Name: Kathryn Jacobs
Semester : 5th SEMESTER, 2022
Portuguese Colonization of America
Portuguese colonization of America began in the 15th century. Portugal is a country that
explores the world. The Treaty of Tordesillas separated the New World into Spanish and
Portuguese zones in 1494. Portugal colonized parts of South America but there were attempts to
settle in North America.
A. Settlements of North America
Portugal had been in the race to explore Asia for more than a century when one of its explorers,
Bartolomeo Dias, was the first to pass the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, in 1487.
Satisfied with this success, King John II of Portugal rejected, in 1489, Christopher Columbus's
proposal to find a route to Asia via the West. Soon after, Columbus discovered America on
behalf of Spain. Some time later, we learned that John Cabot may have just reached Asia from
the North West on behalf of England. Wanting to maintain Asian trade, Manuel I, King of
Portugal since 1491, asked Gaspar Corte Real in 1500 to find a way to the Northwest that would
lead to the land of silk and spices. Gaspar is the son of the governor of the island of Terceira, in
the Azores archipelago. These islands, which lie in the direction of Newfoundland from Europe,
became one of the important landmarks for Atlantic sailors. Gaspar Corte Real went to explore
certain islands and solid lands in the west and the king gave him special privileges for the
benefits of what he found there.
In 1500, he reached the cold, snow-covered lands of the northwestern Atlantic. The following
year, in 1501, he made a second voyage in three ships and discovered "Terra Verde"
(Greenland), so named because of its large trees. Only two ships returned to port, bringing back
57 Beothuk (Native Newfoundland Islanders) who had been captured and who were to be sold
into slavery to pay for the passage. The third ship, with Gaspar Corte Real and all his crew, had
disappeared because the temperature and weather were so bad there (Francis, 2001). In the spring
