He played a significant role in establishing Portugal as an early colonizing power along the east coast of Africa. His voyage encouraged the Portuguese crown to establish trade posts on the eastern coast of Africa with a view of maintaining Portugal’s trade routes. Vasco da Gama is widely recognized for mapping the route to India which opened up trade between Portugal and India. Poor relations with the leaders in Calicut kept him from successfully signing a trade treaty between India and Portugal. Food supplies also posed a problem to his crew as they spoilt fast. He made two other voyages to India before his death in 1524.ĭuring his voyages, da Gama faced challenges such as unpredictable weather changes, attacks from other sailors, hostilities in the towns he stopped by, and the death of his crew members especially due to scurvy and loss of vessels. He abandoned his mission and returned to Portugal having failed at securing a trade treaty in Calicut. India welcomed him warmly, but soon the relations were spoilt by the cheap gifts he offered in India and conflicts with Muslim traders. The fleet made stops at Mozambique, Mombasa and the friendly Malindi before moving on to Calicut on the coast of India in May 1498. Da Gama began his voyage on July 8, 1497, with a crew of 170 men and four ships. During this time, John II, the king of Portugal, sought a way to break through the spice trade between Europe and Asia. His first mission was to map a sea route to India via the southern coast of Africa. Vasco da Gama spent most of his life from around the age of twenty as a sea navigator. He married a woman of noble birth after his first voyage and had six sons and one daughter. He joined his father’s Order of Santiago around 1480. He is thought to have learned mathematics and navigation at Evora town. He was born to Estevao da Gama and Isabel Sodre in the period between 14 along with five brothers and one sister. Early Lifeĭetails of Vasco da Gama’s early life are not precisely known. Da Gama sailed with a crew of 170 and returned with only 54 - most of his men died from diseases like scurvy. By the time he returned from his first voyage to India in 1499, he had spent 300 days at sea, more than two years from home, and had covered a distance of 24,000 miles. With the help of a local navigator, da Gama was able to cross the Indian Ocean and reach the coast of India at Calicut (now Kozhikode) in May 1498.Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese navigator and explorer who became the first person to sail directly from Europe to India. In 1497, John’s successor, King Manuel I (crowned in 1495), chose da Gama to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of a maritime route from Western Europe to the East. Why did Vasco da Gama become an explorer? Over the course of two voyages, beginning in 14, da Gama landed and traded in locales along the coast of southern Africa before reaching India on May 20, 1498. Vasco da Gama was best known for being the first to sail from Europe to India by rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
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