This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Bacalao (also spelled Bacalhau, Bachalaos, Bacalhaos, Baccalieu, Baccalar) was a phantom island depicted on several early 16th century maps. The name first appears on a map in 1508, but there are earlier accounts of Bacalao.^{[citation needed]}

Some have attempted to link the island to Newfoundland, in an effort to bolster claims of pre-Columbian European discovery of the Americas, a record that was set by the Viking settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Off the northeast tip of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, there is a Baccalao Island; however, it was likely named after the mythical island.

In 1472 (according to Gaspar Frutuoso a century later in the 1570s) the Portuguese navigator João Vaz Corte-Real was granted lands in the Azores by the king of Portugal, because of his discovery of the Terra do Bacalhau. However, Frutuoso's work is generally seen as not very reliable as it contains a great deal of misinformation.^[1] Also, Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote about Portuguese voyages of discovery to Tierra de los Bacallao.^{[citation needed]} This has led some to believe that Corte-Real reached the Americas a couple of decades before Columbus.

Bacalao literally means "cod" or "stockfish".

"The Cliffs of Baccalieu", a song by T. Withers, tells the tale of a ship that is caught in a storm and is nearly wrecked.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Cape Cod
• Sacred Cod of Massachusetts
• Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
• Vinland
• Brazil (mythical island)

This Newfoundland and Labrador location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e