The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea: Being The Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606, with Descriptions of their Old Charts

In Short

George Collingridge’s study traces how 16th-century Portuguese and Spanish navigators gradually charted Australasia while seeking trade routes to the Spice Islands. Drawing on old French maps and original ship logs, Collingridge documents how sailors like Saavedra, Mendana, Queiroz, and Torres pushed deep into the South Pacific, claiming island after island in the name of God and crown. The book endures because it recovers forgotten maritime history, arguing through map analysis that these Mediterranean powers mapped the Australian continent long before British or Dutch explorers claimed the accomplishment.

The Story

The chronicle opens in the late 15th century as Portugal breaks past the African coast into the Indian Ocean. Hungry for lucrative nutmeg and cloves, Portuguese fleets press eastward to secure trading posts throughout the Moluccas. Meanwhile, Spain sends Ferdinand Magellan west around South America, triggering a bitter border and territorial dispute over the undiscovered world divided by papal decree. Subsequent Spanish voyages attempt to reinforce these distant posts, leading to disaster, shipwrecks, and long-running naval skirmishes with rival Portuguese commanders.

As ships navigate these uncharted waters, captains regularly stumble onto unexpected landmasses. Alvaro de Saavedra, blown off course by counter-winds while trying to return to Mexico, charts hundreds of leagues along the northern coast of New Guinea. Later expeditions by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos deepen knowledge of the Pacific islands, while mapmakers in Dieppe transcribe confidential Portuguese logbooks into elaborate planispheres that feature a massive, mysterious southern continent labeled Jave-la-Grande.

By the late 16th century, Spanish interest turns toward evangelical and territorial conquest. Driven by Inca legends of gold-rich Pacific islands, Alvaro de Mendana and Pedro de Sarmiento set sail from Peru and discover the Solomon Islands. Decades later, Mendana returns with a colonizing fleet including women and families, but the mission collapses amid internal discord, deadly fever, and hostile encounters with indigenous islanders on Santa Cruz.

The final surge of Spanish exploration belongs to Pedro Fernandez de Queiroz and Luis Vaez de Torres. Convinced he is destined to find the legendary Great Southern Continent, Queiroz anchors in a massive bay in the New Hebrides, naming it Australia del Espiritu Santo. In an elaborate ceremony complete with military parades, music, and church services, he claims the surrounding oceans all the way to the South Pole for the King of Spain and attempts to found the city of "New Jerusalem."

When bad weather separates the fleet, Queiroz returns to Mexico, while Torres pushes westward along the treacherous reefs of southern New Guinea. Navigating narrow passages, Torres brushes past the northern tip of Australia without recognizing the full continental expanse, concluding an era of Iberian Pacific dominance.

How It Unfolds

In quest of spices Portugal and Spain send out armed fleets to claim the Moluccas, sparking decades of naval skirmishes, shipwrecks, and territorial claims overseen by papal decree.

Exploring Papua's coast Blown off course while trying to return across the Pacific, Spanish commander Alvaro de Saavedra charts 250 leagues of New Guinea's northern coastline.

Mapping the Great South Land Cartographers in Dieppe produce intricate maps incorporating secret Portuguese logbooks, sketching out Jave-la-Grande with crude approximations of Australia's western and eastern shores.

Searching for Solomon's gold Spurred by legends of biblical wealth in the South Pacific, Mendana and Sarmiento set sail from Peru, successfully charting the Solomon Archipelago.

Disaster at Santa Cruz Mendana leads a second, tragic colonizing fleet into the South Pacific, where disease, volcanic eruptions, and native conflict destroy the attempt to form a permanent settlement.

Claiming the Southern Continent Queiroz anchors at Espiritu Santo, holding grand religious and civic ceremonies to claim all southern lands to the Pole for Spain before storm winds force his retreat.

Navigating the northern straits Torres takes command of the remaining vessels, threading through dangerous reefs along New Guinea's southern coast and unknowingly charting the narrow channel separating it from Australia.

The People

• Pedro Fernandez de Queiroz: A deeply religious captain who believes himself chosen by God to discover the South Land. Driven by visionary zeal, he founds a short-lived colony in the New Hebrides before storm winds break his resolve and send him back destitute to Spain.
• Luis Vaez de Torres: Queiroz’s pragmatic and disciplined second-in-command. When separated from his leader, he resists mutinous crewmen, follows royal orders to sail south, and successfully navigates the hazardous channels between Australia and New Guinea.
• Alvaro de Mendana: A Spanish nobleman who leads two major Pacific expeditions. After discovering the Solomons on his first trip, his second attempt to build a settlement on Santa Cruz ends in tragedy as illness and native conflict destroy his crew.
• Pedro de Sarmiento: Mendana’s co-commander on the first voyage, whose fierce disagreements with his leader force him to abandon ship at Guatemala to seek justice from imperial officials.
• Alvaro de Saavedra: A courageous kinsman of Hernando Cortez who sails across the Pacific from Mexico, uncovers hundreds of leagues of New Guinea's coastline, and fights Portuguese forces to protect Spanish claims.

In Its Own Voice

"The figure of the island of Java resembles a pig couched on its fore legs, with its snout to the Channel of Balabero, and its hind legs towards the mouth of the Straits of Sunda..."

"O Land sought for so long, intended to be found by many, and so desired by me!"

"It was the depth of winter, and I had sea, wind, and ill will of my crew against me."

What It's Really About

The book explores how historical memory is shaped by maps, national rivalries, and lost archives. Beyond chronicling physical journeys, Collingridge argues that cartographic clues—like distorted coastlines, miscopied placenames, and lingering Portuguese phrases—preserve the true record of early ocean exploration. He highlights how imperial secrecy led nations to bury monumental discoveries, allowing later Dutch and British navigators to claim priority over lands mapped decades earlier. Beneath the grand rhetoric of religious conversion and imperial conquest lies a messy reality driven by trade greed, navigational error, violent misunderstandings with indigenous societies, and the sheer unforgiving nature of the open sea.

Why Read It Today

This work will appeal to readers interested in early modern exploration, historical cartography, and South Pacific history. Collingridge writes with the clear focus of an archivist unraveling a historical mystery, combining detailed textual analysis with vivid narrative accounts of life at sea.

The prose reflects early 20th-century sensibilities, occasionally using dated colonial terminology when describing indigenous encounters. Additionally, the heavy focus on chart comparisons, nautical coordinates, and historical placenames requires patience from general readers. However, the vivid eye-witness accounts—drawn directly from early logbooks—render the experience deeply absorbing. What remains with the reader is a rich portrait of human ambition: sailors navigating unknown oceans on flimsy wooden caravels, driven by faith and profit to map a world far larger than they ever imagined.