On July 8, 1497, Vasco da Gama left Lisbon at the head of 200 men and three ships, the San Gabriel, Bernio and San Rafael. The name of the Range was shuffled from the beginning among those best suited to lead the difficult journey In 1496, Esteban da Gama was chosen to do so, but his sudden death caused his two sons to assume “the honor and the danger” of leading the difficult enterprise.
This was also intended to balance the advantage that the discovery of America had provided to Spain. The spice trade was at stake, as the routes, at that time, were controlled by the Arabs. At that time it seemed clear that it was possible to cross the southern tip of Africa and reach the Indian Ocean, as Bartholomew Diaz had shown ten years before. Collecting an ambitious project from his predecessor, the new monarch organized an expedition that was to go to India outlining Africa. In 1495, death surprised John II and the throne passed to his heir, Manuel I the Lucky One. Pressed so effectively, the French king Charles VII resigned himself to return the captured boat without missing an iota of its cargo.įrom that moment, Vasco especially attracted official attention. Vasco, commissioned by the sovereign to seize as reprisal the French ships anchored in their dominions, carried out his mission with remarkable speed and success, and seized ten of these ships only in the port of Lisbon. In 1493, the French seized a Portuguese ship loaded with gold from one of the Portuguese possessions on the African coast, Costa da Mina. In this way, the acquired experience and fame were enough to make him, after studying mathematics and cosmography, become captain.Ī risky episode came to accentuate his prestige as a navigator.
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įrom an early age, Vasco da Gama was able to devote himself full to the sea life, participating in several expeditions to the African coast and giving in them proof of a great capacity. His mother, Dona Isabel Sodre, wanted the second of his sons, Vasco, to prepare for the ecclesiastical career, but despite his maternal intentions, the young man decided, together with his brother Paulo, to link his life to the business of the sea. His father, named Esteban, was of noble lineage and enjoyed an excellent reputation in court. Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, a small village located in the Lower Alentejo.
Children:- Cristóvão da Gama, Estêvão da Gama.Parents:- Estêvão da Gama, Isabel Sodré.Buried:- Jeronimos Monastery, Lisbon, Portugal.During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The figure of this great Portuguese seaman, immortalized by the poet Luis Vaz de Camoens (Camoes) in his epic Os Lusíadas, is comparable to that of Christopher Columbus or Magellan, and is fundamental to understand the commercial transformations that took place in the West. After a long interval he was sent out to India again as governor of the colonies which he had helped to start, but he died soon afterwards.Biography of Vasco Da Gama:- A navigator and explorer who opened for the Portuguese the so-called spice route, which surrounded the African continent until reaching India.
For all this he was again rewarded by his king. Having bombarded the town in a savage manner he went on to set up new trading stations at Cochin and other places to the south. This time he went out to take vengeance on jealous Arab and Indian merchants and on the people whom they had stirred up to murder Portuguese traders in a Calicut. In 1502 Da Gama made another voyage to India with a fleet of ten ships. He also brought much information about India, and the King rewarded him with wealth and honours. Da Gama returned to Lisbon in July 1499 two ships laden with spices. When the Indians asked them what they sought, they replied, “We come in search of Christians and spices”. An Arab pilot guided them on the last stage of their journey to India and they landed on its southwestern shore at Calicut (now officially called Kozhikode) in May 1498. Soon passing the farthest point reached by earlier Portuguese captains, he and his men sailed on, turning northwards along the African coast until they came to the Arab port of Malindi in what is now Kenya. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, the Portuguese capital, in July 1497 and by November he had safely reached the Cape of Good Hope.
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