TODAY'S POST
San Francisco History
Connections
Henry the Navigator & San Francisco
You may remember Prince Henry
the Navigator from your history class. He
died in 1460. So, what could the
Portuguese Henry possibly have to do with San Francisco , which wasn’t even located by Spain until 1769? Let’s
begin: In the early 1400s, European
coastal towns were regularly raided and looted by North African pirates from
the infamous Barbary Coast (of which San Francisco ’s infamous “Barbary Coast ” would
later borrow the name). Ceuta , the North
African trading terminus of caravans from the famous Silk Road (bringing goods from Asia ), was in the heart of the Barbary Coast and piracy. To
curb the piracy, Prince Henry’s father, Portugal ’s King John I, attacked and took possession of Ceuta in 1415. In
the aftermath of the battle, Prince Henry wandered through the defeated trading
center. He became so impressed by the
opulence of international trade that he decided to enter such business himself. But to gain an edge on Silk Road caravans, Henry wanted to sail trading vessels around Africa
to Asia . But European
ships back then were not capable of ocean travel. So, Henry sponsored research into shipbuilding
and seafaring Henry needed to develop a highly maneuverable ship capable of
handling the ocean as well as sailing against the northwest wind on return
voyages from Africa to Portugal . His designers
came up improvements, including a lightweight caravel using new designs of
lateen (triangular) sails for beating (steering) against the wind. This was a
huge advance in European shipbuilding. Lateen
sails were not new, but the Portuguese adaptation and arrangement of them
was. Henry used such ships to sponsor
exploration south along the African coast, searching for a route to Asia . After decades of monumental exploration, Vasco
de Gama finally succeeded in reaching India in 1498, 38 years after Henry’s death.
By the time that Columbus sailed west across the ocean in 1492, Henry’s
shipbuilding progress was well in use by Europeans. All three of Columbus ’ ships were based on Portuguese design. After Columbus ’s Santa Maria was destroyed in the Caribbean , it was aboard the small, but seaworthy Nina, of a classic Portuguese caravel design, on which Columbus sailed back to Europe . Without Henry and his sponsoring ship designs,
Columbus most likely would have never sailed across the
ocean. And if he had, it’s unlikely that
he could have made it back to Spain in 1493.
OK, that’s well and good about Henry, Columbus and world history, but where does San Francisco fit in this narrative? Here’s where:
After the Spaniard land parties reached the Caribbean coast of Mexico in the early 1500s, they disassembled some ships and carried them
across Mexico to the Pacific coast.
They reassembled them, and, using the Portuguese design, were able to
beat against the northwest wind along the coast (the same northwest wind that
we often refer to as San
Francisco ’s “natural
air conditioner”). In 1542 Juan Cabrillo
became Spain’s first sea captain to voyage along the coast of San
Francisco. He failed to notice the Golden Gate Strait , as did all the crews of Spanish vessels until San Francisco Bay was discovered by a Spaniard land party in 1769, but
Henry’s ship design had nonetheless made coastal exploration of California possible and was essential in the discovery of Point Reyes (and Drake’s Bay).
It was there at Drake’s Bay, 40 miles
north of San
Francisco , that
the Spaniards developed a makeshift port for Spanish ships carrying goods from China across the North Pacific Ocean . Those voyages would take a few grueling non-stop
months at sea before reaching the northern California coast, and Drake’s Bay became critical as the
location for sailors to pause before continuing southward to Mexico . Drake’s Bay
was never a good port for the ships, but it was the best that they knew
about. Eventually Portola’s land party from
San Diego would find San Francisco Bay in 1769, and the Spanish ships then entered the Golden Gate .
Were it not for Henry the Navigator’s “school”
of designers who developed the state-of-the-art ship that could successfully beat
against the northwest wind, Spain could have never explored along the California coast and found Point Reyes as the precedent leading to the eventual use of San Francisco Bay as a world-class port.
________________________________________________
>Prince Henry the Navigator, known by the Portuguese as
Infante D. Henrique ( ), is a major name from the “Age of
Exploration.” It’s easy to find him on
the web.
>Ceuta , on the north coast of Morocco , has changed hands numerous times since the Carthaginians
in the 5th century BC. Henry’s
Father, King John I, took Ceuta
in 1415. It remained with Portugal until 1668, when the citizens there chose to align
with Spain . Ceuta has been part of Spain since then.
>Point Reyes and Drake’s Bay make for an excellent day trip (or overnight).