FROM THE 1572 PORTUGUESE EPIC OS LUSIADAS, WRITTEN IN HONOUR OF VASCO DA GAMA
It had been ten years since Bartolomeu Dias had triumphantly rounded the Cape of Good Hope, demonstrating the feasibility of a sea route from Europe to the trading hub of India’s Malabar coast, and the Portuguese Crown had been slow on following through. On his return to Europe, Christopher Columbus had stopped at Lisbon, and related to King João II the discoveries he had made for the rival Crown of Castile. An enraged João wrote to the Spanish monarchs, citing the terms of the Treaty of Alcáçovas, which both had signed in 1479, that stated all lands discovered south of the Canary Islands (which in his view included those discovered by Columbus) were in fact the property of Portugal. After negotiation with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, a duopoly was agreed with the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which divided the non-Christian world into two with a meridian line running down through the Atlantic (shown on the Cantino planisphere, vertically bisecting the left-hand third). Discoveries to the west belonged to the Spanish, while those to the east, including Africa’s west coast and the route to India, could be claimed by Portugal. (The protracted negotiations of this treaty explains the lull in Portuguese exploration during these years.) Finally, in 1497, with the authorization of King Manuel I of Portugal (a keen emulator of Henry the Navigator), the explorer Vasco da Gama embarked with an armada on the first European sea voyage to India.
Four vessels carrying 170 men and loaded with supplies set sail from Lisbon on 8 July, and followed the route established by the earlier pioneers, south along the west African coastline. At Sierra Leone, set at the base of Africa’s western prominence, Da Gama abandoned the coast and headed south, searching for the prevailing South Atlantic westerlies that would fill the sails of his ships and sweep his expedition in an easterly direction. This spectacular looping manoeuvre, known as the Volta do Mar (‘Turn of the Sea’), saw the Portuguese sailing almost three months without sight of land, an astonishing achievement, and by November 1497 they had ‘doubled’ (sailed around the headland) of the Cape of Good Hope and landed at Mossel Bay, just as Diogo Cão had done ten years earlier. More than 5000 nautical miles (9260km) had been covered before beginning the next leg of the journey, which involved sailing north along Africa’s southeastern coast. On Christmas Day they sighted the dangerous Natal coast (Natal being the Portuguese word for Christmas), and by March had made it as far up the east African coast as Mozambique island. The local ruler there launched attacks on the visitors on learning they were Christians, and the local pilots Da Gama had hired to steer them through the waters betrayed him and attempted to dash the ships on rocks. Despite losing a ship the expedition survived, and at the port town of Malindi on the Kenyan coast they were able to recruit a skilled pilot from a friendly local chief and, with the navigator’s knowledge of the monsoon winds, within twenty-three days they had arrived at Calicut on India’s western Malabar coast.
For the Portuguese the landfall was monumental, and the news of Da Gama’s achievement shocked Europe to the point of disbelief – the Venetian writer Girolamo Priuli records the distorted rumour that ‘three caravels belonging to the king of Portugal have arrived at Aden and Calicut in India and that they have been sent to find out about the spice islands and that their captain is Columbus’. To Priuli this achievement seemed impossible: ‘This news affects me greatly, if it’s true . . . However I don’t give credence to it.’
To the Indians, though, it was of little significance, at least at first. The token gifts and items of trade Da Gama had brought with him were viewed as worthless trinkets, and the Arab traders of the Malabar coast convinced the Calicut authorities to snub the Portuguese. In August 1498, having unsuccessfully attempted to establish a trading position in the emporia, Da Gama headed for home. Disastrously he ignored the advice of his pilots to wait for the monsoon winds. During the protracted storm-hit crossing back to Malindi about half the crew were lost to scurvy and other ailments, and when, after four months, their two remaining ships pulled into Lisbon, just forty-four men remained. Regardless, for his accomplishment Da Gama was rewarded by King Manuel I with the town of Sines, and the title ‘Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient’, apparently designed to trump the Castilian appointment of Columbus as ‘Admiral of the Ocean Seas’. A fitting prize for a voyage that defined the African form on the map, refuting the Ptolemaic assertion that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were independent of each other, and that brought Western and Eastern races together for the first time since Alexandrian antiquity.
