Jean Fonteneau, dit Alfonse de Saintonge (also spelled Jean Allefonsce) or João Afonso in

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 ...

(also spelled João Alfonso) (,

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

– December 1544 or 1549, off

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wi ...

) was a

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

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 ...

and corsair, prominent in the European

age of discovery The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...

. He had an early career in Portugal and later served the King of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Early years and personal life

Born João Afonso and later known in France as Jean Fonteneau or Alfonse of Saintonge, he married a woman named Valentine Alfonse (Valentina Alfonso). Taking to the sea at age 12, he joined the

Portuguese India Armadas The Portuguese Indian Armadas ( pt, Armadas da Índia) were the fleets of ships funded by the Crown of Portugal, and dispatched on an annual basis from Portugal to India. The principal destination was Goa, and previously Cochin. These armada ...

and the Portuguese commercial fleets as they sailed past the

seven seas The "Seven Seas" is a figurative term for all the seas of the known world. The phrase is used in reference to sailors and pirates in the arts and popular culture and can be associated with the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Seven Seas east of Af ...

to the coasts of

Brasil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area an ...

, Western

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, and around the Cape to

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. His writings talk of days lasting three months, and of a vast southern continent, the

Terra Australis (Latin: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that ...

, and the

Jave la Grande La grande isle de Java ("the great island of Java") was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world; his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera (now Lhokseumawe) situated on its ...

, which he claims to have seen south of Southeast Asia, possibly suggesting he had approached the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

(by North America), Australia, and

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

In service of France

Before or around 1530, for some reasons, he moved to France putting himself at the service of

Francis I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to: * Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407) * Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450 * Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547 * Francis I, Duke of Saxe-Lau ...

. The correspondence of diplomatic agents of the king of Portugal in France, in the first half of the century, tried to clarify the causes of this change of allegiance. Gaspar Palha, a Portuguese diplomat in Paris in 1531, having met a man from La Rochelle to whom he requested information concerning the pilot Jean Alfonse, wrote that he had been exiled because, when he was lost near the coast of Brittany hit by a storm, he had been involved in a quarrel (according to what was reported, with his own oldest son) that resulted in the death of his son or some man aboard; and that consequently he had been exiled and did not dare to appear in public, but it is a report by indirect testimony, and there may have been other non-criminal reasons for the exile. However, it appears that it was to escape the Portuguese Justice for some reason. Jean Alfonse left the country, later in the company of his wife and his sons. In 1531, John III of Portugal attempted to repatriate the defector pilot because of his high qualifications and for his vast and possible classified knowledge. The king himself corresponded directly with Afonso, sending letters of pardon by his ambassadors and representatives and later exchanging letters with him in this attempt. By the 1540s, he was a renowned pilot, leading fleets to Africa and the Caribbean and reputed to have never lost a ship.

André Thévet André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation ...

mentions a conversation where Alfonse described looting

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

as a corsair. It was long thought that the Rabelaisian hero Xenomanes was based on Alfonse. In 1542–43, Alfonse piloted Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval's attempt to colonize

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

on the heels of Jacques Cartier's third voyage there. Alfonse established that one could sail through a passage between

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 ...

and

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

. The crew of 200, including prisoners and a few women, spent a harsh winter on the shores of the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

, hit by

scurvy Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...

and losing a quarter of the colonists before sailing back to France. During this trip, Alfonse described a land he called Norombega. In late 1544, Alfonse left La Rochelle with a small fleet and disrupted Basque shipping, while the

treaty of Crépy A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

had just been signed between France and Spain. A Spanish fleet led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés caught up to him as he was getting back to La Rochelle and killed him at sea. Some sources say this fatal encounter occurred in 1549.Philip P. Boucher, ''France and the American tropics to 1700'', JHU Press, 2008, p. 49.

Works

His writings were published as ''Les voyages avantureux du Capitaine Ian Alfonce'' (1559), the ''Rutter of Jean Alphonse'' (1600) and ''La cosmographie avec l’espère et régime du soleil du nord par Jean Fonteneau dit Alfonse de Saintonge, capitaine-pilote de François Ier'' (manuscript dated 1545, first published in 1904). In them he describes the various places and peoples he and others have seen, many of them for the first time in print (such as Gaspé, the

Beothuk The Beothuk ( or ; also spelled Beothuck) were a group of indigenous people who lived on the island of Newfoundland. Beginning around AD 1500, the Beothuk culture formed. This appeared to be the most recent cultural manifestation of peoples w ...

, Saint-Pierre Island, the jewels of

, a continent south of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

) and provides navigational instructions on how to get there.

References

* Charles de la Roncière, ''Histoire de la marine française'', tome 3, ''Les guerres d'Italie: liberté des mers''. Paris, Plon, 1906. p. 222-333. * Marcel Trudel, ''Histoire de la Nouvelle-France'', vol. 1, ''Les vaines tentatives''. Montréal and Paris, Fides, 1963, p. 157-175. * Nicolas Dedek, ''La cosmographie de Jean Alfonse de Saintonge: représentation du monde et de l'État à la Renaissance,'' Montréal, Université du Québec à Montréal, 2000.

External links

* http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/lac-bac/passages-ef/passages/h8-201-e.html * http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=222 {{DEFAULTSORT:Alfonse, Jean 1484 births 1540s deaths People from Charente-Maritime 16th-century French writers 16th-century male writers French travel writers French explorers French male non-fiction writers Explorers of Asia Portuguese explorers of South America Portuguese explorers of North America 16th-century explorers 16th-century Portuguese people