AnswerID: 486885 Submitted: Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 11:40
Ron N
replied:
I think it's reasonable to state that the Portuguese were the earliest mappers of
Australia, in the early 1500's. The Portuguese and the Spanish ruled the seas in this era, as evidenced by their arrogance in their agreement of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, to divide one half of the world into Portuguese territory and one half into Spanish territory!
The Portuguese sea charts of that era were kept secret, because of fears of other countries territorial searches and claims and the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 destroyed virtually all those early maps.
As a result, we're left with a pretty poor record of what mapping was actually done by these great seapowers in this era. No doubt locals in SE Asia knew something about the Great South Land - but no records exist anywhere of maps made of the Southern areas of land, before the 1500's, because no country had done the specific searching and mapping of the unknown lands beyond the Old World before this time.
It's likely that the Portuguese and Spanish made use of local fishermans knowledge, but it's highly unlikely that any nation had maps of Southern land areas before the Portuguese and Spanish ventured into these "unknown" areas.
These Portuguese and Spanish adventurers were a brave, adventurous, and hardy lot.
Christopher Columbus set off with no maps and endured a near mutiny by his crew, who were convinced they were going to sail off the edge of the "flat" Earth!
Cheers - Ron.
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FollowupID: 762110 Submitted:
Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 13:36
Member - lyall h (QLD) posted:
ah well, the debate continues, thats always good.
We all know the European voyages, and the reason why the Portugese came this way wasn't for exploration, more like exploitation.
Anyway, I still find the fact that maps were produced by Europeans showing areas no known Europeans had even been near in the 1500's a fascinating subject, Piri Reis must have been mistaken when he said Columbus had a map. Da Gama also settled his crew down when near mutiny by telling them he had a map. Gavin
Menzies books ask the questions, and i for one believe they have some answers, Writers like Anatole Andro (the 1421 heresy) and Chao Chien (Chinese origin of the age of discovery) make a great read. More has to come yet. The debate could last forever.
Never dismiss something just because we've been previously told something different.
Enough said, lets get on with travelling around.
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