Summary of Roger Crowley's Conquerors

By IRB Media

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#1 In August 1483, a group of weather-beaten sailors was hauling a stone pillar into an upright position on a headland on the coast of what is now Angola. It was five and a half feet tall and surmounted by an iron cross, fixed into a socket with molten lead.

#2 The Portuguese began to explore West Africa in the 1480s, and in the process, they began to delineate the shape of a continent. They were small expeditions led by a squire of Henrique’s household, and they carried a few soldiers.

#3 The Portuguese were also motivated to explore Africa by the desire to do great deeds. They were half English, and their cousin was Henry V, the victor at Agincourt. They lived by an honor code that would accompany the Portuguese across the world.

#4 The Portuguese were attracted to the idea of outflanking Islam’s grip on Europe economically and ideologically. They were hoping to trade directly with the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, and find the River of Gold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822543188

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Insights on Roger Crowley's Conquerors

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In August 1483, a group of weather-beaten sailors was hauling a stone pillar into an upright position on a headland on the coast of what is now Angola. It was five and a half feet tall and surmounted by an iron cross, fixed into a socket with molten lead.

#2

The Portuguese began to explore West Africa in the 1480s, and in the process, they began to delineate the shape of a continent. They were small expeditions led by a squire of Henrique’s household, and they carried a few soldiers.

#3

The Portuguese were also motivated to explore Africa by the desire to do great deeds. They were half English, and their cousin was Henry V, the victor at Agincourt. They lived by an honor code that would accompany the Portuguese across the world.

#4

The Portuguese were attracted to the idea of outflanking Islam’s grip on Europe economically and ideologically. They were hoping to trade directly with the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, and find the River of Gold.

#5

By the 1480s, other theories were circulating about a possible route to the Indies. The city was the frontier of exploration, and Portugal was attracting astronomers, scientists, and mapmakers.

#6

Columbus’s hopes were again shattered in 1485, when Cão returned from Africa with more disappointing news. The eastward trend of the land was illusory, just a large bay that quickly turned south. The coast gradually shifted from equatorial forest to low-lying barren sand hills, sparse vegetation, and semidesert.

#7

The Portuguese were relentless in their exploration of the world, and they died in large numbers doing so. They died from malaria and poisoned arrows, and they also abandoned their ships if they reached a rapids.

#8

The Portuguese notion of a river or land route across Africa, fueled by the suppositions of ancient geographers and the enticing gold-leaved pages of medieval cartographers, died hard. The belief that the great rivers of West Africa linked to the Nile, that the kingdom of Prester John was just out of reach across a continent whose width they had miscalculated, doomed the Portuguese to decades of effort.

#9

The Castle of St. George in Lisbon, Portugal, housed a sumptuous world map that was commissioned by King João’s father, Afonso, from a cartographer monk in Venice. It depicted Africa as a separate continent, and showed how little Europeans knew about the outside world.

#10

In 1486, João planned a triple-pronged approach to solving the India problem and locating Prester John. He would tackle the problem at both ends. A more focused expedition would sail past Cão’s pillars and attempt to round Africa; along the way, it would drop Portuguese-speaking native Africans to seek information about the legendary Christian king in the interior of the continent.

#11

In 1487, Dias was preparing his ships to sail down the west coast of Africa. He was