Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, a port on the Alentejo coast; his birth year is uncertain and is placed around 1460 or around 1469. His father Estêvão da Gama was governor (alcaide-mor) of Sines and a knight of the Order of Santiago; his mother Isabel Sodré came from a family of English descent. He was the third of five sons.

Little is certain about his education. He grew up at a time when the Portuguese crown had been exploring the African coast since Prince Henry the Navigator; in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa. Around 1480 Da Gama, like his father, joined the Order of Santiago, and around 1501 he married Catarina de Ataíde.

In 1497 King Manuel I sent Da Gama out with four ships to find a sea route to India. The fleet left Lisbon on 8 July with about 170 men, sailed in a wide arc across the Atlantic and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in November. Along the East African coast the fleet was received with hostility at Mombasa and more amicably at Malindi, where Da Gama engaged a pilot.

An old tradition names the pilot from Malindi as the Arab navigator Ahmad ibn Majid, but historians do not follow it. On 20 May 1498 the fleet anchored off Calicut (Kozhikode) on the Malabar coast. The Zamorin received Da Gama, but no trade treaty resulted: according to Portuguese sources the gifts disappointed and Muslim merchants saw the Portuguese as rivals.

On the return voyage across the Indian Ocean about half of the crew died and many survivors were afflicted with scurvy; Da Gama arrived in Portugal in 1499. Of the roughly 170 men an estimated 55 or so returned, and two ships were lost. Still, the voyage showed that India could be reached by sea, which the Portuguese crown quickly exploited with new fleets, the first under Cabral in 1500.

On his second voyage (1502–1503) Da Gama led a large fleet of about twenty ships to India, intended to increase Portuguese control over trade in the Indian Ocean. On the way he made contact with the gold port of Sofala and made the sultanate of Kilwa pay tribute.

In October 1502 his fleet seized the pilgrim ship Meri off the Malabar coast, which according to many sources was returning from Mecca to Calicut. According to Portuguese chroniclers it was plundered and set on fire with several hundred passengers aboard, including women and children; ransom that was offered was refused. Da Gama then bombarded Calicut from the sea for two days, and according to the chronicles prisoners were also mutilated.

Since the fifteenth century Portugal had sought a direct sea route to Asia, to reach the lucrative spice trade without intermediaries in the Mediterranean. The Portuguese crown combined commercial, strategic and religious motives, including the struggle against Islamic powers and the search for Christian allies. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) divided spheres of influence with Spain.

The Indian Ocean had been a busy trading region for centuries, in which Indian, Arab, Persian, East African and Southeast Asian merchants operated. The Portuguese did not enter an empty region but an existing network of port cities and powers such as Kilwa, Malindi, Calicut and Cochin, with mutual rivalries that they exploited. Their armed ships with cannon gave them a military advantage at sea.

The route around Africa made direct sea contact between Europe and South Asia possible and led to a Portuguese trading network with bases such as Mozambique, Goa and Malacca, which were taken after Da Gama. Portugal tried to control trade with armed ships and a licensing system (cartaz). Historians judge the effects on the European spice trade with nuance: the Levant trade remained important in the sixteenth century.

For coastal populations and rulers the arrival of the Portuguese also meant violence and coercion. The attack on the Meri and the bombardment of Calicut in 1502 are well-known examples; local rulers responded with naval resistance, alliances or diplomacy. The information comes mainly from Portuguese sources, such as the chronicle of Gaspar Correia; these are partisan and differ in details and numbers.

Da Gama received the title Count of Vidigueira in 1519. In 1524 John III appointed him viceroy of Portuguese India; he died on 24 December of that year in Cochin, probably of malaria. His remains were taken to Portugal in 1539 and now rest in the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon.

In Portugal Da Gama is regarded as a national hero; Luís de Camões made him the central figure of the epic Os Lusíadas (1572). His fame is tempered by the violence of his expeditions, and in postcolonial historiography and popular culture he is also judged critically. The notion of 'discovery' is contested, because the route led to a region that had long been part of intercontinental trade.