EXPLORERS

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EXPLORERS
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Topics

• Christopher Columbus
• Leif Eriksson
• Henry Hudson
• John Cabot
• Marco Polo

• Ferdinand Magellan
• Samuel de Champlain
• Jacques Cartier
• Vasco da Gama

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Henry Hudson
Not much is known for certain about Henry
Hudson's life, or any voyages he took, before he
appears in written records, in 1607. Even the
paintings and images commonly used to portray him
cannot definitely be said to be of Henry Hudson -
they could be of a completely different
Elizabethan gentleman. Thomas Janvier, a 19th
century Hudson biographer, wrote, "No portrait of
Hudson is known to be in existence. What has
passed with the uncritical for his portrait a
dapper-looking man wearing a ruffed collar
frequently has been, and continues to be,
reproduced. Who that man was is unknown. That he
was not Hudson is certain.
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Christopher Columbus
At the end of the fifteenth century, celestial
navigation was just being developed in Europe,
primarily by the Portuguese. Prior to the
development of celestial navigation, sailors
navigated by "deduced" (or "dead") reckoning,
hereafter called DR. This was the method used by
Columbus and most other sailors of his era. In
DR, the navigator finds his position by measuring
the course and distance he has sailed from some
known point. Starting from a known point, such as
a port, the navigator measures out his course and
distance from that point on a chart, pricking the
chart with a pin to mark the new position. Each
day's ending position would be the starting point
for the next day's course-and-distance
measurement.
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Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sea captain.
He was the commander of the expedition that
became the first to sail around the world. He
first went to sea in 1505. He was interested in
the way that Columbus sailed and studied
Columbus's maps of his routes for many years. He
was sure that he could get to the riches of the
Far East quicker by sailing westward, but he had
no idea how far it really was from Europe to the
Far East.
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Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama was born about 1460 at Sines,
Portugal. Both Prince John and Prince Manuel
continued the efforts of Prince Henry to find a
sea route to India, and in 1497 Manuel placed
Vasco da Gama, who already had some reputation as
a warrior and navigator, in charge of four
vessels built especially for the expedition. They
set sail July 8, 1497, rounded the Cape of Good
Hope four months later, and reached Calicut May
20, 1498. The Moors in Calicut instigated the
Zamorin of Calicut against him, and he was
compelled to return with the bare discovery and
the few spices he had bought there at inflated
prices but still he made a 3000 profit!. A
force left by a second expedition under Cabral
(who discovered Brazil by sailing too far west),
left behind some men in a "factory" or trading
station, but these were killed by the Moors in
revenge for Cabral's attacks on Arab shipping in
the Indian Ocean. .
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Leif Eriksson
Christopher Columbus was not the first European
to discover the New World! This commonly held
belief is wrong. Columbus didn't reach the New
World until 1492, 500 years after Leif Erikson's
arrival in 1001 AD.   Leif Erikson was the first
European to set foot in the New World, opening a
new land rich with resources for the Vikings to
explore. But for some unknown reason, the Vikings
only made a few voyages to the New World after
Leif. Unfortunately, this caused his discovery to
remain unknown to nearly all of Europe, which was
in the midst of the Crusades.  
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Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier was born in St. Malo (France) in
1491. Not much is known of his life before 1534,
when he departed on his first voyage. He was
looking for a passage through or around North
America to East Asia, as some had done before
him, and many would after him. He made the
crossing of the Atlantic in only twenty days, and
landed on an island near the coast of
Newfoundland, by then already much frequented by
Breton fishermen. He sailed north, and entered
the Strait of Belle Isle. He sailed into the Bay
of St. Lawrence and along the westcoast of
Newfoundland, and crossed the Bay to the Magdalen
Islands and Prince Edward Island, both of which
he thought part of the mainland. Then he went to
Chaleur Bay and Gaspé peninsula. There he saw 50
canoes filled with Micmac indians, who seemed
friendly and greeted him with the words napeu
tondamen assurtah (we want to make friendship).
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Marco Polo
Marco Polo was born in 1254 and he died in 1324.
He was an Italian explorer from Venice. His
mother died after giving him birth. He was named
after an uncle and grew up to be a strapping
youth. His aunt and uncle raised him. He learned
how to read and write. His father and uncle were
both merchants. He was seventeen on his first
journey to China in 1271.
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John Cabot
time there as a boy. But by 1461 Cabot was living
in Venice, where he became a citizen. In about
1482 he married a Venetian woman, Not very much
is known for certain about John Cabot - or
Giovanni Caboto, to use his original, Italian
name. We do not even know precisely when and
where he was born. It is likely, though, that he
was born around 1455 in Gaeta, near Naples, and
was the son of a merchant. His name is also
associated with Genoa, and he may have spent some
Mattea, and they had three sons Ludovico,
Sebastiano and Sancio
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Samuel de Champlain
Samuel Champlain was born at Brouage, a small
seaport town in the old province of Saintonge,
southeast of Rochefort and opposite the island of
Oléron, about the year 1567."1 Little is known of
Champlain's family background indeed, though he
wrote much, little personal information of
Champlain's life is known. It is known, however,
that Champlain learned the ways of the sea from
his uncle. Champlain's first substantial voyage,
one to Spain, was with his uncle. This voyage led
him to be on a chartered French vessel which went
to the "West Indians and New Spain with the
annual fleet."
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