What if the Bartolomeu Dias expedition of 1487 and Pero Covilha's letters never return?

[raharris1973]

What if the the Bartolemeu Dias expedition of 1487 never returned, with all its members either perishing at sea or being marooned anywhere in the South Atlantic/Indian Ocean with no chance of getting back in at least 20 years, if ever?

As a further PoD, what if Jose Sapateiro, who Pero Covilha, sent back with his accounts of journeys to Calicut India via the Red Sea and Arabian Sea in 1489-1490, is killed or detained with those letters, not returning to Portugal for at least two decades, if ever?

Does the lack of positive feedback from these late 1480s expeditions down both coasts of Africa and into the Indian Ocean, make it more likely the Portuguese King would be willing to take a chance supporting the Columbus brothers' plan to sail west when they come asking again before 1492?

They had rejected the brothers' proposals earlier because of their extravagant demands, the mathematical calculations of the earth's size suggesting the ocean would be too far to cross to Asia, and after 1487, data proving it was possible to round Africa (from Dias), and after 1490 or so, data from Covilha's letters giving a better picture of the distance eastward to India.

In the ATL, the mathematical/astronomical proofs against the Columbuses remain, but there's no cartographic or eyewitness corroboration promising fast results around Africa, or proving that route isn't blocked by land.

Plus, funding the Columbuses may not be that big a risk for the Portuguese and could have some value even if the main thing it turns up is some additional sets of island chains like the Azores, Madeira or Canaries.

If in 1490-1491 the Columbuses sail under the flag of Portugal from Madeira and land in the Caribbean, how will the Portuguese follow-up? Will they trade with or rob natives for gold and then start thinking of the islands as additional good sugar plantation lands over the next 20 years, a pretty fast exploitation and exploration? Or will they be slow, taking 50 years to do much because of the distances, and persistence of concentrated effort on the round Africa route?

I don't think they would abandon 'go around Africa' efforts, but I would imagine that *not* having positive results from Dias and Covilha in the 1480s means they won't simply catch up in time to do a Da Gama expedition to India and back before 1500. So I imagine things along that route getting pushed back at least five years, more likely 10, but if distracted perhaps by the Americas maybe a 25 year delay on the Cape route maximum so the latest you have a Da Gama like voyage is 1522.

Your thoughts?

 

[raharris1973]

I'm gonna say that the Portuguese would support Columbus, but also persist in their around Africa explorations with no more than 10 years delay.

They are going to let their people rob the natives and they'll start doing Azores-style sugar plantations in the Caribbean. They'll probably come up with the idea of African slavery at scale sooner than the Spanish would.

Just by poking around the Caribbean, they'll find the Maya and Aztec and start bullying and trading with them, setting up forts where they can.

Portugal will be claiming by right of prior treaties (Alcacovas, Aeterni regis) and discovery it should have exclusive access to everything south of the Tropic of Cancer.

Other countries pirates will horn in.

The jealous Castilians will try to get in on the action, but focused on the north, getting started in Florida, and continuing up the coast to areas their Basque fishermen may be using. They'll be exploring, hoping, in vain, to make the kind of money the Portuguese are making, but they will be persistent in sending some guys through North America and and down the St. Lawrence to inspect it to see if there's a passage.

They'll end up unleashing disease and civilizational chaos and feral pigs and cattle and horses. Eventually, they'll make some sugar plantations in Florida, because they won't have any land better for it further south. Through natural increase of Mestizos, missionary activity, first mover, advantage, and controlling gateways, the Spanish will be favored to shape the development of temperate zone North America, from Florida to Newfoundland. With competitors possibly wedging themselves into the far north later into the Hudson Bay and Alaska.

 

[Tanc49]

I think they'd start again, until they got it right.
It's even not impossible that what you described happened before, and we only know about Dias because he came back.
Same for Gama. Who knows if fleet tried the route between 1489 and 1498 but failed?
It is after all very convenient that Brazil was discovered by chance by the second armada, once the route was confirmed...

Seems to me the Portuguese worked like Soviet space exploration, you only tell the world about the successes

 

[raharris1973]

I think they'd start again, until they got it right.
It's even not impossible that what you described happened before, and we only know about Dias because he came back.
Same for Gama. Who knows if fleet tried the route between 1489 and 1498 but failed?
It is after all very convenient that Brazil was discovered by chance by the second armada, once the route was confirmed...

Seems to me the Portuguese worked like Soviet space exploration, you only tell the world about the successes

I think they would keep trying.

We'll never know about the Portuguese secrecy theory, it's an unfalsifiable claim. I like to Occam's Razor the whole thing and just say it didn't happen.

 

[Tanc49]

I think they would keep trying.

We'll never know about the Portuguese secrecy theory, it's an unfalsifiable claim. I like to Occam's Razor the whole thing and just say it didn't happen.

Unless there are some archives in some forgotten castle near Lisbon, or a memoir in some old chest buried in Cochin... Or more likely we'll find a weird wreck off the coast of Brazil