Gama, Vasco DA (1469–1524)

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese navigator and explorer and the first European who succeeded in reaching India after circumnavigating the African continent. He thus opened the way for new sea routes for trade and laid the foundations for the Portuguese Empire in Eastern Africa, India, and Indonesia, making his homeland for a period the main commercial leader in Europe.

At the time of da Gama's voyages, spices and herbs had enormous importance, and their maritime trade was controlled by the Venetians, Arabs, Persians, and Ottoman Turks; on the other hand, their transport via land was very expensive. For this reason, powerful Western [Page 1179]European nations aimed to find an alternative direction to reach Asia by sea. In 1497, King Manuel I of Portugal charged da Gama with an expedition. The navigator left Lisbon in July with four ships. He sailed past the Canary Islands and the archipelago of Cape Verde; then, trying to avoid the currents of the Gulf of Guinea, he crossed the equator. He got to Southern Africa in November, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, which had been previously reached by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488. On Christmas day, 1488, he landed in what is now the province of Natal (in Portuguese, Natal means “Christmas”). After several more weeks of navigation, he arrived in Mozambique, where he had to stop because many members of the crew were affected by scurvy, an illness caused by lack of vitamin C, common among sailors who spent long periods on ships. When they finally got to Malindi, da Gama met the Arab expert navigator Ahmed bin Majid, who helped him reach Calicut, on the southwest coast of India, after a 1-mo. (month)-long journey. His journey demonstrated that the Indian Ocean was not an enclosed sea, as imagined by ancient geographers such as Ptolemy. da Gama also provided interesting information about the Eastern African coast (its richness in freshwater and wood that was useful for repairing ships). However, in India, da Gama encountered hostile Arab merchants who tried to prevent trade with the local communities. da Gama used force to counter his opponents.

Figure 1 Map showing Vasco da Gama's voyage routes

Source: Cambridge University Press.

During his return journey, he faced unfavorable monsoon winds, and it took 5 mos. to get to the coast of Africa near Malindi. Once he reached Portugal in September, 1499, he was proclaimed the “Admiral of the Indian Seas” and, some years later, the Viceroy of India.