Everything about Theory Of Portuguese Discovery Of Australia totally explained
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.
The theory
The theory of
Portuguese discovery of
Australia between 1521 and 1524 is regarded by some writers as resting on several
tenets.
These are;
- The existence of a large landmass called Jave La Grande, shown between Indonesia and Antarctica on a group of French world maps, the Dieppe maps, which carry French, Portuguese, and Gallicized Portuguese placenames and which by various means can be interpreted to look similar to Australia's northwestern and eastern coasts.
- The presence of the Portuguese in the Southeast Asian region from the early 16th century, especially their exploration and later colonization of Timor - less than 500 kilometres from the Australian coast - circa 1513-1516.
- Various antiquities and unsolved mysteries found on Australian and New Zealand's coastlines, that may relate to early European voyages to Australia
Development of the theory in the 19th Century
Although
Alexander Dalrymple wrote on this topic in 1786, it was
R. H. Major, Keeper of Maps at the
British Museum who first made significant efforts to prove the
Portuguese discovered
Australia before the
Dutch, in 1859. A group of mid sixteenth century French maps, the
Dieppe maps, formed his main evidence. Today there's widespread agreement that his approach to historical research was flawed and his claims often exaggerated. Writing in an academic journal in 1861, Major announced the discovery of a map by Manuel Godinho de Eredia, claiming it proved a Portuguese discovery of North Western
Australia, possibly dated to 1601. In fact, as W.A.R. Richardson points out, this map's origins are from 1630. On finally locating and examining Erédia’s writings, Major realised the planned voyage to lands south of
Sumba had never taken place. Major published a retraction in 1873, but his reputation was destroyed.
In 1895,
George Collingridge produced his
The Discovery of Australia, an attempt to trace all European efforts to find the Great Southern Land to the time of
Cook, and also introducing his interpretation of the theory of Portuguese discovery of
Australia, using the
Dieppe maps. Fluent in
Portuguese and
Spanish,
Collingridge was inspired by the publicity surrounding the arrival in
Australia of copies of several
Dieppe maps, which had been purchased by libraries in
Melbourne,
Adelaide and
Sydney. Despite a number of errors regarding placenames, and “untenable” theories to explain misplacement on the
Dieppe maps, his book was a remarkable effort considering it was written at a time when many maps and documents were inaccessible and document photography was still in its infancy. Collingridge's theory didn't find public approval however and Professors G. Arnold Wood and
Ernest Scott publicly criticised much of what he'd written. Collingridge produced a shorter version of this book for use in New South Wales schools;
The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea. It wasn't used.
Kenneth McIntyre and development of the theory in the 20th Century
The development of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia owes much to
Melbourne lawyer
Kenneth McIntyre's 1977 book,
The Secret Discovery of Australia; Portuguese ventures 200 years before Cook. Although there have been previous writers on this topic, it was
McIntyre’s book that developed the theory more or less to the point it's popularly understood in Australia today. McIntyre's book was reprinted in an abridged paperback edition in 1982 and again in 1987 and it was found on school history reading lists by the mid 1980s. According to Dr. Tony Disney,
McIntyre's theory influenced a generation of History teachers in Australian schools. A TV documentary was made of the book in the 1980s and
McIntyre and the theory featured in many positive newspaper reviews and articles over the next twenty years.
Australian History school textbooks also reflect the evolution of acceptance of his theories. The support of Dr. Helen Wallis, Curator of Maps at the
British Library during her visits to Australia in the 1980s seemed to add academic weight to
McIntyre's theory. In 1987, the respected Australian Minister for Science,
Barry Jones, launching the Second
Mahogany Ship Symposium in
Warrnambool, said "I read
Kenneth McIntyre's important book… as soon as it appeared in 1977. I found its central argument… persuasive, if not conclusive". The appearance of variant but essentially supporting theories in the late 1970s and early 1980s by other writers, including Ian McKiggan and Lawrence Fitzgerald also added credence to the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia.
In 1994,
McIntyre expressed pleasure that his theory was gaining acceptance in
Australia. “It is gradually seeping through. The important thing is that… it has been on the school syllabus, and therefore students have… read about it. They in due course become teachers and… that'll then tell their students and so on.”
Interpretation of the Dieppe Maps
The central plank of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia suggests the continent called "Jave La Grande", that uniquely appears on a series of 16th century French world maps, the
Dieppe school of maps, represents Australia. Speaking in 1982,
Kenneth McIntyre described the Dieppe maps as "the only evidence of Portuguese discovery of Eastern Australia". He stressed this to point out "that the
Mahogany Ship, and the
Geelong Keys, and other things of that sort, are not part of the proof that the Portuguese discovered Australia. It is the other way around. The Dieppe maps prove (sic) that the Portuguese discovered Australia, and this throws a fierce bright light on our mysteries such as the
Mahogany Ship" Later writers on the same topic take the same approach of concentrating primaily on "Jave La Grande" as it appears in the Dieppe maps, including Fitzgerald, McKiggan and most recently, Peter Trickett.
Critics of the theory of Portuguese Discovery of Australia, including A. Ariel, M. Pearson and W.A.R. Richardson, also concentrate on the "Jave la Grande" landmass of the Dieppe maps.
"Jave la Grande" as it appears on the Dieppe world maps is widely agreed to be at least partly based on Portuguese sources that no longer exist.
McIntyre attributed discrepancies between the "Jave la Grande" coastline and Australia's to the difficulties of accurately recording positions without a reliable method of determining
longitude, and the techniques used to convert maps to different
projections.
In the late 1970s, mathematician Ian McKiggan developed his theory of exponential longitude error theory to explain discrepancies, although he modified this position after a public exchange of opinion with W.A.R. Richardson.
McIntyre's own theory about distortion of the maps and the calculations used to correct the maps has also been challenged. Both Lawrence Fitzgerald and Peter Trickett argue the Dieppe maps "Jave la Grande" is based on Portuguese
sea charts, now lost, which the mapmakers of Dieppe misaligned. Both these writers try to compare the coastal features of "Jave La Grande" with modern Australia's, by realigning them.
In 1994,
McIntyre suggested that the writings of
Pedro Nunes supported his interpretation of the distortion that occurred on the Dieppe Maps.
Cristóvão de Mendonça's role
Cristóvão de Mendonça is known from a small number of Portuguese sources, noteably the famous Portuguese historian
João de Barros in
Décadas da Ásia (Decades of Asia), a history of the growth of the
Portuguese Empire in India and Asia, published between 1552-1615. Mendonça appears in Barros' account with instructions to search for
Magellan, and later
Marco Polo's legendary Isles of Gold. However Mendonça and other Portuguese sailors are then described as assisting with the construction of a fort at Pedir (
Sumatra) and Barros doesn't mention the expedition again.
McIntyre nominated Cristóvão de Mendonça as the commander of a voyage to Australia c.1521-1524, one he argued had to be kept secret because of the 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the undiscovered world into two halves for
Portugal and
Spain. Barros and other Portuguese sources don't mention a discovery of land that could be Australia, but
McIntyre conjectured this was because original documents were lost in the
1755 Lisbon earthquake, or the official policy of silence.
Most proponents of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia have supported
McIntyre's hypothesis that it was Mendonça who sailed down the eastern Australian coast and provided charts which found their way onto the
Dieppe maps, to be included as "Jave la Grande" in the 1540, 1550s and 1560s. McIntyre claimed the maps indicated Mendonça went as far south as
Port Fairy,
Victoria; Fitzgerald claims they show he went as far as
Tasmania; Trickett states as far as
Spencer Gulf in
South Australia, and New Zealand's
North Island.
Alternative views
Possibly because of the degree of conjecture involved in the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia, there have been a number of critics. By far the most prolific writer on this theory, and also its most consistent critic, has been
Flinders University Associate Professor W.A.R (Bill) Richardson, who has written 20 articles relating to the topic since 1983. As Richardson, an academic fluent in
Portuguese and
Spanish, first approached the
Dieppe maps in an effort to prove they did relate to Portuguese discovery of Australia, his criticisms are all the more interesting. He suggests he quickly realised there was no connection between the
Dieppe maps and modern Australia's coastline.
He dismisses the claim that
Cristóvão de Mendonça sailed down the east coast of Australia as sheer speculation, based on voyages about which no details have survived. In the same way, the re-assembling of sections of the "Jave La Grande" coastline so that it fits the straightjacket of the real outline of Australia relies upon a second set of assumptions. He argues taking that approach, "Jave La Grande" could be re-assembled to look like anything.
Another dimension of the argument Richardson advances against the theory relates to methodology. Richardson argues
McIntyre's practice of re-drawing sections of maps in his book was misleading because in an effort to clarify he actually omitted crucial features and names that didn't support the Portuguese discovery theory.
Richardson's own view is that a study of placenames (
toponymy) on "Jave La Grande" identifies it as unmistakably connected to the coasts of southern
Java and
Indochina.
The most damning criticism of
McIntyre's theory has come from Captain A. Ariel's short article, which demonstrates serious errors by
McIntyre in his understanding of measuring "erration" in longitude. Ariel concludes that
The Secret Discovery of Australia is a " monumental piece of misinterpretation."
In 2005, Historian Michael Pearson made the following comment on the Dieppe maps as evidence of a Portuguese discovery of Australia;
Secondary evidence in support of the theory
Mahogany Ship
According to
McIntyre, the remains of one of
Cristóvão de Mendonça's caravels was discovered in
1836 by a group of shipwrecked whalers while walking along the sand dunes to the nearest settlement,
Port Fairy. The men came across the wreck of a ship made of wood that appeared to be
mahogany. Between 1836 and 1880, 40 different people recorded that they'd seen an "ancient" or "Spanish" wreck. Whatever it was, the wreck hasn't been seen since 1880 despite extensive searches in recent times.
McIntyre's accuracy in transcribing original documents to support his argument has been criticized by some recent writers.
Other textual and cartographic evidence
Other texts originating from the same era represent a land to the south of
New Guinea with a variety of flora and fauna. Part of one of Cornelis De Jode's 1593 maps depicts
New Guinea with a hypothetical land to the south inhabited by
dragons..
Kenneth McIntyre suggested that although Cornelis de Jode was
Dutch the title page of his "Speculum Orbis Terrae" 1593 atlas may provide evidence of early Portuguese knowledge of Australia. The page 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 another continent. This creature features a
marsupial pouch containing two offspring and the characteristically bent hind legs of a kangaroo or one of the family of
macropods. However as members of the Macropod family are found in New Guinea and the
Bismarck Archipelago (including the Dusky Pademelon, Agile Wallaby and Black Dorcopsis Wallaby) this may have no relevance to a possible Portuguese discovery of Australia.. Another explanation is that the animal may be based on a
North American
Opossum.
The Geelong Keys
In
1847, at Limeburners' Point near
Geelong,
Victoria,
Charles La Trobe, a keen amateur geologist, was examining the shells from a lime kiln when a worker showed him a set of five keys he claimed to have found. La Trobe concluded that the keys were dropped onto the beach around 100-150 years before.
Kenneth McIntyre hypothesized they were dropped in
1522 by Mendonça or one of his sailors. Since the keys have been lost, however, their origin can't 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 2300-2800 years old, making La Trobe's dating implausable. The error by La Trobe is quite understandable according to Geologists Edmund Gill and P.F.B. Alsop, given that in 1847 most people thought the world was only 6000 years old.
The Carronade Island Cannons
Two bronze
cannons were found on a small island in Napier Broome Bay, on the coast of
Western Australia in
1916. Since these guns were erroneously thought to be carronades, the small island was named "
Carronade Island".
Kenneth McIntyre believed these cannons gave 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 late 18th century
Makassan, rather than European, origin.. Bittangabee Bay is located in
Ben Boyd National Park near
Eden on the south coast of
New South Wales.
The ruins are the foundations of a building, surrounded by stone rubble that McIntyre argued may have once formed a defensive wall.
McIntyre also identified the date 15?4 carved into a stone. McIntyre hypothesized the crew of a Portuguese
caravel may have built a stone blockhouse and defensive wall while wintering on a voyage of discovery down Australia's east coast.
Since
McIntyre advanced his theory in 1977, significant research on the site has been conducted by Michael Pearson, former Historian for the
NSW Parks and Wildlife Service. Pearson identified the Bittangabee Bay ruins as having 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 left unfinished at the time of the death of two of the three brothers in 1846 and 1847.
Other visitors and writers including Lawrence Fitzgerald have been unable to find the 15?4 date. Writing in
Beyond Capricorn in 2007, Peter Trickett suggests the date
McIntyre saw may be random pick marks in the stonework.
Trickett accepts Pearson’s work, but hypothesizes the Imlays may have started their building on top of a ruined Portuguese structure, thus explaining the surrounding rocks and partly dressed stones. Trickett also suggests the original
Indigenous Australian name for the area may have Portuguese origins.
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