Álvaro Fernandes

António Fernandes (sometimes Álvaro Fernandes ) was a Portuguese explorer in the 15th century, who made a name for himself in the study of the West African coast.

Even as a child came Fernandes, João Gonçalves Zarco 's nephew, who had rediscovered Madeira, the Portuguese court and served Henry the Navigator as Page. Still very young, he participated in the first expeditions to the West African coast. He bore his part in the discovery of Guinea for Europe.

1445 entrusted him with his uncle Zarco on a special caravel to exploring the west coast. Fernandes reached the mouth of the Senegal, sailed around the Cape Verde Islands and finally landed on Gorée in Senegal today, which developed in the 18th century, mainly of French colonial rule, a stronghold of the slave trade. At the Cabo dos Mastros, a cape on the west coast of Africa between Cape Verde and the mouth of the Gambia, he came to the southernmost point of Africa, which was reached by then by the Portuguese.

1446 Fernandes sailed again to the coast of West Africa and came farther south; he reached the area around Conakry and the Los islands just north of Sierra Leone ( until 1461 a still more southern point of Africa has been reached). A wound caused by a poisoned arrow, which had met Fernandes fighting with locals, forced him to return to Portugal.

Swell

• The Encyclopaedia Britannica: 11th edition ( 1910-1922 ). Accessed on 26 August 2010 ( PDF, 96.5 MB, English). , See Keyword Fernandes

See also

Portuguese colonial history

• Seafarer
• Discoverer (15th century)
• Portuguese
• Born in the 15th century
• Died in the 15th century
• Man