ABSTRACT

Portuguese historians have done much of the work and men such as A. Teixeira da Mota have brought the results of those labours to the attention of scholars outside Portugal. The study of Portuguese shipbuilding and exploration invariably and immediately becomes involved in the general discussion of early Portuguese expansion, why it was done, what effects it had. The caravelle is most closely associated with Portuguese voyages of exploration. Voyages to the Canary Islands were already made in the fourteenth century. Starting in the early fifteenth sailors set off from Portugal to push their way down the coast of Morocco. Throughout the greatest use of the caravelle was for carrying slaves from the Guinea coast to the newly colonized islands in the Caribbean. In the case of Portuguese shipbuilding, technical advance meant the creation of vessels capable of handling high value cargoes and thus of making economically profitable voyages to the Guinea coast.