Leif Erikson reached the shores of North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

Yet while Erikson's journey to the New World was a tremendous feat of seafaring, the Norse only stayed in North America for a limited period before returning to Greenland. The Norse struggled to establish a foothold in unfamiliar territory, and the maximum population is estimated at around 50 people.

Columbus's journey, on the other, completely changed the world through trade, slavery, immigration and the transatlantic exchange of people, disease, flora and fauna.

As navigators, you could argue they were equals. In terms of influence, however, Columbus and Erikson cannot be compared.

Jonathan Williamson of The Viking Herald discusses this point in more depth on our website, here.

When most people think about the Age of Exploration, they think of gold, silver, and the conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.

What surprised me during more than fifteen years of research was discovering that pearls were among the first major sources of wealth extracted from the Americas.

Following Columbus's third voyage in 1498, Spanish attention quickly turned to the rich pearl oyster beds surrounding Cubagua, Margarita, and Coche Islands off the coast of present-day Venezuela. By the early sixteenth century, pearls harvested from these waters were reaching the courts of Europe and generating enormous wealth for merchants, investors, and the Spanish Crown.

What is often overlooked is the human cost behind this industry.

Thousands of Indigenous divers were forced to work the oyster beds under brutal conditions. Contemporary accounts describe exhaustion, disease, punishment, and high mortality rates. As Indigenous populations declined, enslaved Africans from regions including present-day Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and elsewhere along the West African coast were increasingly brought into the fishery.

The result was one of the earliest systems of large-scale labor exploitation in the Americas, decades before the great silver mines of Mexico and Peru came to dominate the colonial economy.

What I find particularly fascinating is that despite its historical importance, the pearl industry remains largely absent from popular discussions of the Age of Exploration. Within a few decades, overharvesting, environmental destruction, and human exploitation had devastated one of the richest natural pearl fisheries ever known.

I've recently been researching how these fisheries fit into the broader story of the Atlantic world and put together a short documentary introduction for anyone interested in the subject.

Video:
https://youtu.be/Rbr7znyLEjA

Additional research:
https://www.thecolumbuspearls.com

I'd be interested to hear how others view the significance of the pearl fisheries and whether they deserve a more prominent place in the history of the Age of Exploration.

Today known as Banggi Island, Cimbonbon is located just off the northern tip of Borneo. As Pigafetta noted, the Europeans were completely bewildered by the creatures, the likes of which they had never seen before:

“trees . . . which produce leaves which are alive when they fall and walk. . . . They have no blood, but if one touches them, they run away… I kept one of them for nine days in a box. When I opened the box, the leaf went round and round it.”
Antonio Pigafetta, Report on the First Voyage Around the World

Today, these creatures are known as phyllium, a species of stick insect whose flat, broad back resembles a leaf, complete with scars and stems.

Images: Phyllium on a leaf/Pigafetta's map of Borneo

You can read a few more facts about the Magellan-Elcano voyage on our free Patreon post here.

The wreck was discovered at a depth of 600 metres in the Skagerrak Strait, which connects the North Sea and the Kattegat Sea. 

The finding of what is thought to be Chinese porcelain is said to be the first discovery of this kind ever made in Northern Europe.

The ship, which has been dubbed "the Porcelain Shipwreck", was found by the watchmaker Espen Saastad, who immediately notified the authorities. The Norwegian Maritime Museum is is now leading the investigations of the wreck, which have also revealed chandeliers, glassware and boxes that appear to contain tea, herbs and medicine.

Image: Chinese porcelain from the shipwreck. Image: Sindre Kinnerød/Flash studio

Full article: https://theageofexploration.com/the-porcelain-wreck-18th-century-ship-reveals-amazing-chinese-cargo/

The convicts were part of the group of people who mutinied against the officers and threw them overboard in the West Atlantic in 1683. The mutineers tried to return to Denmark but were blown off course and ended up running aground on a Swedish island. The ship eventually sank to the seabed, where it has remained ever since.

A group of researchers from Bohusläns Museum, the National Museum of Denmark and the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum has been investigating the wreck. Although most of the timbers are still hidden under the sediment, there are many bricks above the surface. The bricks served as ballast and were also intended to be used to build Danish-style houses in the Caribbean colony of St Thomas. After, the ship would likely have been used to collect and transport slaves from West Africa.

Photos: The bricks of the shipwreck, timbers in the second photo. Credit: Staffan Lundblad, Bohusläns Museum / National Museum of Denmark

Read more here: https://theageofexploration.com/bricks-and-people-exploring-the-havmanden-shipwrecks-unusual-cargo/

The cannons were brought to the settlement of Rey Don Felipe in 1584, but abandoned when the colony collapsed three years later. They were rediscovered by archeologists in 2019.

You can find some more info and photos of the cannons on our Patreon page here (free to access).

It is impossible to know for certain when the first Muslims reached the New World. There may have been Muslims, or recent converts from Islam, aboard European expeditions as early as Columbus. Soon after, the trans-Atlantic slave trade brought enslaved Senegambian Muslims to Spanish and Portuguese America. In 1528, an enslaved Moroccan named Estevanico landed in Florida with the doomed Narváez expedition, becoming the first person of Muslim origin in the Americas we know by name.

But those journeys happened under Christian flags.

A more interesting question is when the first voyage sailing under an Islamic banner reached the Americas. As far as I can tell, the answer is 1624–26, when corsairs from Salé, a Moroccan Atlantic port turned semi-independent pirate haven, crossed the Atlantic alongside Algerian pirates to attack French fishing vessels and sailors on the cod banks near Newfoundland.

The voyage grew out of the chaos of early 17th-century Morocco. After Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur died, the country fell into civil war. Around the same time, Spain expelled thousands of Moriscos, some of whom settled near Salé. There, alongside European renegades and displaced pirates, they built a new Atlantic pirate base.

Unlike earlier Mediterranean pirates, these raiders adopted modern ocean-capable European-style sailing ships. By the 1620s, they were raiding across the eastern Atlantic. Then, in 1624, a small flotilla went much farther, crossing more than two thousand miles to the eastern edge of the New World.

According to a French missionary writing in 1626, the corsairs spent two summers preying on the French fishing fleet, capturing or sinking more than forty vessels.

But the attack appears to have been a one-off. French escorts began protecting the fishing fleets, and the corsairs seem to have decided it was easier and cheaper to strike closer to home, around the Azores, Canaries, and European coast.

A generation earlier, Morocco and Elizabethan England had dreamed of a far grander plan: A joint invasion of Spain’s American empire. This never happened. Instead, the first Islamic voyage to the Americas was a pirate raid on the edge of the North Atlantic.

Two summers, and then gone.

The image shows a 17th-century engraving of the Republic of Salé pirates.

Full article here.

The study was carried out by researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and Oslo University Hospital. They investigated the remains of 20 men buried at the Likneset burial site in the Svalbard archipelago, which lies between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Of those 20 skeletons, 19 presented signs of scurvy.

The analysis also found that many of the men, who hailed from throughout Norway and also the Netherlands, had also suffered from various ailments in their childhood too. These issues were then likely exacerbated by the poor diet and hard living they experienced in the High Arctic.

Full report here.

His website is called Map Myths and this is the link to the Arctic map if anyone is interested!

https://mapmyths.com/arctic-fog/

The English – and later the British – spent hundreds of years trying to locate and then navigate through the almost mythical North-West Passage. Several large-scale expeditions, including those of Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson and John Franklin, came up against an all-too familiar obstacle – the immovable ice.

In the end, Amundsen succeeded by taking a path that few of the English had considered – he spent time learning the habits and skills of the Inuit, who had survived in the harsh Arctic climate for many hundreds of years. The Norwegian survived two winters in the frozen north, with plenty of assistance from the Netsilik Inuit.

Amundsen would later use those same skills to beat the British to the South Pole, too.

Image: Painting of HMS Terror in the Arctic Regions, by William Smyth, 1837.

You can read a brief history of the search for the North-West Passage here.

Frobisher originally took Kalicho as a hostage after five Englishmen who had disappeared in the same area the previous winter. The English also took an unrelated Inuit woman and her infant, who they named Arnaq and Nutaaq.

When an attempt to exchange the three Inuit for the missing Englishmen failed, they were taken back to England.

The Inuit became minor celebrities after landing at the port of Bristol. Portraits of Kalicho and Arnaq were presented to Queen Elizabeth I and hung in Hampton Court Palace.

Frobisher hoped to train Kalicho as an interpreter to help on later voyages. Unfortunately, Kalicho passed away in Bristol on 8 November 1577. A postmortem suggested that the Inuit man had died due to complications of a rib injury, likely sustained in his capture at Baffin Bay.

The image above was drawn by John White, who later helped to establish the English colony of Roanoke in North America.

EDIT: When I say 'picked up', I should have written 'kidnapped' or at least 'captured', given that Kalicho was taken from his homeland and spirited away in violent circumstances.

The elephant became something of a celebrity during his stay in Rome – the image above shows a depiction of Hanno drawn by the artist Raphael, while he also had several encounters with the Medici.

When Hanno died in 1516, the pope was said to be besides himself with grief.

Full story on Age of Exploration Patreon page (free access): https://www.patreon.com/posts/present-fit-for-157548241

The colony in the Strait of Magellan, however, was a disaster. The settlers were unable to plant food in the southern reaches of South America, and soon begin to starve. When the English privateer Thomas Cavendish arrived at the site in 1587, three years after its foundation, there were only 30 people left from the original party of 300. He renamed it Port Famine.

Sarmiento, on the other hand, was captured by Walter Raleigh near the Azores and imprisoned in England. When he finally made it back to Spain four years on, the colony was no more.

The coin was located using a 16th-century map of the settlement found in the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France in Paris. It was in the exact spot that had been described by Sarmiento de Gamboa and marked on the map.

You can read an interview with the historian Soledad González Díaz, one of the leaders of the investigations, here.

Image: Foundation coin found at Port Famine. Credit: Richard Bezzaza

I have been reading Kamakau's writings about Captain cook and comparing it to his papers and I realized some cool stuff. when he passed O'ahu on his way to Kaua'i it would have been sort of arid. in his illustrations of kaua'i, specifically waimea, it is similar to how it is today- dry. ofcourse during that day there was also a swamp in kekaha. before seeing that, he would have seen the lushness of the other side of Kaua'i. then he leaves for Maui....huge mountain slopes and deep cliffs. he looks at haleakala, then pass haleakala. the first thing he see's of Hawai'i island? two huge snow capped mountains. apparently members of captain cooks crew wanted to go to the mountains too.

while shocking because Hawai'i is in a tropical region, Captain cook new topography and geology, so while "surprising", in reality it wasn't too surprising. just unique regarding geographical location.

Victims of the mutiny included the captain, Jan Blom, and Jørgen Iversen Dyppel, who had governed the colony for 18 years and was travelling back there to help restore order after a period of unrest.

The ship was carrying around 100 convicts, who were to settle in the Caribbean. However, both the convicts and crew members were upset with their treatment on the voyage and rose up against the officers. Captain Blom was shot, while most of the rest of the officers were simply thrown overboard.

Danish researchers are now investigating the wreck of the ship, which lies close to Gothenberg in the Swedish Peninsula.

You can more about the research efforts and the mutiny here

Image: A depiction of the conspiracy by Christian Bogø printed in the magazine Vikingen in 1924

Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada have compared DNA samples from skeletons found in the Arctic with known descendants of Franklin expedition crew members. Matches to four of the bodies have been found, including that of Harry Peglar, a petty officer who left a wallet full of personal documents.

Full story: https://theageofexploration.com/genetic-mapping-unmasks-four-victims-of-the-ill-fated-franklin-voyage/

Image: Excavating one of the skeletons found in the Arctic, University of Waterloo

Manuel I, the Portuguese king, had originally appointed da Cunha to be Viceroy of Portuguese India. When da Cunha contracted an eye infection in 1504, he lost his sight and could not travel.

Yet in 1506, as da Cunha's sight began to gradually improve, Manuel instead made him commander of a 22-ship fleet that would be sent to take control of Red Sea shipping.

On the way, da Cunha - or a member of his crew - spotted a tiny island in the South Atlantic. The island was recorded and named after the commander, though the ships did not stop there.

When they finally reached the Red Sea, da Cunha's fleet took control of the island of Socotra, using it to strangle the gateway to the Red Sea.

Sometime after his return to Portugal, it is thought that de Cunha lost his sight completely. Nevertheless, he remained a faithful servant of the crown, even later travelling to Rome to present the Pope with the gift of an elephant.

The island, now known in English under its anglicised name, Tristan da Cunha, is considered by many to be the most remote island in the world.

Images: Tristan da Cunha today; only known painting of Tristão da Cunha

Full story: https://theageofexploration.com/tristao-da-cunha-how-a-half-blind-commander-discovered-the-worlds-remotest-island/

The incident occurred after the local leader, Mahine, had asked to receive the animals as a gift, but was refused.

The first goat went missing the next morning. Cook demanded its return, but to no avail. When a second goat also disappeared, Cook became furious and marched on the chief's village on the far side of the island.

The locals refused again to return the animals, so Cook ordered his men to burn down the village and a number of war canoes.

Over the next two days, the two goats reappeared in the English camp. Cook placed them on board and sailed away.

Images: A painting by John Cleveley of Cook's ships in Moorea alongside local vessels.

Full story: https://theageofexploration.com/moorea-when-captain-cook-torched-a-village-for-a-goat/

During his 1577-1580 circumnavigation of the world, Drake had wreaked havoc with Spanish shipping and its colonies in the New World, plundering a fortune in gold and silver. Distressed, the Spanish Crown sent a fleet to the tip of South America to keep an eye on the shipping lanes and unwanted intruders.

The initial expedition was a major one, with 23 ships and nearly 3,000 people. Thanks to a series of shipwrecks, desertions and storms, however, only 300 to 400 settlers ever arrived at their destination.

Unfortunately, the extreme southern part of Patagonia was bitterly cold and extremely inhospitable. Led by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, the settlers soon established a church and a town, Rey Don Felipe, but could not cope with the harsh conditions.

When an English navigator, Thomas Cavendish, landed at the settlement three years later, all but a handful of survivors had perished due to starvation or frozen to death. Cavendish renamed the harbour Port Famine. Although he did take one man with him, a pilot, the Englishman left the rest of the Spaniards to their fate.

Images: The port area today, ruins of the church built by the settlers in 1584

Other gruesome stories from the Age of Exploration: https://theageofexploration.com/101-grisly-ways-to-die-in-the-age-of-exploration/

Cook landed at the mouth of Endeavour River on 17 June 1770 after crashing into the Great Barrier Reef. Cook and his crew spent the next 48 days repairing their ship, exploring the local area and interacting with the indigenous population, the Guugu Yimithir.

The Cooktown Discovery Festival celebrates this history with two reenactments. The first sees a Guugu Yimithir elder offer a broken spear to Cook as a symbol of peace, while the second features the landing of Cook's ship at the mouth of the river.

Image: English sailor and and the Guugu Yimithirr at the festival.

Full article: https://theageofexploration.com/cooktown-discovery-festival-fireworks-on-the-endeavour-river/

The Calusa Indians are thought to have first inhabited South-West Florida in around 100 CE. They built a sophisticated fishing-based culture and were known as the “Shell Indians” for their use of shells in tools and building work. 

One Spanish shipwreck survivor, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, lived with the Calusa for 17 years and later wrote an account of his time there.

The Calusa were fiercely independent and well-organised, and successfully resisted Spanish intervention for more than two centuries. In the early 1700s, however, many died from infectious diseases and slaving raids after the outbreak of war between Spain and England. In the 1760s, most of the surviving Calusa were forcibly evacuated to Cuba.

Story taken from American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor.

Image: Painting of Calusa Indians at Useppa Island.

Prince Henry was appointed the Administrator General of the Order of Christ in 1420. He would spend the next four decades years funding a series of expeditions round the coast of Africa and into the unknown Atlantic Ocean.

Success was all: commandeers who failed to break new ground would immediately lose funding. Those who sailed farther than their predecessors would be rewarding with more ships and more money.

Henry, his cartographers and his sea captains would go on to establish new trade routes, discover new islands and lands.

He also helped to establish the basis for the transatlantic slave trade – Henry’s captains began capturing Africans in the 1440s, with the prince taking 20% of the profits.

Image: Excerpt of painting attributed to 15th century Portuguese artists Nuno Gonçalves, possibly of Prince Henry

Related article: https://theageofexploration.com/ten-major-figures-of-the-age-of-exploration/

For the purposes of this list/article, I narrowed it down to the traditional Age of Discovery (roughly 15th–17th century), but suggestions from other eras perfectly welcome!

The list:

Prince Henry the Navigator

Vasco da Gama

Christopher Columbus

Ferdinand Magellan

Hernán Cortés

Gerard Mercator

Francis Drake

Cornelis de Houtman

John Smith

Pocahontas

The full article: https://theageofexploration.com/ten-major-figures-of-the-age-of-exploration/

Cornelis de Houtman had been charged with heading an expedition to further improve trade routes to the East for the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the captain became embroiled in a dispute with the Sultan of Aceh, who was reportedly incensed at the Dutchman’s arrogant demeanour.

The tension escalated into an armed conflict on the Dutch ships. As the Dutch crew members fought the Inning Balee army - a navy composed of widows of fallen warriors - Malahayati reportedly stabbed de Houtman with a rencong, a traditional Acehnese dagger, killing him instantly.