Imperatives Of Economy And Empire

Politics and Acquisition

It is remarkable that regular sea-faring traffic and voyages were embarked upon almost in denial of the risk lying behind the promise of prizes to be won. Much of this impetus can be attributed to the commercial interests of the dominant countries, then the Portuguese and the Spanish, in pillaging the distant lands that lay beyond the seas. It was the promise of these riches that, Williams (1992:75) states, provided the "first major impetus to navigational science [during the reign of King Ferdinand of Spain in the 15th Century]."

Another issue for the major competing empires of this time related to maps. Longitude could not be accurately calculated, so no-one could be confident of their territorial claims as depicted on maps. This was best exemplified by the claims to sovereignty over the Spice Islands, that is, more or less, modern Indonesia. The Spanish claimed the lucrative Spice Islands as their own, concluding after an inquiry that they were 50 degrees within the Spanish hemisphere. (This was in fact an error of approximately 50 degrees). At the same time, the Portuguese were working to move the Tordesillas line west in order to claim Brazil. The consequence of this activity was that on the other side of the world they were, in reality, moving the boundary closer and closer to the Spice Islands. There was the potential for another bloody conflict between the two nations. However, as Williams (1992:78) wryly observes "It did not matter: long before the technology to settle such matters existed, the Dutch had driven the rest of the Europeans out of the islands." This manoeuvring for resources was another example of navigational/ positional claims being made on arbitrary grounds in order to secure resources.

The First Prizes To Find Longitude Are Offered

By the end of Ferdinand's reign the issue of longitude declined in significance and sailors navigated fatalistically. However, only 100 years later the problem resurfaced with a new recognition that the military and commercial consequences of not knowing exactly where one was, that is of still being ignorant of the longitude, were unacceptable. Consequently in 1598 Philip II of Spain offered prizes for the discovery of methods for longitude. In the following fifty years Portugal, Venice and Holland followed suit. The quest to find longitude had gained pace (Williams, 1992:78).

The offer of these prizes by the ruling elite, still did not advance the science. As Williams (1992:78) astutely observes "one might as well have offered large rewards in 1939 for the invention of the atomic bomb." Attention and finances were hence turned away from specific projects aimed at the reward to systematic research and in 1666, during the reign of Louis XIV of France, Jean Baptiste Colbert founded the Academie des Sciences. The principle objective was to improve maps and charts. It was this Academie, under the direction of Giovanni Cassini, an Italian, and Christiaan Huygens, a Dutchman, that towards the end of the 17th century pioneered the calculations of longitude on land (Williams, 1992:78).