Alvise Cadamosto
His father was Giovanni da Mosto, a Venetian civil servant and merchant, and his mother Elizabeth Querini, from a leading patrician family of Venice.
This setback marred the future prospects of Cadamosto's career in Venice, and probably encouraged his spirit of adventure, hoping to restore his family name and fortune with great feats of his own.
In August 1454, at the age of 22, Alvise and his brother Antonio embarked on a Venetian merchant galley, captained by Marco Zen, destined for Flanders.
While waiting for the weather to improve, the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who had his seat nearby at Sagres, dispatched a couple of his commercial agents, led by his secretary Antão Gonçalves and the local Venetian consul Patrizio di Conti, to interest the stranded Venetian merchants in opening trade contracts for sugar and other goods from the prince's Madeira island.
Cadamosto cruised down the west African coast to the mouth of the Senegal River (which he calls the Rio do Senega, the first recorded use of that name.)
He does not seem to have stopped here, his destination being further south, at an anchorage point along the Grande Côte he called the Palma di Budomel (location uncertain, probably around Mboro, 15°09′42″N 16°55′45″W / 15.16167°N 16.92917°W / 15.16167; -16.92917).
Cadamosto spent nearly an entire month in an inland village, hosted by the prince Bisboror (Budomel's nephew), during which time he delighted in observing much about the local country and customs.
[12] His trade in Cayor completed, rather than return home with his human cargo, Cadamosto decided to cruise further down the coast, towards the Cape Vert peninsula.
[13] This was intended as a pure exploratory jaunt, "to discover new countries" beyond the Cape, more specifically the mysterious "kingdom called Gambra", where Prince Henry had heard (from earlier slave captives) that gold was found in abundance.
After a brief fishing stop on some unnamed islands (probably Îles des Madeleines[16]), Cadamosto, Usodimare and the Portuguese squire sailed south, down the Petite Côte until they reached the Sine-Saloum delta, a stretch inhabited by the Sereri (Serer people).
Cadamosto has nothing good to say about the Serer, characterizing them as savage idolaters "of great cruelty" (although we should note at this point his information is being drawn principally from Wolof interpreters).
[18] Cadamosto and Usodimare tried to put in there, but quickly decided against it when an interpreter they landed to make contact with the local Serer natives gathered on the beaches was killed on the spot.
[19] Urged by their frightened crews (and probably desirous to keep his human cargo intact – he had been carrying a shipload of slaves since Cayor), Cadamosto decided to call off venturing further and backed out of the river.
They engaged in some petty trade with the locals, in particular musk (invaluable to European perfumers), and imply they even acquired live specimens of African civet cat.
This is probably none other than the formidable 'Niumimansa', king of the Niumi-Banta of Barra region, whose rule extended over Niumi-Bato (Niominka) of the Diombos River shore, an old antagonist of Portuguese explorers.
Sailing south, the fleet reached a red-colored headland they named Capo Rosso (Cape Roxo, 12°20′8″N 16°42′47″W / 12.33556°N 16.71306°W / 12.33556; -16.71306, today marking the border between the republic of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau).
Cadamosto's patron, Prince Henry the Navigator, died in November 1460, and the monopoly on African trade reverted to the Portuguese crown and its operations were gradually transferred from Lagos to Lisbon.
Upon his return, Cadamosto managed to recover some of his family's property from his Querini relatives and, a couple of years later, married Elisabetta di Giorgio Venier, a rich noblewoman but of frail health – she died without bearing him a child.
[40] He returned to commerce, with trading interests as far afield as Spain, Alexandria, Syria and England, and with fortune and connections restored, carved out a diplomatic and administrative career for the Republic of Venice alongside it.
[43] Indeed, until the publication of João de Barros's Decadas da Asia in 1552 (which drew on a manuscript draft of Zurara's chronicle), Cadamosto's Navigazioni was the only published work circulating in Europe about the Portuguese discoveries.
Compared to the hagiographic Zurara and the fallible Gomes, historians have relished and lauded the reliability and detail provided by Cadamosto, giving a richer and clearer view of how the Henrican enterprise operated.
He describes the Mali Empire (Melli) and the Trans-Saharan trade, e.g. how Berber caravans carry the Saharan salt from desert pans like Teghaza (Tegazza) to frontier cities like Timbuctu (Tombutto).
He supplies a meticulously detailed eyewitness description of the Cayor village he stayed in 1455, the Damel's court, the people, customs, economy, local fauna and flora, etc.
[49] The details demonstrate Cadamosto's sheer curiosity – he describes the courtly customs, the houses, the use of cowrie shells as currency, the food and drink, the operation of local markets, livestock and cultivation, the production of palm wine, weapons, the dances and music, the reaction to European novelties (clothes, ships, cannon, bag-pipes).
Cadamosto attempts a similarly detailed account of the Mandinka people of the Gambia River, making particular note of their abundant cotton (rare in Wolof areas), although not nearly as complete, as he did not seem to venture much away from his boats there.
[50] He does not cease to marvel at the extraordinary wildlife which is far more plentiful around the Gambia, notably the hippopotamus (which he calls the "horse fish") and the largely unfamiliar African elephant (whose meat he was tempted to taste – a piece of which he salted and brought back to Portugal for Prince Henry himself; a preserved elephant's foot would be forwarded to Henry's sister, Isabella, Duchess of Burgundy.).
[52] Cadamosto was also long alleged to be the author of the Portolano del mare, a rutter with sailing directions for the Mediterranean Sea coasts, found in the library of St. Mark in Venice, with the publication stamp of Bernardo Rizzo in 1490.
