free themselves by seeking new lands.

Moreover, the nobility and the clergy saw expansion in a positive light, as new horizons of trade, conquest and evangelisation would allow them to build an even more centralised, strong and, above all, Catholic state.

For the clergy and nobility, Christianisation and conquest were ways of serving God and the king, and they deserved the rewards that came with them: honours, tenures, captainships, offices, opportunities that were increasingly hard to come by in the confines of the metropolis.

For the merchants, it was the prospect of good business, of raw materials harvested at source and resold at a good profit.

For the king, it was a source of prestige, a good way of keeping the nobles busy and, above all, the creation of new sources of revenue at a time when the crown’s income had fallen sharply.

The only people left out of this convergence of interests were the peasants, the landowners, for whom the departure of the peasants meant an increase in the cost of labour.

In Portugal, maritime and commercial expansion came to represent the Renaissance ideal.

The Renaissance challenged many of the dogmatic values of medieval life and paved the way for discoveries and advances in geography and the applied sciences.

To give you an idea, the Portuguese embarked on a century-long project and achieved exactly what they set out to do.

The Spanish were explorers, knights of the sea, in search of the unexpected.

The Portuguese were sailors of the Renaissance: they studied, planned and calculated. In the end, they triumphed over the unknown and immediately learned what they had discovered.

The best contribution of the Renaissance was not to challenge dogma, recover classical knowledge or make artistic advances, but simply to defend the right to doubt and to see the world as it is for human beings.

Without the Renaissance, there would have been no New World, because there would have been no new eyes to see it.

In contrast to the other emerging states, the Portuguese bet on the great voyages of discovery.

The Lusitanians were pioneers in most of the technological aspects of sailing. The ideals of the Renaissance, which heralded a new era, were expressed in Portugal through maritime conquests and the opening of new markets for the then decadent European continent.

The Portuguese were the first European people to be organised in a centralised state, in the form of a king or prince, and to base their navigation on scientific knowledge.

Although Portugal is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe, they were the pioneers in overcoming the medieval myth of the “dark sea”.

This myth has always contributed to the construction of a negative image of European peoples in relation to maritime navigation.

Maritime expansion only took place in Portugal because the Portuguese were the first European nations to promote political unification.

This factor meant that resources were channelled into trade and shipbuilding. It was the State that could become the great entrepreneur, if it achieved the conditions of strength and stability to do so.

It must be stressed that the incentives for the great voyages were not only commercial, or even because the Portuguese state was the first to unite as an autonomous and centralised kingdom.

It must be stressed that the Portuguese had a very strong sense of adventure.

Culturally, the Portuguese had a strong connection with the sea, and this factor was decisive in the Portuguese pioneering spirit associated with the great voyages and commercial expansion.

To understand this better, let’s look at what motivated the great voyages:

We can see that the impetus for maritime adventure was not only commercial.

It’s impossible to try to understand it with today’s eyes, so it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the meaning of the word adventure.

Five centuries ago, we were a long way from a world that was completely known, photographed by satellites and packaged for our enjoyment.

There were continents barely or not at all known. Whole oceans had not yet been crossed. The so-called unknown territories captured the imagination of European peoples, who glimpsed fantastic kingdoms, monstrous inhabitants and the seat of an earthly paradise.

Christopher Columbus, for example, thought that, further inland from the land he had discovered, they would find one-eyed men and others with the snout of a dog.

He said he saw three mermaids jump out of the sea and was disappointed by their faces: they weren’t as beautiful as he had imagined.

In one of his letters he spoke of people who were born with tails in the west.

In 1487, when Afonso de Paiva and Pedro da Covilhã left Portugal to discover the overland route to the Indies, they were instructed by Dom João II to find the kingdom of Preste João.

The legend of Preste João, a descendant of the Magi and a staunch enemy of the Muslims, had been part of the European imagination since at least the middle of the 12th century.

It was based on a real fact – the existence of Ethiopia, in East Africa, where there was a black population that had adopted a branch of Christianity. We shouldn’t think of the dreams associated with the maritime adventure as despicable fantasies masking the truth represented by material interests.

But there is no doubt that material interest prevailed, especially as the contours of the world became better known and the practicalities of colonisation became the order of the day.

Another factor that facilitated the great voyages of discovery was the invention and development of a special type of ship: the caravel.

The caravel was unlike anything that had been invented before. It was designed for sea voyages, not as a cargo ship, but as an advanced and safe vessel capable of navigating in the most diverse situations.

It was not a cargo ship, but a vessel designed to travel long distances in unfamiliar waters, and it had to be able to sail in unfavourable winds, which the carracks could not do because of their poor manoeuvrability and the exclusive use of square sails.

The caravel, which used Latin (triangular) sails, was more manoeuvrable and still had the cargo-carrying capacity needed to support the small crews of explorers during the long months they spent at sea.

A caravel usually carried between 40 and 50 crew members, while a carrack – which specialised in carrying cargo – carried 100, a fighting galley 300, and the galleons of the royal fleets could carry up to 800 crew members.

The manoeuvrability advantages of the Latin sail become clearer with a little explanation of sailing technique.

A square sail can only be sailed upwind, i.e. with the wind blowing behind the boat, at a maximum angle of about 12 degrees to the direction of travel.

The Latin sail, in the system used by the caravels, allows the use of winds at angles of up to 30 degrees to the direction of travel of the ship.

Thus, given that in areas with unfavourable winds, ships must sail in a zigzag pattern to maintain the general direction of travel, the greater manoeuvrability of the caravels lies in their superior ability to sail “against” the wind, zigzagging at a more closed angle to the route.

In conclusion, the Portuguese maritime and commercial expansion was not accidental, but very well planned and the result of a historical process.

4. The main elements of Portuguese maritime and commercial expansion were

• The fact that Portugal was the first European country to promote its political and administrative unification;
• The interests of the different social classes converged around the great voyages and commercial expansion;
• the Renaissance ideal was expressed in Portugal through the great voyages;
• Portugal’s geographical position facilitated the great voyages;
• The adventurous spirit of the Portuguese and their passion for sailing;
• The development and invention of ships and techniques for sea navigation;
• The absence of wars;
• Portugal’s contacts with Islamic culture.

We must understand that the great voyages of discovery were a continuous process, culminating in the discovery of an alternative route to the Indies and, later, the “discovery” of Brazil.

5. The main stages of the Portuguese expansion:

• 1415: Conquest of the city of Ceuta.
• 1419: Portuguese expedition reaches the island of Madeira.
• 1431: The Azores archipelago is recognised.
• 1434: Gil Eanes passes Cape Bojador.
• 1443: Nuno Tristão reaches the island of Arguim.
• 1445: Nuno Tristão reaches Senegambia and Dinis Dias passes the mouth of the Senegal River.
• 1482: Diogo Cão discovers Zaire.
• 1487: Bartolomeu Dias reaches the South African Cape, where he encounters a dangerous storm. This is why he called it the Cape of Storms. This great event opened up the possibility of reaching the Indies. For this reason, the King of Portugal, D. João, decided to change the name of the Cape to a more optimistic one: Cape of Good Hope.
• 1498: Vasco da Gama, commanding a fleet of four ships (S. Gabriel, S. Rafael, Bérrio and a supply ship), reaches the city of Calicut in the Indies.
• 1500: Pedro Álvares Cabral “discovers” Brazil.

6. The Sagres School and Prince Henry the Navigator

In the 15th century, Portugal decided to embark on a great national project to explore the Atlantic coast, starting from North Africa.

This project was captained by the fifth son of King João I, Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460).

The original plan evolved into a more ambitious one: the circumnavigation of the African continent, which would allow the Indies, the land of spices, to be reached by sea.

Prince Henry was mainly responsible for the founding of the legendary “School of Sagres” in 1433. This school is considered one of the symbols of the formation of the Portuguese state.

Its foundation represents the power of the centralised state that was to prevail in Portugal.

The Sagres School was not a formal teaching and training organisation, but a “school” of thought and action.

In his castle, under the motto “The talent of doing well”, Dom Henrique brought together cartographers and mathematicians to develop the astronomical techniques that would make maritime navigation possible.

At the same time, in the shipyards of Lagos, hundreds of men were engaged in shipbuilding, using increasingly sophisticated techniques to select and prepare the wood for the various parts of the ships and to seal the hulls.

With each expedition to the African coast, the information gathered was used to improve maps, navigation techniques and ship design.

The Infante, for whom knowledge was the source “from which all good comes”, held the title of protector of the University of Lisbon and patronised scientific professorships.

Contrary to the customs of the time, he showed tolerance towards other faiths and races, choosing his staff primarily on the basis of their knowledge.

As a result, he attracted a number of Jewish scholars to his endeavours, who were less restricted than Christians when it came to travelling and gathering information in the Arab world.

Dom Henrique died in 1460 without seeing Africa circumnavigated, but he was internationally recognised for his achievements during his lifetime.

Prince Henry and the Sagres School were very important for Portugal’s maritime expansion, as they allowed the Portuguese to develop knowledge based on the science of the time.

In addition to innovations in shipbuilding, the Sagres School, through constant study and practical experimentation, developed revolutionary techniques, especially related to navigation on the high seas.

These new techniques allowed seafarers to move further and further away from the coast, allowing greater autonomy in reaching lands on other continents.

Nevertheless, Portugal only practised cabotage navigation until the mid-15th century, and only officially ventured into the “ocean” after Pedro Álvares Cabral’s expedition.

These innovations are referred to by some scholars as the “art of navigation”, as they incorporated previously unknown elements of navigation and orientation.

In the following text we will mention some of this new knowledge:

The information is taken from the book “TheGreat Explorers – From Christopher Columbus to the Conquest of the African Continent”..

• Calculating Distance – Navigators know how to measure the speed of their ship. To find out, they throw a rope into the sea, tied in knots, the end of which stays in place because it is attached to a piece of lead, and then let it slide for a certain amount of time. By periodically repeating this manoeuvre, they can calculate the distance covered each day.
• Determining direction – By the end of the 15th century, the question of direction was no longer a problem, since navigators had had a valuable instrument, the compass, for several decades. The only difficulty is that the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and the difference between true and magnetic north are still poorly understood.
• Calculating Latitude – Calculating latitude is actually relatively well mastered by navigators, who know how to determine the position of an object on the meridian arc thanks to the astronomical point. An optical instrument, the ancestor of the sextant, the astrolabe, was perfected at the end of the Middle Ages to the point where it could be used on board a moving ship.
• An uncertainty, Longitude – On the other hand, at the end of the 15th century it became difficult to determine longitude. It could only be determined by comparing local time with the time on the meridian of origin. It wasn’t until 1761 that a very accurate clock – called a marine clock – was available to give a reliable result. Captain Cook was the first to use it.

You have learnt this in this chapter:

• The causes of Portuguese maritime expansion were not accidental, but the result of a process of exhaustive research.

• Prince Henry the Navigator and the School of Sagres were fundamental to the process of Portuguese maritime expansion.

See the following periods in the history of colonial Brazil:

1. Brazilian Independence – Breakdown of colonial ties in Brazil
2. Portuguese Empire in Brazil – Portuguese royal family in Brazil
3. Transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil
4. Foundation of the city of São Paulo and the Bandeirantes
5. Transition from colonial to imperial Brazil
6. Colonial sugar mills in Brazil
7. Monoculture, slave labour and latifundia in colonial Brazil
8. The establishment of the General Government in Brazil and the founding of Salvador
9. Portuguese maritime expansion and the conquest of Brazil
10. Occupation of the African coast, the Atlantic islands and the voyage of Vasco da Gama
11. Pedro Álvares Cabral’s expedition and the conquest of Brazil
12. Pre-colonial Brazil – The forgotten years
13. Establishment of the Portuguese Colony in Brazil
14. Periods in the history of colonial Brazil
15. Historical periods of Brazil

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