Miguel Corte-Real (; – 1502?) was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

who charted about 600 miles of the coast of Labrador. In 1502, he disappeared while on an expedition and was believed to be lost at sea.

Early life

Miguel Corte-Real was a son of

João Vaz Corte-Real João Vaz Corte-Real (; c. 1420 – 1496) was a Portuguese sailor, claimed by some accounts to have been an explorer of a land called ''Terra Nova do Bacalhau'' (''New Land of the Codfish''), speculated to possibly have been a part of North Americ ...

and a brother of explorer

Gaspar Corte-Real Gaspar Corte-Real (1450–1501) was a Portuguese explorer who, alongside his father João Vaz Corte-Real and brother Miguel, participated in various exploratory voyages sponsored by the Portuguese Crown. These voyages are said to have been some o ...

, members of the

Corte-Real family The Corte-Real (also Côrte-Real and Corte Real) are a Portuguese family of noble origins in the 14th century, originating in Tavira. The family is famous for its involvement in the Portuguese discoveries during the Age of Exploration, in the ...

Exploration

In 1500, Miguel's brother Gaspar reached

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

, believing it to be Asia, but was unable to land. The following year, Gaspar sailed west again, this time making landfall at what is believed to have been Newfoundland. Only two of the three ships of the 1501 expedition returned to Portugal; the third ship, carrying Gaspar, was lost. Miguel invested significant sums of money into these two expeditions, and in return, Gaspar promised him a share of any new lands he claimed. In May 1502, Miguel set out from Lisbon with three ships on an expedition to search for his brother. The expedition apparently reached the location where Gaspar's party had landed, at which point the three ships broke off in different directions to search. Later, the ship carrying Miguel failed to appear at a designated rendezvous on August 20. The other two ships made the return voyage to Portugal, while Miguel and his ship were never seen again. In 1503, the last surviving brother, Vasco Añes Corte-Real, planned another rescue expedition for his two brothers.

King Manuel I Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, as ...

furnished two ships, but would not permit Vasco himself to sail with them. The expedition returned in the fall without having found any trace of either brother.

Dighton Rock myth

In 1912 and 1928 Edmund B. Delabarre wrote that markings on the

Dighton Rock The Dighton Rock is a 40-ton boulder, originally located in the riverbed of the Taunton River at Berkley, Massachusetts (formerly part of the town of Dighton). The rock is noted for its petroglyphs ("primarily lines, geometric shapes, and schemati ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

suggest that Miguel Corte-Real reached

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

. Delabarre stated that the markings were abbreviated Latin, and the message, translated into English, read as follows: '' I, Miguel Cortereal, 1511. In this place, by the will of God, I became a chief of the Indians''.

Samuel Eliot Morison Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and tau ...

dismissed this evidence in his 1971 book ''The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages''. More recent scholarship by Douglas Hunter has definitively debunked the Corte-Real origin myth.

References

External links

* 1448 births 1500s missing person cases 1502 deaths 15th-century explorers 15th-century Portuguese people 16th-century explorers 16th-century Portuguese people Explorers of Canada Lost explorers Maritime history of Portugal Missing person cases in Canada People lost at sea Portuguese explorers of North America Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact {{Portugal-explorer-stub

Early life

Exploration

Dighton Rock myth

See also

References

Further reading

External links