Dr. Bret Devereaux

If you find someone who has something you want, you offer them the goods.

If they don't take the goods, maybe you do a little pillaging.

Maybe you do a little piracy thing.

These expeditions are usually in this period, that is in the early modern period, they were private enterprise.

So the king would contract somebody out, but that's like a businessman, usually an aristocrat who is then basically in charge.

He has a license to go out and do whatever.

And what we see beginning in the 1420s, so it begins quite early, is the steady progression of each set of voyages goes a little bit further, and they're mapping coastlines, and they're setting up small bases, these ports.

where they'd find a good harbor.

They would usually negotiate with the local ruler because they don't have a lot of force.

They'd get a trade concession and they'd be like, hey, we're going to drop a fort on this and we're going to create a small port facility, warehouse to store goods and so on.

And that will create a permanent trade connection.

and in turn create a stopover for the next way down.

And when you get this sort of description of Aldarian as he's working his way down the coast in progressive voyages, this is what I'm thinking of.

So they're in the Canaries relatively early.

They begin really working down the coast of Africa in earnest in the 1440s.

They're at Sao Tome in 1471.

They're at the Congo River in the 14, I think, 82.

They round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.

They get to the Horn of Africa in 1499.

They're in India in 1510, Indonesia the year after that, China in 1517.