Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524) was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first maritime route between Europe and India—around the Cape of Good Hope, then across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode—opened up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event in world history.
Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia using an ocean route that rounded the southern tip of Africa, although he was not the first Portuguese mariner to round the Cape. This route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the disputed Mediterranean Sea and to trade with Eastern Arab Mediterranean ports that embarked goods from land routes across the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. A milestone in Portuguese maritime exploration, his voyage marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of international eastern trade and an age of global imperialism. His outward and return voyages constituted the longest known ocean voyages ever completed at the time.Diffie, Bailey W. and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580, p. 176 The Portuguese later established a long-lasting colonial empire along the route from Africa to Asia at the expense of the existing Arab eastern trade network.
Sailors had been trying to reach the Indies for decades, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks.Marco Oliveira Borges Vie et mort sur les navires de la Carreira da Índia: alimentation, hygiène et maladies aux XVIe et XVIIe siècle Da Gama finally accomplished the feat when he landed at Kozhikode on 20 May 1498. Unchallenged access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along North and coastal West Africa. The main spices first obtained from Southeast Asia were pepper and cinnamon, but other commodities new to Europe were soon included in trade. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It was not until a century later that other European powers were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.
Da Gama led two of the Portuguese India Armadas, the first and the fourth. The latter was the largest, and departed for India three years after his return from the first. As reward for his accomplishments, da Gama was appointed Governor of India in 1524, with the title of Viceroy, and was ennobled the Count of Vidigueira in 1519. He remains a leading figure in the history of exploration; homages worldwide have celebrated his explorations and accomplishments. The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusíadas, was written in his honor by Luís de Camões.
Early life Vasco da Gama was born in the town of Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast in southwest Portugal.Jayne, 1910, p. 34. According to the Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão, he was born in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas.Subrahmanyam, 1997, pp. 61–62. Some authors write that he was born in or around 1460, while others give 1469 as the year of his birth.Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 58.
Vasco da Gama's paternal grandfather and namesake was born in Olivença.Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 59. Vasco's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu.. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478; after that he continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
Estêvão da Gama married Isabel Sodré, a daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende), scion of a well-connected family of English descent.The Sodrés were said to have been descended from Frederick Sudley, of Gloucestershire, who accompanied the Earl of Cambridge to Portugal in 1381, and subsequently settled there (Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 61). Her father and her brothers, Vicente Sodré and Brás Sodré, had links to the household of Infante Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and were prominent figures in the military Order of Christ. Vasco da Gama was the third of five sons of Estêvão da Gama and Isabel Sodré – in (probable) order of age: Paulo da Gama, João Sodré, Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama and Aires da Gama. Vasco also had one known sister, Teresa da Gama, who married Lopo Mendes de Vasconcelos.Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 61.
Little is known of da Gama's early life. Teixeira de Aragão suggests that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. Da Gama's near-contemporary Gaspar Correia and others have claimed that he studied under Abraham Zacuto, an astrologer and astronomer, but da Gama's biographer Sanjay Subrahmanyam thinks this dubious.Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 62.
Around 1480, da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the Order of Santiago.Subrahmanyam, 1997, pp. 60–61. The master of Santiago was Prince John, who ascended to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the da Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
In 1492, John II dispatched da Gama on a mission to the port of Setúbal and to the Algarve to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping – a task that da Gama rapidly and effectively performed.Subrahmanyam, 1997, p. 63.
Exploration before da Gama
From the earlier part of the 15th century, Portuguese expeditions organized by Prince Henry the Navigator had been reaching down the African coastline, principally in search of West African riches (notably, gold and slaves).De Oliveira Marques, António Henrique R. (1972). History of Portugal. Columbia University Press, , pp. 158–160, 362–370. They had greatly extended Portuguese maritime knowledge but had little profit to show for the effort. After Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese Crown showed little interest in continuing this effort and, in 1469, licensed the neglected African enterprise to a private Lisbon merchant consortium led by Fernão Gomes. Within a few years, Gomes' captains expanded Portuguese knowledge across the Gulf of Guinea, doing business in gold dust, melegueta pepper, ivory and sub-Saharan slaves. When Gomes' charter came up for renewal in 1474, Prince John (the future John II), asked his father Afonso V of Portugal to pass the African charter to him.Parry, 1981, pp. 132–135
Upon becoming king in 1481, John II of Portugal set out on many long reforms. To break the monarch's dependence on the feudal nobility, John II needed to build up the royal treasury; he considered royal commerce to be the key to achieving that. Under John II's watch, the gold and slave trade in West Africa was greatly expanded. He was eager to break into the highly profitable spice trade between Europe and Asia, which was conducted chiefly by land. At the time, this was virtually monopolized by the Republic of Venice, which operated overland routes via Levantine and Egyptian ports, through the Red Sea across to the spice markets of India. John II set a new objective for his captains: to find a sea route to Asia by sailing around the African continent.Scammell, 1981, p. 232
By the time Vasco da Gama was in his 20s, the king's plans were coming to fruition. In 1487, John II dispatched two spies, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, overland via Egypt to East Africa and India, to scout the details of the spice markets and trade routes. The breakthrough came soon after, when John II's captain Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, having explored as far as the Fish River () in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.
An explorer was needed who could prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva and connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route across the Indian Ocean.
First voyage
On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than the length of the equator.Da Gama's Round Africa to India , fordham.edu Retrieved 16 November 2006. The navigators included Portugal's most experienced, Pero de Alenquer, Pedro Escobar, , and Afonso Gonçalves. It is not known for certain how many people were in each ship's crew but approximately 55 returned, and two ships were lost. Two of the vessels were carracks, newly built for the voyage; the others were a caravel and a supply boat. The journey was taken under the Treaty of Tordesillas, which was papal supported demarcation from pole to pole 100 leagues (320 miles) west of Cape Verde Islands. The expeditions were meant to provide exclusive rights to all newly discovered and undiscovered lands in the west to Portuguese.
The four ships were: São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m2 São Rafael, commanded by his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel Berrio (nickname, officially called São Miguel), a caravel, slightly smaller than the former two, commanded by Nicolau Coelho A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, destined to be scuttled in Mossel Bay (São Brás) in South Africa
Journey to the Cape
The expedition set sail from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. It followed the route pioneered by earlier explorers along the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, da Gama took a course south into the open ocean, crossing the equator and seeking the South Atlantic westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered in 1487.Gago Coutinho, C.V. (1951–52) A Nautica dos Descobrimentos: os descobrimentos maritimos visitos por um navegador, Lisbon: Agencia Geral do Ultramar; pp. 319–363; Axelson, E. (1988) "The Dias Voyage, 1487–1488: toponymy and padrões", Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol. 34, pp. 29–55 offprint; Waters, D.W. (1988) "Reflections Upon Some Navigational and Hydrographic Problems of the XVth Century Related to the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias", Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol. 34, pp. 275–347. offprint. This course proved successful and on 4 November 1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast. For over three months the ships had sailed more than of open ocean, by far the longest journey without landfall made by that time.
By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape, South Africa) – where Dias had anchored – and sailed into waters previously unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, da Gama and his crew gave the coast they were passing the name Natal, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in Portuguese.
Mozambique Vasco da Gama spent 2 to 29 March 1498 in the vicinity of Mozambique Island. Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was an integral part of the network of trade in the Indian Ocean. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, da Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, the explorer was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler. Soon the local populace became suspicious of da Gama and his men. Forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, da Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannons into the city in retaliation."Vasco da Gamma Seeks Sea Route to India" , Old News Publishing, Retrieved 8 July 2006.
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