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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Vasco da Gama Biography GAMA, VASCO DA (c.1460-1524). A Portuguese navigator and the first European to reach India by the maritime route round Africa. He was descended from a noble family and was born at Simes, a small seaport of Portugal. After some years at court he was chosen to command the expedition dispatched by King Emmanuel to India by the all-sea route, the possibility of which had been revealed by the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomeu Dias in 1488, and confirmed by the explorations of Covilhão, who had reached India by way of the Red Sea and had crossed the Indian Ocean from Goa to Sofala. Vasco da Gains, sailed from Lisbon July 8, 1497, and, doubling the Cape of Good Hope in November, reached in December the Rio do Infante, the farthest point attained by Dias. There he had to suppress a mutiny of his sailors, who shrank from facing the unknown dangers that awaited them. They breasted the strong Agulhas current and on Christmas Day, 1497, sighted the coast, which Da Gama, in honor of the day, named Natal (dies Natalis). Past Delagoa Bay, Quillimane, and Mozambique they sailed, until, on April 15, they anchored off Malindi, where they took on board an Indian pilot, a native of Gujarat. A voyage of 23 days across the Indian Ocean brought the vessels to the coast of Malabar, which was sighted on May 17, 1498. The ruler of Calicut did not receive the Portuguese very favorably, and Da Gama was forced to fight his way out of the harbor when he started homeward. He rounded the Cape once more in March, 1499, and on September 8 reached Lisbon. A fleet was immediately dispatched for India under Pedro Alvarez Cabral, whose ships were driven out of their course westward, the discovery of Brazil being the result. In 1502 Da Gama sailed again for India planting Portuguese colonies on the way at Mozambique and Sofala. On reaching Calicut he bombarded the place destroyed the fleet of the Rajah and forced him to conclude peace. In December, 1503, he was back in Portugal with a fleet bearing rich cargoes and was received with great honor and given the titles of Count Vidigueira and Admiral of the Indies. For 20 years Da Gama saw no active service. In order to reform the abuses in the administration of Portuguese Asia, the King appointed him Viceroy in 1524, and he was dispatched with a fleet to India; but soon after his arrival he died at Cochin on Christmas Day; 1524. The fame of Da Gama is due, perhaps, less to the merit of his exploits a than to the place assigned him by Camões in his epic, Os Lusiadas. Consult: Correa, The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama and his Viceroyalty (Hakluyt Society Publications, London, 1809). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 439. |