During the Age of Exploration and Discovery, were there any explorers who left Europe, and disappeared without a trace, unlike Magellan or Cook?
I have edited the thread title to better indicate the subject.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
WAG: There were probably loads of people who set out on journeys of exploration. Exploring for profits, most likely. For example, Columbus didn’t set out to (re-)discover the New World. He was looking for a more profitable route to the Far East. While there were many Voyages of Exploration (i.e., exploring for the sake of science), I’d guess that most people were just out to get the goods. When they didn’t come back, it wasn’t like ‘Famous Explorer Disappears On Voyage Of Discovery!’ It was more like, ‘Oh, Captain Llama didn’t come back. Too bad.’ Nobody ever heard of them because they didn’t come back.
John Cabot, who explored northeastern North America in 1597, disappeared without a trace on his second voyage in 1598. (The theory that he might have returned mentioned in the Wiki article is not widely accepted.)
The French explorer Laperouse disappeared in the Pacific in 1788. No trace of the expedition was found until 1826, and the wreck of one of his ships was not definitively identified until 2005.
My old Boy Scout Camp was named after Hernando de Soto. Died during his expedition to America.
Injuns killed Ponce de Leon while he searched for the fountain of youth. He should have packed some arrow repellent before visiting Florida. 
I’m having trouble thinking of specific exploring expeditions that “disappeared without a trace.” Plenty of explorers met with disaster, but generally a few survivors or a least the wreck of the ship was later found. Some explorers like Henry Hudson and Diego de Nicuesa had their crew or subordinates mutiny and force them to put to sea where they were lost, but it’s pretty well known what happened to them.
One of the most famous “lost expeditions” was that of Sir John Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage in 1845. However, traces of the expedition were found in 1854 after a prolonged search.
Magellan also died (in the Philippines) on his circumnavigation.
Which always made me leery of those GPS units that bear his name.
Africa is littered with the remains of failed British explorations. You only hear about people like Livingston, Speke, Burton, etc., but there were many, many young men who disappeared into the jungles and were never heard from again. Among the more famous British explorers to disappear without a trace was Percy Fawcett (along with his son) on his last attempt to find the lost city of “Z” in Amazonia.
I think FrankieDee’s point was that Magellan and Cook didn’t return from their voyages but their deaths were not mysteries.
I’m pretty sure there were early expeditions that disappeared into the Darien Gap (Central America) without any word of their fates. The Wiki article on it is less than helpful in that regard, as it only talks about modern journeys. This was (and is) a particularly hostile part of the planet. Explorers dealt with murderous tribes, disease, attacks by insects and other creatures, and a forbidding and confusing landscape. Visitors nowadays are subject to kidnappings and murder, apparently.
Having been to Darien about 30 times, and personally led expeditions into some of the remoter parts of it, I’d have to say its reputation is somewhat exaggerated.
However, there are parts that remain pretty dangerous, mostly because of the presence of Colombian FARC guerrillas. There are regular narcotraficantes and maleantes (bad guys) too, but most of the Darien these days is OK.
I’ve read pretty comprehensively about the Darien, and I am unaware of any expeditions that actually disappeared. One that contributed to the Darien’s malignant reputation was the Strain Expedition in 1854. They were trying to cross the isthmus, and thought they were on a river that led directly to the coast. Instead they were on one that took an extremely meandering course. They marched for weeks, and some died of starvation before they were rescued. The Darkest Jungle is an excellent recent book about the Strain expedition.
In earlier days the Darien was in fact the haunt of hostile Indians, rebel slaves, and pirates. Another famous catastrophe was the failure of an attempted Scottish colony in 1698-1699 in which thousands died of disease, shipwreck, and the attacks of the Spanish.
My recollection of lost expeditions was from Darkest Jungle, but it’s been several years since I read that.
I read somewhere, in decades past, that before Columbus succeeded in persuading the Spanish Queen Isabella to finance an expedition west, he actually did succeed in persuading the Portuguese…who sent an expedition of their own.
However, the Portuguese used one of their own captains and left Columbus on dry land. The Portuguese captain sailed directly west from Portugal and was never heard of again.
Some years later, Captain Columbus first led the Spanish expedition south to the coast of Africa and then west so that he could pick up the trade winds and, as was realized later, avoid the Gulf Stream.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been unable to find an online source mentioning this Portuguese expedition. Anyone?
Although the Strain expedition was lost for a while, most of the members of the expedition survived and made it back to civilization. Six out of 27 died of starvation.
There are some who allege that Columbus had information from others who had sailed west before him, but there is no real historical confirmation of this. The Portuguese crown didn’t believe that Columbus’s proposed voyage was feasible, and were also strongly committed to reaching India by going around Africa. I am unaware of any serious attempt by Portugal to sail west of the Azores before Columbus’s voyage.
The story is highly unlikely. The Portuguese had spent decades methodically working out the logistics of sailing around Africa to Asia. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the cape in 1488, four years before Columbus’ first voyage, and the first Portuguese expedition arrived in India in 1497. It’s very unlikely that they would try a crazy shot in the dark like Columbus’ voyage when their plans were so close to coming to fruition. In fact, the willingness of the Spaniards to risk the western route was a function of how close their rivals were to succeeding.
Moving forward in time…
Michael Rockefeller disappeared 1961 during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern New Guinea. Local reports from people in that area say he was eaten by cannibals. Talk about an expensive dinner. That dude was heir to a 100 million dollar fortune.
The Rockefeller’s have spent a fortune trying to solve his disappearance. It’s one mystery that will never be totally answered.
Well, there’s always Amelia Earhart, although technically she wasn’t an explorer so much as an adventurer.
Perhaps the most famous “lost explorer” was David Livingstone. However, he was never really lost; he knew exactly where he was, and how to get back, even if the outside world thought he had “disappeared.”
Yes, what set Columbus apart from other “discoverers” of the New World was that he came back and told everyone.