Born in 1460, in Sines, in
the Province of Alemtejo, Portugal, Vasco was the youngest of three
sons. His father, Estevao da Gama, was a distinguished soldier and
noble in the court of Dom Fernando, Duke of Viseu. Estevao was
appointed Civil Governor of Sines which granted him several
privileges and a small revenue from taxes on soap making in
Estremoz.
Little is known of Vasco's early life. As the
son of a nobleman he would have been well educated in several
languages and may have studied at the inland town of Evora, where
he would have specialised in physics, geometry, mathematics,
navigation and astronomy. Later he became a naval officer and a
nobel member in the court of King John II.
In 1492, King John II sent Vasco to the port of
Setubal, south of Lisbon, and to the Algarve, to seize French ships
in retaliation for peacetime depredations against Portuguese
shipping - a task that Vasco rapidly and effectively performed.
On 8 July 1497, under
orders from King Manuel I, Vasco sailed out of Lisbon and begun the
epic voyage for which he would later become famous. The fleet
consisted of four ships, two of which had been specially
constructed for the expedition. These were Carracks: square-rigged
ships with a shallow draught weighing about 180 tons. The flagship,
Sao Gabriel, captained by Vasco, and the Sao Raphael under the
command of his brother Paolo. The third was a lanteen-rigged
caravel of about 100 tons called The Berrio, commanded by Nicolau
Coelho, and the fourth was a store ship (name unknown). The crew of
170 included three experienced pilots: Pedro de Alemquer, the pilot
who had sailed with Diaz in 1487, Joao de Coimbra and Pero de
Escolar.
Following the already established route along
the coast of Africa via Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands, Vasco
reached the coast of present day Sierra Leone. He then headed
South, into the open ocean, crossing the Equator and seeking the
South Atlantic Westerlies that Bartolomeu Dias had discovered 10
years earlier. This course proved successful and on 4 November
1497, the expedition made landfall on the African coast, at St.
Helena Bay, after more than 3 months and sailing over 6000 miles of
open ocean, which was by far the longest journey out of sight of
land at that time. On 22 November 1497, the fleet rounded the Cape
of Good Hope and landed at Mossel Bay, where they traded trinkets
with the local people in exchange for an ox. The store ship was
broken up and the supplies redistributed among the other ships.
By 16 December, the fleet
had passed the Great Fish River, where Dias had turned back, and
sailed into waters unknown to Europeans. With Christmas pending,
Vasco and his crew gave the name of Natal, to the coast they were
passing, which carried the connotation of "birth of Christ" in
Portuguese.
On 2 March 1498, Vasco arrived at the
Arab-controlled territory on the East African coast. This was an
integral part of the trade network in the Indian Ocean and fearing
they might be hostile to Christians, Vasco impersonated a Muslim in
order to gain an audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. With no
trade goods of any value, Vasco was unable to provide a suitable
gift to the ruler and the locals became suspicious, so Vasco and
his crew were forced to flee, firing his cannons into the city as
they departed the harbour. They then stopped in Mombasa and Malindi
before sailing to the East.
The fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in 23 days,
aided by the Indian pilot Ibn Majid, and reached Calicut on 20 May
1498. The local ruler, the Zamorin, welcomed the Portuguese, who at
first thought that the Indians, actually Hindus, were
Christians.
After one final stop on the Indian coast, Vasco
started the return journey on 5 October 1498, loaded with spices,
but things did not go well for the fleet. The pilot could not be
found and with the monsoons against them, it took 3 months to
recross the Indian Ocean, during which time so many men died of
scurvy that one of the ships, the Sao Rafael, was burned for lack
of crew. The expedition made a few stops in East Africa before
rounding the Cape of Good Hope on 20 March 1499. The ships were
separated in a storm off West Africa and reached Portugal at
different times. Vasco made a stop in the Azores and finally
reached Lisbon on 9 September 1499.
In 1502, Vasco da Gama commanded Portugal's
third major voyage to India. He set out with a fleet of 20 ships,
including ten of his own and five each under the command of his
uncle and nephew. Their task was to consolidate Portuguese
dominance of the route to India, but it was to lead to one of the
worst maritime massacres in history.
After raids on several Muslim ports along the
East African coast, Vasco began a campaign of terror against Muslim
shipping off the Malabar coast where he captured the Meri, a ship
with 200 Muslim pilgrims on the return journey from Mecca, and set
it alight. With some 400 men, women and children onboard, Vasco
fuelled the fires for four days until all had died. He then moved
on to Calicut, where he captured and dismembered 30 fishermen and
let their bodies float in with the tide for their families to
find.
Vasco returned to Portugal in October 1503, with
richly laden ships, much to the delight of King Manuel I. Vasco
soon married Cateriana de Ataide and together they had 6 sons. In
1519 Vasco was given the title of Count and he was happy to settle
down and enjoy a quiet retirement with his family, but in 1524 King
John III named him Viceroy to India. On the voyage, Vasco fell ill
and died on 24 December 1524, shortly after arriving in India.
He was buried in India, but later, in 1539, his
remains were brought back to Portugal and reburied at a chapel in
Vidigueira.
To reach the cache, park opposite the Da Gama
padrao. Walk around the padrao and head up the small path towards
the cache location.