The Portuguese were better received in the African kingdom of Malindi, where da Gama was able to recruit a local pilot who could guide them across the tricky Indian Ocean to their final destination.Īfter a 27-day journey, da Gama and his men arrived in Calicut, a coastal city in Southern India known today as Kozhikode. Da Gama fled back to his ship and lobbed a few canon balls at the city as parting shots. In Mozambique, the Sultan and his people were actually offended and started to riot, says Nucup. "These weren't impressive to local traders." "But when da Gama stopped at ports in Eastern Africa and offered these items for trade, people would laugh at him," says Nucup. Nucup says that da Gama was following the example of Columbus, who had won over native leaders with simple European goods like bells, flannel and metalwork. For that, he needed a knowledgeable local captain, who he hoped to recruit or kidnap from Eastern Africa.ĭa Gama's first major encounter with an African kingdom was in Mozambique, where he was poorly received, an experience that would be repeated throughout the first voyage.
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But now came the real test, figuring out how to cross the sea to India. The expedition slowly worked its way around the stormy Cape and entered the Indian Ocean around Christmastime. Helena Bay, just 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of the Cape of Good Hope on November 7, nearly four months after leaving Portugal. The risky plan worked, and after 13 long weeks on the open water out of sight of land, da Gama landed in St. For the Portuguese, the pressure was high to stake their own claim to Oriental trade, so Manuel I, now king of Portugal, ordered a new expedition to India via the South African route, and in command of this mission wasn't Dias, but Vasco da Gama. In the meantime, Columbus - who learned his trade in Portugal - discovered what he believed to be a western route to the Indies (or possibly Japan) for Spain in 1492.
Thinking it was hopeless, Portugal didn't attempt another southern run to India for 10 years. Nucup says that Dias didn't understand how the seasonal monsoons of the region worked, and that the winds actually switched directions for half the year. The winds and currents in the Indian Ocean blew northeast to southwest, making it all but impossible to cross the sea from Africa to India. In 1488, the Portuguese took the lead when Bartolomeu Dias successfully navigated around the Cape of Good Hope (Dias called it the "Cape of Storms") in modern-day South Africa and became the first European to reach the Indian Ocean.īut Dias returned with bad news for King João II of Portugal. In the 15th century, the Spanish and Portuguese were in a bitter race to find a sea route to India that bypassed the tortuously long and expensive overland trade route through unfriendly Ottoman and Egyptian territory.
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