At the time the Muslims, especially the Ottoman Empire, held in their control the trade routes from the East, including India. The Historic Voyage Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash His career must have been very remarkable, since almost 20 years later, he would be sent to command one of the most historic voyages in the world. It is supposed that, due to his stature, he had a good education and, since he was living on the coast, he also probably learned about sea navigation.īy 15, he was familiar with the trading ships that were docked in the ports and by 20 he had already managed to become the captain of a ship. His father was a knight in charge of the Sines Fortress, in the Alentejo coast, and his mother was a noblewoman. He was born in the 1460s, he was the third son in a minor noble family. Not much is known about Gama’s early life. Besides that, he is an unavoidable figure in History. He is a controversial historical figure, with the explorer being known to have committed several atrocities and being a violent person, besides the consequences of his travels. His first voyage was the longest ocean travel in the world at the time and he was always briefly the Viceroy of India, before dying. In all, da Gama's first journey covered nearly 24,000 miles in close to two years, and only 54 of the crew's original 170 members survived.Known for being the first European to reach India by sea and thus connecting, for the first time, Europe and Asia by maritime trade, Vasco da Gama, the 1 st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer.
The first ship in the fleet didn't reach Portugal until July 10, nearly a full year after they'd left India. By early 1499, several crew members had died of scurvy and in an effort to economize his fleet, da Gama ordered one of his ships to be burned. In August 1498, da Gama and his men took to the seas again, beginning their journey back to Portugal.ĭa Gama's timing could not have been worse his departure coincided with the start of a monsoon. Eventually, da Gama and his crew were forced to barter on the waterfront in order to secure enough goods for the passage home. Not everyone embraced their presence, especially Muslim traders who clearly had no intention of giving up their trading grounds to Christian visitors. Still, the local Hindu ruler welcomed da Gama and his men, at first, and the crew ended up staying in Calicut for three months. The residents of Calicut were actually Hindu, a fact that was lost on da Gama and his crew, as they had not heard of the religion. But da Gama's own ignorance of the region, as well as his presumption that the residents were Christians, led to some confusion. The trip, in turn, sparked a renewed interest in seeking out a trade route to India.īy early April, the fleet reached what is now Kenya, before setting sail on a 23-day run that would take them across the Indian Ocean. This journey was significant it proved, for the first time, that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected. In 1487, an important breakthrough was made when Bartolomeu Dias discovered the southern tip of Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Still, for all his work, the southern portion of Africa - what lay east - remained shrouded in mystery. Henry the Navigator never did locate Prester John, but his impact on Portuguese trade along Africa's east coast during his 40 years of explorative work was undeniable. He also believed that he could find and form an alliance with Prester John, who ruled over a Christian empire somewhere in Africa. He dispatched ships to explore the western coast of Africa to expand Portugal's trade influence. Much of that was due to Henry the Navigator, who, at his base in the southern region of the country, had brought together a team of knowledgeable mapmakers, geographers and navigators.