Vicente Diaz and Goncalo Sintra

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Anatol
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Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:13 pm

Vicente Diaz and Goncalo Sintra

Post by Anatol » Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:28 am

VICENTE DIAZ DE LAGOS (the Cape Verde islands) 1456.
Vicente Diaz de Lagos (on stamp to the left) was a Portuguese navigator during Henry Navigator. There is information not enough obout him .First he mentioned when in 1445 - Venetian captain Alvise Cadamosto, during a visit to the Algarve, was hired by Henry the Navigator . Henry appoints Cadamosto a new caravel, a co-captain, who was an experienced master Vicente Diaz de Lagos. Alvise Cadamosto with Vicente Diaz set out on March 22, 1455 proceeded to Porto Santo and Madeira , and thereafter weaved his way through the Canary islands , making stops in La Gomera , El Hierro and La Palma before reaching the African coast around Cape Blanc .Subsequently they parted and Vicente Diaz sail to the mouth of Senegal, in anticipation Cadamosto (who promised to get there)doing a brisk trade. It is known that the fleet was back in Portugal before the end of the year. In 1446 Lançarote Lagos organized the second fleet for another large slave raid. Lagos fleet consists of 14 vessels, one of the captains was Vicente Diaz. (For more details about the raid –see “Lansarote de Freitas”) .After an unsuccessful raid on the bank Arguin and in more southern coast of Africa, with a fleet of Lanzarote Vicente returned to the banks Arguin where they anchored, at about Tider and took additional 59 prisoners before returning to Lagos. Cadamosto set out again from Lagos in May 1456, this time not alone, but together with Antoniotto Usodimare and another caravel with an Portuguese captain Vicente Diaz, servant of Prince Henry . The three vessels made no known trading stops, intending to sail straight to the Gambia River (probably per Prince Henry's instructions). Catching a storm around Cape Vert peninsula, the little fleet was forced to sail west, away from the coast for two days and three nights (about 300 miles) and stumbled on the as-yet-undiscovered archipelago of the Cape Verde islands . Cadamosto, Usodimare and the Vicente Diaz scouted several of the uninhabited islands, believing them to be four in number (although Cadamosto notes in his account that later explorers would find them to be ten). They anchored first on an island which they named Buona Vista ( Boa Vista ), before proceeding on to a larger island, which they named San Jacobo ( Santiago ) (according to Cadamosto, on account of it being the feast of SS. Philip and James - probably an error ) Finding the islands uninteresting, they headed on. Soon they went to Portugal.
(Note: although Cadamosto's claims credit for the discovery of the Cape Verde islands, this is disputed by Diogo Gomes , who claims he discovered the islands, together with Antonio da Noli , in 1462 (sometimes dated 1460)
GONCALO DE SINTRA 1445.
Gonçalo de Sintra (on stamp to the right), (d.1444/45), was a 15th-century Portuguese explorer and slaveraider.
According to chronicler Zurara , Gonçalo de Sintra was squire in the household of Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, older, an illustrious knight ( cavaleiro ), distinguished for his military service at Ceuta..
In late 1444 (or 1445), Henry dispatched Gonçalo de Sintra in command of a caravel on an exploratory expedition down the West African coast, with strict instructions to sail straight to the 'land of Guinea ', and to not detract from that objective. Earlier that year, a Portuguese slave -raiding expedition under Lançarote de Freitas had raided the Bay of Arguin ( Mauritania ), an area clustered with Sanhaja Berber fishing settlements, and taken a few hundred Berber captives, which were sold as slaves in Lagos, Portugal at great profit.Desirous to make some quick profit of his own, Gonçalo de Sintra disobeyed Henry's instructions and decided to make a quick slave-raiding detour to the Arguin banks. But Lançarote's raid had driven much of the local population to evacuate the islands and coasts, with the result that Sintra found the fishing settlements deserted. Sintra managed to capture two Berber women who had lingered on Arguin island , but a Berber slave-boy Sintra had brought from Portugal to serve as translator escaped. This turn of events probably persuaded Sintra to make an effortful search for captives to 'make up' for the loss of the slave-boy rather than just call it quits and go on to Guinea.
According to Zurara , Gonçalo de Sintra directed his caravel to Nair island , at the southern end of Arguin bay. At first Nair seemed abandoned, like all the other settlements. But taking a handful of crew aboard a launch , Sintra led a landing party to investigate. Not long after they landed, the Portuguese were ambushed by a hidden force of some seventy armed Sanhaja Berber tribesmen. The conditions of the surf and tide prevented the caravel from approaching the island and rescuing the landing party. Gonçalo de Sintra and seven crewmen were killed on the spot.The caravel, with its remaining crew, immediately returned to Portugal. Gonçalo de Sintra was the first of Henry the Navigator 's captains to be killed on an expedition, and is generally regarded as the first known Portuguese casualty of the era Portuguese discoveries . Although some historians allege Gonçalo de Sintra was a relative (possibly the father) of later Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra (who explored the lands of Guinea in 1460), there is no evidence of this.
Cabo Verde 1952;10,0c;SG347.
Source:W.Kramer: Neue Horizonte.Leipzig. 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonçalo_de_Sintra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lançarote_de_Freitas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Walrasiad/Chronology..
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