Prester John (is a legendary Christian patriarch and king popular in European chronicles and tradition from the 12th through the 17th century. He was said to rule over a “Nestorian” (Church of the East) Christian nation lost amid the Muslims and pagans of the Orient, in which the Patriarch of the Saint Thomas Christians resided. […]
The Portuguese established the following settlements on the Gold Coast from January 21, 1482: Fort São Jorge da Mina de Ouro, modern Elmina: January 21, 1482 – August 28–9, 1637; this became the capital Fort Santo António de Axim, modern Axim: 1486 – 1642 Fort São Francisco Xavier, modern Osu, district of Accra: 1640–1642 Fort […]
In 1637 the Dutch West India Company detached 9 ships from the forces attacking the Portuguese in Brazil to send them against the Portuguese in Fort Elmina. They appointed Colonel Hans Coine to command the fleet which consisted of a total of 1,300 men. They landed on July 24 a short distance away from Cape […]
The Battle of Elmina was a minor conflict of the Dutch-Portuguese War, fought off the castle of São Jorge da Mina (Elmina) in the Portuguese Gold Coast between 1,200 Dutch soldiers of the Dutch West India Company landed by a fleet of 15 ships and the Portuguese garrison of the castle reinforced by 200 African allies put […]
São Jorge da Mina Castle or Elmina Castle was erected by Portuguese in 1482 as São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine) Castle, also known simply as Mina or Feitoria da Mina) in present-day Elmina, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast). It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, so […]
Of course, an armada could not just sail into an Indian city and expect to find enough supplies at hand in the city’s spice markets to load up five or ten large ships at once. Should it even try, it would likely provoke an instant scarcity and quickly drive up the prices of spices astronomically. […]
Throughout much of this, the third squadron of the Fifth Armada were still fruitlessly looking for each other in Africa. Diogo Fernandes Pereira had long disappeared from sight somewhere after Cape Verde, and had hurried on ahead by himself, while the other two ships, António de Saldanha and Rui Lourenço Ravasco, ended up by mistake […]