Background
Miguel Corte-Real was a son of João Vaz Corte-Real and a brother of explorer Gaspar Corte-Real.
Miguel Corte-Real was a son of João Vaz Corte-Real and a brother of explorer Gaspar Corte-Real.
In 1501, he disappeared while on an expedition and was believed to be lost at sea. Gaspar explored Greenland in 1499. He stayed there for several months with his team before icebergs forced them to return to Portugal.
In 1500, Gaspar set out again with Miguel.
The Corte-Real brothers kidnapped and enslaved 57 First Nations people and charted about 600 km of coastline of what is now Labrador. Gaspar sent Miguel with two ships back to Portugal.
Following this, Gaspar was never heard from again. He is thought to have perished in a storm.
In 1912 Edmund B. Delabarre wrote that markings on the Dighton Rock in Massachusetts suggest that Miguel Corte-Real reached New England.
Delabarre stated that the markings were abbreviated Latin, and the message, translated into English, read as follows: I, Miguel Cortereal, 1511. In this place, by the will of God, I became a chief of the Indians. Samuel Eliot Morison dismissed this evidence in his 1971 book The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages.
East. B. Delabarre, Dighton rock (New York, 1928).
F. F. Lopes, The brothers Corte Real, transpose F. de Andrade (Lisboa, 1957).
G. South. Marques, Pedra de Dighton (New York, 1930).