24
CHAPTER 1.3. GRASPING AN EXPANDING GLOBE
J.3./. The Portuguese exploration around Ilfrica
Pepper. cloves, nntmegs and mace were the principal spices among the.products that sirtee millennia have been traded from South and Southeast Asia to tbc Middle Bast, the Mediterranean and Europe, At first, the western world believed that these spices were products of India. later ofJava.Botb opinions were truefor pepper but by the end of tbe fust millennium CE. Arab authors knew tbat tbe ether three came from a few tiny islands near the end ofthe known world, at tbe outer rim of the immense island empire of the Mabaraja of Sriwijaya in Southern Sumatra. Western Burope was mainly supplied by war of Alexandriaand Beyrouth, wbere Asian products were transhipped to Venice, Genoa and Lisben. From Lisbon, they were carried to Britain and tbc Low Countries and hencc to the Germanic towns of the Hanse League around the Baltie Sea. Venice and Genoa supplied central Europe. In the 13th century, European merchant houses began to explore ways to circumvent Alexandria and Beyrouth and open direct relations with the production areas, TIICVenetien brothers Niccoló and Maffee Polo made their firstjcumey to
China trom 1255 ro 1269. Two years later. tbey set out OD their secend trip and took
Niccoló's 16 years old SOD Marco, whoafter his return in 1295 describedboth voyages in his II miüone; a best seller before boeksellers.
When in 1411 the perennial hóStilities between Portugal and the Spanish kingdotl1s ended rather sudden1y. Philippa $1, queea-consort ofking Joêo I of Portugal. fesred that massive dismisaal of soldiery would caase a crisis. She persuaded her entourage to start a war against the Sultan of Fez as a fust step to open an overland routesouth of Egypt to tbc empire of rhe half-legendary Prester John in Bast Africa and Iorm an alliance against tbc Islam. Tbe objeetive of this expansion was -al least officially- as much the Iiberation of me Holy Land from the Moors sa as opening a direct trade road
10 India, Philippa's son Prince Henry tbc Navigator (1394..1460), Grand Master of tbc Knights of Christ n. promised his mother on her death-bed to continue her policy of discovering the way to the spices and riohes ofIndia, to christianize the heathen and chase the Mamelukes frorn Jerusalem.
SI Philippa (1360-1415), named aller her grand.mOl~r f>bilippa of Holland and Hainault, was a daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and a sister of King Henry IV of England. Sbe WIlS tauglu by Froiasart, Friar Joh» and Chaucer and played a dominant eöle in Portuguese ~ovemment. l Moor: from Ok. (u)j.t
In the Portuguese quest for the way to India around Africa, Gil Eanes rounded Cape Bojador (Western Sahara) in 1434. Fouryears Iater.pope Eugenius IV donated to king Afonso V of Portugal and hia heirs tbc title to allterritory discovered and to be discovered frrnn Cape Bojador to -end including-- the east ceastofIndia S4. Hls successorNichclas V confirmed this prerogative and enlarged it with the right to rednee tbe Saracens, infidels and paganssouth of'Bojador to perperaal slavery and to dispose freely of their possessions, rnovable and immovable $5, whicb laid tbc tnoral basis tor worldwide slave trade by Christiens. The Atlantic rivalry between Portugal and Castile led to the 1479 Treaty of Alcaçovas, which eonfirmed the.Castilian rights
10 the Canarias but declared the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands and the coast and hinterland of Africa south ofBQ.jadorpossessionsofthe king of Portugal. Ir also forbade eaeh party to sail or.trade in thearea of the otber without permission". About sixry years befere the discovery of America, this left only the Bast- and Southeast- Asian island worJd to be explored.
Pero da Covilhä set out in 1489 on a voyage from Portugal 10 Egypt, the Arabian Sen and the west coast of India to collectcommercialandgeographic.:information on the spioe-trade, In 1492, king Jona Ilcharged him wttb a mission to the Ethiopian court, which never permitted him to return toPortugal; bewas still.living there when Rodrigo de Lima and Fraacisco Alvaresarrived in t 5200n a secend diplomatie mission. By then Spain had discovered America, the Portuguese had established maritime hegemony in the Indian Oceanand the liberarion of Jerusal.em had receded in the background.
1.3.2. The Spanish westword cxpJQYatiC>l1
Portugal concentrared its efforts Ort discovering eastward land- and sea-ronteato India and was not interested in Columbus' project to open a westwerd route, Castile accepted his plan and in 1492, in the belief thar the cast coast of India formed part. of the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean, Columbus claimed to have reached some 'Indian' islands, Portugal protested at once that Spain had breken the treary of Alcaçovas and preparedan armada to occupy these islands, while Spainmoved in
Rome to obrain Û1C same title to this discovery as Eugenius IV and Nieholas V had granted Portugal ro India.
T 0 settle the dispute, in 1493 pope Alexander VI Borgia divided the world in two hemispheres along the meridian of 100 leguas west of the.Azoresandfhe Cape Verde
Cf. Barres, 1. I. vii. Bulls 'DUin dtversas' of l S June 1452and'Romarms Ptmti/ex'ofS January 1455. 36 The treaty wasconflrmed in 1481 by pope Sixtus IV in hîsbuU 'lEterni regîs", 26
Islands", whieh were believed tc>lie all on the same longitude. With the exceptlon the territories belonging on Christmasday 1492 to christian princes, he donated all islands and mainlano to thewest and south of'this demarcatien line~.already fonnd or to he discovered in the direetion oflndia oe towards any ether quarter, 10 queen Isebella of Castile andking Ferdinand of Aragon and their hem, Alt islands and mamland to the cast and soutb of this Raya, the Canarias excepted, remained or became Portuguese, A few months later, the pope extended this title with the right to make discoveries in 'the regions of the south and eastand of India' and to take possession thereof S8.
It soon became evident that Columbus' newly found islands were neither Cipango with the Golden Roofs nor the Spice Islands of'eloves.nutmegs and mace. Without papal interrnediary or allesion to previous bulls.Castile andPortugal concluded the following year the Treaty of Tordesillas 59, whieh moved the dernarcationliae to 370 legtlas (ca. 2,000 km.) west of the Cape Verde Islands, in modern terrus a shift of 18 degrees to ca. 43"'W. 00. Apart fromthe Canarias, heneeforth all islands and mainlands, already discovered or to he discevered, belonged to tbc monarch in whose hemisphere they were located, Ships could freely pass on a direct course through the waters of the other nation to attain their destinations IJl but no ship was to be despatched into the ether hemisphere for exploration or trade, Should a discovery on the 'wrong' side occur nevertheless, then the privilege offirst occupation would not be applicable; the disoovery remained tbc possessio» of tbe monarch inwhose hemisphere it wasIocated and had to he surrendered to rum at oace,
On only a few of the extant 16tb and 17th century Portuguese maps tbc Atlantic demarcation of'Tordesillas is shown, sometimes disguised as a scale of latitude and/or thezero meridian. The Pacific Raya is mostly lacking; Oh some maps, it crosses the
Moluceas or Central Java 67
In 1498, Vasco da Gama opent,' The following year António d'Abren explored the route to Bands and the Moluccas 63, Onthe way back to Mslaoca, bis secend in cernmand Franciseo Scrmo was shipwreeked south of modem Amboina in n Bull Inter caetera of 4 May 1493, ss Bull Dudum siquidem of26 Septembetl493,
)<) Papalsanction was given by Julius n în hisbllll of24 January 1506. 6fl This demarcarion crossed the Brazilian coast near Sàö Luis de Maranhào, whereln l601 Henera's map n" 1 labelled a large river 'Rio ManmÓn'. Sec f'igure6. 61 The fitst documented appearanee ofthe Right·ofInnooent Passage. 61 Diogo Ribeiro, 1529, PMC est. 39, 40. 63 For details ()ftbis expedidon seeSoUewijn Gelpke 1995. 27 the Nusa Penyu (Tortoise Islands), whence he made his way to Temate, The Raia of
Ternate, hoping to establish hisprimacy in the Moluecas 64 by opening direct trade with the Portugeese in Malacca, sent a letter of.submissien to the kingof Portugal. After the rapid advsnee of the Portuguese to Malacea, pope LeoX renewedand confirmedin 1514 'all andsingular' tbc bulls of1452, 1455~1456alld 1481. Hè also granted Dom Marmel and his heirs 'for greater security' the right to illly terrirory they would discover by sailing from Cape Bojador 'to the Indies, in any place or region whatsoever, even although perchance at present unknown to us' 65, in line with the tights granted in 1493 to Spain by Alexander V!.
In annoyance, king Mamlei allowed Magalhêes in 1517 to give up his nationaIity and enter in Spanish service. Charles V, then still in his teens, eagerly accepted the project
\0 open a westerly route to.the Spice lslands and theriches ofthe Far East In 1520, Magalhäes explored thepassage between South America and Tierra del Fuego and on 6 March 1521 diseovered the Mariaaas Islands in the West Pacific. He was slain in the islet Mactan in me Philippines, in a fight over burning "idols' by newly baptised converts, When the flagship finatl)' reaehed Tidore 00 8 November 1521, ilwas found that the Raja ofTemate andFrancisco Serräo had recently been poisonedand r:hat Dom Tristäo de Meneses.fherepresentarive of'King Manuel, had sailed.off'to
Malacca - perhaps to escape IJ similar fate. Shortly before returningto Spain, the Ilagship Trinidad sprang a leak, 11\e Victoria had been deemed unsafe forthe return voyage by way of thePacific but now had to he trusted for the voyage to SpainatoundAfrica Magalbàes' successor Juan Sebastian Elcano departed on December 22, 1521 with a fu1110ad of spices~~nd lesving a garrisonin Tidore, Formally, Spain was first to occupy one of the Moluecas, Hoping
the Portuguese bad left for good, tbc Rajas used tbe opportuniry 10 dispatch letters of submission to theking of Spain. Under tbe oommand ofElcano, the Victoria cornpleted the fameus but unplanned first circumnavigation of tbc globe,
In Portugal, Dom Mannel had taken theSpanish plansseriously and Withthe annual fleet of 1517 sent orders to India to have a garrison fOmlally occupy the Moluecas as a pre-emptive move. His instrucrions took five years to be executed, to the satisfaction of all who made a profit in the spice trade, Asians and Portuguese alike, Do 13 May 1522, five months after Elcano's departure, António de Brito finally arrivèd in the
lI'! Unless staled ctherwise.+Moluccas' is used throughout this study in theold sense of the Clovc lslands, i.e. Ternate, tidore. Motil, Makyan and (later) Bachan. 6S Bull Praecelsae devotionis; see Davenpert L917.:1t6n. 28
Moluceas witb the first Portuguese garrison and procJ.aimed the spice trade a myfÛ monopoly.
1.3.3. The Treat}'ofZaragoZQ
Magalhäes had convineed Charles V that theSpice Islands were located not very far to the West of Ameriea, In tbePtolemaean world, this wascorrect but the discovery of America had reduced tbc space lcft for the Pacific Ocean to half lts real extent. In faet, there was no clueas to the hernisphere in which the Spice Islands would turn out tQ be situated. Barred by tbc Treaty of'Tordesillas Irom commercial sailing aroundAfrica, Charles V commissioned Magalhàes with tbc diseovery of a westward route to tbc Moluccas,
In the Portuguese hemisphere, determining the longitude of Ternare and Tidote in relation to the Cape Verde lslands was a compticated undertakingbut in -sight of land around Africa and Asia- a feasible one, In the Spamshhemisphere, on the Qtner hand, relering the Spice Islands by way of tbe Pacific te au immaterialpoint in tbc middle of the Atlantic Ocean, was impossible witbout autonomous instruments te meesure time or, as Hertera explained it: 'fhe degrees of longitude eould not he wen measured because they have no fixed point in tbc sky' 66. Portugal and Spain, both well aware that on tbc unknown rearside of'the globe territerial claims ceuld l>eneither substantiated nor disproved, felt free to explore this no man '8 ocean and claim the privilege of'first occupation, Even though the concept oh round earth was ne longer au esoterie subject for astronomers and geographers, the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas did net provide for the case Portuguese and Castilians would eome face to face on the ether side of the globe. When in 1521 in the Moluecas tbey did, their initial objeetives bad evolved with tbc exploration of tbc earth. Charles V, convineed by Magalhäes tb.atthese islands wese located not far from Ameriea, far inside tbc Spanish hemisphere, stuck re the view that the Treaty had simpty moved the Pacific demarcation line to an even greater' disrance west of the Moluccas, not fareast of Malaeca, Portugal was now torn between the hope to obtain the largest possible share of Brazil 67 and fear that thewestward shift of the Atlantic dernarcation linehad moved itsPacifie counterpart dangerously close to, and perhaps even to tbc west of tbe Clave lslands. In the course of the endles•••s negotiations in Zaragoza on how .todetermine tbc Pacific demarcation line, the delegations aecused one snother of wishing to deiny a conelusion rathertban to arrivé at one, of giving false information and ether
Herrera, 1934: cap. L (>7 The coast of Braz.il bad been di$Covered in 1500 byPedro ÁIYaTCS Cabral. 29 subterfuges. The Spanish deputies declared in 1524 tbat the Portagueee undersrated the distaneefrom the Atlanric demarcation eestwards to the Moluceasby mere than 50 degrees, that in the Spanish hemisphere the disrance from this line westwarde to the Moluccas measured nor more than 150 degrees and that, therefore, thePacific demarcarion lày at.least 30 Ptolemaean degrees West of1he Spice Islands hi.
On April 17. 1529, the delegates finallyconcluded a treaty bul this text was not rati tied. Legal counsellors üuervened.wha amended andcompletedthe text trom their point of view, to put en end to the intennmablediscussîonsbetweenastrologcrs. pH01S and rnarinera.
Five days later, 00 22 April, thefinal vetsion wssagreed upon. Charles Vra~ified it lhc following day. Inthe preamble, either monarch declared tlmt tbe Meluecan islands belonged tohim and were in his possession, without furthèr comment, Both claims were based on letters of submission from the local Rajas 69 but ElCaJl.o had lett a garrison in Tidore when he sailed of! 10 Spain, whereas António de Briro did nol arrive in Ternare with the first Portuguese garrison until five months later.
Referring 10 these letters of submission. Charles V had already in Febmary 1523 written to his delegates in Zaragoza thar Joäo lIJ 'knows that I am being respected as King of the Moluccan Islands, which he has never been'. A few years later he added
thaI 00 Portugeese possession of these islands had been proved even if they had heen seen or discovered by Portugal. By agreeing to purebase the claim Charles V based upon these letters, Jt1à.oUI acknowledged üs legitimacy.
The fiTSt clanse oftae treaty deals with the contract whercby Charles V sells hisrigllts to tbc Maluecas to JoäoIll' for 350,000 ducats, Mln the righttu repureflase. Thefiftb clause stipulatcs. that this right would oocome'null and vaid'jflne empt.~r-çither personally or through an agent- sent.aided er faiJed te forbid nis subjects, vassals or ethers to cross tbc borderline into the.Portuguese territory. If sueh crossings were caused by bad weather or other jorce mqjeurc, the 1cingof Portugalwo.uld treat the persons involved as his own subjects,
The secend clause, dealing with the description of the object sold, is theessen:tial one
in the presentcontest. lts fust, rejected version 1{l had stared that
'there shallbe drawn ( ... ) a semieircular line frDm pole to pole, 17 degree.s (which equa1297Yllcguas) east of'tbeMoluccaa Ir issaid tbat this 811me linewill pass through
In the early 17th century, Hertera still supportcti ihis view (cf. figurcs 6 and 7). Cf. secnon LU. . The quotatlOlls of tbc Tl'eaty irtdûs $Ct.1ton are based uponOaycnport 1917. 30
tbeislands of San.tQ1110me de las Ve/as, whieh are on tbismeridian northcast by cast trom. the MollJCC$, It is likewise sajdtbat tbey are 19 degrecs distMt from tbe Moluccfts in tbis northeast and wuthwcst course'.
TlleratHied test, howeeer, demands a circumscription ofthe area sold, which was irtdeed the oulyallernativé to a nominative list of all islands~places etc." man}' of which were still unknown, woile precise geographical data were lacking tbr alt It states that
•(... ) in order to ascertain whatislands,pJaces, lands,seas (....) are sold.hencefortn and
forever (... ) a Iine must he detel1l1Îl1edfivmpole f.() pole, tbat is to say, fro111nortb to south, by a seencircle extendingnortheast by ease 19 degrees from Molucca, to whiçh number of degrees correspond altnost 11 degreeso.nthe equinoctia!, llll)QUOtingto 2971;':: legu(J$ east of tb.eislands ofMolucca, allowing 17\tj /eguas lP auequmoctlal degree, In thLs northcast by cast merid,îan and direction are situatt.-dtbe islands ort.llS Velas and of Santo Toome, .tbmugh which the said line aad scrnicircle passes, Since theseislande are s.ituated and are distantfrom Mllluquo the said distanee, more or less, the dL"Pu.tiesdetemûne und agree that the said line be drawn al the said 297?~
leguas to the cast, tbc equivalent ()f the 19degrees northeast by east, trom the said islands ofMolucca. as aforesaid',
Both texts use tbe legua of 17SSto a Ptolemaean degrccofca. 94.5 km., i.e..the ltrgua of ca. 5,4 km, In geogra.pbical terms, tbc difference between tbc;:two versions oftbe Treaty is that the line is related: in tbe rejected one only to PPrtugueseMolucca but in tbc final test also to tbc Ladrones (Marianas).~the ooly point in tbc area fot which Spanish, albeit inaccurate, CQOrdinateswere available from Maga1hàes'sexpedition.
In 1521, Magalhäes bad disccvered thc Mariaaas group in ca, nON. and named it Las lslas de las Velas Latinas fortbe trlangularsails of the local proahsra few days later, he renamed lt Los Ladrone» (The Thie'Ves); SafJ/() Thome is seldofllmentioned as one of tbe Ladrones. On map 11 of au atla.~of ca,l $.37 attributcd te Oaspar Viegas, under tb.cname I: das velas l de sà tbml!) ooiy a single island of the group is shown, Ou lts almest identical map 18~the Marianas are labelled.lllhas das vellas and oomprise feerteen islets with indigeoous narnes. •.among which Guam lf{uahaJ~),Rota, Saipan. Sarigaa and Pagan" ..Tomark in these names, the cl"Tk tumed the map J lW<>and s() the narnes of tbe islets appear upside down, which was not unusual, but (orgeltin! thaI he had inVL"TSOO North and South, he placed guahan in thenerthemmest pooition of the lllhas das Vellas and tbe otber islands accordingly.
PMC est. 52; see ttgure 2, Far illQrl!;.00 this map, sec c:hapter 5.1. 31
The final Treaty situated Guam at the intersecdon9f tbe metidian of 17degrees (ca. 1,600 km.) east of Malucu and a circle centred in MalurJU with a radius of 19 degrees (ca. 1,800 km.). Actually, this intersectionis a point in tbe Philippine Sea at ca. 800 km. soutb-west of Guam 72. Both versionsofthe treaty contain the wise provision that tîLas Velas andSanto Thome should.tum outto Iie at a greater or shotter distance from Mo!uC The (Spanish) legal counsellors considered the words 'in order to ascertain what islands, places, (. ,.) are sold' a necessary msertion but this phrasing Iimired the validity of the new demarcation 10 a novelty: tbc "Moluccan Enclave" as the object of the sale. Tbc delegates may have heen unfamiliar with this consequence but it certainly became a prominent principle inthe Spanish East Asia policy, The rejection ofthe April 17 text and the immediate proposal of the more elaborate revised one took rhedelegates by surprise. Withinfive days, on 22 April, they concluded the new version. Charles V ratified it tbe nextday, which strongly snggests that both the text and the lightning-procedure had been carefullyprepared, His haste has been explained as being pressed for the purehese-money in view of au imminent war with France and.of his coronatien as Roman emperor. Alt equally streng rnotive will have been to make it difficuIt for.Joäo m not to ratify tbe modifièd version. The latter took ample time to ponder his next move and finall y ratified the treaty on June 20. 1530. Had Saavedra' s discoveries been known during the final negotiations, no doubt the relevant points of ïhe Treaty would have been formulated quite differently. From the ootset, the (Woparties held contradictory interpretationsof thefinal version of the second clause. Tbc Portuguese maintained tbat it ereated a new Pacittc demarcation line, unrelated to, but ofthesame order as tbc Atlantic one, with tbe irnplication fhat Japan, thePhilippines and.all Asta to thewestof tbc Ladrones meridian were henceforth located within the Portuguese hemisphere, Accordingly, several authors have accepted the meridian of 17 degrees east of the Moluccas as the final Pacific demarcarion line. In the Spanish view, on tbe ether hand, the object of the new contract was a Iimited area, an enclave ad hae in the Spanish hemisphere. The,börders of thisarëa were to he 12 The aotual position of Guam.is NEN of'the MolucC'41Sät a di stance ohbout 2,500 Km. The miscaloulation will have been caused by the devious itinerary trom Guam to Maluku via Cebu, Palawan, Brunei and M indanao. 32 described in relation te Maluquo and theLadrones, places known to both parties but of which the longitudes in relation to eaeh ether and te the Atlantic Raya could not yct he deterrnined with sufficiënt precision. Pellding the ultimate determination of the Pacific demarcation line, Portnguese and Spanish claims to the Moluceas, the Philippines, Japan and ether parts of tbeEast Asian island-world remained impossible to verify. Shortly after the death of Charles V, bis son and süccessorPhilip II wrote on 24 September 1559 to Luis de Velasco, theviceroy ofNew SpaJn, in regard ofthe planned expedition to tbc 'Western lslands'that tbc ships should begiven strict instructions not to enter the Moluccan Islands, which would go counter to the treaty of Zaragoza, but to go to ether islands nearby, sneb as tbc Philippines, which were located on the Spanish side of the demarcation and were 'said also to have spices' . Friar Andrés de Urdaneta, the reputed Spanish navigator, who had arrived in the Moluccas in 1525 with the fleer of Loaisa and retired in tbc Franciseau Order in 1552, was nominated commander of the Beet. Urdaneta warned the king that tbc Philippiaes lay to thc west of thc Moluccas, beyend doubt in the Portuguese hemisphere, Perhaps therefore, he declined the conunand but accepted to join the expedition as a pilot n. 1.3.4. The wa)' back LO America In the end, Magalhäes "expedition bad been a mitigated success at best. Portugal had won tbc race to the Spice Islands and established direct trading relations but had overrated the value ofthe RaJa ofTernate as a powerbroker and hadneglected (0 consolidate its position witha garrison, Spain now had good relations with the Raja of Tidore and a garrison in bis island hut no lines of communication with Europe or America. 1'0 maintain tbc precarieus foetheld in Tidore, it was of'paramount importsnee to disco ver a wind system in tbc Pacific, hopefully similar to the Azores anticyclone in the Atlantic and not too far trom the equator, tbat would provide a sailing course back to America. lt was fïnally discovered in 1565 by Alonso de Arellano in latitude 36° to 4) °N. On 24 August 1525, a secend Spanish fleer ofseven vessels took sail Erom La Coruäa to the Moluccas along Magalhäes" route. The commander Jofre GarcládeLoaisa and his successors Eleano and Salazar diedon the way. The flagship Santa Maria de la Vtctoria reached Tidore on I January 1527. The route through the Strait of Magellan was clearly too dangertïus forcommercial shipping and wasebandoned in faveur of the crossing trom the west eoast ofCentraI America withloeally built ships, The 71 Moriarty & Keistman 1966: 5-9. 33 emptiness and greatly underestimated exteat of'the Pacific Ocean soon proved (0 he no less redoubtable, The inforrnation that Loaisa's armada had entered the Pacific was camee! to Mexico by z pasache 74 named Santiago, asmall supply-ship that four-days after leeving the Strair of'Magellan in a galehad lost contact with the fleet, Upon this news, Charles V charged Cortés with sending a flörilla to thc Moluccas to look out for survivors ofthe lost ships ofMagalbàes, Loaisa and Sebastián Cabota 75, The Ilotilla was placedunder the eommand of Álvaro de Saavedra (y) Cerón witb orders to fellow Loaiss '5 route and back up his battered fleet, Atler pickitlg up two sailors of'the Santa Maria delParral, wh.ich after a mutiny had perished in the Philippines, Saavedra's Flarida cast ancher in Tidore on 27 Match l528. His two ether ships have never been heard of again, In June 1528, Saavedra set out trom Tidore to retum. to New Spain., steering a north-ncrth-eastem course beföre tbe westedy menseon bUL in à calm he driûed towards the northeeast of tbc Bird's I-lead Peninsula instead and so became the first European to visit the rnainland ofNew Guinea, OUting his secend arrempt in 1529, he explored the north coast as fat as the Cyclops Mountains without making landfall; he died at sea on 19 October, shortly after tuming Bast to America Adverse winds forced the Florida at 31 "N. to return once more te Tidore. 1.15. The maps Few 16th century Spanish maps displaying the nortb-coast of New Guinea have survived, The 1551 planisphere by Sancho Gutterra is so seriously damaged that in the Moluccas-New Guinea area the text is illegible, Themaps by Alonso de Santa CM and António de Herrera y Tordesillas (1549-1625), withthe accompanying descripciones were the principal ones for this study. On map nOl of'Herrera's Descripcián de las Indias Oeidensales (the Spanish hemisphere from Cape Verde westwards re India). tbe name Nueva Guinea is tbe only trace of Retes' expedinon, whereas the Solomen Islands, which werediscovered more than rwenty years later, are shown in detail. Herrera's map n° 14, onthe ether hand, 4 Sp, patax, pataxe; patache, of Arah origin: a smal! one- or two-master, This vessel was narned Santiago (Areizaga ]525: 224). To Hemende de la Torre, Gomara (1.554; 134). Galväo (1862: 166), Urdaneta, Herrera, and Hakluyt (160 1), patache was just a noun but. Ataide, (Si 1,: 312) look Patay for the ship's name and Ilumey (LS03 I: 127) explained it astapinaaee, called the Patace (Patagonian)", apillGZa being a small tender made of pine-wood.Dviedo (1852 U. I. XX: vi) overstated the case with Galeon Salfctiago (a four-master), idem Navarrete (1837 V: 3) \••ith.. Patafe or Ga/con Sa1lfÎtlgo under tbe command of Santiago de Guevara. iS Cabota had taken sail on Aprll3rd, 1526 from La.Coruäa for the Moluccas bUIen route decided (0 explore the Rio de la Plata instead. Cf.Ortuäo Sanchez-Pedreëo 2003: 221.225- 227; 2004: 324. 34 bas been updated with details trom hotb Saavedra and Retes, Incongruously~ both maps show the Solomen Islands oa a different seale, more than three times larger than the rest of the map (see figeres 6 and 7). For ether contemporaneous maps of northem New Guinea, we have IO turn.to tbe Portugeese, On maps 16 and 17 of an atlas attributed to Gaspar Viegas, anisolated, nameleas stretch of eoastline looks similar to Saavedra 'scoast of thc .Bird's Head Peninsula as depicted by Santa Cruz (ct: figures land 2). From 1550 on, the Portuguese mapmakers, inparticular Lopo and Diogo Homem, Bartolomen Velho and Francisco Vaz Dourado, sbow the mainland of New Guinee to the east of the 'Islands of Oom Iorge'; tbe fmt place-names lo appear were Retes' Crespos (Blak) and Moa (Wakdé) 16 (PMC I, est 80). In 1570, plaees visited or sighted by Saavedra and Retes appearcd en a map by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp. His almest identical J 587·map Americae sive Novi Orbis Nova Descriptto adds the Solomen lslands, diseovered in 1568; on both maps, New Guinea is part of the uaknown Terra Australis. His 1589Indiae Orien/aU:; Insularumque Adiacentium Typus in the 1606 Lesdon ediäen of bis atlas Orbts Terrarum. shows New Guinea as an island and moved the nleridian of tbe R. de S, Augustin froml90° to 180°, As the exploration of thePaeific basin advanced, these voyages and discovenes became the object of specific research. The eompilations by Alexander Dalrymple and James Bumey were among the first to appear, In tbc nineteenth century. some Spanish archives werepublished, which provided most of tbe souree material tor subsequent papers and studies. Itremained impessible, however, to eerrelare the Spanish place- names witb the topography of the north coest ofNew Guinea, even as, from the middle of the nineteenth century en, the knowledge about tbis area increa..,ed rapidly, lt is no coincidence mat. the rew endonyms which were mentiened, are nearly all located In täe region inhabited by Biak-speaking Meianesians 11, wbo sinee ancient times had traded witb the Mcluccaa, Samafo in North Halmahera, in 1529-l530 the scat of the Spanish gerrison, was ft port of call on this old trade route 18. Santa Cruz mentiened already that the people ofWaigéo spoke thesame language as the 7t On many 16th centurymaps the (Ponuguese) IsJ.andof Oom large and fhe (Spa.nish) lslaad of the Crespos, ea.ch referrirlg te Biak, are mowo side by side beca.usç the mapmakers could not i"tbr that they were identical. 'fhis was corrected by thc observations of Lemaire and Schouten in 1616. n The name Papua derlves from Biak Sup I papwa, meaning 'land of the sunset' (cf. Sollewijn Gelpke 1993). 18 rinterpret Samafo as Blak: Sau Mtifo(r), (harbour of the Numforese), In what is referred to as tbe Besserese dialect ofthe Biak languagc in the Raja Ampat Group, thc 'r' as a final consonant IS oiten pronounced as 'w' or dropped, 35 inhabitants of [eastern] Halmahere 711, which was also implied by Mignel Roxo de Brito in 1581 (Sollewijn 6elpkcl994: 137), Bast of the Wakdé- and Kumambals1ands, which fonn( cd) the eastem limit of the Biak-Numfor languages, the Spanish explQfet$ had virtlJally no means of cornmunication with the indigenous populations. On several öccasiens, tbcy were anacked without provocation, possibly because theywere taken for slave-raîders er seen as potentlal hesrages to be sold back to the Moluccas, Thus, the explorers rarely learned errdonyms and more than once baptised is1ands. rivers, and bays with saintly names, which only in a few cases can have been inspire 1. 3. 6. l~ogbooky, accounts (1Iuf colleet/ons Of tbc three exlant accounts of Álvaro de Saavedra's 1528and 152gexpedltions, rwe are depositions by Vicéncio de Nápolcsa@onc a joumal by Francisco Granado. They mention a number of plaee-names along tbencrthccast of New Guinea, of which nor a single one has been, idemified. The first news.about tbc espedition of Yiiigo Ortîz de Retes' 1545 \'oyage reached 30 Europe in 1546 or 1547 • shortly beforehe arrived himselfamong thesurvivors of Villalebos' fleet, Garcia DcscalanleAlvarado colleered bIS Relaciónfrominterviews with Reu~shimself and date 19 This statement should rather he taken 10 indicate that there was no language barrier, Speakers of Biak. Gébé, and Raja Ampat langua,ges have seulements throughout!:he: area, and are (were) babitually plurilingual, so Conesäo and lcixeira tIa Mot•• 1.960 .I: 158, J6 Friar Gerénimo de Santistêban, who badpart.icipated in Retes' expeditiën, lcft the Molueca» in 1547 with the Spallish garrison,and from Cochin inIndia sentiln account to Ant6nio de Mendoza, the viccroy ofNèwSpain, in which one passage deals winl Retes' voyagc. In 1624 in Mexico, Juan de Grijalva condensed this.passage to a single paragraph in bis Cránica de la Orden.deSan At/gustfn but added tbat Retes had been instructed land not forced by tbe elements, tberefore] to take a soutberucourse, Juan Pablo de Carrión, who bad sereed as a pilotunder Rete,'1'chièf-pilo{ Ga,~ Rico, described almost twenty years afterwards in a diftèrent context thegeneral location of New Guinea and thc total distanee covered by Retes's expedition.·Cam(;n probably cited from memory, Ramusio published additional details In 1613 from tbc narrati ve or Juan Gaetauo, who had been the pilot of thc 1543 attempt byBemardo de la Torretonnd thc route te Americe. He bad notparticipated in Retes' expedition, In Spain, the iafcrïnation gatbered by these expeditions was compiled ingeographical descnpttons. About 1541, Alonso de 8anta Cruz wrote part .3ofhishlárla, detailing the islands of A.mea, South Asia and Oeeania SJ, lts infbrmation or even nfty 1€f:,,'1U1S. 1.3,7, Leguas The key to the reconcîliation oftbe r~,(Jdm1f:!i is to distinguisbbetween.Ponuguese. Castilian leguas and Mexican.Spanish ones, in this study referred to as Castilian leiJuas and Mcxican legua.•••ln the 16th century, tbc legua was derived fromPtolenlY's 8i CarriazQ 1951: cbol.vii; Cuesta Domi.l'lgo 1983; 115. 37 theoretical circumference of the earth, which heunderestimatedinthe 2nd century CE by some 6,000 km. atabout 34.000 km. sz.This resulted in an equatorial degree afea. 94.5 km., which remained the standard from whieh regioaal and localleguas were derived. varying from 25 to 22!-'2. 20. 18, 17Yl,16% and 15 to a degree, ranging from ca. 3.78 km. to 6..3 km, To cornplicate tbc matter; when in thc course of time new observations enlarged thecltcumference oftheglobe to 40.000ktn., .tbe length of an equatorial degree increased 10 ca. IJl km, Hem era.. opens rus Descripcion de las Indias Occidentales with the statement thar 'tbe circumference of the earth is 360°, whichequals 6,300 Castilian leguas': Al 17.5 leguas to an equatorial degree, this legua measured ca. 5.4 km. At theend ofcbapter Ill, he states the distance 'from Acapulco to the Moluccas and tbc Philippines i.. [as] ... I,600 or 1,700 leguas' and in eh. XXVI between the Philippines and Navidad in Mexico as about 1,700 leguas, Ou his map of the Spanish hemisphere (see figure 6), the disrance from Acapulco tothe Moluecas measures ca. 92 equatoriel degrees, which at 17.5 leguas to a degreegives 1610 leguas. The Treaty of Zaragoza explieitly used the same Castilian legua of 5.4 km. Galväo eonsidered the leguaQf17.5 to a degreetbe unit 'of the ancients' and 16% modem but. for simpheity's sake.preferred 17 for bis personal use, In his Descobrtmentos, it is stated tbat Saavedra estimated the distancefrom Zihuaranejo (northwest of Acapulco, Mexico) to the Moluccas as 1,500 leguas (mil & quinhentas legoa.'!) (Galväo 1862: 174-5,241); Descalante SJ noted tbe same distance from Navidad (Mexico) ro Cesárea Karoli (Mindanao). In hisl 60 t English translation of the Descobrimenios, Richard Hakluy1 changed Galväo's 1,500 CastilîanleglJas to '2050 leagues" which(ifhe had meant Casrilian le!,ruas) would amount to 11,070 km., whieh is impossible, Hakluyt's 2050 leagues are Mexican leguas of ca. 4.2 km. and equal 8,610 km., almest the same distance as the 1,600 Castilian leguas (8J640 krn.) Herrera mentioned not mueh later in bis Descrtpciàn, This shotter Mexiean legua of 22Y2 10 a dogree was in use in Ni/eva Espana 84 and bas also been used -but notsystematically- in maps and reports about the Moluccas and New Guinea. Per se this double standerd was DOl a novum. Santa Cruz had to rely for maps of the area from North New Guinea to Madagaseer on Portugeese Information 8S, which 82 Already in the 3rd century Be, Erarostbenes had calculated the eircumference almest correctlv. 83 C~/ecci6n V: 120. 84 The tesua of 4.190 km, is stillin use in Mexico. RS Cf. Cuesta Domlage 198.3-4: 30-1, 264-74. 38 geaerallyused leguas of.5Akm. Ca. 1581, Miguel Roxo de Brito used the same Portuguese/Castilian legua to indieate afew distanees in and around tbc Raja Ampat Islands (Sollewijn Gelpkc 1994: 130, 144). In his map from Haimahera eastwards. however, Santa Cruz used a scala de leguas dividing ti (Ptolemaean) degree into 225 Mexican leguas (sec figure 1). Thc f(Jllowing example seems to illustrate that Saavedra already used this Mexican legua to the east of Halmahere in his 1528 expedition. In Herrera' s Descripción, !he eoast of New Guinea begins at '100 leguas to the east of the island GiloIo' The aetual' disrance from Cape Gameaka, the northeastem cape of Halmahera, to Primera Tietra near Saasapor is about 440 km. It cannot Oe excluded, however, that this conversion was nor tbe work of'Santa Cruz but Herrera's, For this study, the distences mentioned in the sourees have a11been compared wim thc actual distauces. The latter were measured in straight lines 00. modem maps and had, therefore, always tobe lower than the fermer, except some that had been arrived at by dead reekoning. For most but not all of the distences stared by Nápoles, Granado, Santa Crux, Velasec and Herrera.tbe shorter Mexican legll.<1 gives better results than the Castilian one, Several of the sometimes considerable discrepancies in the distances are dut: to inaccurate observation. Others, in partienlar on longer stretches on the high seas, where dead reekoning was tbc only option, were eaused by then still uncharted sea- currents. In the West Pacific, the warm surface currentrnns generallywest and south- west into the Indonesian Archipelago, Near.Mindanao and Halmahera, abranch turns in a southerly direetion, but in the-area from Morotai to Biak, its direction cart vary considerably, Between lat.3°N. and the nortacoast of New Guinea, this cutrent beoomes more regular at a speed of up to 100 km. a day eastwards, but near the coast and between islandaits speedcan inorease considerahly. Sailingships eaught between Mindanao and Morotai by strong westeriy.mensooa-wiuds or in a calm have been carried within a few weeks to the Geelvink Bay area. Tbc first vietim 00 record was Jorge de Meneses, who in 1526-27 had to wait out the westerly monsoon on the north- coast ofBiak Island. Proahs from Sangir and Yap have also eededup in Biak (Feuilletau de Bruyn 1920: 21), In 1958, the engine ofthe Formosan fishing ..boat Hshug Sun Loog broke down presumably in the Batan- or Babuyan Islands and on 21 February the vessel was stranded on the reef near Kaméri 011 the north coast of Numfor. A Dutch omdat sailingin June 1863 :tTomTemate to Doréh Bay (Manok-wàri), on the other hand.recorded tbat his slIip could not advsnee eastwards at alt He sailedand 39 drifted for weeksbetween Waigétland Helen reef and after 35 Wiys fell back 00 Gébé. Hence, the stretch to Doréh tookbimanother 30 days (Goldman 1866: 484499, 517- 534). At first sight, the distauces in Velasec '5 1571-l574 Descripctón seem to permit the· identification ofmany places in his list in reletien to tbc two il1dig~ous toponyms Morro and Arrimo, which have been reeognised in the Wakdé lslands since me 1616 reports of Schouten andLemaire. Velasec stated the tota) distance covered by Retes's expedition almest correctly buton a smaller scale, some figures give valid results, othersless so; several stretches are Iacking in bis Descripci6n but Hertera provided part of the missing information. Norwithstandiug the relative abundance of data, only a few points along the New Guinea coast could be identified wilh any certainty because Velasec compiled his Descripciàn from several accounts, which repeatedly used different narnes for the same place; e.g. in the two narnes. Punta Salida andcabo de San Lorenzo for tbc Sarmi peninsula. On the ether hand .•tbe absence of Descalante's Magdalena islands was a major obstacle to retracing thissection of Retes' itinerary, In partienlar the stretch fromWakdé 10 Wewak remained nebulcus. At the end of bis list, Velasec added Yo/cán and Caymana out of geographieal context. Apparently, he was unable to fit these islands in to his satisfaëtion, Finally, tbe 1551·world map by SanchoGutierra divides a distance of about 3 degrees into 4 units.each consisring of 5 sub-units 116. Presumably, this system of 20 sub-units per 3 degrees is the treble of 20 leguas toone degree, This unit does not seem to have been used in other sourees concerned with tbc NewGuinea area, Unless stared otherwise, hereunder the 16th century leguaused in the Meluccas and tbe New Guinea area will he the 'Mexican' legua of 4.2 km. 1.3.8, The 19th century and later commentators To identify the old plaee-names in nonhem New Ouinea,Hl:l.ll1Y in 1877 and Tielein 1877/1880 had to draw mainly.on Galväo's Descobrimentosiib« sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish and Portuguese historians, tbc 1837 Coleecián de los viages y descubriementos by Navarrete, and tornes V (1866)and XIV (1870) of'the Coleccion de doeamentos inéditos del archlvo de Indias. In thefirst decade of thetwcntieth century tbc Gennan geologist. Artbur Wichmann. who had partieipated in a scienüfic expedition to then Netherlands NewGuinea, ------86 I am indebted to Dr. Pranz Wa\\'Tik ofthe AustnanNational Library for this infermatlon, 40 turned historian andwrotebis menumeetal Bntdecku'lgsgeschichle vtm .Neu Gf,tinea. A century later, it is still the latestextensive atternpt to teconstruct the itinerariessef all explorers of New Guinean waters ..For this reasQn Wichmann inevitably became the target of what otherwise might seem an inordinate part of'my critieism: Wichmann had the additional benefit of Velasco' s Descripoiàn, ·first published in 1894. but failed to appreeiate the value of the oftea-accurate distances In this eompilation. Although he aeknowledged that Velasec might have examined now lost reports, Wichmann reiected not only al! information not deriving trom tbe first•.hand sourees available in bis own time, but (I suspect) oecasionally also other items that did not fit his perseaal perception of the historicalandlor geographicà! truth. Th1s prejudice led Wichmann to conclude, for instanee. that in the 161hct."fltl.lrythe Spanish (Saavedra included) had netbeenawere ofthe Bird's Head Peninsula and, tberefore, that on tbc maps drawn befere the 1616 voyage of Jaeob Lemaire and Willem Schouten, all toponyms to thë west of'Biak had 10 he 'purely fietitioes' interpolarions because not mentioned in the narratives available to bimself (Wichmann 1909: 24-30), Consequently, severalof'his arguments eaded in paradox, Wichmann (1909: 43-48)repeatedly eited Coello's 1878 paper in tbc Boletb« de la Sociedad Geográjica de Madridon tbc discovery by Luis V áez de Torres ofthe passage between Anstralia and New Guinee but he apparemlyremained unaware of Coello's 1885 Conflicto hispano-alemén in thesame periodical, In this artiele, Coello expounded in particular tbe Spanish discovenes in tbc Carolines, but also those along the New Guinee coast, Sinee 1950, several publicatiöns have treated of the Iberianexplöration öfnorthern New Guinea, In his Discovery ofthe Pacific lslands, Sharp (1960: 1) only includcd New Guinea and lts coastal islands in his identifications 'so far as this is desirabie as background to the elueidation ofthe exploration of the Pacific Islands' in a more restricted sense, Brend's 1967 GCf)graphical Exploration by the Spaniards discussed the Spanish voyages along the New Guinea coast only briefty. Both authors wrote beföre the Islário of Santa Cruz and tbc Treatise on the Moluecas were available In 1975, J.C. Whittaker et al. briefly dealt with tbc four Spanish expeditions to Ncw Guinea in D<>cument.~ondReadings in NeWlt1Jinea Bistory and, in more det~il, C. Prieto in E1 OC60110 Pacflico: navegantes espafioles del sigio XVI In 1984, A. Landin Carraseo publisbed his .lslário Espaûol del Pac({ico with the subtitle 'Identificarion of the Diseoveries in the Soutb Sea"; it 115t5without critica! comment the islands which, according to the conrrnentatcrs he mentioned, had been discovered by Spanish explorers, Ortufio Sanchez-Pedreûo (2003: 227) mentionsSuavedra's 1528 41 and 1529 expeditions witbout ether detailstaanbis visit to Eoiw~t9k. FinallYI La CanografiaNáutica Espaiiola en los Sïglos XIV, XVyXVlbyR.C. Martinez (1994) is only obliquely concemed with the present subject. These studiesagain only summarised the workof older commentators and apparently remainedunaware of, at least did not use or mention, the Islário anwor the Treatise, Alt commentaterswere.faced withtheprohlem,tbat they could not ide~tifytbc two points of reference for Saavedra's voyages, namelyJ.sla de Oro and Urais la Grande. [0 the end, they allreverted ro Navarrete' s prudent suggestions in 1837 that Biak and Manus might he meant, several of the rt.'CCJ1tstudies staringthese conjectures as facts. In short, the situation had not evolved since Bumey wamed in 1803 that 'Though among the.accounts-of tbe early Spanhshdiscoveries, there aremany instaaces of contradietien that cao by no henest means he reconciled.Ihey are frequently conneered with circumstances which afford inferences that lead either 10 a diseovery of mnh, or a dereetion of error. There is, nevertheless, danger that rnuch labour bestewed to produce agreement m3y sometimes createa .temptanen to misinterpret erdisguise. ' Jacobs' Treatise on the Moluccas (1971)and the Islàrio of Santa Cruzedited by Cuesta Domingo (1983-84) provide many of the missing details ofthe voyages of Grijalva and Saavedra, Neither publication.has been analysed yet fromthis point of view. The ramifications andnew vistas of th~ Treatiseon the Molllccas are.such thar they are tteated separately in Part UI.