Editing History of Saint Helena (section)

==Discovery and early years, 1502–1658 ==
By long tradition the island was sighted on 21 May 1502 by the four ships of the [[3rd Portuguese India Armada (Nova, 1501)|3rd Portuguese Armada]] commanded by [[Galicians|Galician]] navigator [[João da Nova]] during the return voyage to Lisbon, and that he named it Santa Helena after [[Saint Helena of Constantinople]]. This tradition has been reviewed by a 2022 paper<ref>Bruce, Ian. ‘The Discovery of St Helena’. Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena 51 (2022): 26–43. [http://sainthelenaisland.info/thediscoveryofsthelena_ianbruce.pdf]</ref> which concluded the Portuguese chronicles<ref>Cardozo, Manoel. ‘The Idea of History in the Portuguese Chroniclers of the Age of Discovery’. The Catholic Historical Review 49, no. 1 (1963): 1–19. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25017190#metadata_info_tab_contents]</ref> published at least 50 years later, are the sole primary source to the discovery. Although contradictory in describing other events, these chronicles almost unanimously claim João da Nova found St Helena sometime in 1502, although none quote the precise date.<ref>João de Barros, Manoel Severim de Faria, and João Baptista Lavanha, Da Asia de João de Barros e de Diogo de Couto, vol. I, book V, chapter X (Lisbon: Regia Officina Typografica, 1778), 477; [https://books.google.com/books?id=Epo2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA477]</ref><ref>Luiz de Figueiredo Falcão, Livro em que se contém toda a fazenda e real patrimonio dos reinos de Portugal, India, e ilhas adjacentes e outras particularidades (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1859), 138; [https://books.google.com/books?id=OzdJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA138]</ref><ref>Damião de Góis, Chronica do serenissimo senhor rei D. Manoel (Lisbon: Na officina de M. Manescal da Costa, 1749), 85; [https://books.google.com/books?id=0vTmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA85]</ref><ref>Barros, Faria, and Lavanha, Da Asia de João de Barro, I, book V, chapter X:118; [https://books.google.com/books?id=yqM2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA118]</ref><ref>Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, vol. 1 (En La Officina de Henrique Valente de Oliueira, 1666), 50; [https://books.google.com/books?id=WHo25-BfGO0C&pg=PA50]</ref><ref>Melchior Estacio Do Amaral, Tratado das batalhas e sucessos do Galeão Sanctiago com os Olandeses na Ilha de Sancta Elena: e da náo Chagas com os Vngleses antre as Ilhas dos Açores, 1604, 20; [https://books.google.com/books?id=XIWI6WIIGi4C&pg=PA18]</ref>

However, there are several reasons for doubting da Nova made this discovery. First, given that da Nova either returned on 11 September<ref>Barros, Faria, and Lavanha, Da Asia de João de Barro, I, book V, chapter X:477; Góis, Chronica do serenis-simo, 477</ref> or 13 September 1502<ref>Marino Sanuto, I Diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. Nicolò Barozzi, vol. 4 (Venice: F. Visentini, 1880), 486 [https://books.google.com/books?id=nfNRAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA485]</ref> it is usually assumed the [[Cantino planisphere]] completed by the following November<ref>Guglielmo Berchet, Fonti italiane per la storia della scoperta del Nuovo mondo, vol. 1, part III (Rome: Ministero della pubblica istruzione, 1892), 152 [https://books.google.com/books?id=14gyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA152]</ref> includes his discovery of [[Ascension Island]] (shown as an [[archipelago]] with one of six islands marked as "ilha achada e chamada Ascenssam"), yet this map fails to show St Helena.<ref>Duarte Leite, História da colonização portuguesa do Brasil, Chapter IX, O mais antigo mapa do Brasil, ed. Carlos Malheiro Dias, vol. 2 (Porto: Litografia Nacional, 1922), 251, [https://archive.org/details/histriadacoloniz1922sous/page/n13/mode/2up]</ref><ref>Harold Livermore, ‘Santa Helena, A Forgotten Portuguese Discovery’’, Estudos Em HOmenagem a Louis Antonio de Oliveira Ramos, 2004, 623–31, [http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/4999.pdf?iframe=true&width=80%&height=80%]
</ref> Second, when a section of the [[4th Portuguese India Armada (Gama, 1502)|Fourth Armada]] under the command of [[Estêvão da Gama (c. 1470)|Estêvão da Gama]] sighted and landed at St Helena the following year on 30 July 1503 its [[captain's clerk|scrivener]] [[Thomé Lopes]] regarded it as an unknown island yet named Ascension as one of five reference points to the new island’s location. On 12 July 1502, nearly three weeks before reaching St Helena, Lopes described how Estêvão da Gama’s ships met up with a section of the [[5th Portuguese India Armada (Albuquerque, 1503)|Fifth Armada]] led by [[Afonso de Albuquerque]] off the [[Cape of Good Hope]]. The latter left Lisbon about six months after João da Nova’s return so Albuquerque and his captains should all have known whether João da Nova had indeed found St Helena. An anonymous Flemish traveler on one of da Gama's ships reporting that bread and victuals were running short by the time they reached the Cape, so from da Gama's perspective there was a pressing need that he be told water and meat could be found at St Helena.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berjaeu |first=Jean Philibert |url=http://archive.org/details/calcoenadutchna00berjgoog |title=Calcoen: a Dutch narrative of the second voyage of Vasco da Gama to Calicut, printed at Antwerp circa 1504; |date=1874 |publisher=London, B. M. Pickering |others=University of Michigan}}</ref> The fact that nothing seems to have been said about the island, da Gama's scrivener Lopes regarding the island as unknown, again implies da Nova found Ascension but not St Helena. The 2022 paper also reviews cartographic evidence that St Helena and Ascension were known to the Spanish in 1500, before either João da Nova or Estêvão da Gama sailed for India. The suggestion that João da Nova discovered Tristan da Cunha naming it St Helena is discounted.<ref>George E. Nunn, The Mappemonde of Juan de La Cosa: A Critical Investigation of Its Date (Jenkintown: George H. Beans library, 1934</ref><ref>Edzer Roukema, ‘Brazil in the Cantino Map’, Imago Mundi 17 (1963): 15.</ref>

If João da Nova indeed found St Helena, a separate 2015 paper has reviewed another tradition that he did so on 21 May 1502.<ref>Ian Bruce, 'St Helena Day', Wirebird The Journal of the Friends of St Helena, no. 44 (2015): 32–46.[http://sainthelenaisland.info/sthelenadayarticleianbruce.pdf]</ref> This date appears to have first been suggested by [[Jan Huyghen van Linschoten]]  in a book published in [[Holland]] in 1596.<ref>Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huygen Van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien, inhoudende een corte beschryvinghe der selver landen ende zee-custen... waer by ghevoecht zijn niet alleen die conterfeytsels van de habyten, drachten ende wesen, so van de Portugesen aldaer residerende als van de ingeboornen Indianen. (C. Claesz, 1596). [https://books.google.com/books?id=UbVOAAAAcAAJ]</ref> This described how his ships left St Helena on 21 May 1589, this being both the feast of Saint Helena and [[Whitsunday]]. At first sight, this statement seems to be a contradiction - the [[Roman Catholic Church]] certainly celebrated Whitsunday that day<ref>[http://5ko.free.fr/en/easter.php?y=16 Side-by-side Easter calendar reference for the 16th century]</ref> but their feast-day of Saint Helena was on 18 August. Linschoten's statement did not fit in with the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] either - this faith certainly marked Saint Helena on 21 May but in 1589 celebrated Whitsun a week later, on 28 May. The paper suggested the solution to this apparent paradox was the fact that by the time his book was published in 1596 Linschoten had converted to the Protestant [[Dutch Reformed Church]].<ref>Nocentelli, Carmen. Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, 70 [https://books.google.com/books?id=bQfrJnFf6bYC&pg=PA70]</ref> This faith celebrated Whitsunday on the same day as Catholics while Saint Helena was marked on 21 May, the same day as the Orthodox Church. Quite apart from the fact that the discoverers were Catholics, Linschoten failed to realise the impossibility that the island was named after a Protestant feast-day, it being found more than a decade before the [[Reformation]] and start of Protestantism. An alternative discovery date of 3 May on the Catholic feast-day celebrating the finding of the [[True Cross]] by [[Saint Helena]] in [[Jerusalem]], as quoted by Odoardo Duarte Lopes in 1591<ref>Duarte Lopes and Filippo Pigafetta, Relatione del Reame di Congo et delle circonvicine contrade tratta dalli scritti & ragionamenti di Odoardo Lope[S] Portoghese / per Filipo Pigafetta con disegni vari di geografiadi pianti, d’habiti d’animali, & altro. (Rome: BGrassi, 1591).[https://books.google.com/books?id=-aurfsHGclwC]</ref> and by [[Sir Thomas Herbert]] in 1638,<ref>Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Africa et Asia the Great: Especially Describing the Famous Empires of Persia and Industant as Also Divers Other Kingdoms in the Orientall Indies and I’les Adjacent (Jacob Blome & Richard Bishop, 1638), 353.[https://books.google.com/books?id=mlJBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA353]</ref> is suggested as historically more credible than the Protestant date of 21 May.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Saint Helena {{!}} island, Atlantic Ocean|language=en|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|url=http://www.britannica.com/place/Saint-Helena-island-South-Atlantic-Ocean|access-date=2020-09-17}}</ref> The paper observes that if da Nova made the discovery on 3 May 1502, he may have been inhibited from naming the island Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross) because [[Pedro Álvares Cabral]] had already assigned that same name to the Brazilian coastline, which he thought to be a large island, on 3 May 1500.<ref>Corrêa and Felner, Lendas da India, [Edited by R. J. de Lima Felner], Vol 1 Part 1:152.[https://books.google.com/books?id=YmVKAAAAYAAJ&dq=editions:LCCN05022145&pg=PA152]</ref> News of Cabral's discovery reached Lisbon directly from South America before da Nova's fleet set off on the voyage to India in 1501. If da Nova knew the True Cross name had already been assigned, the most obvious and plausible alternative name for him to give the island was "Santa Helena".

The long tradition that João da Nova built a chapel from one of his wrecked carracks has been shown to be based on a misreading of the records.<ref>Schulenburg, Alexander H. ‘Joao Da Nova and the Lost Carrack’. Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena 16 (Autumn 1997): 19–23.[https://www.friendsofsthelena.com/upload/files/Joao_da_Nova_and_the_Lost_Carrack.pdf Full Paper]</ref>

The Portuguese found it uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and fresh water. They imported livestock (mainly [[goat]]s), fruit trees, and vegetables, built a chapel and one or two houses, and left their sick, suffering from [[scurvy]] and other ailments, to be taken home, if they recovered, by the next ship, but they formed no permanent settlement.{{sfn|Antrobus|Cana|1911|p=8}} The island thereby became crucially important for the collection of food and as a rendezvous point for homebound voyages from Asia. The island was directly in line with the [[Trade Winds]] which took ships rounding the [[Cape of Good Hope]] into the [[South Atlantic]]. St&nbsp;Helena was much less frequently visited by Asia-bound ships, the northern trade winds taking ships towards the South American continent rather than the island. An analysis has been published of the Portuguese ships arriving at St Helena in the period 1502–1613.<ref>Rowlands, Beau W. ‘Ships at St Helena, 1502-1613’. Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena No 28 (Spring 2004): 5–10. [https://www.friendsofsthelena.com/upload/files/Ships_at_St_Helena,_1502-1613.pdf Full Paper]</ref>

It is a popular belief that the Portuguese managed to keep the location of this remote island a secret until almost the end of the 16th century. However, both the location of the island and its name were quoted in a Dutch book in 1508, which described a 1505 Portuguese expedition led by [[Francisco de Almeida]] from the East Indies: ''"[o]n the twenty-first day of July we saw land, and it was an island lyng six hundred and fifty miles from the Cape, and called Saint Helena, howbeit we could not land there. [...] And after we left the island of Saint Helena, we saw another island two hundred miles from there, which is called [[Ascension Island|Ascension]]".''<ref>''The Voyage from Lisbon to India'', 1505–06, being an account and journal by Albericus Vespuccius, translated from the contemporary Flemish [by George Frederick Barwick and Janet M. E. Barwick], and edited with prologue and notes by C. H. Coote. [With the text of the original entitled "Die reyse va Lissebone" in facsimile.], Published by B. F. Stevens in 1894.</ref> Additional references to Saint Helena as a rendezvous point were publicly documented in the early 16th century, such as the account of [[Dürer's Rhinoceros]]'s voyage to Portugal in 1515.<ref>{{cite book|last=Strobel|first=Christopher|title=The Global Atlantic: 1400-1900|publisher=Taylor & Francis|date=2015-02-11|page=117|isbn=978-1317525523}}</ref>

Also, [[Lopo Homem|Lopo Homem-Reineis]] published the [[Miller Atlas|''Atlas Universal'']] about 1519 which clearly showed the locations of St&nbsp;Helena and Ascension. The first residents all arrived on Portuguese vessels. Its first known permanent resident was Portuguese, [[Fernão Lopes (soldier)|Fernão Lopes]] (also ''Fernando Lopes'') who had turned traitor in India and had been mutilated by order of [[Alphonso d'Albuquerque]], the Governor of [[Old Goa|Goa]].<ref>Beau W. Rowlands, Fernão Lopes: A South Atlantic 'Robinson Crusoe' (Winchester: George Mann Publications, 2007)</ref> Fernão Lopes preferred being marooned to returning to Portugal in his maimed condition,{{sfn|Antrobus|Cana|1911|p=8}} and lived on Saint Helena from about 1516. By royal command, Lopes returned to Portugal about 1526 and then travelled to [[Rome]], where [[Pope Clement VII]] granted him an audience. Lopes returned to Saint Helena, where he died in 1545.

When the island was discovered, it was covered with unique indigenous vegetation. Claims that on discovery the island "was entirely covered with forests, the trees drooping over the tremendous precipices that overhang the sea"<ref>Melliss, J. C., St&nbsp;Helena: A Physical, Historical and Topographical Description of the Island Including Its Geology, Fauna, Flora, and Meteorology, London: L. Reeve and Company</ref> have been questioned.<ref>Benson, C.W. (1950). A contribution to the ornithology of St&nbsp;Helena and other notes from a sea voyage. Ibis 92, 75–83. / Decelle, J., 1970. Vegetation. In La Faune terrestre de l'isle Sainte Helene, primiere partie. Musee Royal de I'Afrique Central – Tervuren, Belgique – Annates Serie IN-8°, Sciences Zoologiques, 181:37 p. 44</ref> It is argued that the presence of an endemic plover and several endemic insects adapted to the barren and arid coastal portions of the island are strong indications that these conditions existed before the island was discovered. Also, the earliest description of the island by Thome Lopez, who sighted the island on 3 July 1503, specifically states that coastal trees were absent: ". . . nor did we see any kind of trees, but it was completely green . . ."<ref>A.H. Schulenburg, 'The discovery of St Helena: the search continues'. Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena, Issue 24 (Spring 2002), pp. 13–19.</ref> Rather than trees, this eyewitness account suggests the presence of low-height scrub adapted to the coastal desert conditions. Nevertheless, St&nbsp;Helena certainly once had a rich and dense inland forest. The loss of endemic vegetation, birds and other fauna, much of it within the first 50 years of discovery, can be attributed to the impact of humans and their introduction of goats, pigs, dogs, cats, rats as well as the introduction of non-endemic birds and vegetation into the island.

Sometime before 1557 five people (two male slaves from [[Mozambique]], one from [[Java]] and two women) escaped from a ship and remained hidden on the island for many years, long enough for their numbers to rise to twenty. Bermudez, the Patriarch of [[Ethiopia|Abyssinia]] landed at St&nbsp;Helena in 1557 on a voyage to Portugal, remaining on the island for a year. Three [[Japan]]ese ambassadors on an embassy to the Pope also visited St&nbsp;Helena in 1583.

Strong circumstantial evidence supports the idea that [[Francis Drake|Sir Francis Drake]] located the island on the final lap of his circumnavigation of the world (1577–1580).<ref>''Drake and St&nbsp;Helena'', privately published by Robin Castell in 2005</ref> It is suspected this explains how the location of the island was certainly known to the English only a few years later, for example, [[William Barrett (consul)|William Barrett]] (who died in 1584 as English consul at Aleppo, Syria)<ref>The Principall Navigations Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation. By Richard Hakluyt. Imprinted at London, 1589. A photo-lithographic facsimile, with an introduction by David Beers Quinn and Raleigh Ashlin Skelton, and with a new index by Alison Quinn</ref> stated the island was "sixteen degrees to the South", which is precisely the correct latitude. Again, it is also clear that the Elizabethan adventurer [[Edward Fenton]] at the very least knew the approximate location of the island in 1582.<ref>The Troublesome Voyage of Captain Edward Fenton 1582–1583, Narrative & Documents edited by E.R.G.Taylor, Hakluyt Society Second Series CXIII, 1957</ref>

It therefore seems unlikely that when [[Thomas Cavendish]] arrived in 1588 during his [[Thomas Cavendish's circumnavigation|first attempt to circumnavigate the world]], he was the first Englishman to land at the island. He stayed for 12 days and described the valley (initially called Chapel Valley) where Jamestown is situated as "''a marvellous fair and pleasant valley, wherein divers handsome buildings and houses were set up, and especially one which was a church, which was tiled, and whitened on the outside very fair, and made with a porch, and within the church at the upper end was set an alter.... This valley is the fairest and largest low plot in all the island, and it is marvellous sweet and pleasant, and planted in every place with fruit trees or with herbs.... There are on this island thousands of goats, which the Spaniards call cabritos, which are very wild: you shall sometimes see one or two hundred of them together, and sometimes you may behold them going in a flock almost a mile long.''"

Another English seaman, Captain Abraham Kendall, visited Saint Helena in 1591, and in 1593 Sir [[James Lancaster]] stopped at the island on his way home from the East.{{sfn|Antrobus|Cana|1911|p=8}} Once St&nbsp;Helena's location was more widely known, English ships of war began to lie in wait in the area to attack Portuguese India [[carracks]] on their way home. As a result, in 1592 [[Philip II of Spain]] and I of Portugal (1581–1598) ordered the annual fleet returning from [[Goa]] on no account to touch at St&nbsp;Helena. In developing their Far East trade, the Dutch also began to frequent the island. One of their first visits was in 1598 when an expedition of two vessels piloted by [[John Davis (English explorer)]] attacked a large Spanish Caravel, only to be beaten off and forced to retreat to [[Ascension Island]] for repairs.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}} The Italian merchant [[Francesco Carletti]] claimed in his autobiography he was robbed by the Dutch when sailing on a Portuguese ship in 1602.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carletti |first=Francesco |url=http://archive.org/details/myvoyagearoundwo0000unse |title=My voyage around the world |date= |publisher=Pantheon Books |others=Internet Archive |year=1964 |location=New York |pages=230–240 |language=en |translator-last=Weinstock |translator-first=Herbert |orig-date=16th century}}</ref>

The Portuguese and Spanish soon gave up regularly calling at the island, partly because they used ports along the West African coast, but also because of attacks on their shipping, desecration to their chapel and images, destruction of their livestock and destruction of plantations by Dutch and English sailors. In 1603 Lancaster again visited Saint Helena on his return from the first voyage equipped by the [[British East India Company]]. In 1610, by which time most Dutch and English ships visited the island on their home voyage, [[François Pyrard de Laval]] deplored the deterioration since his last visit in 1601, describing damage to the chapel and destruction of fruit trees by cutting down trees to pick the fruit. While Thomas Best, commander of the tenth [[British East India Company]] expedition reported plentiful supplies of lemons in 1614, only 40 lemon trees were observed by the traveller [[Peter Mundy]] in 1634.

The [[Dutch Republic]] formally made claim to St&nbsp;Helena in 1633, although there is no evidence that they ever occupied, colonised or fortified it. A Dutch territorial stone, undated but certainly later than 1633, is presently kept in the island's archive office. By 1651, the Dutch had mainly abandoned the island in favour of their colony founded at the Cape of Good Hope.