Editing Saint Helena (section)

===Discovery===
[[File:Joao da Nova.jpg|thumb|left|[[João da Nova]], a Galician navigator serving the [[Portuguese Empire]], was the first person to sight Saint Helena.]]
According to long-established 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 [[João da Nova]], a [[Kingdom of Galicia|Galician]] navigator in the service of Portugal, during his return voyage to Lisbon, who named it Santa Helena after [[Saint Helena of Constantinople]]. This tradition was 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 that the Portuguese chronicles<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25017190 | jstor=25017190 | title=The Idea of History in the Portuguese Chroniclers of the Age of Discovery | last1=Cardozo | first1=Manoel | journal=The Catholic Historical Review | date=1963 | volume=49 | issue=1 | pages=1–19 }}</ref> published at least fifty years after the sighting are the sole primary source for the discovery. Although contradictory in describing other events, these chronicles almost unanimously claim that João da Nova found Saint Helena sometime in 1502, although none of them gives a 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 to doubt that da Nova made this discovery:

#Given that da Nova returned either 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 on 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 that 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 Saint 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%]''
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#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 Saint 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 for the new island's location. On 12 July 1503, nearly three weeks before reaching Saint 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 had 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 reported 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 that water and meat could be found at Saint Helena.<ref>Jean Philibert Berjeau, trans., Calcoen. A Dutch Narrative of the Second Voyage of Vasco Da Gama to Calicut, Printed at Antwerp circa 1504 (London: Basil Montague Pickering, 1874), 37, [https://archive.org/details/calcoenadutchna00berjgoog/page/n38/mode/2up]</ref> But nothing seems to have been said about the island, and Lopes regarded the island as unknown. This again implies that da Nova found Ascension but not St Helena.

The 2022 paper also reviews cartographic evidence that Saint 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 da Nova discovered Tristan da Cunha and named it Saint 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>

A 2015 paper notes that 21 May is the feast day of St Helena in the Eastern Orthodox and most [[Protestant]] churches, but the Roman Catholic one is in August, and the day and the month were first quoted in 1596 by [[Jan Huyghen van Linschoten]], who was probably mistaken, because the island was discovered several decades before the [[Reformation]] and the start of Linschoten's Protestant faith.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.goarch.org/en/special/listen_learn_share/constantineandhelen/learn/ |title=May 21: Feast of the Holy Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles |publisher=Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071107082709/http://www.goarch.org/en/special/listen_learn_share/constantineandhelen/learn/ |archive-date=7 November 2007 |access-date=2008-03-28 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><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] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016033235/http://sainthelenaisland.info/sthelenadayarticleianbruce.pdf|date=16 October 2015}}</ref><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://web.archive.org/web/20180502140054/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UbVOAAAAcAAJ].</ref><ref>Jan Huygen van Linschoten, John Huighen Van Linschoten, His Discours of Voyages into Ye Easte [and] West Indies: Divided into Foure Bookes (London: John Wolfe, 1598).[https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PA172]</ref> An alternative discovery date of 3 May is suggested as being historically more credible; it is the Catholic feast day of the finding of the [[True Cross]] by Saint Helena in [[Jerusalem]], and cited by Odoardo Duarte Lopes<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://web.archive.org/web/20180502064521/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-aurfsHGclwC]</ref> and [[Sir Thomas Herbert, 1st Baronet|Sir Thomas Herbert]].<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), [https://books.google.com/books?id=mlJBAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA353 353].</ref>

When Linschoten arrived at the island on 12 May 1589, he reported seeing carvings made by visiting seamen on a fig tree that were dated as early as 1510.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Linschoten |first1=Jan Huygen van |first2=Arthur Coke |last2=Burnell |first3=Pieter Anton |last3=Tiele |title=The voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies : from the old English translation of 1598 : the first book, containing his description of the East |location=London|publisher=Hakluyt Society |date=1885 |url=https://archive.org/details/voyagejohnhuygh02tielgoog/page/n279 |via=The Internet Archive}}</ref> The Portuguese probably planted saplings rather than mature trees, and for these to be sufficiently large by 1510 to carry carvings suggests the plants were shipped to the island and planted there some years earlier, possibly within a few years of discovery.

A third discovery story, told by 16th-century historian [[Gaspar Correia]], holds that the island was found by Portuguese nobleman and warrior Dom [[Garcia de Noronha]], who sighted the island on his way to India in late 1511 or early 1512. His pilots entered the island onto their charts, and this event likely led to the island being used as a regular stopover for rest and replenishment for ships en route from India to Europe, from that date until well into the 17th century.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Portuguese in India and other studies, 1500–1700 (Ch. XVII – The Portuguese and Saint Helena)|last=Disney|first=A.R.|publisher=Routledge|year=2016|isbn=978-1-138-49378-0|pages=217–219}}</ref> An analysis has been published of the Portuguese ships arriving at Saint Helena in the period 1502–1613.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Rowlands |first=Beau W. |title=Ships at St Helena, 1502-1613 |journal=Wirebird: The Journal of the Friends of St Helena |issue=28 |date=Spring 2004 |pages=5–10 |url=https://www.friendsofsthelena.com/upload/files/Ships_at_St_Helena,_1502-1613.pdf}}</ref>