Theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia

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Possibly the first map of Australia: from Nicholas Vallard's atlas, 1547. This map is one of the Dieppe Maps showing Java le Grande, a continent resembling Australia. Copy held by the National Library of Australia.

Although most historians hold that the European discovery of Australia began in 1606 with the voyage of the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon on board the Duyfken, a number of alternative theories have been put forward. Precedence of discovery has been claimed for China, Portugal, France, Spain and even Phoenicia. One of the better supported of these theories is the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia.

[edit] 16th century Portuguese exploration

The Portuguese were the leading sailors and navigators in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal encouraged maritime exploration and set up an academy to make and collect maps, as well as to design better ships and navigating equipment. Because of Prince Henry, the Portuguese became the strongest sea faring nation in the world. By 1516, the Portuguese had settled in Timor. It has therefore been argued that the Portuguese may have at least sighted the northern coast line of Australia, as it is only 450 km from the island of Timor.

In 1521, King John III of Portugal sent Cristóvão de Mendonça, a Portuguese seaman, on a discovery voyage with three ships to claim undiscovered lands of riches before Ferdinand Magellan did, himself Portuguese but by now working for the Spanish king. In 1494, the Portuguese and the Spanish had signed The Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the undiscovered world into two halves. The land to the west of the line was allocated to the Spanish, and the land east of the line was Portuguese. It has been proposed that Mendonça was sent to spy on Spanish waters.

[edit] Explorations of Cristóvão de Mendonça

The Vallard map, with part of it rotated at 90 degrees, and the claimed locations by Peter Trickett

Proponents of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia claim that de Mendonça sailed down the east Australian Coast as far south as Port Fairy, charting the newly found land as he went. He is said to have reached Goa in 1524, with only one of the three ships he set out with. One of de Mendonça’s lost ships could be the key to discovering the truth about the discovery of Australia.

It is hypothesised that somewhere around Armstrong Bay, Victoria, between Warrnambool and Port Fairy, de Mendonça's ships were caught in a violent storm and one of them sank. This forced de Mendonça to head back the way he had come with only one or two ships, thus being as far south as he sailed. This is as far as the east coast of Australia is shown on the Dauphin Map.

In March 2007, Australian science journalist Peter Trickett stated that he believed a simple error had been made by cartographers working on the Vallard Atlas of 1547, and that if part of the map was rotated 90 degrees, it became an accurate map of the eastern and southern Australian coasts, as far west as Kangaroo Island. The map is in Portuguese, which Trickett suggests is evidence that it was based on de Mendonça's exploration.^[1]

[edit] Mahogany Ship

Main article: Mahogany Ship

According to popular belief, the remains of one of these ships was discovered in 1836 by a group of shipwrecked sailors from Launceston, Tasmania. Apparently they were walking along the sand dunes to the nearest settlement, Port Fairy, and came across the wreck of an extremely old ship made in the style of a Portuguese caravel of wood that appeared to be mahogany. This purported wreck is thought to be one of Cristóvão de Mendonça’s caravels. Between 1836 and 1880, 27 different people recorded that they had seen the wreck. The wreck has not been seen since 1880 despite extensive searches in recent times.^[2]

[edit] Dieppe maps

On 1 November 1755, what is believed to be the biggest earthquake, tsunami and fire hit Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, destroying the Casa da India, containing all of the empire’s main records, including important maps, ships’ logs and diaries from Mendonca’s voyage.

One of the major pieces of evidence supporting the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover Australia, is the set of maps known as the Dieppe maps and in particular the Dauphin Map, created in 1536. The Dauphin Map is a French map, drafted from many other reference maps, and is said to show all of the continents of the world.

For its time, the Dauphin Map was a well drafted map. In the 16th century, mapping techniques were far inferior to those used today. They had no way of accurately establishing longitude, so in the case of the Dauphin Map, the east to west measure is extremely exaggerated. If corrections to the map are made using modern day technology, such as redrawing it on modern Mercator or Azimuthal projections, a land mass labelled Jave le Grande and marked with the Portuguese flag is said to strongly resemble Australia.

However, the arguments about distortion of the maps and the calculations used to correct the maps have been shown to be wrong. That the maps represent Australia is not agreed by all historians.^[3][4]

[edit] Other textual and cartographic evidence

Title page of Speculum Orbis Terrae, an atlas published in 1593. Proponents of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia argue that the animal in the bottom right hand corner is a kangaroo.

Other texts originating from the same era by the Portuguese describe Australia with illustrations of Aborigines and animals resembling kangaroos. For example, the title page of "Speculum Orbis Terrae", Cornelis de Jode’s 1593 atlas, depicts four animals. There is a horse to represent Europe, a camel to represent Asia, a lion for Africa, and another animal that resembles a kangaroo to represent the Australian continent. This creature features a marsupial pouch containing two offspring and the characteristically bent hind legs of a kangaroo. The similarity between the image and marsupials endemic only to Australia suggests that the Portuguese came into contact with Australian fauna and the land itself before other Europeans.

[edit] The Geelong Keys

Main article: Geelong Keys

In 1847, at Limeburners’ Point near Geelong, Victoria, Charles La Trobe, a keen geologist, was examining the shells from a lime kiln when a worker showed him a set of five keys that he claimed to have found. La Trobe concluded that the keys were dropped onto the beach around three centuries ago. It has been suggested they were dropped in 1522 by de Mendonça or one of his sailors. Since the keys have been lost, however, their origin cannot be verified.

Another more likely theory is that the keys were dropped by one of the diggers shortly before being found, as the layer of dirt/shells etc. they were found below was dated as around 200-300 years old.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Carronade Island Cannons

Main article: Carronade Island

Two bronze cannons of were found on a small island of the coast of Western Australia in 1916. Since these guns were erroneously thought to be carronades, the place was named "Carronade Island".^[5][6]

Several 20th century observers misconstrued the origin of these guns and they were long thought to give weight to the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. However, scientists at the Western Australian Museum in Fremantle have recently made a detailed analysis and have determined that these weapons are almost certainly of Makassan, rather than European, origin.^[5][6]

[edit] Bittangabee Bay

Remains of Bittangabee House, constructed by the Imlay Brothers and abandoned before completion c1844. Claimed by some to be Portuguese or by Gavin Menzies as of Chinese construction.

A stone ruin, said to be a Portuguese fort at Bittangabee Bay, is located in Ben Boyd National Park near Eden on the south coast of New South Wales.

The ruins are of a square platform surrounded by large rocks that may have once formed a defensive wall.^{[citation needed]} There are also said to be foundations and parts of the walls of a blockhouse formed by large stones bound with mortar lying inside the perimeter wall. A large number of men would have been needed to bring the stones to the site and then to dress and to erect them. Above the lintel on what was a gateway to the inner blockhouse is said by some to be carved the date 15?4.^{[citation needed]} The third figure is worn away but if it was a 2 then it would tie in with the date of de Mendonça’s return voyage. Local Indigenous Australians did not build such structures in this way, either here or anywhere else in Australia. The age of a tree that has substantial roots growing under the structure suggests also that the construction predates European settlement in the area.^{[citation needed]}

Sign showing the layout of the 1844 ruins at Bittangabee Bay.

There is also said to be pottery of Portuguese origin. It is supposed by some historians that de Mendonca and his crew landed in the area and felt the need to protect themselves from native inhabitants, and in the 16th century it was normal for Portuguese to make a fort.^{[citation needed]}

There are also alleged to be more stone buildings erected before European settlement can be found just south of Sydney where a group of 20, like a small village, are set beside the coast and there are well-built paths leading from a small reservoir to a 15-metre stone wharf beside the sea.

However, the Bittangabee Bay ruins may have been built as a store house by the Imlay brothers, early European inhabitants, who had whaling and pastoral interests in the Eden area. The local Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson, wrote about the commencement of the building in July 1844. The building was not finished at the time of the death of two of the three brothers in 1846 and 1847. It is argued that despite the alleged 16th century inscription, there is no solid evidence to suggest that the ruins are anything other than the storehouse begun by the Imlay brothers.^[4][7]

[edit] References