Gil Eannes Passes the Point of No Return at Cape Bojador—And Inaugurates a New Era in Exploration

Gil Eannes Passes the Point of No Return at Cape Bojador—And Inaugurates a New Era in Exploration

Overview

The name of Gil Eannes is hardly a household word; nor is that of the place associated with the Portuguese explorer, Cape Bojador. Nor indeed did Eannes discover the cape: the place had been known for many years. To journeyers of Eannes's time, Bojador represented an unbreachable barrier, a point of no return, and it was the achievement of this reluctant hero to pass that invisible boundary in 1434. In so doing, he opened new territory not only on land but in the mind, and thus made possible the golden age of Portuguese exploration, with all its glories and horrors.

Background

Located at 26°08' N, 14°30' W, or about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canary Islands, Cape Bojador—"the Bulging Cape"—juts intothe Atlantic from the west coast of Africa. Today it is part of the territory of Western Sahara, claimed by Morocco, in which it constitutes a central geographic mark, dividing the region between its northern third, Saguia el Hamra, and its southern two-thirds, Río de Oro.

The region's first exposure to the outside world probably occurred in about 600 B.C., when according to Herodotus (c.484-c.420 B.C.), Egypt's pharaoh Necho II (r.

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