Cristóvão de Mendonça

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Cristóvão de Mendonça was a Portuguese explorer and statesman who lived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

In 1522 Mendonça commanded a ship (caravel) in a voyage to explore beyond the tip of South America into the Pacific, following Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. The voyage was kept secret because it would likely violate the ambiguous Treaty of Tordesilhas, under which Portugal agreed that Spain would have exclusive rights to exploration in most of the Americas and the regions between the Americas and Asia.

It has often been suggested by Australian historians that one of Mendonça's caravels (now known as the "Mahogany Ship" in Australian folklore) sailed along the southeast coast of Australia and was wrecked somewhere near Warrnambool, Victoria. If substantiated, this theory, would make Mendonça the first European explorer known to land on Australian shores (see Theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia). Similar theories in New Zealand suggest that Mendonça may have also charted the coast of the North Island (see History of New Zealand).

Later, Mendonça governed Hormuz (Ormus) as Captain-Major from 1527 to 1532. Hormuz was ruled by Portugal from 1515 to 1622 under the submission of Goa, then a Portuguese possession, before being incorporated into Persia in 1622. ^[1]