Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia

Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia (15th century) was a Portuguese navigator and explorer.

From Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia only few reliable biographical data are preserved. Essential information is based on the passages of the contemporary historian and chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara in Chapters IX and X of his Chronica do Descobrimento e conquista da Guiné.

Originally from Porto Baldaia belonged to the gentry of, practiced as a cupbearer ( Copeiro ) an important official at the court of Henry the Navigator, and was one of the confidants of the Infante. After the successful overcoming of Cape Bojadors by Gil Eanes in 1434 Henry ordered the sailor to another drive in the following year. At the expedition took a Barca under Gil Eanes and a smaller two-masted, a Barinel, in part under Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia. Both drove about 50 leguas ( about 250 miles) on Cape Bojador addition to the south, reached Angra dos Ruivos and have seen on the coasts traces of men and camels. 1436 Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia stabbed again in the lake. He had to check the order to make contact with coastal residents and trading opportunities. On this trip Baldaia reached an area in the south of present-day Western Sahara near Ad Dakhla and Pedra de Galé Porto or at about 22 ° 3 ' north latitude. Gomes Eanes de Zurara described in Chapter X of his Chronica this region as the area of the Rio de Ouro ( Gold River ).

Travel more Baldaias are not known. Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia also was among the first settlers of the Azores island of Terceira. Secured data to time and place of his death are not available.