Jason Y Moyes and Dr. Christopher C Lund, Spanish and Portuguese

Although many individuals of varying nationalities are responsible for the eventual exploration and mapping of what is now the United States, it was the Portuguese who played the primary role in the discovery of the New World during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Portugueseborn and sponsored navigators were the first not only to explore the waters off the northeast coast of North America, but also the first to chart a route around the southern tip of South America, and eventually explore the coast of what is now California.

During its peak of naval exploration, Portugal was very careful not to reveal the full scope of its discoveries to the rest of Europe, in hopes of maintaining control over a vast world empire. Such secrecy perhaps played a role in Portugal’s refusal to sponsor Christopher Columbus (before he petitioned Spain for funding.) Also, during the colonial period the Portuguese were reluctant to set up major colonies in North America, focusing instead on exploiting the more lucrative areas of their empire, such as Brazil and Africa.

Those Portuguese who did settle here in the centuries to follow were, for the most part, more concerned with the whaling and textile industries that employed them than they were with the preservation of Portugal’s discoverer heritage. Because of these factors, very little credit was given to the Portuguese for the exploration of early America. By the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, many of the Portuguese toponyms (place-names) had been either Anglicized or Hispanicized.

I hypothesized that with a collection of the earliest known maps of North America, one might show that many American toponyms, which have since been attributed to the Spanish or other European colonists, were originally Portuguese. In order to investigate my hypothesis, I traveled to the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington D.C. in May of 2002. Knowing that this library houses one of the world’s greatest cartographic collections, I was confident I would find some evidence in support of this theory.

While there, I was introduced to Professor John R. Hebert—one of the world’s foremost experts in the area of Iberian cartography—who now works in the Cartography Department of the Library of Congress. He was gracious enough to personally assist me in my inquiry and grant me access to some of the library’s oldest maps (some of which date back to the fifteenth century.) Among these were several maps of Portuguese origin, including one by Nicolas Caverio in 1502 and another by João Teixeira in 1630. The facsimiles of these maps, however, were so small that even with a magnifying glass I was unable to clearly make out the individual toponyms.

Frustrated by my findings, I asked Prof. Hebert if my investigation was in vain. He told me that the majority of the early Iberian manuscripts in the library’s holdings are, unfortunately, of Spanish origin. He then referred me to an essay he co-authored on the subject, in which he states, “We believe that this rich but relatively meager representation of Portuguese materials illustrates the unevenness of the collections and collecting practices of the Library of Congress rather than the lack of Portuguese cartographic production.”1 He assured me that, were I to visit the National Archives of Portugal in Lisbon, I would find an extensive collection of maps suiting my purposes. Hopefully, I will have that opportunity someday.

Notwithstanding these obstacles, I feel my research was a success. Although a trip to Portugal would obviously help substantiate my hypothesis, visiting the Library of Congress and meeting Prof. Hebert was extremely satisfying in itself and I am grateful to have had such an opportunity.²

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¹ Hebert, John and Anthony Mullin. “The Luso-Hispanic World in Maps” 1999.
² Special thanks to John R. Hebert and especially to Christopher C. Lund for his sponsorship and assistance in this research.