In 1502 Vasco da Gama returned to the waters off the Indian coast with a larger fleet of 20 vessels, plundering Arab shipping in the area and murdering their crews and passengers along the way. Leaving for home in 1498, da Gama endured a hazardous return voyage back to Lisbon losing half his crew and three of his ships en route. Vasco da Gama, as a successful sea captain after his victories against French privateers, was commissioned by King Manuel I to set sail from Lisbon with a tiny flotilla of four ships to explore the route to India via the Cape of Good Hope, which had first been sailed by Bartolomeu Dias.Īfter a series of adventures after venturing into waters off the east coast of Africa never previously visited by Europeans, Vasco da Gama employed the services of a local pilot and reached the western coast of southern India in 1498, where he attempted to reach an agreement to trade with the local Indian rulers.
The end of the 15th century was the beginning of the " Age of Discoveries" with a number of European powers searching for a nautical route to India and its riches via the Atlantic. He may have studied in Evora before he was sent by the monarchy to Setubal and the Algarve to intercept French shipping raiding the Portuguese coast. Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) is Portugal's most renown navigator, explorer and adventurer.īorn in Sines in 1460 (although 1469 is an alternative date) little is known of Vasco da Gama's early life.
0 kommentar(er)
