Beyond Capricorn
Book arguing Portuguese discovered Australia before Cook.
Beyond Capricorn is a 2007 book by journalist Peter Trickett that argues Portuguese explorers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook. The book's thesis resembles earlier theories by Kenneth McIntyre and Lawrence Fitzgerald, but its publisher and some news reports presented it as a new theory. Historical scholars, including Flinders University Associate Professor Bill Richardson, generally reject the premise, citing only circumstantial evidence.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Peter Trickett
- Country
- Australia
- Language
- English
- Subject
- Australian History
- Publisher
- East Street Publications
- Released
- 2007
- Dewey Decimal
- 919.4041 22
- LC classification
- DU98.1.T75 2007
Facts from the source article.
Synopsis
The book's title refers to sixteenth-century Dieppe maps that show land south of the Tropic of Capricorn in the area of Australia. Trickett claims the Portuguese were the first Europeans to discover Australia, between 1519 and 1523, before the 1606 landfall by Willem Janszoon. He argues that a 1520 expedition led by Diogo Pacheco, a relative of Duarte Pacheco, may have first sighted Australia in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Using João de Barros's Décadas da Ásia, Trickett contends Pacheco was killed at Napier Broome Bay in a battle with Aborigines, and that the Carronade Island cannons originate from this voyage. Most of the book focuses on a claimed voyage of four ships commanded by Cristóvão de Mendonça along Australia's eastern and southern coasts, then to New Zealand, and another voyage along the west coast. Trickett uses the Vallard atlas of 1547 to argue that Mendonça sailed into Botany Bay, around Wilsons Promontory to Kangaroo Island, and returned to Malacca via New Zealand's North Island. He claims the French Vallard maps were composed of portolan charts incorrectly assembled from lost Portuguese charts, and by rotating parts 90 degrees, they yield an accurate depiction of Australia's coasts. Trickett translates place names on the Vallard maps and cites the Mahogany Ship, ruins at Bittangabee Bay, Aboriginal legends, linguistic similarities, and artefacts in Queensland and New Zealand as further evidence.
An example: Botany Bay
In publicity for the book, media reports highlighted Trickett's claim that the Vallard map accurately showed Botany Bay, to the point where Sydney Airport runways could be drawn on it. Trickett identifies the bay as 'Baia Neve' on the Vallard map and provides a sketch map with runways at the same scale. He acknowledges the bay is too large for Botany Bay relative to the map's overall scale, explaining that sixteenth-century map-makers enlarged important sections. The original Vallard map shows two large islands inside the bay and seven islands outside; Trickett identifies the inner islands as Bare Island and a mudflat appearing as a large island at low tide, and the outer seven as a misplacement of the Five Islands Group, North Head of Sydney Harbour, and Cape Three Points.
Criticism of Trickett's theories
Criticisms have been raised by scholars including Associate Professor W.A.R. 'Bill' Richardson. Trickett criticizes 'orthodox academics' for ignoring the theory while acknowledging the book is not an academic treatise. Richardson questions Trickett's use of only one Dieppe map, the Vallard of 1547, without significant reference to others, and argues Trickett incorrectly assumes the Vallard cartographer had access to more information because it contains more place names. Richardson notes the Vallard's hybrid inscriptions are a jumble of languages, many misread or misinterpreted by Trickett, such as suggesting the island Illa do Aljofar may have Polynesian origins. Trickett reproduces sketch maps comparing Terra Java of the Vallard atlas with modern Australian coast knowledge but without showing scale, which Richardson argues misleads readers. Richardson highlights that Trickett's sketch map of Illa Do Magna compared to New Zealand's North Island lacks scale, causing readers to fail to realize that Trickett's adjusted 'Wilsons Promontory' is some 17 degrees, nearly 2,000 kilometres, south of the real one. Richardson previously commented on other writers' ingenuity in 'correcting' the Jave La Grande outline to fit Australia, and in 2007 suggested Trickett takes an approach of altering evidence if it does not suit his theory.
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