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. 

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>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 5^th 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).  

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Second Blog Now Active!

Welcome!  This is my second blog, named Sam Katt's Blog #2.  I've opened this blog in order to practice blog-making and use.

We all want to seek meaning in life.  This blog is my attempt to find meaning by sharing thoughts and insights that others might find useful.  My interests are primarily History and Art.  My college degrees are in Humanities.  Humanities (as a scholastic field - with the capital "H") integrates various topics, such as history, art , literature, science, and philosophy.  In Humanities, the arts, for example, are just as important as politics and war.  As an example, consider the importance of music (both classical and popular) during World War II.   Consider what effect that music has had on who you are today?

My personal interest is to locate the importance of the past insofar as it affects who I am today.  I'm not concerned with the scholastic scientific approach to history (as taught in many colleges today).  I'm concerned with observing the findings of those historians and others in relation to the effect that history and other topics have on me today.  I have reached as far back into the past as I can.  For example, the geology and geography of the Bay Area was formed five million years ago.  How is that relevant to who I am today?   What happened in 200 BC China that affects all of us in the Bay Area today?  Why was Portugal's Henry the Navigator important in California history, even though he died before Columbus sailed in 1492?  These are the kinds of questions that interest me, and I hope that they will interest you, too.

I'm saddened by the persistent political approach to so many topics.  Global Warming, or it's variant names (such as Climate Change), is a good example.  Some politicians cite Global Warming as the most important threat to our nation, and thus they lobby to fight Global Warming or Climate Change.  Our political approach to Climate Change focuses less on the Earth's natural cycle of climate change and more on the specific political benefits for special interests, such as the monetary function of California's Smog Check program for automobiles.  I'm all for reducing pollution, such as throwing garbage into the ocean, including small plastic bits that fish unwittingly eat, causing them physical harm.  I'm also for increasing the energy efficiency of automobiles and other products.  But politicians seem to cherry-pick their causes in order to maintain their political and monetary status.  For example, I respect the reduction of pollution in California, but if Global Warming is to be overcome by reducing pollution, then shouldn't we be more concerned with world-wide pollution instead of just cleaning the air here?