Lançarote de Freitas and Soeiro da Costa

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Anatol
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Lançarote de Freitas and Soeiro da Costa

Post by Anatol » Sun Feb 01, 2015 1:15 pm

LANCAROTE DE FREITAS 1445-46:
Lançarote de Freitas(on the stamp to the left), better known as Lançarote de Lagos or Lançarote da Ilha , was a 15th-century Portuguese explorer and slave trader from Lagos, Portugal . He was the leader of two large Portuguese slaving raids on the West African coast in 1444-1446. Lançarote de Freitas (better known simply as Lançarote de Lagos) was trained as a squire and chamberlain in the household of the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator . Sometime in the 1430s or early 1440s, Lançarote was appointed by Henry as almoxarife (customs-collector) of Lagos, Portugal . The naval expeditions that Henry the Navigator had been sending down the West African coast since at least the early 1430s had, during their first few years, yielded little profit. They had sailed mostly along the Sahara desert coast, with no native settlements in sight or encounters worth reporting. But in 1443, one of Henry's captains, Nuno Tristão , returned from an expedition with some 14 captive African natives, Sanhaja Berbers seized from small native fishing settlements he found in the Bay of Arguin . The prospect of easy and profitable slave-raiding grounds around the Arguin banks aroused the interest of numerous Portuguese merchants and adventurers. That same year (1443), the regent prince Peter of Coimbra granted his brother Henry the Navigator an exclusive monopoly on all trade south of Cape Bojador . A consortium of merchants of Lagos originate theCompanhia de Lagos ('Lagos Company).Тhe Lagos merchants elected Lançarote as their head. Having acquired their license, the Lagos company equipped a fleet of six ships and about thirty men that set out for the Arguin banks in the Spring of 1444. Lançarote's fleet headed straight to the southern end of the Arguin Bay, where they had been told byNuno Tristão 's captives that populous fishing settlements could be found. A pre-dawn raid on Nar ( Nairisland) yielded the first set of captives. This was followed up by raids on the larger neighboring island ofTider ( Tidra island) and Cerina (Serenni peninsula). In just a few days, the Lagos fleet had taken some 235 hapless Berber natives captive. The remaining population having fled the coastal settlements and hidden in the hinterlands, there was little point remaining in the area. By August, the fleet had arrived back in Lagos with their human cargo. The spectacle of the disembarcation, partition and sale of the Arguin slaves in Lagos, in the presence of Prince Henry, mounted on his horse, is described in heart-breaking detail in Zurara 's Crónica . [ 2 ] For this lucrative enterprise, Lançarote wasknighted by Henry on the spot (even though, according to Zurara, Henry gave away his own allotment - some 46 slaves, to which he was entitled as licenser of the expedition. Setting out in August, 1445 (or 1446), Lançarote's Lagos fleet was just one of several fleets that set out from Portugal for the Arguin banks that year.Caught by bad weather, Lançarote arrived at Cape Blanc with only nine ships still together, the remaining having strayed off. He proceeded to the northern end of the Arguin banks, anchoring in at ilha das Graças There, Lançarote was met by one of his missing ships, Vicente Dias , who had gone on ahead to Arguin island and stumbled across a small fleet of three Lisbon ships, headed by Dinis Eanes de Grã , who had preceded them and devastated the remaining settlements on the northern end of the bay, taking some 100 captives. At Grã's suggestion, Lançarote's fleet, now thirteen strong attacked Arguin island again (taking 4 captives), then headed to the southern end of Arguin Bay, taking 57 captives at Tider and an additional 5 somewhere further down (possibly around Cape Timris ). The element of surprise being gone and the bulk of the population having already evacuated the coast, Lançarote's captives were principally Sanhaja Berber tribesmen who had decided to stay and put up a fight. Dissatisfied with the meager number of captives and realizing that Arguin Bay was too thoroughly deserted to yield up any more, Lançarote decided to take his fleet south to raid the Wolof lands of Senegal , which had been discovered (but not yet raided) by Nuno Tristão and Dinis Dias the previous year. However, not all his ships were up for the journey, several of them running short on supplies. As a result, Lançarote partitioned his fleet, taking only six or seven caravels with him, sending the remaining ships back to Lagos under the command of Soeiro da Costa (a few of which would conduct an unauthorized slave raid on the Canary islands of La Palma and Gomera on their way home). Lançarote's squadron soon arrived at Barbary Point, the mouth of the Senegal River , which was as yet unexplored. After sending back yet another caravel to Lagos, Lançarote proceeded with his five remaining ships around Cape Vert into Dakar Bay . The squadron landed in the island of Bezeguiche ( Gorée island). Lançarote sent outGomes Pires on a launch to the mainland to open contact with the local Wolof chieftains, but Pires's approach was prevented by a hail of arrows. His first strategy foiled, Lançarote ordered the Portuguese to prepare a raid on the mainland Wolof villages 'in the style of Arguin', but this came to nought. Before being able to organize the attack, a sudden storm enveloped the area, and forced the Portuguese caravels out of Bezeguiche bay, scattering them in various directions. Lançarote managed to hold two other caravels (Álvaro de Freitas and Vicente Dias) together with him, but lost sight of the other two. Realizing they were now too few to launch an attack on the Wolof mainland, Lançarote's trio set sail back to the Arguin banks, where they anchored in at Tider and took an additional 59 captives, before returning to Lagos. The remaining two ships (Lourenço Dias and Gomes Pires) made their way back to Portugal by themselves . Little more is heard about Lançarote de Lagos. In number of captives, the 1445/6 slaving expedition had been somewhat of a disappointment (at least relative to the first 1444 expedition). The prospect for future slave raids seemed dim. The Arguin banks were devastated and it was unlikely the Berber populations would return to the coasts in significant numbers, or allow themselves to be taken by surprise. Lengthier expeditions which required probably more supplies and capital than what Lagos merchants were willing to front or captains willing to sail. The killing of Nuno Tristão and his crew the next year (1446 or 1447) probably dampened any remaining enthusiasm among Lagos merchants for renewing the slave raids.
SOEIRO DA COSTA 1446;1461;1470.

Soeiro da Costa(on the stamp to the right)is Portuguese navigator 15c, participated in the discovery of the coast of Africa and in the slave trade. In 1446 Commercial "Lagos Company" sends a massive fleet of fourteen vessels for slave raid on Arguin Bank . Haded by squadron Lançarote de Freitas. One of the captains squadron was Soeiro da Costa (Alcaide Lagos Lançarote and father-in-law) .After an unsuccessful raid Soeiro da Costa results of the squadron of four or five caravels from Arguin back to Lagos. Dissatisfied with the profit of this trip, Costa makes a quick stop at Cape Blanc, where he grabs a woman berberov.On believes he can buy out of. Arguin for more than slaves. Costa passes the rest of the ships themselves, while he himself returned to the shores of Arguin to seek redemption. But the voyage proves fruitless and Soeiro da Costa eventually returned to Lagos by itself. (More about the slave raid see “Lançarote de Freitas”). 1461 ships expedition Peru di Sintra, one of which was commanded Soeiro da Costa, rounded Cape Palmas (4 degrees south latitude) and entered the waters of the Gulf of Guinea. 1470 Soeiro da Costa, a former companion of Pedro de Sintra, located on the border between Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, where found, that the coast turns finally to the east. In the vicinity of Cape "Three Points» Soeiro came into the coasts of modern Ghana, which because of its wealth of gold called "Gold Coast" .Byl in the early colonial period, as indeed all the Guinean coast are named after their main commercial products.
Cabo Verde 1952;50,0с;SG349.
Источник: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Walrasiad/Chronology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lançarote_de_Freitas. W.Kramer: Neue Horizonte.Leipzig. 1997.
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