Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 40

In the 1400s and 1500s, Portuguese and Spanish ships established a trading supremacy throughout the world, with colonies and ports established in Asia, India, China, Africa and both North and South America. It was only a matter of time before they started looking around in the part of the world where Australia was, too. Spanish and Portuguese navigators went looking — and almost discovered Australia.

The Spanish were already prominent around the rim of the Pacific Ocean — in the Philippines, Chile, Peru, Mexico and California — while the Portuguese were in and around the Indian Ocean with stations at East Timor, Aceh, Goa and east Africa.

A Portuguese fellow by the name of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros led an expedition to find the ‘unknown southern land’ in 1605, and in 1606 he thought he’d found it — but it turned out to be the Pacific island of Vanuatu. Heading back, disappointed, the fleet got separated in a storm and de Quiros’s second in command, a Spaniard, Fernando Torres, led the bulk of the fleet to the Philippines.

En route, Torres was the first to find a passage between Papua New Guinea and Australia (the strait is now called Torres Strait). Torres and his fleet saw the northern part of what is now Queensland (Cape York) but he didn’t realise it. Assuming it was just another island, Torres sailed on.