The Difficult Beginnings

Abstract

From the early fifteenth century onward, the westward voyages undertaken by various European nations were aimed at economic expansion. As Vitorino Magalhäes Godinho showed, the fifteenth-century geographic discoveries largely followed the exhaustion of Northern European fishing grounds, which forced the fleets to explore more southern seas.¹ The southern routes, in turn, led to the discovery of the Madeira, Azores, and Canary Islands.² Volcanic eruptions in Greenland and Denmark’s decision to close its canal deprived Europe of supplies just as it was expanding, and when the Church was requiring Catholics to eat fish 166 days a year. During the reign of the Catholic monarchs, Spain largely subsisted on fish. Basque and Cantabrian fishermen caught whale and cod, leaving from the famous “seven ports” of Castile: Santander, Laredo, Castro Urdiales, Vitoria,³ Bermeo, Guetaria, San Sebastian, and Fuenterrabia. The Galician and Andalusian fleets caught smaller fish. But Europeans did not just need fish. They also wanted spices with which to preserve their foods, luxury items to decorate their homes and churches, and slaves who would till the fields and whose services might impress their neighbors.