• Book Beginning
  • Acknowledgments
  • Sources & Bibliography
  • Mary Ames Mitchell

Welcome

Hello. Please excuse the broken links. We are in the process of revising some of the articles. Thanks.

This web-site is a book, in other words a web-book, about the history of Europeans trying to cross the Atlantic westward to reach the riches of the Far East. It is a collection of legends, myths, mysteries, and trivia I found interesting while researching the settling of America. It is free for you to read on your iPhone while standing in line at the market, or waiting for the subway. The articles are listed to the right in chronological order. You can scroll through them in two ways:

  1. Click through the linked Table of Contents to the right.
  2. Click the link at the bottom of each article that connects to the next page.

I start with the ancient cultures who thought a great sea, called Oceanus, circled the earth. The ancients developed the technology for reading the stars that Christopher Columbus needed to cross the Atlantic in 1492. After he did so, Queen Isabella of Castile dubbed him Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

The question arose while doing this research: “If the Minoans and Phoenicians could sail as far as Iceland in the early 1800s BCE [which they did, searching for tin], then why did it take Western Europeans so long to reach the Americas?”

Once you study the winds and ocean currents between the old world and the new, you can see how easy it was for a ship to sail from one to the other. The Portuguese called the currents the Volto do Mar [Turn or Twist of the Sea]. The currents flow clockwise every day of every season. Theoretically, if you drop a cork in the water off the coast of Portugal, it will bob to the Canary Islands, then float to the Cape Verde Islands, where it will whisk across the Atlantic to the Outer Achilles Islands and on to Florida. Then the Gulf Stream will swoosh the cork northward. If the cork does not get stuck on a reef as it passes the jagged Outer Banks of North Carolina, it will continue north past Cape Cod and Nova Scotia where the easterlies will transport it back across the Atlantic through the Azores archipelago home to Lisbon.

On June 15, 1876, answering a dare from his fishermen friends over a game of cards, thirty-year-old Alfred “Centennial” Johnson sailed out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in a sixteen-foot open dory to cross the Atlantic. He averaged seventy miles a day. He capsized once during a major gale. He arrived safely in Abercastle, Wales, on August 12. The trip had taken him fifty-eight days.

Today there is a biennial Atlantic Rowing Race that starts in the Canary Islands and ends up in the West Indies, a distance of about 2,550 nautical miles [4,700 kilometers]. Crews of six or less sail in twenty-four-foot boats. The winner of the race in 2006 had made the crossing in 39 days.

As you no doubt know, with new technology – such as DNA tests, the ability to study Earth from satellites, and methods for determining the age of artifacts – our understanding of history changes every hour. That is why I chose to publish this collection as a web-book rather than a print book. Not only does this format allow me to update information, but it lets me include all the color maps, graphs, illustrations, and photographs I want without worrying about printing costs.

Please, send me your feedback, corrections, and additions through the email links at the end of each article. I can easily incorporate them.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) once said, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

I hope you enjoy this information as much as I do.

—Mary Ames Mitchell

First, just a few notes about discussing time.

Contents

Welcome
Notes on Discussing Time
Knowledge Ancient World
Technology Migrates West
The Romans and Latin
Iberia, Brittania, Fall of Rome
Judaism
Christianity
600s The Rise of Islam
800s Christian Europe
County of Portugal

980s The Vikings
1000s Fight for Jerusalem
1143 Portugal’s Independence
1147 Second Crusade
1154 Al-Idrisi’s World Map
1170 Prince Madog of Wales
1187 Third to Fifth Crusades
1200s Mongolian Empire
The Silk Road
Herbs and Spices
Legend of Prester John
1271 Marco Polo
Volta do Mar
Mythical Atlantic Islands
Real Atlantic Islands
Ancient Texts Resurface
Through the Pillars of Hercules
Rise of Portuguese
The Order of Christ
Pedro and Inês
Black Death
1303 Knights Templar in America
14th Century Maps
Rihlas & Travelogues

Portugal, Castile, or England
The House of Avis
1400s Henry the Navigator
Age of Discovery Begins
Henry’s Navigation Center
Chinese Treasure Fleets
Royal Distractions
Cape Bojador
The Caravel
Tools for Navigation
The Astrolabe
1440s Beginning of Slave Trade
Western Land Sightings
1450 Fra Mauro Mappa Mundi
Claiming the Azores
Constantinople
Dinheiro – Portuguese Money
The Guinea Trade
Crossing the Equator
Polo & Toscanelli
Treaty of Alcáçovas-Toledo
The Carrack
Diogo Cão Reaches the Congo
The Rule of the Sun
Overland to Abyssinia
Christopher Columbus
Columbus’ Calculations
1480 Alonso Sanchez of Huelva

c1485 Columbus Leaves Portugal
1486 Pushing West from Azores
1487-88 Bartolomeu Dias
Portuguese Reach Calicut
1487 Columbus in Spain
Conquest of Granada
Columbus’ New Proposal
1492 Columbus’ 1st Voyage
Treaty of Tordesillas
1493 Columbus’ 2nd Voyage
Calculating Longitude
1495 King Manoel I
John Cabot
Nuremberg Connection
Cabot in England
1497-98
Cabot’s 1st & 2nd Voyages

1497-98 Vasco da Gama
Cabot’s Return
1498 Cabot’s 3rd Voyage
1498 Columbus’ 3rd Voyage
1499 William Weston
1499 The Corte-Reals
1500 Fernão Alvares Cabral
1502 Columbus’ 4th Voyage
Maps After Columbus
Loose Ends
Mysterious Dighton Rock

We invite your feedback. If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections, please email them to Mary.
Please tell me to which page you are referring. Thanks.

©2015 Mary Ames Mitchell. All rights reserved.
Book Beginning | Acknowledgments | Sources & Bibliography | Mary Ames Mitchell

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