According to the theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia, early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia, between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of the Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon, in 1606 on board the , who is generally considered to be the first European discoverer. While lacking generally accepted evidence, this theory is based on the following: The Dieppe maps, a group of 16th-century French world maps, depict a large landmass between Indonesia and Antarctica. Labelled as Java la Grande, this landmass carries French, Portuguese, and Gallicized Portuguese placenames, and has been interpreted by some as corresponding to Australia's northwestern and eastern coasts. The proximity of Portuguese colonies in Southeast Asia from , particularly Portuguese Timor, which is approximately from the Australian coast. Various antiquities found on Australian coastlines, claimed by some to be relics of early Portuguese voyages to Australia but which are generally regarded as evidence of Makassan visit to Northern Australia. Precedence for earliest non-Aboriginal visits to Australia has also been claimed for China (Admiral Zheng), France, Spain, and even Phoenicia, also all without generally accepted evidence.
Historiography
Development of the theory in the 19th century Although Scotsman Alexander Dalrymple wrote on this topic in 1786,Alexander Dalrymple in 1786, in Memoir Concerning the Chagos and Adjacent Islands, cited in it was Richard Henry Major, Keeper of Maps at the British Museum, who in 1859 first made significant efforts to prove the Portuguese visited Australia before the Dutch. A group of mid-16th-century French maps, the Dieppe maps, formed his main evidence. However, there is widespread agreement today that his approach to historical research was flawed and his claims often exaggerated. Writing in an academic journal in 1861, Major announced the discovery of a map by Manuel Godinho de Eredia,See a copy at National Library of Australia. North Western Australia – cartographic material: Manoel Godinho de Heredia. 1601–1610. MAP RM3864. claiming it proved a Portuguese visit to North Western Australia, possibly dated to 1601.Major, R. H. (1861) writing in Archaeologica Vol xxxviii, p. 459, cited in . Note also the map's claim: "Nuca/Antara discovered in 1601 by Manuel Godinho de Erédia." However, the map also clearly identifies the land discovered and named by the Dutch – "Endracht ou Cõcordia", named after Dirk Hartog's ship Eendracht of 1616. In fact, this map's origins are from 1630. On finally locating and examining Erédia's writings, Major realised the planned voyage to lands south of Sumba in Indonesia had never taken place. Major published a retraction in 1873, but his reputation was destroyed. Major's interpretation was examined critically by the Portuguese historian Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins, who concluded that neither the patalie regiã on the 1521 world map of Antoine de La Sale nor the Jave la Grande on the Dieppe Maps was evidence of Australia having been visited by Portuguese visitors in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but that this feature had found its way on to the maps from descriptions of islands of the Sunda archipelago beyond Java collected from native informants by the Portuguese.J. P. de Oliveira Martins, «Godinho de Eredia», Portugal nos Mares: Ensaios de Critica, Historia e Geographia, Lisboa, Bertrand, 1889 (repr. Parceria Antonio Maria Pereira, 1924), Vol.I, pp. 182–242.
In 1895, George Collingridge produced his The Discovery of Australia, an attempt to trace all European efforts to find the Great Southern Land to the time of Cook, and also introducing his interpretation of the theory of Portuguese visitation of Australia, using the Dieppe maps. Fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, Collingridge was inspired by the publicity surrounding the arrival in Australia of copies of several Dieppe maps, which had been purchased by libraries in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. Despite a number of errors regarding place names, and "untenable" theories to explain misplacement on the Dieppe maps, his book was a remarkable effort considering it was written at a time when many maps and documents were inaccessible and document photography was still in its infancy. Collingridge's theory did not find public approval, however, and Professors G. Arnold Wood and Ernest Scott publicly criticised much of what he had written. Collingridge produced a shorter version of this book for use in New South Wales schools; The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea. It was not used.
Edward Heawood also provided early criticism of the theory. In 1899 he noted that the argument for the coasts of Australia having been reached early in the 16th century rested almost entirely on the supposition that at that time, "a certain unknown map-maker drew a large land, with indications of definite knowledge of its coasts, in the quarter of the globe in which Australia is placed". He pointed out that "a difficulty arises from the necessity of supposing at least two separate voyages of discovery, one on each coast, though absolutely no record of any such exists". He added: "The difficulty, of course, has been to account for this map in any other way". The delineation of Japan in the Dieppe maps, the insertion in them of an Isle des Géants in the southern Indian Ocean, and of Catigara on the west coast of South America, and in their later versions the depiction of a fictitious coastline of a southern continent with numerous bays and rivers, showed the slight reliance to be placed on them with respect to outlying parts of the world and the influence still exercised on their makers by the old writers". He concluded: "This should surely make us hesitate to base so important assumption as that of a discovery of Australia in the sixteenth century on their unsupported testimony".Edward Heawood, "Was Australia Discovered in the Sixteenth Century?", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 14, No. 4, October 1899, pp. 421–426.
Kenneth McIntyre and development of the theory in the 20th century
The development of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia owes much to Melbourne lawyer Kenneth McIntyre's 1977 book, The Secret Discovery of Australia; Portuguese ventures 200 years before Cook. McIntyre's book was reprinted in an abridged paperback edition in 1982 and again in 1987, and it was found on school history reading lists by the mid-1980s. According to Tony Disney, McIntyre's theory influenced a generation of history teachers in Australian schools.Disney, T. '"One Coin does not a rewrite make" The Herald Sun, 3 January 1997. Disney is Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe University. A TV documentary was made of the book in the 1980s by Michael ThornhillMurray, S(1994). Australian Cinema. p. 333. Allen & Unwin/AFC. St.Leonards, NSW. and McIntyre, and the theory featured in many positive newspaper reviews and articles over the next twenty years.See for example anon., "Expert maps course of the Portuguese". The Age 6 January 1976 and Baskett, S. "Old Coin set to remake history" The Herald Sun, 3 January 1997 Australian history school textbooks also reflect the evolution of acceptance of his theories.See for example one of the earliest; Stewart, D. Investigating Australian History. Heinemann Educational Australia. 1985, pp. 30–38. The support of Helen Wallis, Curator of Maps at the British Library during her visits to Australia in the 1980s seemed to add academic weight to McIntyre's theory.Sullivan, J. "New clues put old discovery on the map". The Age. 12/5/1981. The article summarises Wallis's public lecture at the University of Melbourne in May 1981. In 1987, the Australian Minister for Science, Barry Jones, launching the Second Mahogany Ship Symposium in Warrnambool, said: "I read Kenneth McIntyre's important book... as soon as it appeared in 1977. I found its central argument... persuasive, if not conclusive."Jones, B, "Early European Exploration of Australia" in The Mahogany ship. Relic or Legend? Proceedings of the Second Australian Symposium on the Mahogany Ship (Ed. Potter, B).p.3 Warrnambool Institute Press, 1992, The appearance of variant but essentially supporting theories in the late 1970s and early 1980s by other writers, including Ian McKigganMcKiggan, I. "The Portuguese expedition to Bass Strait in A.D. 1522" in Journal of Australia Studies, Vol. 1, 1977 pp. 2–22. and Lawrence Fitzgerald, also added credence to the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. In 1994, McIntyre expressed pleasure that his theory was gaining acceptance in Australia: "It is gradually seeping through. The important thing is that... it has been on the school syllabus, and therefore students have... read about it. They in due course become teachers and... they will then tell their students and so on".McIntyre, K.G. (1994) Quoted by Peter Schumpeter "Great Questions of Our Time Series; Who Discovered Australia?" The Age, 26 January 1994
Purported evidence and arguments
Interpretation of the Dieppe Maps
The central plank of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia suggests the continent called Jave la Grande, which uniquely appears on a series of 16th-century French world maps, the Dieppe school of maps, represents Australia. Speaking in 1982, Kenneth McIntyre described the Dieppe maps as "the only evidence of Portuguese discovery of Eastern Australia". He stressed this to point out "that the Mahogany Ship, and the Geelong Keys, and other things of that sort, are not part of the proof that the Portuguese discovered Australia. It is the other way around. The Dieppe maps prove (sic) that the Portuguese discovered Australia, and this throws a fierce bright light on our mysteries such as the Mahogany Ship". Later writers on the same topic take the same approach of concentrating primarily on "Jave la Grande" as it appears in the Dieppe maps, including Fitzgerald, McKiggan and most recently, Peter Trickett. Critics of the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia, including A. Ariel, M. Pearson, W. A. R. Richardson, Gayle K. Brunelle and Robert J. King also concentrate on the "Jave la Grande" landmass of the Dieppe maps (see below).
W. A. R. Richardson argues that Jave la Grande as it appears on the Dieppe world maps is at least partly based on Portuguese sources that no longer exist. McIntyre attributed discrepancies between the Jave la Grande coastline and Australia's to the difficulties of accurately recording positions without a reliable method of determining longitude, and the techniques used to convert maps to different projections.
In the late 1970s, mathematician Ian McKiggan developed his theory of exponential longitude error theory to explain discrepancies, although he modified this position after a public exchange of opinion with W. A. R. Richardson.See Richardson, W. A. R. "Jave La Grande: Latitude and Longitude Versus Toponomy" in Journal of Australia Studies, Vol. 18, 1986. pp. 74–91 and McKiggan, I., "Jave La Grande, An Apologia" in Journal of Australia Studies, Vol. 19, 1986 pp. 96–101 McIntyre's own theory about distortion of the maps and the calculations used to correct the maps has also been challenged. Both Lawrence Fitzgerald and Peter Trickett argue Jave la Grande is based on Portuguese sea charts, now lost, which the mapmakers of Dieppe misaligned. Both these writers try to compare the coastal features of Jave la Grande with modern Australia's, by realigning them.
In 1994, McIntyre suggested that the writings of Pedro Nunes supported his interpretation of the distortion that occurred on the Dieppe Maps.McIntyre, K.G. (1994) "Great Questions of Our Time Series; Who Discovered Australia ? – The Portuguese Definitely" The Age, 26 January 1994