Prince Henry Essay

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Prince Henry was born March 4, 1394 in porto, portugal. He led the way in sponsoring exploration for portugal, a small nation next to spain. His navigators discovered and claimed the madeira and azores islands to the west and southwest. Henry was considered one of the principal initiators of “The Age of Discovery”. Henry the Navigator of Portugal was responsible for commissioning dozens of exploration voyages in his quest to find a land of his own to rule.
In 1415, portugal had expanded into muslim North Africa, seizing the port of Ceuta on the North African Coast. Henry was neither a navigator or sailor, he sponsored a great deal of exploration along the west coast of Africa. Henry is regarded as an originator of the age discovery and the atlantic slave trade. In about 1418, Prince Henry wanted to tell everyone about what he did, so he started his own oceanic navigation school for whoever wanted to join. In this school, people were trained to navigate, map making, and science in order to sail down to Africa.
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Antonio Goncalves who was a hunter, not an explorer, accompanied him; his duties were to hunt the Mediterranean monk seal that were found on the west coast of Africa. Goncalves filled his small boat with the sealskinz and then he and nine of his crewmen captured some Africans to take back to Portugal. When Tristo arrived in the same area as Goncalves, the two crews joined together and kidnapped 10 more Africans. Goncalves headed back to Portugal with his “catch” while Tristao went southward. The following year, Goncalves returned to Africa with an African chief he had captured the year before to trade for a larger number of Africans. Goncalves received 10 more Africans, gold dust, and some ostrich eggs. A few years after that, Prince Henry built a fort at the Bay of Arguin, and the Bay became the center of the slave

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