At Sea
As we approach Ascension Island, we can begin to take stock of the three British Oversea dependencies that we are visiting in succession: Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, and Ascension Island. None of the islands were settled by man before the coming of Europeans being too remote from any continental landmass. The fifteenth-century Portuguese explorers, who had gradually edged their way along the western coast of Africa to round the Cape of Good Hope, ran into these islands by accident as they made the volta turn to round the Cape on their way to India. The first of these three islands we visited was named for the Portuguese navigator who discovered it in 1506. The next takes its name St Helena, Christian mother of the Emperor Constantine, the man who made Christianity the most favored religion of the Roman Empire. It was on her saint’s day that the island was discovered by the Portuguese. Ascension Island was originally known as Conception Island having been discovered by Juan de Nova in 1501 but was renamed Ascension Island on Ascension Day 1503 by Alphonse d’Alberquerque, the latter having a handle to his name and more clout at court.
For many years the islands were simply charted as navigational hazards. St Helena, the largest of the three islands, had productive soil and a regular water supply and grew in importance in the age of sail for bunkering ships on the long voyages to and from India. It is interesting to note in this connection the many memorials to members of the British East India Company that decorate the walls of the Anglican churches on the islands. Neither Tristan nor Ascension was continuously inhabited until 1815 when they were garrisoned at the time that Napoleon was exiled on St Helena. Tristan was the easier place for civilian settlement with easier soils and a more constant water supply so a small agricultural village, largely self-sufficient, developed there following the death of Napoleon in 1821 whereas Ascension Island has remained an essentially military outpost. Today its inhabitants are contract workers, employed mainly by the US and British air forces, by the BBC and by Cable and Wireless.
As we sail the waters between St Helena and Ascension Island on board National Geographic Endeavour, we are reminded that Captain Cook followed this very route on his eighteenth-century expeditions.
As we approach Ascension Island, we can begin to take stock of the three British Oversea dependencies that we are visiting in succession: Tristan da Cunha, St Helena, and Ascension Island. None of the islands were settled by man before the coming of Europeans being too remote from any continental landmass. The fifteenth-century Portuguese explorers, who had gradually edged their way along the western coast of Africa to round the Cape of Good Hope, ran into these islands by accident as they made the volta turn to round the Cape on their way to India. The first of these three islands we visited was named for the Portuguese navigator who discovered it in 1506. The next takes its name St Helena, Christian mother of the Emperor Constantine, the man who made Christianity the most favored religion of the Roman Empire. It was on her saint’s day that the island was discovered by the Portuguese. Ascension Island was originally known as Conception Island having been discovered by Juan de Nova in 1501 but was renamed Ascension Island on Ascension Day 1503 by Alphonse d’Alberquerque, the latter having a handle to his name and more clout at court.
For many years the islands were simply charted as navigational hazards. St Helena, the largest of the three islands, had productive soil and a regular water supply and grew in importance in the age of sail for bunkering ships on the long voyages to and from India. It is interesting to note in this connection the many memorials to members of the British East India Company that decorate the walls of the Anglican churches on the islands. Neither Tristan nor Ascension was continuously inhabited until 1815 when they were garrisoned at the time that Napoleon was exiled on St Helena. Tristan was the easier place for civilian settlement with easier soils and a more constant water supply so a small agricultural village, largely self-sufficient, developed there following the death of Napoleon in 1821 whereas Ascension Island has remained an essentially military outpost. Today its inhabitants are contract workers, employed mainly by the US and British air forces, by the BBC and by Cable and Wireless.
As we sail the waters between St Helena and Ascension Island on board National Geographic Endeavour, we are reminded that Captain Cook followed this very route on his eighteenth-century expeditions.
