Gaspar Corte-Real

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Statue in St. John's, Newfoundland

Gaspar Corte-Real (* around 1450 in Terceira , Azores (?); † 1501 ) was a Portuguese navigator and the youngest son of João Vaz Corte-Real .

On May 12, 1500, the Portuguese King Manuel sent him on a voyage of discovery to the New World and assured him of rule over newly discovered countries. Corte-Real set out from Lisbon and reached a land "with large trees and fertile soils". Corte-Real called it Terra Verde (Eng. Grassland), and in fact Greenland or Labrador is suspected behind it . The following year he sailed again towards Terra Verde with three caravels . After finding ice on Davis Strait , he sails south and has 60 residents captured , presumably on the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland . Since some of the Indians were dressed in skins, while others are said to have been almost naked, it was speculated that the prisoners came from two different climatic zones. After that, the small fleet separated. While Corte-Real was heading south, the other two ships sailed to Portugal, where they arrived in October 1501. Gaspar Corte-Real never returned from his trip.

In May 1502 his brother Miguel tried to find him with an expedition of three ships, but his ship did not return either. In August 1502, only the other two ships came to an agreed meeting in southern Newfoundland. According to EB Delabarre, a hard-to-read stone inscription in Latin with the cross of the Order of Christ near Dighton (Massachusetts) , allegedly left by Miguel Corte-Real, is dated to the year 1511.

Individual evidence

  1. detailed description of the captured natives in a letter from a Venetian ambassador Pietro Pasqualigo at the Portuguese court from 1501 in English. Translation: Pietro Pasqualigo Letter
  2. ^ EB Delabarre, Dighton rock , New York 1928; Américo da Costa Ramalho, Um elogio em latim, contemporâneo de Miguel Corte-Real in Humanitas , vol. 25-26 (1973-1974), p. 3

literature

FF Lopes, The brothers Corte Real , trans. by F. de Andrade. Lisbon 1957

Web links