Wolof people

Lançarote's squadron soon arrives at Barbary Point, the mouth of the Senegal River, which is as yet unexplored.

He dispatches Estêvão Afonso on a launch to search upriver for settlements.

The exploration doesn't get very far.

Venturing ashore at one point along the river bank, Afonso abducts two Wolof children from a local woodsman's hut, only to be chased down and furiously beaten by their father.

Having barely escaped with their lives, the launch immediately returns to the waiting caravels.

As many as forty vessels have sailed from Lagos on Henry's behalf from 1444 to 1446, and the first private mercantile expeditions have begun.

Slaves and gold begin arriving in Portugal.

Nuno Tristão, Henry's favorite captain, set out on his fourth trip down the West African coast in 1446 (or perhaps 1445 or 1447, date uncertain), searching for the source of gold and other valuable commodities that have slowly been trickling up into Europe via land routes for the preceding half century.

Somewhere south of Cap Vert, Tristão comes across the mouth of a large river.

Tristão takes twenty-two sailors with him on a launch upriver, to search for a settlement to raid, but the launch is ambushed by thirteen native canoes with some eighty armed men.

Quickly surrounded, Nuno Tristão, along with most of his crew, is killed on the spot by poisoned arrows (two might have escaped).

The death of Nuno Tristão is the beginning of the end of this wave of Henry's expeditions.

Another set of ships will still go out the next year, but will also take significant casualties, and as a result, Portuguese expeditions will be temporarily suspended.

Henry will not dispatch another expedition to the West African coast again for several years.

Álvaro Fernandes had set out again on a caravel in 1446, this time on direct mission for Prince Henry.

Fernandes had headed straight to his last point (Cabo dos Mastos), and landed a little exploring party, but finding nobody, re-embarked and continued sailing on.

At an indeterminate point south of there, they had spotted a local coastal village and disembarked a party, only to be met by an armed native force (probably Serer), intent on defending their village.

Álvaro Fernandes had killed what he believed was the native chieftain at the beginning of the encounter, prompting the rest of the local warriors to briefly halt the fight.

The Portuguese landing party availed themselves of the pause to hurry back to their ship.

Having sailed a little on, the next day, the Portuguese had captured two young local women collecting shellfish by the shore.

The caravel had resumed sail, and continued "for a certain distance", until they reached a large river, which is recorded in the chronicles as "Rio Tabite".

Although perhaps aware of the fate of Nuno Tristão on a similar river venture, Alvaro Fernandes nonetheless decides to set a launch to explore upriver.

The first exploratory boat had made a landing on the bank near some local huts, where they quickly captured a local woman and brought her back to the caravel.

Then, refitting the boat, they set out again, this time intending to sail further upriver.

But they did not get far before they came upon four or five native canoes with armed men heading towards them.

Fernandes immediately turned the boat around and began racing back to the caravel, with the canoes hot on his tail.

One of the canoes had gone fast enough to nearly catch up with Fernandes's boat, prompting Fernandes to turn and prepare for a fight.

But the lead native canoe, realizing it was alone, slowed down to wait for the others, thus giving the Portuguese boat the opportunity to resume their flight back to the caravel.

The Portuguese had escaped, but Álvaro Fernandes himself had been gravely wounded in the leg by a poisoned arrow shot from one of the canoes.

Once aboard ship, he had disinfected the wound with urine and olive oil.

He lay in fever for a few days, on the edge of death, but recovered.

Despite the near-fatal experience, the caravel proceeds straight south for a little longer, until they reached a sandy cape and large sandy bay.

They put a small boat to explore near the beach, but find a force of some 120 natives, armed with shields, assegais and bows marching towards them.

The explorers immediately returned to the caravel.

Nonetheless, the armed native party holds what seems like a peaceful festive demonstration from the beach - waving and inviting the Portuguese to land.

But given Fernandes's ill condition and still shaken by their earlier near-escape, the decision is made to quit the area and set sail back to Portugal.

On the way home, Fernandes will stop by Arguin island and a nearby cape in the bay, where they will negotiate the purchase of a black slave-woman from some Berber traders.

Upon arrival in Portugal, Álvaro Fernandes will be amply rewarded by Prince Henry the Navigator with one hundred doubloons, and regent Peter of Coimbra will gave him another one hundred, for having sailed further than any other Portuguese captain thus far.

Alvise Cadamosto was born at the Ca' da Mosto, a palace on the Grand Canal of Venice from which his name derives.

His father was Giovanni da Mosto, a Venetian civil servant and merchant, and his mother Elizabeth Querini, from a leading patrician family of Venice.

Alvise is the eldest of three sons, having younger brothers Petro and Antonio.

At a remarkably young age, Cadamosto had cast out as a merchant adventurer, sailing with Venetian galleys in the Mediterranean.

From 1442 to 1448, Alvise has undertaken various trips on Venetian galleys to the Barbary Coast and Crete, as a commercial agent of his cousin, Andrea Barbarigo.

He had been appointed noble officer of the marine corps of crossbowmen on a galley to Alexandria in 1451.

The next year, he had served the same position on a Venetian galley to Flanders, returning to find his family disgraced and dispossessed.

His father, caught in a bribery scandal, had been banished from Venice, and taken refuge in the Duchy of Modena.

His Querini relatives had taken the opportunity to seize possession of his family's property.

This setback had marred the future prospects of Cadamosto's career in Venice, and probably encouraged his spirit of adventure, hoping to restore his family name and fortune by great feats of his own.

At the age of twenty-two, Alvise and his brother Antonio had embarked in August, 1454, on a Venetian merchant galley, captained by Marco Zen, destined for Flanders.

On the outward journey, the galley had been detained by bad weather near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.

While waiting for the weather to improve, the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who has his seat nearby at Sagres, had dispatched a couple of his commercial agents, led by his secretary Antão Gonçalves and the local Venetian consul Patrizio di Conti, to interest the stranded Venetian merchants into opening trade contracts for sugar and other goods from the prince's Madeira island.

Informed by the visitors of Henry's recent discoveries in Africa, Cadamosto immediately applies to Prince Henry at his residence at Raposeira to undertake an expedition on his behalf.

Henry hires him on the spot.

Setting out on March 22, 1455, on a forty-three-ton caravel supplied by Prince Henry, with Vicente Dias as ship master, Cadamosto had proceeded to Porto Santo and Madeira, and thereafter has woven his way through the Canary Islands, making stops in La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma before reaching the African coast around Cape Blanc.

Cadamosto makes note of the existence of the Portuguese factory-fort at Arguin, but does not seem to have stopped there himself.

Cadamosto cruises down the west African coast to the mouth of the Senegal River (which he calls the Rio do Senega, the first recorded use of that name.)

He does not seem to have stopped here, his destination being further south, …

…at an anchorage point along the Grande Côte he calls the Palma di Budomel (location uncertain, probably around Mboro, 15°09′42″N 16°55′45″W).

Cadamosto notes that this spot (or resgate) was already used by Portuguese traders.

He dates that trade between the Portuguese and the Wolof people of the Senegal region was opened around 1450 ("five years before I went on this voyage").

Cadamosto had sought to trade Iberian horses for black slaves, the principal line of business at this resgate.

Horses are highly valued on the Senegalese coast, and traded at a rate of between nine and fourteen slaves per horse.

Cadamosto is said to have sold seven horses and some woolen goods (a total value of around three hundred ducats) for about a hundred slaves.

While at the anchorage, Cadamosto is surprised to be met by the ruler himself, the Damel of Cayor (whom he calls Budomel), accompanied by his retinue.

The Damel invites him inland while the details of the trade are finalized.

Cadamosto spends nearly an entire month in an inland village, hosted by the prince Bisboror (Budomel's nephew), during which time he delights in observing much about the local country and customs.

His trade in Cayor completed, rather than return home with his human cargo, Cadamosto decides to cruise further down the coast, towards the Cape Vert peninsula.

This is intended as a pure exploratory jaunt, "to discover new countries" beyond the Cape, more specifically the mysterious "kingdom called Gambra", where Prince Henry has heard (from earlier slave captives) that gold is found in abundance.

Cadamosto comes across two Portuguese caravels, one of which is commanded by Antoniotto Usodimare, a Genoese captain in Prince Henry's service, the other by an unnamed squire of Henry's household.

Meeting around Cape Vert in June 1455, they agree to join forces and proceed south together.

After a brief fishing stop on some unnamed islands (probably Îles des Madeleines), ...

...Cadamosto, Usodimare and the Portuguese squire sail south, down the Petite Côte until they reach the Sine-Saloum delta, a stretch inhabited by the Sereri (Serer people).

Cadamosto has nothing good to say about the Serer, characterizing them as savage idolaters "of great cruelty" (his information is being drawn principally from Wolof interpreters).

Cadamosto claims he was the one who named the Saloum River as the Rio di Barbacini, the name by which it would remain known on European maps thereafter.

Cadamosto and Usodimare try to put in here, but quickly decide against it when an interpreter they land to make contact with the local Serer natives gathered on the beaches is killed on the spot.

Pressing south, Cadamosto and Usodimare finally discover the mouth of the Gambia River in late June or early July, 1455.

They set about sailing upriver, but their advance faces unremitting hostility from the Mandinka inhabitants upriver.

Subjected to intense missile fire, they barely fend off a massed canoe attack that seeks to trap and board them.

According to Cadamosto's interpreters, the Mandinka believe the Portuguese are cannibals, that they have come to the region to buy black men to eat.

Urged by their frightened crews (and probably desirous to keep his human cargo intact—he has been carrying a shipload of slaves since Cayor), Cadamosto decides to call off venturing further and backs out of the river.

Cadamosto does not supply details of the return trip to Portugal.

At the mouth of the Gambia, Cadamosto makes a note of the near-disappearance of the northern Pole Star on the horizon, and roughly sketches a bright constellation to the south, believed to be the first known depiction of the Southern Cross constellation (albeit wrongly positioned and with too many stars—a more accurate rendition will have to wait until Mestre João Faras in 1500.)

Cadamosto calls it the carro dell' ostro (southern chariot).

It is known that the fleet was back in Portugal before the end of the year, as Antoniotto Usodimare will write a letter dated December 12, 1455, to his creditors back in Genoa, reporting the results of his voyage (albeit with much exaggeration, and without mentioning Cadamosto).