Vasco da Gama reaches India

The story

Portugal and the sea

Portugal is a small country facing the Atlantic. In the 15th century its kings, starting with Prince Henry the Navigator, sent ships to explore a longer and longer stretch of the African coast: each expedition went a little further south and brought home gold, ivory, slaves and news. The final aim was to find a sea route to India, where the most precious spices came from, without passing through the lands of Arab and Venetian merchants.

In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the southern tip of Africa, the cape now called the Cape of Good Hope, and showed that it was possible to pass from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. But his men were exhausted and turned back. It took nearly ten years before a new voyage was prepared, the one that was to go all the way.

The departure

The commander chosen by King Manuel I was Vasco da Gama, a nobleman aged between thirty and forty. On 8 July 1497 he set out from Lisbon with four ships: two large cargo ships, the São Gabriel and the São Rafael, a smaller caravel, the Bérrio, and a supply ship. On board were about one hundred and seventy men. To avoid the calms and the contrary currents along the African coast, Vasco da Gama made a bold choice: he moved far away from the mainland and went deep into the South Atlantic for almost three months, without ever seeing land, before curving east and approaching Africa again.

At the end of November 1497 the ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope. They then sailed up the east coast of Africa, stopping at ports such as Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi, where they met hostility but also hospitality. At Malindi the ruler welcomed the Portuguese and provided them with a pilot, who guided them across the Indian Ocean, using the seasonal winds, the monsoons. The name of the pilot is uncertain: one tradition speaks of the Arab navigator Ahmad ibn Majid, but historians debate whether that is true.

Along the way the Portuguese used to put up stone pillars with the king's coat of arms and a cross, the “padrões”, to mark that they had passed that way. On the sails of the ships was painted the red cross of the Order of Christ, the religious and military order that had paid for many explorations.

Calicut

After about twenty days of crossing, on 20 May 1498 the ships arrived off Calicut, on the south-west coast of India, after a voyage of more than ten months. Calicut was one of the great spice markets, where Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants sold pepper, cinnamon and ginger. The local ruler, the Zamorin, received the Portuguese, but the gifts they brought seemed poor, and the Muslim merchants, who feared competition, looked at them with suspicion.

Vasco da Gama managed to load spices and set off again. The return voyage was hard: crossing the Indian Ocean took three months, scurvy broke out, a disease caused by the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables, and many sailors died. After about two years of travelling, in the summer of 1499, only two ships returned to Lisbon, with fewer than half of the men. The cargo of spices, however, earned so much that the voyage was judged a great success.

After the first voyage

In 1500 the king sent a second fleet, commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, which touched Brazil by chance, claimed it for Portugal and then went on towards India. In 1502 Vasco da Gama returned to India with a war fleet and behaved with great harshness: he bombarded Calicut and had a ship full of pilgrims set on fire. In 1524 he went again, as viceroy, and died at Cochin, in India, a few months after he arrived.