The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Australian shores, either 1522 or 1601
Exploring recently the works of historian Rainer Daehnhardt, of German extraction for an eventual chapter on Portuguese-German connections, I came across one of his latest books on the Portuguese priority regarding the European discovery of Australia, mentioned below. That brought to my mind the several books on the subject kept in my private library also listed below, and I took the initiative to delve on this subject and dedicate one of these chapters to it.
Daehnhardt identified in this map at least 31 inscriptions in Portuguese.
Dulce Leal Abalada, co-author of this book, where she in the final chapter mentions several reasons to believe in the Portuguese priority, around 250 years before Captain James Cook (1770) and a few years before the earliest Dutch arrival (1606) (ibidem, pages 97-106), namely among others:.
- The so-called Vallard, Dauphin, Desliens or Dieppe Maps, dated from 1530-1547, picturing Java la Grande, namely Australia.
2. Cristóvão de Mendonça, in 1522, and Gomes de Sequeira, in 1525, are presumed to be candidates to have reached Australian shores, from Malacca and/or Timor, where the Portuguese would have established themselves some years before.
3. Some vestiges/artifacts of wreckages found on the Australian coast, namely a lead sinker in the sand of Hook Point, early 16th century Portuguese pottery jars from the seabed off the coast of south-eastern Australia dated of around 1500. (“Beyond the Capricorn”, by Peter Trickett, p.347-9)
4. Some vestiges of Portuguese words among some aboriginal tribes, among which Portuguese sailors, survivors of wreckages, would have established themselves.
5. “The enigmatic stone ruins at Bittangabee Bay (Pettungerbe)”, which “also surely would deserve archaeological investigation”, in spite “of the neglected state of much of the site” (“Beyond the Capricorn”, by Peter Trickett, p.350)
6. The wrecked ‘Mahogany Ship’ on the Australian Coast. Found in 1836 and disappeared in 1880. ( G. McIntyre 1977, p.271)
McIntyre (1964) exposes in this work of his that “Arthur Phillip, the man who commanded the First Fleet to the inhospitable shores of New South Wales in 1788…had spent three and a half years on secondment to the Portuguese Navy.”
Tasker’s skeptical conclusion about the prior discovery by the Portuguese applies only to New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. (Tasker, 2010, p.196
“The present official view is that the continent of Australia was first sighted by the Dutchman Willem Jantzoon in 1606; and that the fertile and important east coast was discovered by the Englishman James Cook in 1770.” “The evidence of pre-Cook, pre-Dutch visits by other Europeans points only in one direction – to the proposition that, in the ninety years before the first Dutch sighting, the Portuguese sighted and visited and charted the Australian coasts.” (McIntyre 1977, p. xvii) “During the first half of the 19th century – say from 1786 to 1850 – these Dieppe Maps were known in England and France; and in those countries, in those years, they were openly accepted by the greatest geographers of the day as undoubted evidence of the Portuguese discovery of Australia.”
“But from 1850 onwards acceptance of this Portuguese priority began to wane in England; and despite the advocacy of George Collingridge and a few other individuals it was never really accepted in Australia. There are underlying reasons for this – national prejudices, personal jealousies, official ignorance.” (McIntyre 1977, p. xix)
Trickett attributes the reluctance of “orthodox academic circles” to accept the advocacy of a primal Portuguese discovery of Australia to what he calls a “culture of denial”, just a “little short of heresy”. “The Portuguese, insofar as they are mentioned at all, are generally dismissed as an historical footnote.” (ibidem, p.4-6)
Even conceding that you accept the Portuguese priority in sighting Australian shores, you may and should ask why they did not at least try to explore or colonize these new regions. Perhaps the views of this Australian author, can help us explain this.
First, because the somehow unwelcoming characteristics of the Australian coast:
“Indeed, there are very few places in Australia where fertile land runs right to the coast. Geologically, the land is old. All Australian sea coasts are sandy, dry, poor, with sand dunes and swampy flats… Inland, often only eight or ten miles from the coast, the fertile lands begin.” (McIntyre 1984, p.193)
Second, because the Portuguese in the East were engaging in a mercantile and religious enterprise and not so much a colonial one:
“They were not looking for empty lands to colonise…, for they were a small nation with no emigrants to spare.” (McIntyre 1977, p.7) Around one million inhabitants at that time.
References
Collingridge, George “The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea”, Pan Books, Sydney and London, 1982 (First published 1906 by William Brooks & Company)
Collingridge, George “The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea. Being the Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606 with Description of their Old Charts”, BiblioBazaar, 2007
Daehnhardt, Rainer, George Collingridge & Richard H. Major “Segredos da descoberta da Austrália pelos portugueses”, Zéfiro, Sintra, 2009
Major, Richard Henry “The Discovery Of Australia By The Portuguese In 1601, Five Years Before The Earliest Discovery Hitherto Recorded: With Arguments In Favour Of A Previous Discovery By The Sama Nation, Early In The Sixteenth Century”, London, 1861
McIntyre, Kenneth Gordon “The Secret Discovery of Australia. Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook”, Souvenir Press, Medindie & London, 1977
McIntyre, Kenneth Gordon “The Rebello Transcripts: Governor Phillip’s Portuguese Prelude”, Souvenir Press, London & Adelaide, 1984
Tasker, John “Sixteenth Century Portuguese Down Under. Five hundred years of accumulated opinion on the extent of Portuguese penetration into the Australasian region”, Kanuka Press, Volume One, 2012
Tasker, John “Sixteenth Century Portuguese Down Under. An attempt to reach out beyond speculation”, Kanuka Press, Volume Two, 2010
Tasker, John “Sixteenth Century Portuguese Down Under. A final, evidence-based resolution”, Kanuka Press, Volume Three, 2012
Trickett, Peter “Beyond Capricorn. How Portuguese Adventurers Secretly Discovered And Mapped Australia And New Zealand 250 Years Before Captain Cook”, East Street Publications, Bowden, Adelaide, 2007
