Portuguese and Spanish Voyages of Discovery

Portugal's systematic maritime expansion began under the patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), a younger son of King John I who financed decades of voyages down the West African coast from his base at Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent. Henry never personally captained these expeditions, but his court gathered pilots, cartographers, and instrument-makers who refined the caravel, a light, maneuverable ship rigged with lateen (triangular) sails that could sail closer to the wind than earlier square-rigged vessels and made prolonged coastal exploration against prevailing currents feasible for the first time. The Portuguese effort combined commercial motives — access to West African gold, ivory, and, increasingly, enslaved people — with crusading zeal against Islam and hope of finding the legendary Christian king Prester John, and it proceeded in incremental, state-sponsored stages rather than as a single dramatic voyage.