Numerous homages have been made worldwide to celebrate his explorations and accomplishments. Vasco da Gama remains a leading figure in the history of exploration. For his contributions, Da Gama was appointed the Governor of India in 1524, under the title of Viceroy, and given the newly created County of Vidigueira in 1519. The latter was the largest and departed for India four years after his return from the first one.
It would be a century later before other European powers such as the Netherlands and England, followed by France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.ĭa Gama led two of the Portuguese armadas destined for India, the first and the fourth. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. The spices obtained from Southeast Asia were primarily pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa.
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The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full voyage around the world by way of the Equator.Īfter decades of sailors trying to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, da Gama landed in Calicut on. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. His initial voyage to India (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient.ĭa Gama's discovery of the sea route to India was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His body was later taken back to Portugal for burial there.Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira ( Portuguese pronunciation: c. He soon fell ill, and in December 1524 he died in Cochin. For the next 20 years, da Gama continued to advise the Portuguese ruler on Indian affairs, but he was not sent back to the region until 1524, when King John III appointed him as Portuguese viceroy in India.ĭa Gama arrived in Goa with the task of combating the growing corruption that had tainted the Portuguese government in India. Da Gama’s Later Life and Last Voyage to Indiaĭa Gama had married a well-born woman sometime after returning from his first voyage to India the couple would have six sons. Upon his return to Portugal, by contrast, he was richly rewarded for another successful voyage. For these brutal demonstrations of power, da Gama was vilified throughout India and the region. On this voyage, da Gama attacked Arab shipping interests in the region and used force to reach an agreement with Calicut’s ruler.
In 1502, King Manuel put da Gama in charge of another Indian expedition, which sailed that February. He then moved on to Cochin, where he established the first Portuguese trading post in India. Little else is known about his early life, but in 1492 King John II sent da Gama to the port city of Setubal (south of Lisbon) and to the Algarve region to seize French ships in retaliation for French attacks on Portuguese shipping interests.Īfter Muslim traders killed 50 of his men, Cabral retaliated by burning 10 Muslim cargo vessels and killing the nearly 600 sailors aboard. Vasco da Gama’s Early Life and First Voyage to Indiaīorn circa 1460, Vasco da Gama was the son of a minor nobleman who commanded the fortress at Sines, located on the coast of the Alentejo province in southwestern Portugal. Two decades later, da Gama again returned to India, this time as Portuguese viceroy he died there of an illness in late 1524. Da Gama received a hero’s welcome back in Portugal, and was sent on a second expedition to India in 1502, during which he brutally clashed with Muslim traders in the region. After sailing down the western coast of Africa and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his expedition made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post of Calicut, India, in May 1498. The Portuguese nobleman Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) sailed from Lisbon in 1497 on a mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. Da Gama’s Later Life and Last Voyage to India.Relations with Local Population & Rival Traders.Vasco da Gama’s Early Life and First Voyage to India.