Vasco da Gama

Dom Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (Sines or Vidigueira, Alentejo, Portugal, ca. either 1460 or 1469 – December 24, 1524 in Kochi, India) 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.

Early life
Vasco da Gama was probably born in either 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 seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, tenanted chiefly by fisherfolk.

Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama. In the 1460s he was a knight in the household of the Duke of Viseu, Dom Fernando. Dom Fernando appointed him Alcaide-Mór or Civil Governor of Sines and enabled him to receive a small revenue from taxes on soap making in Estremoz.

Estêvão da Gama was married to Dona Isabel Sodré, daughter of João Sodré (also known as João de Resende; of English origin, with links to the household of Prince Diogo, Duke of Viseu, son of King Edward I of Portugal and governor of the military Order of Christ).

Little is known of Vasco da Gama's early life. It has been suggested that he studied at the inland town of Évora, which is where he may have learnt mathematics and navigation and that he knew astronomy well, having learned from the famous astronomer Abraham Zacuto.

In 1492 King John II of Portugal sent Gama to the port of Setúbal, south of Lisbon and to the Algarve, Portugal's southernmost province, to seize French ships in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese shipping - a task that Vasco rapidly and effectively performed.

Background
Bartolomeu Dias had already rounded Africa's Cape of Good Hope in 1488, in an historic event that was the culmination of a generation of Portuguese sea exploration fostered by Henry the Navigator.

Gama's voyage was successful in reaching India. This permitted Europeans to trade with the Far East without having to endure the costs and hazards of the Silk Road caravans, which followed inland routes through the Middle East and Central Asia at a time when much of this territory was part of the Mughal Empire. However, Gama's achievements were somewhat dimmed by his failure to bring any trade goods of interest to the nations of Asia Minor and India. Moreover, the sea route was fraught with its own perils - his fleet went more than three months without seeing land and only 54 of his 170 companions, on two of his four ships, returned to Portugal in 1499. Nevertheless, Gama's initial journey ushered in an era of European domination through sea power and commerce that lasted several hundred years and 450 years of Portuguese colonialism in India and Africa that brought wealth and power to the Portuguese monarch.

Exploration before Gama
From the early fifteenth century, the nautical school of Henry the Navigator had been extending Portuguese knowledge of the African coastline. From the 1460s, the goal had become one of rounding that continent's southern extremity to gain easier access to the riches of India (mainly black pepper and other spices) through a reliable sea route.

By the time Gama was ten years old, these long-term plans were coming to fruition. Bartolomeu Dias had returned from rounding the Cape of Good Hope, having explored as far as the Fish River (Rio do Infante) in modern-day South Africa and having verified that the unknown coast stretched away to the northeast.

Concurrent land exploration during the reign of João II of Portugal supported the theory that India was reachable by sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva were sent via Barcelona, Naples and Rhodes, into Alexandria and thence to Aden, Hormuz and India, which gave credence to the theory.

It remained for an explorer to prove the link between the findings of Dias and those of da Covilhã and de Paiva and to connect these separate segments into a potentially lucrative trade route into the Indian Ocean. The task, originally given to Vasco da Gama's father, was offered to Vasco by Manuel I on the strength of his record of protecting Portuguese trading stations along the African Gold Coast from depredations by the French.

First voyage
On 8 July 1497 the fleet, consisting of four ships, left Lisbon. The vessels were:
 * The São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama; a carrack of 178 tons, length 27 m, width 8.5 m, draft 2.3 m, sails of 372 m², 150 crew
 * The São Rafael, whose commander was his brother Paulo da Gama; similar dimensions to the São Gabriel
 * The caravel Berrio, slightly smaller than the former two (later re-baptized São Miguel), commanded by Nicolau Coelho.
 * A storage ship of unknown name, commanded by Gonçalo Nunes, later lost near the Bay of São Brás, along the east coast of Africa.

Rounding the Cape
By December 16, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River- where Dias had turned back- and was sailing into waters unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending, they gave the coast they were passing the name Natal ("birth (of Christ)" = Christmas in Portuguese).

Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast was part of the Indian Ocean's network of trade. Fearing the local population would be hostile to Christians, Gama impersonated a Muslim and gained audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With the paltry trade goods he had to offer, Gama was unable to provide a suitable gift to the ruler and soon the local populace began to see through the subterfuge of Gama and his men. Forced to quit Mozambique by a hostile crowd, Gama departed the harbor, firing his cannon into the city in retaliation.

Mombasa
In the vicinity of modern Kenya, the expedition resorted to piracy, looting Arab merchant ships - generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannon. The Portuguese became the first known Europeans to visit the port of Mombasa but were met with hostility and soon departed.

Malindi
In February 1498, Vasco da Gama continued north, landing at the friendlier port of Malindi, -whose leaders were in conflict with those of Mombasa- and there the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders. They contracted the services of an Arab navigator and cartographer, whose knowledge of the monsoon winds allowed him to bring the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut (modern Kozhikode) on the southwest coast of India. The navigator was believed to be Ibn Majid, who would have been approaching 60 at the time.

Calicut, India
The fleet arrived in Calicut on 20 May, 1498. Sometimes violent negotiations with the local ruler (usually anglicized as Zamorin), the Wyatt Enourato ensued, in the teeth of resistance from Arab merchants. Eventually Gama was able to gain an ambiguous letter of concession for trading rights but had to sail off without giving notice of his intention to do so after the Zamorin insisted that Gama leave all his goods as collateral. Vasco da Gama kept his goods but left a few Portuguese with orders to start a trading post.

Return


Paulo da Gama died in the Azores on the homeward voyage. Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal in September 1499 and was richly rewarded as the man who had brought to fruition a plan that had taken eighty years to fulfill. He was given the title "Admiral of the Indian Ocean" and the feudal rights over Sines were confirmed. Manuel I also awarded the dignity of Dom (lord) to Gama, his brothers and sisters and to all of their descendants, forever. He was created first earl of Vidigueira, the first Portuguese count with no royal blood ever created.

The spice trade would prove to be a major asset to the Portuguese economy. Other consequences followed. For example, Gama's voyage had made it clear that the farther (East) coast of Africa, the Contra Costa, was essential to Portuguese interests: its ports provided fresh water and provisions, timber and harbors for repairs and a refuge where ships could to wait out unfavorable seasons. The result in the end was the colonization of Mozambique by the Portuguese Crown.

Second voyage
On 12 February 1502, Gama sailed with a fleet of twenty warships, with the object of enforcing Portuguese interests in the east. This was subsequent to the voyage of Pedro Álvares Cabral, who had been sent to India two years earlier. (Swinging far to the west across the Atlantic in order to make use of the pattern of favourable winds, Cabral became the official European discoverer of Brazil. The find may have been an accident). When he finally reached India, Cabral learned that the Portuguese citizens who had been left by Gama at the trading post had been murdered. After encountering further resistance from the locals, he bombarded Calicut and then sailed south of Calicut to reach Cochin, a small kingdom where he was given a warm welcome. He returned to Europe with silk and gold.

Once he had reached the northern parts of the Indian Ocean, Gama waited for a ship to return from Mecca and seized all the merchandise on it. He then ordered that the 380 passengers be locked in the hold and the ship set on fire. It took four days for the ship to sink and everyone on board died. When Gama arrived at Calicut on October 30, 1502 the Zamorin was willing to sign a treaty.

Gama assaulted and exacted tribute from the Arab-controlled port of Kilwa in East Africa, one of those ports involved in frustrating the Portuguese; he played privateer amongst Arab merchant ships, then finally smashed a Calicut fleet of twenty-nine ships. Following that battle he extracted favorable trading concessions from the Zamorin.

On his return to Portugal, in September 1503, he was made Count of Vidigueira, with his seat in land sold to him by the Duke of Bragança (the future royal family of Bragança). He was also awarded feudal rights and jurisdiction over Vidigueira and Vila dos Frades.

Third voyage
Having acquired a fearsome reputation as a "fixer" of problems that arose in India, he was sent to the subcontinent once more in 1524.

The intention was that he was to replace the incompetent Eduardo de Menezes as viceroy (representative) of the Portuguese possessions but he contracted malaria not long after arriving in Goa and died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524.

His body was first buried at St. Francis Church, Fort Kochi, Kochi but his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539 and re-interred in Vidigueira in a splendid tomb.

The Monastery of the Hieronymites in Belém was erected in honour of his voyage to India.

Legacy


Gama and his wife, Catarina de Ataíde, had six sons and one daughter: Francisco da Gama, 2nd Count of Vidigueira; Estevão da Gama; Paulo da Gama; Cristovão da Gama; Pedro da Silva da Gama; Álvaro de Ataíde; and Isabel de Ataíde da Gama.

As much as anyone after Henry the Navigator, Gama was responsible for Portugal's success as an early colonising power. Beside the fact of the first voyage itself, it was his astute mix of politics and war on the other side of the world that placed Portugal in a prominent position in Indian Ocean trade.

The Portuguese national epic, the Lusíadas of Luís Vaz de Camões largely concerns Vasco da Gama's voyages.

Following Gama's initial voyage, the Portuguese crown realized that securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa would prove vital to maintaining national trade routes to the Far East.

The port city of Vasco da Gama in Goa is named after him, as is the Vasco da Gama crater, a big crater on the Moon. There are three football clubs in Brazil (including Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama) and Vasco Sports Club in Goa that were also named after him. A church in Kochi, Kerala Vasco da Gama Church, a private residence on the island of Saint Helena and Lisbon's Vasco da Gama Bridge are also named after him. The suburb of Vasco in Cape Town also honours him.

Gama was ranked eighty-sixth on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.

In 1998, attempts to observe the five hundredth anniversary of Gama's arrival in India by the Government of Portugal had to be abandoned because of public antipathy towards the event. .