Besides these documents contemporary with the voyages, or of the years immediately succeeding, there are also several much later notices of them in Gomara (1552), Ramusio (1556), Antonio Galvano (1563) and Damiam de Goes (1566), but as these were written so long after, we will leave them on one side for the present.
Gaspar Corte-Real not the discoverer of Greenland (Labrador)
When we endeavour to form an opinion as to the Portuguese voyages of these years on the basis of the oldest documents, the first thing that must strike us is that there are indications of several voyages, and of the discovery of two wholly different countries, which must undoubtedly be Greenland and Newfoundland. As it is expressly stated on the Cantino map, on the Portuguese chart of about 1520, and in many other places, that Newfoundland was discovered by Gaspar Corte-Real, while his name is not mentioned in a single place in these documents in connection with Greenland (or Labrador), and as Pasqualigo’s letter to the Council of Venice expressly says that that land was seen the previous year (1500) by “the other caravels [l’altre caravelle] belonging to this majesty,”[344] the logical conclusion must be that it was not Gaspar Corte-Real who saw Greenland in the year 1500, but some other Portuguese. It may be in agreement with this that on the King map (of about 1502) Newfoundland is called Terra Cortereal (see [p. 373]), while the island which clearly answers to Greenland is called Terra Laboratoris. One might be tempted to suppose that both lands were named after their discoverers, one, that is, after Corte-Real, the other after a man who is described as “laborator.” The generally accepted view that it was Gaspar Corte-Real who saw Greenland on his voyage of 1500 is thus unsupported by the above-mentioned documents.
João Fernandez sighted Greenland, 1500 ?
On the other hand, we seem to be able to conclude from the royal letters patent to Miguel Corte-Real that Gaspar made two voyages, one in 1500, and another in 1501, and that it was the same country (i.e., Newfoundland) that he visited on both occasions. This is also confirmed by the legend on the Portuguese chart of about 1520. If it was not he who on the first voyage, in 1500, saw Greenland without being able to approach it, we must conclude that yet another expedition, on which Greenland was sighted, left Portugal in the year 1500. One is then inclined to suppose that this was commanded by the same João Fernandez, to whom the King gave letters patent as early as October 1499. This supposition becomes still more probable when we take it in conjunction with what has already been said as to the possible origin of the name of Labrador (see [p. 331]). We must suppose that this is the same man from the Azores who, under the name of John Fernandus, took part in the Bristol enterprise of 1501, and who is further mentioned in documents of as early as 1492, together with another man from the Azores, Pero de Barcellos, and is described as a “llavorador.” These men would already at that time have been engaged in making discoveries at sea.
If we compare the legend attached to Labrador (Greenland) on Diego Ribero’s Spanish map of 1529 with the corresponding legend on the anonymous Portuguese chart of about 1520 this will also confirm our supposition. While on the latter we read that “the Portuguese saw the land, but did not enter it,” Ribero’s map has: “this land was discovered by the English, but there is nothing in it that is worth having.” As this part of Ribero’s map is evidently a copy of the Portuguese maps, we may conclude Ribero’s alteration of the legend to mean that doubtless the land was first sighted by the Portuguese, but that it was the English who first succeeded in landing there, and in this way were its real discoverers. If we add to this the statement on the sixteenth-century Portuguese chart preserved at Wolfenbüttel, that the land was discovered by Englishmen from Bristol, and that the man who first gave news of it was a “labrador” from the Azores, then everything seems to be in agreement.
We may hence suppose the connection to be somewhat as follows: having obtained his letters patent in October 1499, João Fernandez fitted out his expedition, and sailed in the spring of 1500; he arrived off the east coast of Greenland and sailed along it, but the ice prevented him from landing. We have no information at all as to where else he may have been on this voyage. But having returned to Portugal, perhaps after a comparatively unsuccessful expedition, and finding furthermore that the King had issued letters patent to Gaspar Corte-Real, whose voyage had been more successful, Fernandez may have despaired of finding support for fresh enterprises in Portugal, and have turned at once to Bristol, where he took part in getting together an Anglo-Portuguese undertaking, and was thus the “llavorador” who first brought news of Greenland.
Portion of Diego Ribero’s map of 1529. (Nordenskiöld, 1897)
It must, of course, be admitted that the hypothesis here put forward of the voyage and discovery of João Fernandez is no more than a guess; but it seems more consistent than any of the explanations hitherto offered, and, as far as I can see, it does not conflict on any point with what contemporary documents have to tell us. It may be supposed that here, as so frequently has happened, the name of the discoverer, João Fernandez, has been more or less forgotten. His memory has perhaps only been preserved in the name Labrador itself—originally applied to Greenland, but afterwards transferred to the American continent[345]—whilst all the Portuguese discoveries in the north have been associated in later history with the other seafarer, Gaspar Corte-Real, who was of noble family and belonged to the King’s household, and who came from the same island of the Azores, Terceira.