João Álvares Fagundes

João Álvares Fagundes
Fagundes commemorative beside Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia.
Born	c. 1460 Viana do Castelo, Kingdom of Portugal
Died	December 1522 Viana do Castelo, Kingdom of Portugal
Occupation	Explorer, ship-owner
Known for	Expeditions to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia

João Álvares Fagundes (born c. 1460, Kingdom of Portugal, died 1522, Kingdom of Portugal), 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 (Pêro de Barcelos or other navigator), and accompanied by colonists (mostly from the Azores and some of mainland Portugal), explored the islands of St Paul near Cape Breton, Sable Island, Penguin Island (now known as Funk 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 March 13, 1521.

In 1607, Samuel de Champlain identified the remains of a large cross ("an old cross, all covered with moss, and almost wholly rotted away") at what is now Advocate, Nova Scotia on the Minas Basin. Some historians have attributed the erection of the cross to Fagundes, whom he presumed to have visited the spot some eight decades earlier.

Captain Francisco de Souza (Feitor or governor of the king), 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 (especially from the island of Terceira, who were gathered on route). 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, (the colonists who settled there) and was not known nothing more of them, cut out of communications with the metropolis.