Blog 2: Why Was This History Hidden?

JOURNEY 2 - SERIES 2 - BLOG 2 - A PART OF 3 BLOGS IN SERIES 2 - Reading time: 4 Mins

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Why didn’t Portugal follow up on Mendonça’s visit to Australia and New Zealand?

Portugal had strong reasons to keep discoveries secret. Treaties with Spain divided the world into competing spheres of influence, and revealing new lands risked losing them to rivals. Another major setback came with the catastrophic Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which destroyed many Portuguese maritime archives and exploration records.   This discussion adds another dimension to New Zealand's origin story: Were the Portuguese in New Zealand first?  These findings continue to shape debates surrounding New Zealand's First Settlers.  The evidence also contributes to broader discussions about New Zealand Early European Explorers.

Preamble: The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, was an agreement between Spain and Portugal to divide newly discovered lands outside of Europe. It established a line of demarcation, with Spain claiming lands to the west and Portugal to the east. This division aimed to prevent conflict between the two powers during their age of exploration and colonisation.

Treaty of Tordesillas 1494 Division Line Between Portugal and Spain

The Portuguese had strong incentives to keep any discoveries secret, given their intense rivalry with the Spanish and the territorial divisions imposed by treaties like Tordesillas and Zaragoza. Up until 1529, they may have feared how their findings would be interpreted under the Treaty of Tordesillas 1494. Once the Treaty of Zaragoza was negotiated in 1529, placing eastern Australia and New Zealand in Spain’s sphere, the Portuguese likely remained silent to avoid alerting their major competitors.

Portugal did not pursue further exploration of Australia and New Zealand after Mendonça’s voyage due to the Treaty of Zaragoza alongwith more pressing priorities in the following decades. The search for the Isles of Gold had yielded no success, and instead, Portugal focused on establishing colonies in Angola, Brazil, and Macau, as well as expanding its trade networks in India, Sri Lanka, and the Maluku (Spice) Islands. Since Mendonça had not identified wealth-generating opportunities in Australia or New Zealand, they were not seen as valuable additions to Portugal’s growing empire.

The Portuguese defeat in North Maluku in 1575 weakened their influence in Southeast Asia, allowing the Dutch to take over many of their trading posts. Portugal's presence was reduced to territories like Solor, Flores, Timor, and the Nusa Tenggara region, ending entirely with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.

Had Australia or New Zealand offered compelling economic opportunities, Portugal’s trajectory in the region might have been very different. But at the time, their ambitions lay elsewhere, in regions where wealth and trade were more tangible.

One major reason the Portuguese kept Mendonça’s discovery secret was to prevent other European powers from reaching the new land. Additionally, the Great Earthquake of 1755 destroyed Lisbon and the Casa da India, which held all maritime records.

Lisbon Earthquake 1755 where on a single day the city was hit with an earthquake, a tsunami, and destructive fires.

Fortunately, French spies managed to obtain Mendonça’s map of the east coast of Australia and the North Island New Zealand, either shortly after it was deposited in the Casa or through French pirates who raided returning Portuguese ships.

Our New Zealand history is written with a Dutch and English bias.

Our history is taught in terms of British and Dutch colonial empires with the role of the Portuguese treated as minimal. Australian and New Zealand historians relied on traditional centres of learning being London and Paris not Lisbon. New Zealand history has traditionally been written with a Dutch and English bias, leaving Portuguese evidence largely unexplored.

 At the beginning of the 17th century Dutch explorers began to uncover the secrets of the Australian continent. Willem Janszoon and his crew of the Duyfken made history in 1606 by being the first recorded Europeans to set foot on Australian soil at the Pennefather River on Cape York Peninsula. Many Dutch explorers followed later in the century and named the country ‘New Holland’.

During Portugal’s colonial period, did any Portuguese navigator (or in fact Indian much earlier) skilled in maritime navigation, and so close to Australian shores never venture south to explore the coastline and beyond? The map below shows how close the Portuguese were to Australia. Given their enthusiasm for exploration and profit, and in particular the lure of the ‘Illes of Gold’ not motivate them to come south to discover Australia?

Southeast Asia showing areas of Portuguese Influence

Currently, Abel Tasman is accepted as the first known European explorer to reach New Zealand in 1642. His expedition departed from Jakarta with the goal to find precious metals and suitable land for settlement. Tasman’s expedition was funded by the Dutch East India Company which has been created in 1602 by the Dutch to gain supremacy in the Asian trading sphere – particularly over the British and the Portuguese. The Dutch had progressively taken over from the Portuguese with a key event being the siege of Malacca, Malaysia in 1641.

To continue reading Series 2 we invite you to join us:

Blog 3: Portugal Before Tasman: The Evidence for an Earlier Portuguese Discovery