João Álvares Fagundes


João Álvares Fagundes, an explorer and ship owner from Viana do Castelo in Northern Portugal, organized several expeditions to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around 1520–1521.
Fagundes, together with his vice-captain, and accompanied by colonists, explored the islands of St Paul near Cape Breton, Sable Island, Penguin Island, Burgeo, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon which he named the islands of Eleven Thousand Virgins in honor of Saint Ursula.
King Manuel I of Portugal gave Fagundes exclusive rights and ownership of his discoveries on 13 March 1521.
In 1607, Samuel de Champlain identified the remains of a large cross at what is now Advocate, Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin. Some historians have attributed the erection of the cross to Fagundes, who is presumed to have visited the spot some eight decades earlier.

The fishing colony of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Captain Francisco de Souza, from the captaincy of the island of Madeira, and natural of the same island, reported in 1570, that about 45 or 50 years before, from Viana, under the command of João Alvares Fagundes, some noblemen joined with the information that they had the New Land of the Codfish, they were determined to go settle some part of it., and with such purpose, they obtained license of the King Manuel, and led several families and couples, mostly from the Azores. They reached North America with a nau and a caravel, and because they considered the coast of Newfoundland very cold, they sailed from east to west until they reach a new coast, arranged from northeast to southwest, and there they dwelt, and were they lose or run out of ships, and was not known nothing more of them, cut out of communications with the metropole.
Only later, especially through Basque fishermen, who visited the region, came news of the fate of the colonists. The Basques brought information of the colony and from its inhabitants and descendants, and said that they were asked to say in Portugal about their situation in the land, to bring them priests, because the Gentile - possibly the Mi'kmaq people - are peaceful and docile, and from notorious men that are sailing there. According to Souza, it was in the "Cape Britão, at the entrance of the north coast, in a beautiful bay, according to the chronicler, which had a settlement, with very precious things, and a lot of walnut, chestnut, grapes, and other fruits, where it seems to be the good land and so on this company were some couples from the Azores that they have taken as is notorious.
The governor of Madeira ended the reference to this colony with a prayer and a plea: May Our Lord in His mercy, pave the way to get them help, and my intention is to go to the said path of coastline when I reach the Island of São Francisco, which we can do on a single trip. This possible colony may have lasted at least until the 1570s, or until the end of the century.