The Importance of Pedro Alvares Cabral

In Brazil, Pedro Alvares Cabral is lionized as the discoverer of the country and the person who claimed Brazil for Portugal. Cabral was the fleet commander of a sailing expedition from Portugal to India, in 1500. Since the time of Henry the Navigator, Portuguese captains had been using a sailing technique called volta do mar, which involved sailing far to the westward in order to use the trade winds and currents (the North Atlantic Gyre as it is called) to facilitate sailing to the east. Cabral's fleet veered so far west that they sighted the coast of what would become the country of Brazil. They explored north and south along the South American coast from 22 April til 5 or 6 May of 1500 whence, having performed a Catholic mass ashore and reprovisioned their ships, they struck out eastward for the coast of Africa. Cabral never returned to the Americas. Many doubts have been raised since the 1500's as to Cabral's primacy, but Brazilians have embraced him as the discoverer, and there the matter stands.

The remains of a Roman merchant ship lie on the bottom of Guanabara Bay, the natural harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, right next to Xareu rock, a submerged navigational hazard in the bay. The wreck was discovered by Robert Marx, a diver and specialist in the salvage of shipwrecks, in 1985. Any doubt about the shipwreck's provenance was removed by the actions of the Brazilian government in suppressing the find, which threatened their legal justification for claiming the country:

At the time the amphorae were confirmed to be "Roman", the large Italian faction in Brazil were extremely excited about this news. The Italian ambassador to Brazil notified the Brazilian government that, since the Romans were the first to "discover" Brazil, then all Italian immigrants should be granted immediate citizenship. There are a large number of Italian immigrants in Brazil and the government has created a tedious and costly citizenship application procedure for Italians that does not apply to Portuguese immigrants. The Brazilian government would not give in and the Italians in Brazil staged demonstrations. In response, the Brazilian government ordered all civilians off the recovery project and censored further news about the wreck hoping to diffuse the civil unrest. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1038045/posts Romans In Brazil During The Second Third Century?

Mr. Marx said he nonetheless went diving and found that the spot where objects had been close to the mud surface was now covered by a large mound. He added that other Government officials then told him: ''Brazilians don't care about the past. And they don't want to replace Cabral as the discoverer.'' The New York Times Science Section, June 25, 1985, UNDERWATER EXPLORING IS BANNED IN BRAZIL

Here is the 'smoking gun' which the skeptics defending The New Archaeology keep asking for. How strange it is that they seem to have forgotten about it.

Here it should be noted that the Papal Bulls which implemented the “Doctrine of Discovery” conferred discovery rights only on Christians. Considering that a recovered piece of amphora was dated to 19BC, it seems doubtful that any Christians were included in the Roman crew. Indeed it is likely that Christianity didn't even exist at the time of the voyage.