PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES 



Portuguese voyages of these years on the basis of the oldest 

 documents, the first thing that must strike us is that there are 

 indications of several voyages, and of the discovery of two 

 wholly different countries, which must undoubtedly be Green- 

 land and Newfoundland. As it is expressly stated on the 

 Cantino map, on the Portuguese chart of about 1520, and in 

 many other places, that Newfoundland was discovered by 

 Gaspar Cortereal, while his name is not mentioned in a 

 single place in these documents in connection with Greenland 

 (or Labrador), and as Pasqualigo's letter to the Council of 

 Venice expressly says that that land was seen the previous year 

 (1500) by "the other caravels [I'altre caravelle] belonging to 

 this majesty," ^ the logical conclusion must be that it was not 

 Gaspar Cortereal who saw Greenland in the year 1500, but 

 some other Portuguese. It may be in agreement with this 

 that on the King map (of about 1502) Newfoundland is called 

 "Terra Cortereal" (see p. 373), while the island which clearly 

 answers to Greenland is called " Terra Laboratoris." One might 

 be tempted to suppose that both lands were named after their 

 discoverers, one, that is, after Cortereal, the other after a 

 man who is described as " laborator." The generally accepted 

 view that it was Gaspar Cortereal who saw Greenland on his 

 voyage of 1500 is thus unsupported by the above-mentioned 

 documents. 



On the other hand, we seem to be able to conclude from the 

 royal letters patent to Miguel Cortereal that Gaspar made 

 two voyages, one in 1500, and another in 1501, and that it 

 was the same country (i.e., Newfoundland) that he visited 

 on both occasions. This is also confirmed by the legend on 



1 It might be objected that Gaspar Cortereal's name is not mentioned in 

 the whole letter, and that he might thus have also been in command of these 

 "other caravels"; but in Pasqualigo's letter to his brothers, Caspar's name 

 is mentioned, and there, too, the meaning does not seem to be that he was 

 connected with the discovery in the previous year of the country which could 

 not be approached because of ice; but nothing definite can be concluded on 

 this point from the two letters. 



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