Vicente Yáñez Pinzón Reaches the Amazon Mouth (1500)

Vicente Yáñez Pinzón’s voyage of 1499–1500 made him the first European known to reach the coast of Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon River. Sailing from Spain with four caravels, he made landfall in January 1500, about three months before Pedro Álvares Cabral, and then found a sea of fresh water where the Amazon pours into the Atlantic. Because the land lay in Portugal’s zone, however, Spain made little use of his discovery.

Background

Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, born around 1462 in Palos de la Frontera in Andalusia, came from a family of experienced mariners. He commanded the Niña on Columbus’s first voyage of 1492, while his elder brother Martín Alonso Pinzón captained the Pinta.

By 1499 the Spanish crown was licensing voyages by captains other than Columbus to explore the coast he had found on his third voyage. Pinzón obtained such a licence and, largely at his own and his family’s expense, fitted out four caravels at Palos.

The voyage

Pinzón sailed from Palos in November 1499. After stopping in the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, he steered further south-west than earlier Spanish fleets and crossed the equator, becoming one of the first Spanish captains to sail south of it in the western Atlantic.

On 26 January 1500 the fleet reached land at a cape that Pinzón named Santa María de la Consolación. Its identity is disputed: the Cape of Santo Agostinho in Pernambuco is the traditional candidate, while some historians favour a point further north-west, near present-day Fortaleza in Ceará. Pinzón took possession of the land for Castile, but encounters with local people were hostile and several of his men were killed in a clash.

The ships then followed the coast north-west. In February 1500 they reached a place where the sea itself was fresh. This was the outflow of the Amazon, which discharges more water than any other river on Earth and freshens the ocean far offshore. Pinzón named it Santa María de la Mar Dulce, the freshwater sea, and explored among the islands of the estuary, where he seized several dozen Indigenous people as captives.

The return

From the Amazon the fleet continued north-west along the coast of the Guianas to the Orinoco and the Gulf of Paria, which Columbus had visited in 1498. It then sailed to Hispaniola and on through the Bahamas, where a storm in July 1500 sank two of the four ships with their crews.

The surviving caravels reached Palos on 30 September 1500. The voyage brought back brazilwood and some captives but little profit. Another Spanish captain, Diego de Lepe, followed close behind Pinzón along the same coast in early 1500.

Consequences

Pinzón’s discoveries posed a problem for Spain. Under the Treaty of Tordesillas, most of the coast he had visited lay on the Portuguese side of the line. When Pedro Álvares Cabral landed further south in April 1500, Portugal claimed the land, and Spain did not seriously contest it.

Pinzón’s voyage nonetheless appeared on early maps, including the Juan de la Cosa map of 1500, which marks the coast he and Lepe had followed. The crown rewarded him in 1505 with an appointment as governor of Puerto Rico, though he does not appear to have taken up the post. In 1508–1509 he sailed with Juan Díaz de Solís along the coast of Central America. He died around 1514.

The Amazon itself was not travelled by Europeans until 1541–1542, when Francisco de Orellana descended the river from the Andes to the Atlantic. Reports of fighting women warriors on that expedition, recalling the Amazons of Greek legend, gave the river its modern name.

Myths and facts

Myth: Cabral was the first European in Brazil. Pinzón reached the coast first, and Diego de Lepe arrived soon after him. Cabral’s importance lies in the Portuguese claim that followed.

Fact: the landfall site is still debated. Brazilian and Spanish historians have argued for over a century about where Pinzón first touched land, and no consensus has been reached.

Timeline

• 1492, August: Pinzón sails as captain of the Niña on Columbus’s first voyage.
• 1499, November: Pinzón leaves Palos with four caravels.
• 1500, 26 January: The fleet reaches the Brazilian coast at Santa María de la Consolación.
• 1500, February: Pinzón reaches the freshwater sea at the mouth of the Amazon.
• 1500, 22 April: Cabral lands further south and claims Brazil for Portugal.
• 1500, July: A storm in the Bahamas sinks two of Pinzón’s ships.
• 1500, 30 September: The surviving ships return to Palos.

Why it matters

Pinzón’s voyage showed that a long continental coastline stretched south of the equator, and it brought Europeans for the first time to the mouth of the world’s greatest river. It also shows how the Treaty of Tordesillas shaped history: a Spanish discovery became Portuguese territory, which is why Brazil is Portuguese-speaking today.