Discovery of the Azores
There are accounts that Henry sent his able seaman and knight
Goncalo Velho Cabral, in 1431, with the orders "to sail towards the
setting sun until he came to an island."17 Others say the islands had
been found accidentally by Portuguese sailors returning from a
voyage along the African coast or the Madeiras,18 but this is not
possible because the prevailing winds and ocean currents would not
have allowed it.19 Henry and his school of navigators knew there
were islands located a few hundred miles off the Portuguese coast
because they were shown on a Catalan map. In 1431, Cabral found a
series of volcanic rocks protruding out from under the water which
he named "formigas" or ants. He was just 25 miles from the nearest
Azorean island at the time which apparently was not visable to his
crew or him. He returned to Henry and was sent out immediately
the next year to reexplore the area.20
On August 15, 1432, Cabral found Santa Maria, the easternmost
island of the Azorean archipelago. It was the feast day of the
Assumption of Our Blessed Mother, or Santa Maria, and consequently
named for her.21 The island was lush with forests, streams, and
birdlife.22 Apparently, there were many birds in flight, thought to be
goshawks, and hence, the islands got the Portuguese name "acor" or
hawk. However, there have never been goshawks there according to
ornithologists. Many believe the birds seen were the Azorean
buzzards.23
It is thought too that maybe the name for the islands came from this
statement written by Martin Behaim, the maker of the Nuremburg
globe of 1492: "All birds found in the islands by the first settlers
were so tame that they came to the hand like hawks."24 Another
theory is that the word "raca" or "raka," meaning bird of prey in
Arabic, was translated to the Portugese acor. Raca appeared in an
Arab manuscript designating an island, or islands, in the same
location as the Azores.25
A letter written by Alfonso V, King of Portugal, dated July 2, 1439 is
the first known document with a reference to the Azores. Its content
reveals that there were seven islands and that Henry was given the
right to settle them.26 The next known document is a Majorcan map
of the same year which had seven islands and the date of discovery
was recorded as 1432.27 There have been differing versions
concerning the year-date of the discovery. It appears, after some
analysis by scholars, that 1432 is the correct date.28 Unfortunately,
there were no written accounts of the voyage by the participants.29
In fact, there is little information on the discoveries of the other
eight islands because of the same reason.
Sao Miguel was sighted followed next by Terceira, which means the
"third." Then the central group of islands were found which were
Graciosa, Sao Jorge, Pico, and Faial. And finally the western two
islands of Corvo and Flores were sighted in 1452 which concluded
the discovery of the archipelago.30 There is no evidence that
humankind had ever been on the islands.31 But there are mysteries.
There is the mystery of an equestrian statue on Corvo, and also the
mystery of the Phoenician or Carthagenian coins said to have found
there as well.32
Corvo along with Flores are the two westernmost islands of the
archipelago, and hence, the last inch of European soil. It was here in
the early 1500's, that Damiao de Goes, under the employment of King
Dom Manoel of Portugal,
wrote of a statue of a man on horseback
pointing to the west which was clinging to a rocky ledge. The king
asked for a drawing of it, and after seeing the drawing, he sent
someone to bring it back. As the story goes, it was shattered in a
storm en route, but the king received the parts. There too was an
inscription in the rock below the statue, and an impression was taken
of it. But neither the shattered parts of the statue, nor the impression
of the inscription were ever found.33 Was it a hoax? Scholars are still
unsure.
Some have speculated that the statue was really just one of many
rock formations seen on the island and nothing more.34 Others feel it
did exist and could have been
evidence of the lost continent of
Atlantis, or of another settlement of ancient peoples. Coins too were
found on Corvo, and their images were published in a journal of the
Society of Gothenberg. They were considered to be of Carthagenian or
Cyrenean origin by the society.35 A twentieth century Portuguese
scholar, made a serious effort to locate the coins. He went to the
convent to which they were first supposedly taken. He also visited
museums where he thought information could be found. But his
investigation turned up nothing.36
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