Sarasota News Leader

04/05/2013

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Sarasota News Leader April 5, 2013 Page 68 WEALTH AND FAME BECKON THE IBERIANS By Stan Zimmerman City Editor The path leading to the European invasion of the Americas begins, ironically, with the closing of another path — the ancient trading route between Europe and China called the Silk Road. In 1453, the Suljuk Turks under Mehmed II captured Constantinople and changed its name to Istanbul. The Turks quickly commandeered the profitable luxury trade with China and placed an embargo on Christian Europe. Suddenly, Europe had no access to the riches of the East. The struggle between the Christians of Europe and the Muslims of the Near East was not confined to the eastern Levant. In Spain, Christians were rising up against their Moorish conquerors and pushing them back cityby-city. This religious, political and economic contest would result in the European explosion into the Western Hemisphere, Florida included. With caravan trade with the East halted, one European leader decided to try to establish another route by sea. Prince Henry of Portugal gathered sea captains and mapmakers to his court and established a school of navigation to systematize exploration by sea. He demanded his captains keep regular logbooks, in which they noted the weather, landmarks, currents and other useful navigational information. These books, called roteiros, were prized and protected. They were "trade secrets," because without a rotiero, you could not navigate to a trading destination. A portrait of Henry the Navigator from the 15th century book Cronicas dos Feitos de Guine via Wikimedia Commons Henry's ships slowly worked their way down the west coast of Africa, with the crews erecting stone columns at various headlands so future captains would know not only where along the coast they were, but to serve as reminders to later crews that their ships were in known territory. In 1485, a Genoa-born sailor named Christopher Columbus presented a proposal to the Portuguese to sail west instead of south to reach the riches of the Far East, but his plan was rejected.

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