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Updated: May 11, 2025
The name of Labrador, which was soon established on all maps, had its origin in the fact that Gaspar Cortereal brought back with him a number of natives who were considered to be "admirably calculated for labour." In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the English began to take a prominent part in that maritime enterprise which was to lead to such remarkable results in the course of three centuries.
The German geographers do not appear to doubt, what some of our own have called in question, that the discovery and the name of this Peninsula, at least of its eastern shores, were owing to the Portuguese, Gaspar Cortereal, who, in the years 1500 and 1501, in an expedition fitted by the king to discover a western passage to India, reached the coast of Newfoundland about the 50th deg.
The other two ships did so; but after waiting a reasonable rime for Michael Cortereal, it was concluded that he was also lost, on which the other two ships returned to Lisbon, and no news was ever afterwards heard of the two brothers; but the country where they were lost is still called the land of Cortereal . In March 1501, John de Nova sailed from Lisbon with four ships for India.
By an act dated from Cintra the 12th of March, 1500, King Emmanuel made a gift to Gaspard Cortereal of any islands or terra firma which he might discover, and the king added this valuable information, that "already and at other times he had sought for them on his own account and at his own expense." For Gaspard Cortereal this was not his first essay.
When Vasco Annes, the last of the brothers Cortereal, who was captain and governor of the Islands of St. George and Terceira, and alcaide mõr of the town of Tavilla, became acquainted with these sad events, he resolved to fit out a vessel at his own cost, and to go and search for his brothers. The king, however, would not allow him to go, fearing to lose the last of this race of good servants.
From 1515 to 1529 several editions of the Italian collection of voyages, known as the Paesi novamente ritrovati, containing accounts of the discoveries of Columbus, Cortereal, Cabral and Vespucci in America, and in 1532 the Decades of Peter Martyr, were translated and published in Paris, in the French language.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century Gaspar Cortereal made several voyages to the northeastern shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, and brought back with him a number of natives whose sturdy frames gave European spectators the idea that they would make good labourers; and it was this erroneous conception, it is generally thought, gave its present name to the rocky, forbidding region which the Norse voyagers had probably called Helluland five hundred years before.
In a second voyage, his own immediate vessel was lost, and the other came home. Upon this, his brother Michael Cortereal went to seek him with three ships, fitted out at his own charges; and finding many creeks and rivers on the coast, the ships divided for the more effectual search, agreeing that they should all meet again at an appointed time and place.
Within four years of the discovery of the West India Islands by Columbus, Cabot had sailed past Newfoundland, and Vasco da Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and laid the foundation of the Portuguese empire in the East Indies. In 1499 Ojeda, one of the companions of Columbus, and Amerigo Vespucci discovered Brazil. In 1500 Cortereal, a Portuguese, explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
It is reported, that in the year 1500, one Gaspar Cortereal got a general license from King Emanuel to make discoveries in the new world. He fitted out two stout ships at his own cost, from the island of Tercera, and sailed to that part of the new world which is in 50° N. which has been since known by his name, and came home in safety to Lisbon.
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