(ca. 1432 to ca. 1480) Italian-born mariner for Portugal Alvise de Cadamosto was an Italian-born merchant who led expeditions for the Portuguese along the northwest coast of Africa and to the Cape Verde Islands.
Cadamosto, a Venetian merchant who, according to some rumors, might have been an Italian nobleman, was among the sea captains purportedly recruited by Prince Henry the Navigator to expand Portuguese knowledge and control in the Atlantic basin. Cadamosto, so the story has it, was in debt and decided to work for Prince Henry. Whatever the circumstances, he departed Lisbon in March 1455—almost 40 years before Christopher Columbus sailed to the west—bound for the northwest coast of Africa. He led his expedition to Cape Blanc, and from there to Arguim, which marked the southernmost place yet reached by the Portuguese or any other European explorers. Arguim was at the time a trading port populated primarily by Arabs, who controlled the routes between the interior city of Timbuktu and the coast. He pushed farther and eventually reached the Senegal River, discovering that the locals there maintained trade with the merchants at Arguim. The fact that they did so was no surprise; there was extensive commercial activity in northern Africa, including in the Sahara and along the Atlantic coast. When Cadamosto returned to Lisbon he offered Henry a report of what he had seen. That text remains one of the crucial documents detailing 15th-century European exploration.
In May 1546, Cadamosto departed for his second exploration of the same region. But when his caravan reached Cape Blanc, a storm blew them deep into the
Atlantic. Fortunately, for the Portuguese, they had been pushed close to the Cape Verde Islands. After their recovery, Cadamosto set out again on his initial plan and led his ships as far as the Bissagos Islands (in modern Gambia). When Cadamosto returned to Lisbon he told of his “discovery” of Cape Verde, though it remains unclear if he was the first European to see the archipelago.
Further reading: C. R. Crone, ed., The Voyages of Cada-mosto and other documents on Western Africa in the second half of the sixteenth century (London: Hakluyt Society, 1937); Angus Konstam, Historical Atlas of Exploration, 1492-1600 (New York: Facts On File, 2000).
World History
