Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama or Vasco de Gama, Count of (de) Vidigueira (Sines, ca. 1460/1469-Cochin, India, December 24, 1524), was a famous navigator and explorer Portuguese. In the age of discovery, he stood out for being the commander of the first ships that sailed directly from Europe to India to discover a direct trade route between these two regions. It was the longest ocean voyage made up to that time, for what was called the route of the Indies.At the end of his life, for a brief period in 1524, he was governor of Portuguese India with the title of viceroy.
Youth
Vasco de Gama was born around 1460 or 1469, in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few ports on the Alentejo coast, was then a small village of houses inhabited by fishermen.
Vasco da Gama was the son of Estêvão de Gama, who in 1460 was a knight of the house of Ferdinand of Portugal, Duke of Viseu. Ferdinand made him mayor of Sines and allowed him to receive a small income from taxes on manufacturing of soap in Estremoz. Estêvão da Gama was married to Isabel Sodré, daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende). Sodré, who was of English descent, had ties to the family of Diego, Duke of Viseu, Governor of the Order of Christ and son of Ferdinand of Portugal.
Little is known about the early years of Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese historian Teixeira de Aragão has suggested that he would have studied in Évora, where he may have learned mathematics and navigation. It is evident that Vasco da Gama was well acquainted with astronomy, and it is possible that he studied with the Judeo-Spanish astronomer Abraham Zacuto.
In 1492, King D. John II of Portugal sent Vasco da Gama to the port of Setúbal, south of Lisbon, to capture French ships in the Algarve in retaliation for acts of vandalism carried out in peacetime against the Portuguese navigation, a task that Vasco da Gama carried out quickly and efficiently.
First Voyage: Discovery of the Sea Route to India (1497-1499)
Background
Since the beginning of the 15th century, the Portuguese, encouraged by the infant Enrique, had been deepening their knowledge of the African coast. Since the 1460s, the goal was to get around the southern tip of the African continent in order to access India's riches—black pepper, cinnamon, and other spices—by establishing a reliable sea route. The Republic of Venice had dominated much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia, but since 1453, with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans, trade had been limited and costs increased.
When Vasco da Gama was about ten years old, these long-term plans were about to be achieved: Bartolomé Díaz had returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope, after exploring the rio do Infante (the Great Fish River, in present-day South Africa) and after having verified that the coast extended towards the unknown in a northeasterly direction. Portugal hoped to use the route pioneered by Díaz to break the monopoly over the Mediterranean trade.
At the same time, making use of land expeditions during the reign of John II of Portugal, who supported the theory that India was accessible by ship from the Atlantic Ocean, Pêro da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva had been sent to via Barcelona, Naples and Rhodes to Alexandria, where, posing as merchants, they managed to reach Aden. There they separated: Paiva went to Ethiopia and died of the plague, without making any report; Covilhã headed to Hormuz and then to India, and then returned along the eastern coast of Africa, managing to establish that the route to India was feasible. He never returned to Portugal either, although he did manage to get his report through emissaries.
Only one navigator was missing to demonstrate the link between the results of Díaz and Corvilhã to inaugurate a trade route, the Spice Route, potentially lucrative across the Indian Ocean. The task was initially assigned by King John II to Estevão da Gama, Vasco da Gama's father. However, since he died in July 1497, command of the expedition was delegated by the new King Manuel I of Portugal to Vasco da Gama, possibly taking into account his good performance in protecting Portuguese commercial interests from depredations by the French. along the African Gold Coast.
The Journey
D. Manuel I entrusted him with the command of a small squadron, with the title of capitão-mor of the fleet, and one Saturday, July 8, 1497, he set sail from the port of Santa Maria de Belém, on the shores of of the Tagus River (Lisbon), with the intention of skirting the African coast, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and going in search of India.
It was essentially an exploratory expedition that carried letters from King D. Manuel I for the kingdoms they visited, padrões to place, and which had been equipped by Bartolomé Díaz with some products that had proven useful in his trips for barter with local trade. The only surviving eyewitness testimony of the voyage is an anonymous logbook, attributed to Álvaro Velho. (Most of the Crown's archives disappeared in the great fire in Lisbon.)
Gama had about one hundred and seventy men, including sailors, soldiers and religious, distributed in four boats:
- São Gabriel, a carraca of 27 meters of length, 8,5 m of sleeve and a lime of 2,3 m, with 372 m2 of candles and 178 tons, built especially for that trip and commanded by the Vasco da Gama himself, with a crew of about 60 men.
- São PauloA twin ship to the São Gabriel, also built for this journey and commanded by Paulo da Gama, brother of the major captain. On the return, with a diminished crew already incapable of handling the three ships, the ship was abandoned and subsequently set on fire in Malindi, continuing to travel its crew in the Bérrio and the São Gabriel.
- Bérrio, a carabela slightly lower than the previous ones, offered by D. Manuel de Bérrio, its owner, commanded by Nicolau Coelho.
- São Miguel, a carriage for the transport of supplies, commanded by Gonçalo Nuñes, which was to be set on the one-way trip, near São Brás Bay (Mossel Bay), on the eastern African coast.
The expedition set sail from Lisbon, accompanied by Bartolomé Díaz who continued in a caravel heading towards San Jorge de la Mina, following a route already experienced by previous navigators along the African coast through the island of Tenerife and of the Cape Verde archipelago. After reaching the coast of present-day Sierra Leone, Vasco da Gama turned south, across the open ocean, crossing the Equator line, in search of the westerly winds of the South Atlantic, which Bartolomé Díaz had already identified in 1487. This manoeuvre, known as the volta do mar, was successful and on November 4, 1497 the expedition had once again reached the African coast. After more than three months, the ships had sailed more than 6,000 kilometers of open sea, the longest known voyage on the high seas to date.
On December 16, the fleet had passed the so-called rio do Infante (Great Fish River on the eastern coast of present-day South Africa), the point from which Bartolomé Díaz had previously returned, sailing from there into waters unknown to Europeans. On Christmas Day (Natal ), Gama and his crew named the coast they were sailing along Natal (present-day KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa).
On March 2, 1498, completing the contour of the African coast, the fleet reached the coast of Mozambique after having suffered strong storms and Vasco da Gama having put down a revolt by sailors with an iron fist. On the East African coast, Muslim-controlled territories formed part of the Indian Ocean trade network. In Mozambique they found the first Indian traders. Initially well received by the sultan, who mistook them for Muslims, they were provided with two pilots. Fearing that the population was hostile to the Christians, but trying to maintain the equivocation, after a series of misunderstandings they were forced by a hostile crowd to flee Mozambique, and they sailed from the port firing their cannons at the city.
The pilot provided by the sultan of the island of Mozambique to take him to India had been secretly instructed to deliver the Portuguese ships to the Arab rulers of Mombasa. A chance discovered the ambush and Vasco da Gama was able to continue.
Off the coast of present-day Kenya, the expedition looted unarmed Arab merchant ships. The Portuguese became the first Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa, but they were greeted hostilely and soon left.
In February 1498, Vasco da Gama continued north, landing in the friendly port of Malindi—Mombasa's rival—where they were welcomed by the Sultan who provided them with an Arab pilot knowledgeable of the Indian Ocean, whose knowledge of the monsoonal winds would allow the expedition to be guided to Calicut, on the southwest coast of India. Sources differ as to the identity of the pilot, sometimes identifying him as a Christian, a Muslim, or a Guzerate. One traditional tale describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but contemporary accounts place Majid elsewhere at the time.
Arrival in Calicut
On May 20, 1498, the fleet reached Kappakadavu, near Calicut, in the present-day Indian state of Kerala, having established the Cape Route and opening the sea route from Europe to India.
The day after their arrival, among a crowd gathered on the beach, they were received by two Tunisian Moors, one of whom addressed them in Spanish: «Ao diabo que te dou; quem te trouxe ca?». And they asked them what they were looking for so far away and they answered: "We saw looking for cristãos and spices.", according to what Álvaro Velho related. Seeing the images of the Hindu gods, Vasco da Gama and his men thought they were of Christian saints, since the Muslims did not have images. The belief in the Christians of India, as they were called, persisted for some time, even after the return of this expedition.
But negotiations with the local governor, Samutiri Manavikraman Raja, the zamorin of Calicut, were difficult. Vasco da Gama's efforts to obtain favorable trade conditions were hampered by the difference in cultures and the low value of his merchandise, since the zamorin's representatives mocked his offers and the Arab merchants established there resisted seeing the possibility of unwanted competition. The merchandise presented by the Portuguese was insufficient to impress the zamorin, compared to the high-value goods being traded there, which caused some mistrust. The Portuguese eventually sold their wares below cost to purchase small amounts of spices and jewelry to bring back to the kingdom.
Lastly, the zamorin was satisfied with the letters from D. Manuel I and Vasco da Gama obtained an ambiguous letter granting rights to trade, but ended up leaving without warning after the zamorin and his head of the Navy, Kunjali Marakkar, insisted that he leave all his assets as collateral. Vasco da Gama kept his assets, but left some Portuguese with orders to start building a factory.
Return to Portugal
Vasco da Gama began the return voyage on August 29, 1498. Eager to leave, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon patterns that would allow him to navigate. On Anjadip Island they were accosted by a man who claimed to be a Christian but was pretending to be a Muslim in the service of Hidalcão, the Sultan of Bijapur. Suspecting that he was a spy, they flogged him until he confessed to being a Polish-Jewish adventurer in the Orient. Vasco da Gama seized him and took him back to Portugal, where a year later he would end up being his godfather when he was christened Gaspar Correia, also known as Gaspar da Gama.
On the outward voyage they had crossed the Indian Ocean to India, aided by monsoon winds, in just 23 days. On their return, sailing against the winds, they consumed 132 days, the ships being moored at Malindi on 7 January 1499. At this stage about half of the surviving crew perished and many of the remainder were badly affected by the storm. scurvy. Thus, of the 148 men that made up the navy, only 55 returned to Portugal, and only two of the ships that left the Tagus managed to return. The caravel Berrío, being lighter and faster, was the first to return to Lisbon, where it arrived on July 10, 1499, under the command of Nicolau Coelho and piloted by Pêro Escobar, who would later accompany Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet on their trip in which they reported the discovery from Brazil in April 1500. Then, in August, the Sao Gabriel arrived, commanded by João de Sá, since Gama had abandoned ship on the island of Santiago, in Cape Verde, where he chartered a caravel to take his sick brother, Paulo da Gama, to Terceira Island, in the Azores, hoping to save him.
Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon in September 1499, a month after his companions, since he had to bury his deceased brother in the Azores. Upon his return, he was rewarded as the man who had managed to finish a plan that had taken them years to accomplish. He received the title of "admiral-mor dos Mares das Índia", being granted a pension of three hundred thousand reales per year, which he would pass on to the children he had. He also received, along with his brothers, the perpetual title of Dom and two villas, Sines and Vila Nova de Milfontes.
Second Voyage to India (1502)
On February 12, 1502, Vasco da Gama led a new expedition with a fleet of twenty warships, with the purpose of enforcing Portuguese interests in the East. He had been invited after the refusal of Pedro Álvares Cabral, who disagreed with the king about the command of the expedition. This voyage took place after the voyage of the second fleet to India, led by Cabral in 1500, which, by deviating from the route, made the discovery of Brazil. When Cabral arrived in Calicut, he found a hostile environment from the Indians. Arab and Indian merchants. Following Vasco da Gama's methods, Cabral took hostages and forced the Rajah to give them written guarantees, engraved on a metal plate, that they could trade safely. Immediately afterwards they established a factory on land directed by Aires Correia. However, due to the abrogation of their agreement, which gave them priority in obtaining spices, Cabral orders the capture of an Arab ship that was leaving the port with a shipment of spices. The merchants responded by killing Aires Correia and destroying the unloaded merchandise. In response, Cabral ordered Calicut to be bombarded and headed south towards Cochin, a small rival kingdom, where he was warmly received by the Rajah, returning to Europe with a meager cargo that would not compensate for the expedition's losses, which would mean the Cabral's fall from grace.
Gama seized and exacted tribute from the East African island of Kilwa, one of the Arab-held ports that had fought against the Portuguese, making it a tributary of Portugal. With the gold from the 500 coins imposed, as a tribute of vassalage to the King of Portugal, by Vasco da Gama to the ruler of Kilwa (now Kilwa Kisiwani, in Tanzania), King Manuel I ordered the Monstrance of Bethlehem to be made for the Monastery of the Jeromes.
This voyage saw the first known record of a European sighting of the Seychelles, which Vasco da Gama named the Amirante Islands (Ilhas Amirante) in his own honor.
Vasco da Gama set out to set up the Portuguese center and a factory in Cochin, after the consecutive efforts of Cabral and João da Nova. The Portuguese bombarded Calicut again and destroyed the Arab trading posts.
In order to avenge the Portuguese killed in Calicut on his first voyage, after reaching the northern Indian Ocean, Vasco da Gama waited to capture a ship returning from Mecca with important Muslim merchants, the Miri, seizing all the merchandise, and then setting it on fire, burning all its passengers alive. It was a ship that transported several hundred Islamist faithful who made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Arabia; the admiral boarded the vessel and burned it with all its travelers on board. The chronicles of the time claimed that some four hundred people died. After the barbaric act, which shocked contemporary chroniclers, the zamorin agreed to sign a treaty when Da Gama arrived in Calicut on October 30, 1502.
On March 1, 1503, war began between the Zamorin of Calicut and the Rajah of Cochin. His ships raided Arab merchant ships, also destroying a fleet of 29 ships from Calicut. After this battle, they received significant favorable trade concessions from the zamorin. Vasco da Gama founded the Portuguese colony of Cochin, in India, returning to Portugal in September 1503, after eliminating the Arab rivals in the Indian Ocean and establishing Portuguese maritime hegemony in the area. Part of his fleet stayed in India under the orders of Vicente Sordré, Vasco de Gama's uncle, with the mission of protecting the Portuguese factories, including the Esmeralda and São Pedro, which sank in May 1503 off the Oman shores.
Third Voyage to India (1524)
In 1519 he was named the first Count of Vidigueira by King Manuel I, based on land purchased from Don Jaime I of Braganza, Duke of Braganza, who on November 4 ceded the towns of Vidigueira and Vila de Frades to Vasco da Gama, his heirs and successors, as well as all related income and privileges, being the first Portuguese count without royal blood.
Having acquired a reputation as a fearsome 'solver' of problems in India, Vasco da Gama was sent back in 1524, after staying away from shipping for nearly twenty years. The objective was to replace Viceroy Duarte de Meneses, whose government had been disastrous. On the trip, Gama contracted malaria shortly after arriving in Goa. As governor and second viceroy of Portuguese India he acted rigidly and managed to impose order, but he died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve 1524.
He was buried in St. Francis Church in Cochin. In 1539 his mortal remains were transferred to Portugal, specifically to the church of a Carmelite convent, now known as Quinta do Carmo (and now private property), near the Alentejo village of Vidigueira, as Count of Vidigueira by right and inheritance since 1519 His remains were in this convent until 1880, when they were transferred to the Jerónimos de Belém Monastery, which was built shortly after his first trip, with the first benefits of the spice trade, being next to the tomb of Luís Vaz de Camões. Some argue, however, that Vasco da Gama's bones are still in the Alentejo city. As a testimony of the transfer of the bones, in front of the statue of the navigator in Vidigueira, there is an old Vasco da Gama Elementary School (whose construction was used as a bargaining chip to obtain permission to carry out the transfer at the time), where the Municipal Museum of Vidigueira is installed.
Marriage and offspring
Vasco da Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter:
- Francisco da Gama, who inherited the titles of his father as the second count of Vidigueira and the "second admiral of the seas of India, Arabia and Persia" (Fr. He stayed in Portugal.
- Esteban de Gama, after his failed 1524 term as a patrol captain of India, was appointed for a three-year term as captain of Malacca, who served from 1534 to 1539 (includes the last two years of his brother's term of Paulo). He was subsequently appointed as the 11th governor of India from 1540 to 1542.
- Paulo da Gama, captain of Malacca in 1533-1534, died in a naval combat of Malacca.
- Cristóbal de Gama, captain of the fleet of Malacca 1538-1540; nominated for success in Malacca, but executed by Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi during the Ethiopian-Adal War in 1542.
- Pedro da Silva da Gama, appointed captain of Malacca in 1548-1552.
- Alvaro d'Ataide, named captain of the fleet of Malacca in the 1540s, was captain of Malacca's own 1552-1554 (is one of the characters of the work The mayor of Zalamea).
- Isabel d'Ataide da Gama, her only daughter, married Ignacio de Noronha, the son of the first Count of Linhares.
The male line died out in 1747 and the title was inherited through the female line.
Degrees and honors
During his many years in the service of the Portuguese crown, da Gama was rewarded with many different titles, distinctions and offices:
- Admiral of the Arabian Sea, Persia, India and the whole East - Title as head of the Indian Armed Forces
- Second Vice-Virrey of India – Title as Portuguese Colonial Head of India
- First Count of Vidigueira - Title of the Portuguese Nobility
Her legacy
Vasco da Gama was one of those responsible for Portugal's success as a power. The Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas by Luís Vaz de Camões refers largely to Da Gama's travels.
They bear the name of Vasco da Gama:
- A port city in Goa;
- The Vasco da Gama lunar crater bears this name in his memory.
- Three Brazilian football teams and a Goa team, the Basque Sports Club;
- A church in Kochi;
- A bridge and a tower in Lisbon.
Vasco da Gama is ranked 86th on the list of The 100, the most influential figures in history according to Michael H. Hart.
In 1994 it was depicted on the Portuguese 5000 escudo banknote. In 1998 the projects prepared to celebrate the V Centenary of Vasco da Gama's arrival in India by the Portuguese government had to be abandoned due to the public anger that the event aroused.
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