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Vasco da Gama

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 6, 2023 | Original: December 18, 2009

The Portuguese nobleman Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) sailed from Lisbon in 1497 on a mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. After sailing down the western coast of Africa and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his expedition made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post of Calicut, India, in May 1498. Da Gama received a hero’s welcome back in Portugal, and was sent on a second expedition to India in 1502, during which he brutally clashed with Muslim traders in the region. Two decades later, da Gama again returned to India, this time as Portuguese viceroy; he died there of an illness in late 1524.

Vasco da Gama’s Early Life and First Voyage to India

Born circa 1460, Vasco da Gama was the son of a minor nobleman who commanded the fortress at Sines, located on the coast of the Alentejo province in southwestern Portugal. Little else is known about his early life, but in 1492 King John II sent da Gama to the port city of Setubal (south of Lisbon) and to the Algarve region to seize French ships in retaliation for French attacks on Portuguese shipping interests.

Did you know? By the time Vasco da Gama returned from his first voyage to India in 1499, he had spent more than two years away from home, including 300 days at sea, and had traveled some 24,000 miles. Only 54 of his original crew of 170 men returned with him; the majority (including da Gama's brother Paolo) had died of illnesses such as scurvy.

In 1497, John’s successor, King Manuel I (crowned in 1495), chose da Gama to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of a maritime route from Western Europe to the East. At the time, the Muslims held a monopoly of trade with India and other Eastern nations, thanks to their geographical position. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon that July with four vessels, traveling south along the coast of Africa before veering far off into the southern Atlantic in order to avoid unfavorable currents. The fleet was finally able to round the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip in late November, and headed north along Africa’s eastern coast, making stops at what is now Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi (both now in Kenya). With the help of a local navigator, da Gama was able to cross the Indian Ocean and reach the coast of India at Calicut (now Kozhikode) in May 1498.

Relations with Local Population & Rival Traders

Though the local Hindu population of Calicut initially welcomed the arrival of the Portuguese sailors (who mistook them for Christians), tensions quickly flared after da Gama offered their ruler a collection of relatively cheap goods as an arrival gift. This conflict, along with hostility from Muslim traders, led Da Gama to leave without concluding a treaty and return to Portugal. A much larger fleet, commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, was dispatched to capitalize on da Gama’s discoveries and secure a trading post at Calicut.

After Muslim traders killed 50 of his men, Cabral retaliated by burning 10 Muslim cargo vessels and killing the nearly 600 sailors aboard. He then moved on to Cochin, where he established the first Portuguese trading post in India. In 1502, King Manuel put da Gama in charge of another Indian expedition, which sailed that February. On this voyage, da Gama attacked Arab shipping interests in the region and used force to reach an agreement with Calicut’s ruler. For these brutal demonstrations of power, da Gama was vilified throughout India and the region. Upon his return to Portugal, by contrast, he was richly rewarded for another successful voyage.

Da Gama’s Later Life and Last Voyage to India

Da Gama had married a well-born woman sometime after returning from his first voyage to India; the couple would have six sons. For the next 20 years, da Gama continued to advise the Portuguese ruler on Indian affairs, but he was not sent back to the region until 1524, when King John III appointed him as Portuguese viceroy in India.

Da Gama arrived in Goa with the task of combating the growing corruption that had tainted the Portuguese government in India. He soon fell ill, and in December 1524 he died in Cochin. His body was later taken back to Portugal for burial there.

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This map is part of a series of 16 animated maps showing .

▶ view series: the age of discovery, vasco da gama’s voyage 1497-1498.

This map is part of a series of 16 animated maps showing the history of The Age of Discovery.

In 1497, King Manuel I of Portugal chose Vasco da Gama to lead the first maritime expedition to the Indies.

The route had already been opened up by Bartolomeu Dias who had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope ten years earlier.

In the meantime, Pero da Covilha had sent back to Lisbon valuable information on navigational conditions in the Indian Ocean.

Da Gama’s flotilla was composed of four ships. It left Lisbon on 8 July and headed for the islands of Cape Verde.

It then sailed westwards taking advantage of the favourable winds in the South Atlantic before returning to the African coast at Saint Helena Bay.

The ships sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in mid-November, after struggling for several days against winds and strong currents.

Vasco da Gama then spent one month on the coast of what is now Natal Province, giving his crew time to recuperate their strength and repair the ships.  They then continued to sail along the eastern coast of Africa. The first contacts with local sultans were difficult because Muslim merchants, who were already well established in this region, were worried about losing their trading monopoly.  

In Malindi, relations were more amicable. Vasco da Gama was able to hire a pilot, whose good knowledge of conditions in the Indian Ocean helped the Portuguese navigator make the crossing to India in 23 days.

During their three-month stay in India, relations between Vasco da Gama and the sovereign of Calicut were difficult, and there were few opportunities for trade.

On the return journey, the Portuguese fleet sailed past Mogadiscio and, later, Zanzibar.  Of the 150 men who had set out from Lisbon more than 2 years earlier, half had lost their lives during the voyage.

Vasco da Gama’s exploit marked the end of nearly a century of Portuguese efforts to discover a sea route between Europe and the Indies.

With regard to diplomatic contacts, Vasco da Gama’s mission to oriental sovereigns was a failure, and the Portuguese understood that they were not welcome in the Indian Ocean trading controlled by Muslim merchants.

The Ages of Exploration

Vasco da gama, age of discovery.

Quick Facts:

Portuguese explorer and navigator who found a direct sea route from Europe to Asia, and was the first European to sail to India by going around Africa.

Name : Vasco da Gama [vas-koh]; [(Portuguese) vahsh-koo] [duh gah-muh]

Birth/Death : ca. 1460 CE - 1524 CE

Nationality : Portuguese

Birthplace : Portugal

Portrait of Vasco da Gama by artist Antonio Manuel da Fonseca in 1838. Vasco da Gama, (c.1469 – 1524) was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the European Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. (Credit: National Maritime Museum)

Introduction Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer who sailed to India from Europe. Gold, spices, and other riches were valuable in Europe. But they had to navigate long ways over sea and land to reach them in Asia. Europeans during this time were looking to find a faster way to reach India by sailing around Africa. Da Gama accomplished the task. By doing so, he helped open a major trade route to Asia. Portugal celebrated his success, and his voyage launched a new era of discovery and world trade.

Biography Early Life Vasco da Gama’s exact birthdate and place is unknown. It is believed he was born between 1460 and 1469 in Sines, Portugal. 1 He was the third son to his parents. His father, Estêvão da Gama, was a knight in the Duke of Viseu’s court; and his mother was a noblewoman named Isabel Sodré. 2 His father’s role in the court would have allowed young Vasco to have a good education. But because he lived close to a seaport town, he probably also learned about ships and navigation. Vasco attended school in a larger village about 70 miles from Sines called Évora. Here, he learned advanced mathematics, and studied principles of navigation. By fifteen he became familiar with trading ships that were docked in port. By the age of twenty, he was the captain of a ship. 3 These skills would all make him an acceptable choice to lead an expedition to India.

Vasco da Gama’s maritime career was during the period when Portugal was searching for a trade route around Africa to India. The Ottoman Empire controlled almost all European trade routes to Asia. This meant they could, and did, charge high prices for ships passing through ports. Prince Henry of Portugal – also called Prince Henry the Navigator – began Portugal’s great age of exploration. From about 1419 until his death in 1460, he sent several sailing expeditions down the coast of Africa. 4 In 1481, King John II of Portugal began sending expeditions to find a sea route around the southern shores of Africa. Many explorers made several attempts. It was Bartolomeu Dias who was the first to round Africa and make it to the Indian Ocean in 1488. But he was forced to head back to Portugal before he could make it to India. When Manuel I became king of Portugal in 1495, he continued efforts to open a trade route to India by going around Africa. Although other people were considered for the job, Manuel I finally chose thirty-seven year old Vasco da Gama for this task.

Voyages Principal Voyage On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon with a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. Da Gama commanded the Sao Gabriel . Paulo da Gama – brother to Vasco – commanded the São Rafael , a three masted ship. There was also the caravel Berrio , and a storeship São Maria . Bartolomeu Dias also sailed with da Gama, and gave helpful advice for navigating down the African coast. They sailed past the Canary Islands, and reached the Cape Verde islands by July 26. They stayed about a week, then continued sailing on August 3. To help avoid the storms and strong currents near the Gulf of Guinea, da Gama and his fleet sailed out into the South Atlantic and swung down to the Cape of Good Hope. Storms still delayed them for a while. They rounded the cape on November 22 and three days later anchored at Mossel Bay, South Africa. 5 They began sailing again on December 8. They anchored for a bit in January near Mozambique at the Rio do Cobre (Copper River) and continued on until they reached the Rio dos Bons Sinais (River of Good Omens). Here they erected a statue in the name of Portugal.

They stayed here for a month because much of the crew were sick from scurvy – a disease caused by lack of Vitamin C. 6 Da Gama’s fleet eventually began sailing again. On March 2 they reached the Island of Mozambique. After trading with the local Muslim merchants, da Gama sailed on once more stopping briefly in Malindi (in present day Kenya). He hired a pilot to help him navigate through the Indian Ocean. They sailed for 23 days, and on May 20, 1498 they reached India. 7 They headed for Kappad, India near the large city of Calicut. In Calicut, da Gama met with the king. But the king of Calicut was not impressed with da Gama, and the gifts he brought as offering. They spent several months trading in India, and studying their customs. They left India at the end of August. He visited the Anjidiv Island near Goa, and then once more stopped in Malindi in January 1499. Many of his crew were dying of scurvy. He had the São Rafael burned to help contain the illness. Da Gama finally returned to Portugal in September 1499. Manuel I praised da Gama’s success, and gave him money and a new title of admiral.

Subsequent Voyages Vasco da Gama’s later voyages were less friendly with the people he met. He sailed once again beginning in February 1502 with a fleet of 10 ships. They stopped at the Cape Verdes Islands, Mozambique, and then sailed to Kilwa (in modern day Tanzania). Da Gama threatened their leader, and forced him and his people to swear loyalty to the king of Portugal. At Calicut, he bombarded the port, and caused the death of several Muslim traders. Again, later at Cochin, they fought with Arab ships, and sent them into flight. 8 Da Gama was paving the way for an expanded Portuguese empire. This came at the cruel treatment of East African and South Asian people. Finally, on February 20, 1503 da Gama began the return journey home arriving on October 11 1503. King Manuel I died in 1521, and King John III became ruler. He made da Gama a Portuguese viceroy in India. 9 King John III sent da Gama to India to stop the corruption and settle administrative problems of the Portuguese officials. Da Gama’s third journey would be his last.

Later Years and Death After he had returned from his first trip, in 1500 Vasco da Gama had married Caterina de Ataíde. They had six sons, and lived in the town Évora. Da Gama continued advising on Indian affairs until he was sent overseas again in 1524. Vasco da Gama left Portugal for India, and arrived at Goa in September 1524. Da Gama quickly re-established order among the Portuguese leaders. By the end of the year he fell ill. Vasco da Gama died on December 24, 1524 in Cochin, India. He was buried in the local church. In 1539, his remains were brought back to Portugal.

Legacy Vasco De Gama was the first European to find an ocean trading route to India. He accomplished what many explorers before him could not do. His discovery of this sea route helped the Portuguese establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia and Africa. The new ocean route around Africa allowed Portuguese sailors to avoid the Arab trading hold in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Better access to the Indian spice routes boosted Portugal’s economy. Vasco da Gama opened a new world of riches by opening up an Indian Ocean route. His voyage and explorations helped change the world for Europeans.

• Emmanuel Akyeampong and Henry Louis Gates, Dictionary of African Biography (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012), 415.
• Akyeampong and Gates, Dictionary of African Biography , 415.
• Patricia Calvert, Vasco Da Gama: So Strong a Spirit (Tarrytown: Benchmark Books, 2005), 11-12.
• Aileen Gallagher, Prince Henry, the Navigator: Pioneer of Modern Exploration (New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2003), 5.
• Kenneth Pletcher, ed., The Britannica Guide to Explorers and Explorations That Changed the Modern World (New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2009), 54.
• Pletcher, The Britannica Guide, 55.
• Pletcher, The Britannica Guide , 55.
• Pletcher, The Britannica Guide , 57.
• Pletcher, The Britannica Guide , 58.

Bibliography

Akyeampong, Emmanuel, and Henry Louis Gates. Dictionary of African Biography . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Calvert, Patricia. Vasco Da Gama: So Strong a Spirit . Tarrytown: Benchmark Books, 2005.

Gallagher, Aileen. Prince Henry, the Navigator: Pioneer of Modern Exploration . New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2003.

Pletcher, Kenneth ed. The Britannica Guide to Explorers and Explorations That Changed the Modern World. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2009.

• Original "EXPLORATION through the AGES" site
• The Mariners' Educational Programs

The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet.

Vasco da Gama’s Breakout Voyage

Portuguese explorers reached india in the 15th century, establishing a legacy of misunderstanding, suspicion, hostility—and violence..

While Christopher Columbus has gotten most of the ink for his 1492 transit of the Atlantic Ocean, which proved that a hitherto unknown (by Europeans) but populated hemisphere lay over the western horizon, Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama’s voyage, just five years later in 1497, was longer and introduced Europeans to the far wealthier cultures of south Asia. He and his crew of 150 veteran mariners first sailed around the African continent, then crossed the Indian Ocean to land on the Malabar coast of the Indian subcontinent.

They did not come in peace. With red crosses on their sails and bronze cannons on their decks, they meant to capture the rich spice trade of Asia and destroy the Islamic cultures they’d first blooded in the Mediterranean. In their armed violence, described by Roger Crowley in the following excerpt from his new book, Conquerors , they set the tone for the next 500 years of Western global expansion.

ON APRIL 24, WITH THE MONSOON WINDS turning in their favor, the crews headed out to sea “for a city called Calicut.” The turn of phrase suggests that the anonymous diarist on the expedition was hearing this name for the first time—and perhaps the whole expedition, blindly breaking into the Indian Ocean, had only the vaguest sense of their destination. With a continuous following wind, the diagonal crossing of this new sea was astonishingly quick. They were heading northeast. On April 29 they were comforted by the return of the polestar to the night sky, lost to view since the South Atlantic. On Friday, May 18, after only 23 days away from land and 2,300 miles of open water, they spied high mountains. The following day shattering rain thundered on the decks, blotting out visibility; fierce flashes of lightning split the sky. They had hit the early prelude to the monsoon. As the storm cleared, the pilot was able to recognize the coast: “He told us that they were above Calicut, and that this was the country we desired to go to.” Through the breaking rain, they surveyed India for the first time: high peaks looming through the murk. These were the Western Ghats, the long chain of mountains belting southwestern India, on the Malabar Coast; the men could see densely forested slopes, a narrow plain, surf breaking on white sand.

It must have been an emotional sight. They had watched their loved ones wading into the sea at Restelo 309 days ago. They had sailed 12,000 miles and already lost many men. This first blurred view of India stands as a significant moment in world history. Vasco da Gama had ended the isolation of Europe. The Atlantic was no longer a barrier; it had become a highway to link up the hemispheres.…Gama paid off the pilot handsomely, called the crew to prayers, and gave “thanks to God, who had safely conducted them to the long-wished-for place of his destination.”

From the shore there was immediate interest, sparked by both the novelty of the ships themselves, unlike anything sailing the Indian Ocean, and their unlikely timing. Four boats came out to see the strange visitors and pointed out Calicut some way off; the following day, the boats were back. Gama sent one of his convicts ashore with the visitors, a man called João Nunes, a converted Jew, destined to make the most famous landfall in Portuguese history.

The crowd on the beach took him for a Muslim and led him to two Tunisian merchants, who spoke some Castilian and Genoese. The encounter was one of mutual astonishment. Nunes found himself addressed in a language of his own continent: “The Devil take you! What brought you here?”

It was almost anticlimactic, a moment in which the world must have shrunk. The Portuguese had girdled the earth only to be spoken to almost in their own tongue. The commonwealth of Islamic trade, from the gates of Gibraltar to the China Sea, was far more extensive than the Portuguese could yet grasp.

“We came,” replied Nunes, with considerable presence of mind, “in search of Christians and spices.”

The two men took him to their house and fed him delicacies—wheat bread and honey—then enthusiastically accompanied him back to the ships. “Good fortune! Good fortune!” one of them broke out as soon as he had clambered aboard. “Many rubies, many emeralds! You should give many thanks to God for having brought you to a land where there are such riches!” “We were so amazed at this that we heard him speak and we could not believe it,” said the anonymous diarist, “that there could be anyone so far away from Portugal who could understand our speech.”

One of the Tunisians, a man they called Monçaide (perhaps Ibn Tayyib), would help them interpret this new world. He had a nostalgia for the Portuguese, whose ships he had seen trading on the North African coast in the reign of João II. He offered guidance to the labyrinthine manners and customs of Calicut that would prove invaluable. The city, he told them, was ruled by a king, the samudri raja , “the Lord of the Sea,” who would “gladly receive the general as ambassador from a foreign king; more especially if the objects of his voyage were to establish a trade with Calicut, and if the general had brought with him any merchandise proper for that purpose.”

CALICUT, DESPITE THE LACK OF A GOOD NATURAL HARBOR, had established itself as the premier center for the trading of spices along the Malabar Coast because of its rulers’ reputation for good governance and fair dealing with merchants. It had a sizable and deeply settled Muslim trading community. “Formerly,” wrote an earlier Chinese chronicler, “there was a king who made a sworn compact with the Muslim people: You do not eat the ox; I do not eat the pig; we will reciprocally respect the taboo. [This] has been honored right down to the present day.” It was this harmonious arrangement that the Portuguese were destined to disrupt.

The samudri presented the messengers with gifts, expressed his willingness to meet the curious arrivals, and set off with his retinue to the city. He also provided a pilot to lead their ships to a better anchorage some distance away, in a secure harbor at a settlement the Portuguese would call Pandarani. Gama agreed to move his ships, but following his contentious experiences along the African coast, he was cautious and would not proceed right into the berth that the pilot indicated. Suspicion and the tendency to misread motives would dog Portuguese actions in this new world.

On board there followed a heated debate among the captains about how to proceed….Gama, in a speech probably created for him by the chroniclers, insisted that there was now no other way. They had reached India as the king’s ambassador. He must negotiate in person even at the risk of his life. He would take a few men with him and stay for only a short while: “It is not my intention to stay long on shore, so as to give opportunity to the Muslims to plot against me, as I propose only to talk with the king and to return in three days.” The rest must remain at sea under his brother Paulo’s command; an armed boat should be sent close to the shore each day to try to maintain communication; if any harm should befall Gama, they should sail away. On the morning of Monday, May 28, a week after their arrival, Gama set out with 13 men. The party included interpreters and the anonymous writer, well placed to provide an authentic eyewitness account. “We put on our best attire,” he recorded, “placed bombards in our boats, and took with us trumpets and many flags.” Splendor was to be matched by armed defense.

They were greeted in contrasting style by the samudri’s bale—his governor. To the groggy sailors, the sight of the reception committee was alarming: a large number of men, some with big beards and long hair, their ears pierced with glinting gold, many naked to the waist and holding drawn swords. These men were Nayars, members of the Hindu warrior caste, sworn from youth to protect their king until death. The Portuguese took them for Christians, and the reception seemed friendly.

It was nearly sunset when they reached the palace. “We passed through four doors, through which we had to force our way, giving many blows to the people.” Men were wounded at the entrance. At last they came into the king’s audience chamber, “a great hall, surrounded with seats of timber raised in rows above one another like our theaters, the floor being covered by a carpet of green velvet, and the walls hung with silk of various colors.” Before them sat a man they believed to be the Christian king they had come 12,000 miles to find.

THE FIRST SIGHT OF A HINDU MONARCH was, to Portuguese eyes, remarkable:

The king was of a brown complexion, large stature, and well advanced in years. On his head he had a cap or miter adorned with precious stones and pearls, and had jewels of the same kind in his ears. He wore a jacket of fine cotton cloth, having buttons of large pearls and the button-holes wrought with gold thread. About his middle he had a piece of a white calico, which came only down to his knees; and both his fingers and toes were adorned with many gold rings set with fine stones; his arms and legs were covered with many golden bracelets.

The samudri reclined in a posture of Oriental ease on a green velvet couch, chewing betel leaves, the remnants of which he spat into a large gold spittoon.

When Gama was asked to address the assembled company, he asserted his dignity and requested to speak in private. Withdrawing into an inner room with just their interpreters, he talked up his mission: to come to the land of India, which they had been seeking for 60 years on behalf of his king, “the possessor of great wealth of every description,” to find Christian kings. He promised to bring the letters of the Portuguese king, Dom Manuel, to the samudri next day. By this time Gama had evidently assumed the samudri to be a Christian.

As was the custom, the samudri asked if Gama would like to lodge with the Christians (in fact, the Hindus) or the Muslims. Gama warily asked for his men to lodge on their own. It was about 10 o’clock at night. The rain was pouring down in the dark, churning up the street. He was carried on the palanquin under an umbrella…until they reached their lodgings, to which his bed had been delivered by sailors from the boat, along with the presents for the king.

The next morning, Gama collected the items to send to the palace: 12 pieces of striped cloth, 4 scarlet hoods, 6 hats, 4 strings of coral, 6 hand-washing basins, a case of sugar, 2 casks each of honey and oil. These were objects to impress an African chief, not a potentate used to the rich trading culture of the Indian Ocean. The bale just laughed: “The poorest merchant from Mecca, or any other part of India, gave more….If he wanted to make a present it should be in gold.” He refused to forward the paltry items to the Sovereign of the Sea. Furious backpedaling was required. Gama retorted that “he was no merchant but an ambassador….If the king of Portugal ordered him to return he would entrust him with far richer presents.”

The Muslim merchants had sensed a threat from the Christian incomers; they may have received reports of the foreigners’ aggressive tactics and bombardment of the Swahili coast. For all the credited openness of Calicut to trade, there were vested interests to protect; there is evidence that the Muslims had been instrumental in driving Chinese merchants out of the city decades earlier. They probably secured an audience with the samudri to relay the suggestion that Gama was at best a chancer, more likely a pirate. The Portuguese subsequently believed that the Muslims requested Gama’s death.

In the morning they were taken back to the palace, where they waited four hours. To Gama, now thoroughly worked up, it was a calculated snub. Finally word came that the king would see only the captain major and two others. The whole party thought “this separation portended no good.” Gama stepped through the doorway, heavily guarded by armed men, with his secretary and interpreter.

The second interview was frosty and perplexing. Unable to understand what motives these strangers could have if not to trade, the samudri’s questions followed in quick succession to the effect that if he were from a rich country, why had he not brought gifts? And where were his letters? Gama was forced to extemporize answers about how he had brought nothing because this was a voyage of discovery. It would be followed up by others, with rich gifts. He did at least have the letters at hand. The king probed the gift mystery again: “What had he come to discover: stones or men?” he demanded ironically. “If he came to discover men, as he said, why had he brought nothing?” Finally there was the issue of the merchandise: Gama might return to the ships, land, and sell it as best he could. He never saw the samudri again.

The following morning, Gama asked for boats. The bale requested the ships to be brought closer inshore to make the transfer easier in the monsoon weather. The Portuguese feared a trap, orchestrated by the Muslim faction in the city; the bale suspected that these strange visitors might try to leave without paying their customs dues.

“The captain said that if he ordered his vessels to approach, his brother would think that he was being held a prisoner, and that he gave this order on compulsion, and would hoist the sails and return to Portugal.” He demanded to return, with his complaints, to the samudri, “who was a Christian like himself.” The bale agreed but then placed a heavily armed guard on the doors, “none of us being allowed to go outside without being accompanied by several of these guards.” The bale requested that if the ships remained offshore, they should give up their rudders and sails so as not to make off. Gama refused. When he declared that they would die of hunger, the reply was that “if we died of hunger we must bear it.” There was a tense standoff.

The journal recorded a day of tightening fear, offset by an ability to live in the moment.

We passed all that day most anxiously. At night more people surrounded us than ever before, and we were no longer allowed to walk in the compound, within which we were, but confined within a small tiled court, with a multitude of people around us. We quite expected that on the following day we should be separated, or that some harm would befall us….

Next morning, the whole problem inexplicably vanished. Their captors came back, with “better faces,” as the journal writer said. They would do as the king had requested: If the Portuguese landed their goods, they might go. They explained what the bristling Gama had failed to understand: that “it was the custom of the country that every ship on its arrival should at once land the merchandise it brought, as also the crews, and that the vendors should not return on board until the whole of it had been sold.” Gama promptly sent a message to his brother to send “certain things”—not all, and the prisoners were released back to their ships. “At this we rejoiced greatly, and rendered thanks to God for having extricated us from the hands of people who had no more sense than beasts.”

The Portuguese had come to the Indian coast with their visors lowered. Hardened by decades of holy war in North Africa, their default strategies were suspicion, aggressive hostage taking, the half-drawn sword, and a simple binary choice between Christian and Muslim, which seemed genuinely not to have factored into calculation the existence of Hinduism. These impatient simplicities were ill suited to the complexities of the Indian Ocean, where Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and even Indian Christians were integrated into a polyethnic trading zone.

IN THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, THE PORTUGUESE started to unravel the different strata of Malabar society. Informal dealing allowed them to glimpse the mechanisms and rhythms of the Indian Ocean trade and an outline of the supply networks, information they would store for future reference. Calicut itself was a major producer of ginger, pepper, and cinnamon, although better quality of the latter could be had from “an island called Ceylon, which is eight days journey to the south.” Cloves came from an “island called Malacca.” “The Mecca vessels” (from the Arabian Peninsula, 50 days’ sailing away) would carry spices to the Red Sea, and then, via a series of transshipments, successively to Cairo and up the Nile to Alexandria, where the galleys of Venice and Genoa would load up. The Portuguese noted all the checks and barriers in this trade: the inefficient transshipments, the robbery on the road to Cairo, the exorbitant taxes paid to the sultan there. It was this complex supply chain that they were keen to disrupt.

Once more relations unraveled. Gama failed to understand that all merchants were obliged to pay port taxes and that the poor goods they had left onshore provided no surety. Instead, the interpretation of this behavior was that “the Christian king” had been influenced by the Muslims for commercial purposes; that they had told the samudri “that we were thieves, and that if once we navigated to his country, no more ships would come from Mecca…nor from any other part…that he would derive no profit from this [trade with the Portuguese] as we had nothing to give, and would rather take away, and that thus his country would be ruined.” The basic strategic assumption would prove accurate, even if Portuguese fears that the Muslims had offered “rich bribes to the king to capture and kill us” might not. During all this period, Gama continued to receive advice and insights from the two Tunisian Muslims they had met on first landing, and who played a significant part in their understanding of this confusing world.

ON AUGUST 19, 25 MEN CAME OUT [to the expedition’s ships], including “six persons of quality” (high-caste Hindus). Gama saw his chance and promptly kidnapped 18 of them and demanded his man back [Diego Dias had been detained by the samudri]. On August 23, he bluffed that he was leaving for Portugal, sailed away, and waited 12 miles offshore. The next day he returned and anchored within sight of the city.

Cagey negotiations ensued. A boat called to offer to exchange Dias for the hostages. Suspicious as ever, Gama chose to believe that his man was dead and that this was just a delaying tactic “until the ships of Mecca able to capture us had arrived.” He was playing tough, threatening to fire his bombards and to decapitate the hostages unless Dias was returned. He bluffed a farther retreat down the coast.

The samudri sent for Dias and tried to untie the knot. He offered to return him for the hostages on board, and via a double interpretation process—Malayalam to Arabic, Arabic to Portuguese—he dictated a letter, addressed to King Manuel and written by Dias with an iron pen upon a palm leaf, “as is the custom of the country.” The gist read: “Vasco Gama, a gentleman of your household, came to my country, whereat I was pleased. My country is rich in cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper and precious stones. That which I ask of you in return is gold, silver, corals and scarlet cloth.” The samudri was perhaps hedging his bets against future trade. He also permitted the erection of a stone pillar—the ominous calling card of Portuguese intentions.

Offshore, the bargaining went on. Dias was brought out and the hostages were exchanged in a rowboat.…The stone pillar was winched into the boat, and six of the hostages were released. The other six Gama “promised to surrender if on the morrow the merchandise was restored to him.” Then he summarily decided to abandon the goods and carry the hostages off to Portugal. He left with a parting shot: “Be careful, as he hoped shortly to be back in Calicut, when they would know whether we were thieves.” Gama was not one to forgive or forget. “We therefore set sail and left for Portugal, greatly rejoicing at our good fortune in having made so great a discovery,” the diarist reported with satisfaction.

The samudri was furious at the broken bargain and sent a swarm of boats in pursuit. They caught the Portuguese, becalmed farther up the coast, on August 30. “About 70 boats approached us…crowded with people wearing a kind of cuirass made of red cloth.” As they came within range, the Portuguese fired their bombards. A running fight ensued for an hour and a half, until “there arose a thunderstorm which carried us out to sea; and when they could no longer do us harm they turned back, while we pursued our route.” It was to be the first of many naval engagements in the Indian Ocean.

On September 22, they sustained a second attack from a flotilla from Calicut, but Portuguese gunnery crippled the lead ship and the others fled. The presence of these alien vessels was causing continuous interest and suspicion, and Gama was finding the coast increasingly uncomfortable.

On October 5 the ships put out to sea. They now had no pilot. No one who had knowledge of the monsoon winds would have set out to sail west at this time. They probably had little choice, given the circumstances, but whether Gama was aware that it would prove a terrible mistake is unknown.

On January 2, 1499, the battered ships sighted the African coast. It had taken just 23 days to make the voyage across; the return took 93. The lessons of the seasonal monsoon were hard won.

The voyage had been epic; they had been away a year, traveled 24,000 miles. It was a feat of endurance, courage, and great luck. The toll had been heavy. Two-thirds of the crew had died. Unaware of the rhythms of the monsoon, they had been fortunate to survive; scurvy and adverse weather could have taken all of them in the Indian Ocean, leaving ghost ships floating on an empty sea. MHQ

ROGER CROWLEY is a UK-based writer and historian. His particular interests are the Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman empires, and seafaring and eyewitness history. Excerpted from the book Conquerors , by Roger Crowley. Copyright © 2015 by Roger Crowley. Reprinted by arrangement with Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

PHOTO: “Bold in actions, severe in his orders, and very formidable in his anger,” Vasco da Gama, a minor nobleman in his 30s, had been second choice to lead the Portuguese expedition to India. Prisma/UIG/Getty Images

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue (Vol. 28, No. 3) of MHQ—The Quarterly Journal of Military History  with the headline: Vasco da Gama’s Breakout Voyage.

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Vasco da Gama

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. He was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.

(1460-1524)

Who Was Vasco Da Gama

In 1497, explorer Vasco da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. His success in doing so proved to be one of the more instrumental moments in the history of navigation. He subsequently made two other voyages to India and was appointed as Portuguese viceroy in India in 1524.

Early Years

Da Gama was born into a noble family around 1460 in Sines, Portugal. Little is known about his upbringing except that he was the third son of Estêvão da Gama, who was commander of the fortress in Sines in the southwestern pocket of Portugal. When he was old enough, young da Gama joined the navy, where was taught how to navigate.

Known as a tough and fearless navigator, da Gama solidified his reputation as a reputable sailor when, in 1492, King John II of Portugal dispatched him to the south of Lisbon and then to the Algarve region of the country, to seize French ships as an act of vengeance against the French government for disrupting Portuguese shipping.

Following da Gama's completion of King John II's orders, in 1495, King Manuel took the throne, and the country revived its earlier mission to find a direct trade route to India. By this time, Portugal had established itself as one of the most powerful maritime countries in Europe.

Much of that was due to Henry the Navigator, who, at his base in the southern region of the country, had brought together a team of knowledgeable mapmakers, geographers and navigators. He dispatched ships to explore the western coast of Africa to expand Portugal's trade influence. He also believed that he could find and form an alliance with Prester John, who ruled over a Christian empire somewhere in Africa. Henry the Navigator never did locate Prester John, but his impact on Portuguese trade along Africa's east coast during his 40 years of explorative work was undeniable. Still, for all his work, the southern portion of Africa — what lay east — remained shrouded in mystery.

In 1487, an important breakthrough was made when Bartolomeu Dias discovered the southern tip of Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. This journey was significant; it proved, for the first time, that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected. The trip, in turn, sparked a renewed interest in seeking out a trade route to India.

By the late 1490s, however, King Manuel wasn't just thinking about commercial opportunities as he set his sights on the East. In fact, his impetus for finding a route was driven less by a desire to secure for more lucrative trading grounds for his country, and more by a quest to conquer Islam and establish himself as the king of Jerusalem.

First Voyage

Historians know little about why exactly da Gama, still an inexperienced explorer, was chosen to lead the expedition to India in 1497. On July 8 of that year, he captained a team of four vessels, including his flagship, the 200-ton St. Gabriel , to find a sailing route to India and the East.

To embark on the journey, da Gama pointed his ships south, taking advantage of the prevailing winds along the coast of Africa. His choice of direction was also a bit of a rebuke to Christopher Columbus, who had believed he'd found a route to India by sailing east.

Following s months of sailing, he rounded the Cape of Good Hope and began making his way up the eastern coast of Africa, toward the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean. By January, as the fleet neared what is now Mozambique, many of da Gama's crewmembers were sick with scurvy, forcing the expedition to anchor for rest and repairs for nearly one month.

In early March of 1498, da Gama and his crew dropped their anchors in the port of Mozambique, a Muslim city-state that sat on the outskirts of the east coast of Africa and was dominated by Muslim traders. Here, da Gama was turned back by the ruling sultan, who felt offended by the explorer's modest gifts.

By early April, the fleet reached what is now Kenya, before setting sail on a 23-day run that would take them across the Indian Ocean. They reached Calicut, India, on May 20. But da Gama's own ignorance of the region, as well as his presumption that the residents were Christians, led to some confusion. The residents of Calicut were actually Hindu, a fact that was lost on da Gama and his crew, as they had not heard of the religion.

Still, the local Hindu ruler welcomed da Gama and his men, at first, and the crew ended up staying in Calicut for three months. Not everyone embraced their presence, especially Muslim traders who clearly had no intention of giving up their trading grounds to Christian visitors. Eventually, da Gama and his crew were forced to barter on the waterfront in order to secure enough goods for the passage home. In August 1498, da Gama and his men took to the seas again, beginning their journey back to Portugal.

Da Gama's timing could not have been worse; his departure coincided with the start of a monsoon. By early 1499, several crew members had died of scurvy and in an effort to economize his fleet, da Gama ordered one of his ships to be burned. The first ship in the fleet didn't reach Portugal until July 10, nearly a full year after they'd left India.

In all, da Gama's first journey covered nearly 24,000 miles in close to two years, and only 54 of the crew's original 170 members survived.

Second Voyage

When da Gama returned to Lisbon, he was greeted as a hero. In an effort to secure the trade route with India and usurp Muslim traders, Portugal dispatched another team of vessels, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. The crew reached India in just six months, and the voyage included a firefight with Muslim merchants, where Cabral's crew killed 600 men on Muslim cargo vessels. More important for his home country, Cabral established the first Portuguese trading post in India.

In 1502, da Gama helmed another journey to India that included 20 ships. Ten of the ships were directly under his command, with his uncle and nephew helming the others. In the wake of Cabral's success and battles, the king charged da Gama to further secure Portugal's dominance in the region.

To do so, da Gama embarked on one of the most gruesome massacres of the exploration age. He and his crew terrorized Muslim ports up and down the African east coast, and at one point, set ablaze a Muslim ship returning from Mecca, killing the several hundreds of people (including women and children) who were on board. Next, the crew moved to Calicut, where they wrecked the city's trade port and killed 38 hostages. From there, they moved to the city of Cochin, a city south of Calicut, where da Gama formed an alliance with the local ruler.

Finally, on February 20, 1503, da Gama and his crew began to make their way home. They reached Portugal on October 11 of that year.

Later Years and Death

Little was recorded about da Gama's return home and the reception that followed, though it has been speculated that the explorer felt miffed at the recognition and compensation for his exploits.

Married at this time, and the father of six sons, da Gama settled into retirement and family life. He maintained contact with King Manuel, advising him on Indian matters, and was named count of Vidigueira in 1519. Late in life, after the death of King Manuel, da Gama was asked to return to India, in an effort to contend with the growing corruption from Portuguese officials in the country. In 1524, King John III named da Gama Portuguese viceroy in India.

That same year, da Gama died in Cochin — the result, it has been speculated, from possibly overworking himself. His body was sailed back to Portugal, and buried there, in 1538.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Vasco da Gama
• Birth Year: 1460
• Birth City: Sines
• Birth Country: Portugal
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. He was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.
• World Politics
• Nationalities
• Death Year: 1524
• Death date: December 24, 1524
• Death City: Cochin
• Death Country: India
• I am not the man I once was. I do not want to go back in time, to be the second son, the second man.
• I am not afraid of the darkness. Real death is preferable to a life without living.
• We left from Restelo one Saturday, the 8th day of July of the said year, 1479, on out journey. May God our Lord allow us to complete it in His service.
• There was great rejoicing, thanks being rendered to God for having extricated us from the hands of people who had no more sense than beasts.

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Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

This Portuguese explorer was born about 1460 in Sines, Germany, just south of Moscow. Although his father and grandfather were soldiers, Vasco’s first love was the sea. He could be found at an early age sailing on a variety of fishing boats. Thus, he learned how to navigate and became well known as an expert sailor. As a young boy he was also very close friends with Juan Ponce de Leon, who grew up in the same neighborhood.

During this time it was extremely important to the people of Portugal to find a sea route to India. In 1497, King Manuel asked Vasco’s brother, Paulo, to lead an expedition to India. Vasco was quite jealous of his brother and a terrible fight ensued. Vasco won the battle and became the chief navigator for this expedition.

The Voyages of Vasco da Gama (Click to enlarge)

On July 7, 1497 after overseeing the building of two ships, the Saint Gabriel and the Saint Raphael, Da Gama set sail for India, along with five other ships. The crew was made up of about 200 men, many of who had attended the Navigational Academy in Portugal. Unlike many explorers before him, Da Gama sailed west into uncharted waters avoiding the coast of Africa. Da Gama was able to do this because of the high tech instruments that had been designed by IBM. On November 22 the ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Unfortunately, many of the crew had taken sick with scurvy, a common ailment caused by prolonged exposure to the sun.

Finally, in May of 1498 Da Gama arrived in Calicut, India. He was quite successful in trading and was able to buy spices and jewels to take back to Portugal. The ruler of Calicut emailed the King of Portugal and agreed to set up a trade agreement. Da Gama had accomplished his mission. He opened up a trade route with the East by sea. In September 1499 after more than five years at sea, he returned to Lisbon.

Portugal continued to trade with India and became a very rich and powerful country. Thus in 1502 Da Gama returned to India for a second time to claim the land for Portugal. On this voyage, however, he only brought 3 ships: the Challenger, the Discovery, and the Enterprise. By this time, the trade routes had been expanded, and most commerce between the countries was happening by way of rail and air.

Da Gama was not welcome this time, however. His presence was a threat to many of the other shipping companies that had begun trading, including Federal Express and UPS. Their workers were angry that Da Gama was trying to resume trade, and they attacked his ships without warning. Many battles ensued.

Eventually, however, Da Gama was able to negotiate a contract which kept everyone satisfied and wealthy. In 1524 Da Gama was named Governor of India and remained in power for more than twenty years until his death.

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Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama

Epic Voyage of Vasco da Gama Connected Europe to the East

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Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor and explorer who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries. Not only is da Gama a significant figure in the history of Portugal and Europe, but he is also an important personage in world history. Vasco da Gama was the first European to reach India via an oceanic route.

As a result of Vasco da Gama’s voyages , Portugal cemented its reputation as a formidable seafaring nation and grew rich from the goods that were coming from the East. Moreover, da Gama’s discovery of a maritime route connecting Europe to Asia may be regarded to be the beginning of the age of global imperialism.

Not long after da Gama’s first voyage to the East, the Portuguese established their first colony in Asia, when they conquered Goa, in India, in 1510. Portugal’s last colony, Macau, is also in Asia and was only handed back to China in 1999.

The journey of Vasco da Gama connected Europe and the East. Source: Archivist / Adobe Stock.

The Early Life of Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama was born around 1460 in Sines, a coastal town in the Alentejo region, in the southwestern part of Portugal. da Gama’s father was a minor provincial nobleman by the name of Estêvão da Gama, who served as a commander of the town’s castle. Unfortunately, little else is known about da Gama’s early life.

In fact, the next piece of information about Vasco da Gama’s life prior to his voyage to the East comes from 1492. In that year, the King of Portugal, John II, sent da Gama to Setubal, a port city between Lisbon and Sines, to seize French vessels.

This was carried out in retaliation for attacks by the French on Portuguese shipping interests, despite the fact that the two countries were not at war. da Gama proved his capabilities by performing his mission swiftly and effectively.

Politics and the Portuguese Fleet

In 1497, Vasco da Gama was given the task of seeking an oceanic route from Western Europe to the East and was placed at the head of a Portuguese fleet. Although da Gama is one of Portugal’s greatest maritime explorers, he was certainly not its first. In fact, the kingdom began to explore the uncharted waters to its west and south about 80 years before da Gama’s first voyage.

In 1415, the Portuguese crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and captured Ceuta from the Moors. This is considered to be the starting point of the Portuguese Colonial Empire. In the decades that followed, the Portuguese discovered (and colonized) the island of Madeira, and the Azores, and continued their exploration down the western coast of Africa.

Interestingly, one of the reasons that spurred the Portuguese to seek a sea route to the East was the legend of Prester John, who was rumored to be the monarch of a long-lost Christian kingdom in the East. The rulers of Portugal, as Catholics, saw it as their sacred duty to spread Christianity, and to destroy Islam. Therefore, the Portuguese kings were hoping to find this legendary Christian king in the East, form an alliance with him, and encircle the Muslims .

The envisioned ‘grand alliance’ against the Muslims never materialized, since the Portuguese were not able to locate the legendary Prester John. Nevertheless, the Portuguese grew wealthy as a consequence of the commerce that they conducted during their voyages. The most lucrative of all was the African slave trade and the first consignment of slaves was brought to Lisbon in 1441.

Six years after that, Portuguese seafarers had reached as far south as present-day Sierra Leone. The Portuguese arrived in the Congo in 1482 and 4 years later they were at Cape Cross, in present day Namibia. The Portuguese finally reached the ‘southern end’ of the African continent in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

The route followed in Vasco da Gama's first voyage, 1497–1499. (PhiLip / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

It may be pointed out that the Cape of Good Hope was thought (incorrectly) to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Today, however, we know that the southern tip of Africa is in fact Cape Agulhas, located to the southeast of the Cape of Good Hope. While some accounts claim that the name of the landmark was given by Dias himself, others claim that Dias had originally named it ‘Cape of Storms’.

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Map of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas the southernmost point of Africa. (Johantheghost / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

This was a reference to the stormy weather and rough seas that the area is famous for, which was a challenge for the early seafarers who intended to sail round the cape. The story goes on to say that it was John II who changed the name of the cape from ‘Cape of Storms’ to ‘Cape of Good Hope’, as it was supposed to be a good omen indicating that the Europeans could reach India (and presumably the elusive Prester John as well) via the sea.

It seems that there was a hiatus in Portugal’s exploratory voyages after Dias’ rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, as it took the Portuguese another decade before they finally arrived in India. By that time, John was dead, and had been succeeded by Manuel I, the king who gave Vasco da Gama the mission to seek the maritime route to India.

Manuel has a rather unusual, though appropriate epithet, ‘the Fortunate’. He was the ninth child of Dom Fernando, the younger brother of Afonso V, John’s father and predecessor. Considering his position, it was pretty unlikely that Manuel would ever attain the Portuguese throne. In addition, during John’s reign, Manuel’s only surviving brother was murdered by the king on suspicion of conspiracy.

Manuel, however, was spared, and even made Duke of Beja. In 1491, John’s legitimate son, Afonso, died in a horse-riding accident. For the remaining years of his life, John tried to legitimize his bastard son, Jorge de Lencastre, but without success.

The queen, Eleanor of Viseu, herself opposed John on this matter and supported Manuel as the new heir to the throne. The queen, incidentally, was one of Manuel’s sisters. Thus, in 1494, when John’s health was in decline, he named Manuel as his successor, and when the king died in October the following year, Manuel became Portugal’s new king.

Vasco da Gama’s Mission

It was Manuel who placed  Vasco da Gama in charge of the fleet that was to sail to India in 1497. da Gama is said to have lacked the relevant experience to lead such an expedition, though some have suggested that he may have studied navigation prior to this. It is more likely that da Gama was chosen for political reasons – Manuel was in favor of the da Gama family and their supporters.

In any case, Vasco da Gama left Lisbon on the 8th of July 1497. The fleet consisted of four vessels – two medium-sized three-masted sailing ships known as carracks, each weighing about 120 tonnes, a smaller caravel, weighing about 50 tonnes, and a supply ship.

Departure of Vasco da Gama to India in 1497. (Dantadd / Public Domain )

The carracks were named São Gabriel and São Rafael , the former commanded by da Gama himself, while the latter by his brother, Paulo da Gama. The caravel was named São Miguel (nicknamed Berrio ) and commanded by Nicolau Coelho, whereas the name of the supply ship is today unknown and was commanded by Gonçalo Nunes.

The fleet passed the Canary Islands (which was under Spanish control) on the 15th of July and on the 26th arrived at São Tiago in the Cape Verde Islands. The fleet remained on the island until the 3rd of August before continuing their journey. da Gama initially sailed southwards along the west coast of Africa, but then veered far off into the southern Atlantic, in order to avoid the currents in the Gulf of Guinea.

On the 7th of November, the fleet arrived in Santa Helena Bay (in modern South Africa), where unfavorable winds and adverse currents caused da Gama and his men to halt their journey for several weeks. Finally, on the 22nd of November, da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and continued the journey eastwards.

Three days after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, da Gama set foot on Mossel Bay, and erected a padrão (a stone pillar left by the Portuguese explorers to mark significant landfalls and to establish possession of the area) there. It was also here that the supply ship was scuttled. Around Christmas, da Gama sailed passed a coast that was yet to be explored by Europeans and called it Natal (the Portuguese word for Christmas).

Pillar of Vasco da Gama in Malindi, in modern-day Kenya, erected on the return journey. (Mgiganteus / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Vasco da Gama’s Journey Continues

In the months that followed, the fleet sailed northwards along the east coast of Africa. In January 1498, the fleet had arrived in the area that is today Mozambique. On the 25th of that month, da Gama and his men reached the Quelimane River, which they called Rio dos Bons Sinais (meaning ‘River of Good Omens’) and set up another padrão . The fleet rested there for a month, as many of the men were suffering from scurvy and the ships needed to be repaired.

On the 2nd of March, da Gama arrived on the island of Mozambique, which was ruled by a Muslim sultan. The islanders believed that the Portuguese were Muslims like themselves and therefore treated them kindly. da Gama gained much information from them and was even given two navigators by the sultan, one of whom deserted when he learned that the Portuguese were in fact Christians.

In April, the fleet reached the coast of modern day Kenya. On the 14th of April, da Gama was in Malindi, where he obtained the service of a Gujarati navigator who knew the way to Calicut, on the southwestern coast of India. On the 20th of May, the fleet arrived in Calicut after sailing for 23 days directly across the Indian Ocean.

Vasco da Gama landing at Calicut. (Piggy58 / Public Domain )

At Calicut, da Gama’ gifts failed to impress the Zamorin (the Hindu ruler of Calicut). In addition, the Muslims merchants who were already there were hostile towards the Portuguese. As a consequence, the Portuguese failed to conclude a trade treaty with the Indians of Calicut.

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Vasco da Gama meets Zamorin. (Donaldduck100 / Public Domain )

In the meantime, relations between the Portuguese and the Indians grew increasingly tense and Vasco da Gama finally decided to sail back to Portugal at the end of August. The Portuguese, who were still ignorant about the monsoon wind patterns, chose the worst possible time for their return journey. As a result of sailing against the monsoon winds, da Gama took nearly three months to cross the Indian Ocean, during which time many of his crew died of scurvy.

The lack of crew members also forced da Gama to order the destruction of São Rafael when the fleet arrived at Malindi on the 7th of January 1499. The two remaining ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope on the 20th of March but were separated a month later by a storm.

São Miguel arrived in Portugal on the 10th of July, while São Gabriel arrived on the 9th of September. Nine days later, da Gama entered Lisbon, and was welcomed as a hero.

The king bestowed the title Dom on Vasco da Gama, gave him an annual pension of 1000 cruzados, and estates. Nevertheless, da Gama had paid a hefty price for his success – of the original crew of 170 men only 55 returned, and his own brother was among the dead.

The king granted Vasco da Gama the title of Dom. ( laufer / Adobe Stock)

The Success of Vasco da Gama’s Voyage Demands a Repeat

The success of Vasco da Gama’s voyage encouraged the king to send another fleet, this time consisting of 13 ships, to secure a trade treaty with Calicut. Although relations between the Zamorin and the Portuguese began much better this time round, it quickly went south. The Portuguese came into conflict with the Muslim merchants, who wanted to keep their monopoly on the city’s trade.

As a result, a riot broke out, which overran the Portuguese trading post and many Portuguese were slaughtered. The Zamorin was blamed for the incident and his city was bombarded, thus war was declared by the Portuguese on Calicut.

In 1502, another fleet was set out from Lisbon, under the command of da Gama, who was charged with exacting revenge on Calicut, and to force the Zamorin into submission. Raids were also carried out against Arab merchant ships, and, according to one story, da Gama had captured a pilgrim ship with 200-400 passengers, locked them up in the vessel after plundering its goods, and set fire to the ship.

The story, which may have been false, or at least exaggerated, caused Vasco da Gama to be reviled in that part of the world. Incidentally, one of da Gama’s ships from his second voyage has been found off the coast of Oman and excavated between 2013 and 2015.

Vasco da Gama failed to force the Zamorin to submit and seems to have lost the favor of Manuel when he returned. For the next two decades of his life, da Gama retired to the town of Évora and lived a quiet life with his wife and six sons. He was only sent on his third and last voyage in 1524 by John III, Manuel’s successor.

This time, Vasco da Gama was sent to serve as the Portuguese viceroy in India. In September 1524, da Gama arrived in Goa and began combating the corruption that was plaguing the Portuguese administration in India.

Three months later, however, da Gama died in Cochin as a result of illness, either due to overwork or some other reason. His remains were first buried in St. Francis Church in Cochin, and then brought back to Portugal in 1539 and laid to rest Vidigueira before being transferred to the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, Lisbon during the late 19th century, where they have remained till today.

Tomb of Vasco da Gama in the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, Lisbon. (Christine und Hagen Graf / CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Top image: Portuguese caravel of the 15th century. Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor and explorer. Credit: Michael Rosskothen / Adobe Stock

By Wu Mingren

Updated on January 21, 2021.

Fernandez-Armesto, F., and Campbell, E. 2019. Vasco da Gama . [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vasco-da-Gama

History.com Editors. 2018. Vasco da Gama . [Online] Available at: https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/vasco-da-gama

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Wu Mingren (‘Dhwty’) has a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History and Archaeology. Although his primary interest is in the ancient civilizations of the Near East, he is also interested in other geographical regions, as well as other time periods.... Read More

Related Articles on Ancient-Origins

• Vasco da Gama

• Occupation: Explorer
• Born: 1460 in Sines, Portugal
• Died: December 23, 1524 in Kochi, India
• Best known for: The first European to sail from Europe to India around Africa

• Originally Vasco's father, Estevao, was going to be given the command of the exploration fleet, but the trip was delayed for many years. Eventually, the command was given to his son Vasco instead.
• There is a crater named Vasco da Gama on the Moon.
• His fleet on the second voyage consisted of 20 armed ships.
• He had six sons and one daughter. His second son became governor of Portuguese India.
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Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Home > Journal Publishing > Archived Journals > JGI > Vol. 11 (2016) > No. 1

Vasco da Gama, the Explorer: Motivations and Myths

S. Ghazanfar Follow

Publication Date

October 2016

The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama (1460-1524), was the first European to sail from Portugal to India. The “da Gama epoch” refers to the era of European commercial and imperial expansion in Asia. The primary motivation for the 1498 voyage, however, was messianic, to ‘vanquish and subdue all Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and other enemies of Christ, to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to convert to Christianity,’ as declared in various Papal Bulls, together called “the Doctrine of Discovery.” The Church divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese zones, both to be part of the Papal Empire. Over time, the apocalyptic mission led to the Age of Discovery, followed by the Age of Colonialism/ Imperialism. Descriptions of the voyage, however, need to be tempered in light of several “myths” often associated with those accounts. Thus, the paper pursues two objectives: (1) discuss the messianic “Christianizing” motivation for the voyage, and (2) discuss the “myths” associated with the journey.

Author Bio(s)

Shaikh M. Ghazanfar is Professor-Emeritus (Economics), 1968-2008; Dept. Chair, 1993-2002; Founding-Director, International Studies Program, 1988 1993; University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. With diverse scholarly interests, he is the author of four books (latest: Islamic Civilization: History, Contributions, Influence , Scarecrow Press/Rowman-Littlefield, Lanham, Md., 2006); 160+ refereed articles/professional papers (Development, Public Finance/Taxation, Economic Thought, Islam-West Civilizational Links); and contributed as co-editor/advisor/author to several encyclopedic works and professional journals.

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