Australia and the Portuguese discoveries

A few reflections on history never go amiss. For instance who “discovered” Australia? Of a certainty the “First People” arrived here over 65 000 years ago. I mean who were the first Europeans to see and or visit Australia? A Brit - Capt Cook? The French? The Dutch? The Portuguese?

In my humble opinion that honour must fall to the Portuguese. Just look at their time line in the Indian Ocean area:-

·      Vasco De Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

·      Just off the coast of Western Australia near the city of Geraldton are the low lying Abrolhos Islands. It has been asserted by some that Abrolhos is an English corruption of the Portuguese phrase Abre-olhos!  - which roughly translates as “Open your eyes!” or “Look out!”

·      The enclave of Goa, on the West coast of India, was established in 1498. 

·      The small Island of Timor (just 285 miles – 460km, North of Australia) was colonized in 1516.

·      It is generally believed that Cristovao Mendonca sailed down the East coast of Australia in about 1521.

·      Mendonca had three ships in his little fleet but only one returned. One ship was lost in a storm – last seen heading East across the Tasman Sea towards what is now New Zealand and one ship was wrecked. This wrecked ship is possibly the origin of the “legend of the Mahogany Ship” alleged to be in the sand dunes near Warnambool, on the coast of State of Victoria. 

With all this, admittedly circumstantial evidence, to my way of thinking, it would be impossible for the Portuguese navigators to have “missed” Australia. That just doesn’t make sense to me!!

All this is complicated, however, by the secrecy surrounding these Portuguese voyages. Most of Australia - “Java le Grande” – on the early maps was in the Spanish sphere of influence. In 1494 the Pope Alexander VI – after some dispute with the Portuguese King Joao II – decreed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. This Treaty split the world into two – the Portuguese sphere stretching from part of the East coast of South America (now Brazil) to a line which is almost the State line between Western Australia and the other States. 

This is why Brazilians speak Portuguese but Argentina, Peru, and Chile and other countries in South America are Spanish speaking and why Timorese speak Portuguese whereas people in the Philippines speak Spanish. 

Another complication was that because of the rivalry with Spain and the secrecy involved, all Portuguese Captains involved in these explorations, had on the pain of death, at the completion of each voyage, to hand over to the Maritime Archivist in the Casa da India, all log books, maps, charts and journals. This was to comply with the Politica do Sigilo (The Policy of Secrecy).

Nothing can now be categorically proved as these carefully stored historical documents were totally destroyed in the great earthquake and resulting fire in 1755, which demolished much of Lisbon.