In fact, the potentates of the East were at that time wealthier than the financially embarrassed Western kings, and the zamorin quite naturally had looked for a standard tribute in gold. The zamorin, the ruler of Calicut, warmly welcomed the newcomers-until his treasurers appraised the inexpensive items sent as gifts by King Manuel. The Portuguese at first thought the Hindu inhabitants of the city to be Christians, although a visit to a local temple where they were permitted to worship "Our Lady"-Devaki, mother of the god Krishna-made them question the purity of the faith as locally practiced. Their expectations, however, were soon to be deflated. On May 20, 1498, the Portuguese anchored off Calicut-then the most important trading center in southern India-well prepared to tap the fabulous riches of India.
Its sultan, learning of the bombardment to the south, decided to cooperate with da Gama and lent him the services of the famous Indian pilot Ibn Majid for the next leg of the journey. Traveling northward to Mombasa, the Portuguese escaped a Moslem attempt to destroy the small fleet and hurriedly sailed for the nearby port of Malindi. A subsequent dispute, however, led da Gama to order a naval bombardment of the city. Proceeding to Mozambique, where they were at first mistaken for Moslems, the Portuguese were kindly received by the sultan.
These towns were under Moslem control and gained their wealth largely through trade in gold and ivory. Sailing past the port of Sofala, the expedition landed at Kilimane, the second in a string of East African coastal cities. After a landfall in the Cape Verde Islands, he stood well out to sea, rounding the Cape of Good Hope on November 22. Raphael and Berrio (commanded, respectively, by his brother Paulo and Nicolas Coelho) and a large supply ship. Da Gama's voyage was to be the first complete step toward the realization of these ambitions.ĭa Gama, supplied with letters of introduction to Prester John and to the ruler of the Malabar city of Calicut, set sail from the Tagus River in Lisbon on July 8, 1497. He also hoped to join with Eastern Christian forces (symbolized to medieval Europeans by the legend of the powerful priest-king, Prester John) and thus carry on a worldwide crusade against Islam. Manuel hoped to displace the Moslem (and thus the Venetian) middlemen and to establish Portuguese hegemony over the Oriental oceanic trades. This trade had fallen under the control of Moslem merchants the Venetians were only the final distributors to Europe of these valuable commodities. Manuel, against the advice of a majority of his counselors, had decided to follow up Bartolomeu Dias's triumphal voyage round the Cape of Good Hope (1487-1488) with a well-planned attempt to reach all the way to the Malabar Coast of India, the ports of which were the major entrepôts for the Western spice trade with southeastern Asia. When he was commissioned for his famous voyage, he was a gentleman at the court of King Manuel I. He first comes to historical notice in 1492, when he seized French ships in Portuguese ports as reprisal for piratical raids. Little is known of the early life of Vasco da Gama his father was governor of Sines, Portugal, where Vasco was born.
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