Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here,
Speaker 1: when kids learn about the so called Age of Discovery,
Speaker 1: the fifteenth and sixteenth century maritime exploits of Spain and Portugal,
Speaker 1: mainly they memorize a list of a half dozen European
Speaker 1: men in funny hats who sailed bravely into uncharted waters
Speaker 1: to discover far off lands. Among them is Vasco da Gama,
Speaker 1: a Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail
Speaker 1: to spice rich India by rounding the southern tip of Africa. But,
Speaker 1: like his contemporary Christopher Columbus, de Gama is a complex
Speaker 1: and controversial historical figure. A devout Christian and loyal Portuguese subject,
Speaker 1: the Gama had no qualms about using violence, including against
Speaker 1: unarmed civilians, to force his way into the lucrative Indian
Speaker 1: and African trade routes dominate at the time by Arab
Speaker 1: Muslims and the Ottoman Empire. For the article this episode
Speaker 1: is based on haw Stuff Work, spoke with Sanjay Subrahmanyam,
Speaker 1: a history professor at e CLA who wrote an eye
Speaker 1: opening book about de Gama. He explained that Degama left
Speaker 1: almost no personal writing or journals compared to the prolific Columbus,
Speaker 1: but that scraps of letters and journal entries penned by
Speaker 1: de Gama's crew paint a and I quote troubling picture
Speaker 1: of an ill tempered, even dangerous character. He said. The
Speaker 1: accounts written by people on da Gama's voyages portray someone
Speaker 1: who was, even by the standards of the time, a
Speaker 1: violent personality. In the fourteen hundreds, the Spanish and Portuguese
Speaker 1: were in a bitter race to find a sea route
Speaker 1: to India that bypassed the tortuously long and expensive overland
Speaker 1: trade route grew unfriendly Ottoman and Egyptian territory. In fourteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, the Portuguese took the lead when Bartolomew Diaz
Speaker 1: successfully nap negated around the Cape of Good Hope. Diaz
Speaker 1: called it the Cape of Storms in modern day South Africa,
Speaker 1: and became the first European to reach the Indian Ocean
Speaker 1: by water. But Diaz returned to Portugal with bad news.
Speaker 1: The winds and currents in the Indian Ocean blew northeast
Speaker 1: to southwest, making it all but impossible to cross the
Speaker 1: sea from Africa to India. What DEAs didn't understand was
Speaker 1: how the seasonal monsoons of the region were and that
Speaker 1: the winds actually switched directions for half the year. Thinking
Speaker 1: it was hopeless, Portugal didn't attempt another southern run to
Speaker 1: India for a decade. In the meantime, Columbus, who learned
Speaker 1: his trade in Portugal, discovered what he believed to be
Speaker 1: a western route to the Indies or possibly Japan for Spain.
Speaker 1: In fourteen ninety two. For the Portuguese, the pressure was on,
Speaker 1: and King Manuel the First ordered a new expedition to
Speaker 1: India via the South African route and put Vaskodagama in command.
Speaker 1: Historians know little of de Gama's early life, just that
Speaker 1: he was born sometime in the fourteen sixties in a
Speaker 1: small coastal city of Scenes to a knight and a noblewoman,
Speaker 1: which afforded him a good education in navigation and advanced mathematics.
Speaker 1: At some point he gained practical experience on ships and
Speaker 1: may have become a captain as early as twenty years
Speaker 1: of age. He proved a loyal enforcer when he was
Speaker 1: sent to put an end to a conflict between Portuguese
Speaker 1: and French merchants, and by his thirties was considered a
Speaker 1: guy who got stuff done. On July eighth, fourteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Degama set sail from Lisbon with four ships and one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy men, including his brother Paolo. There was
Speaker 1: nothing easy about navigating fifteenth century sailboats through unruly seas,
Speaker 1: but Degama wisely took the advice of Diaz and swung
Speaker 1: far west into the Southern Atlantic, only six hundred miles
Speaker 1: or about one thousand kilometers off of Brazil, in order
Speaker 1: to catch strong winds that would propel them eastward toward
Speaker 1: the tip of Africa. This risky plan worked, and after
Speaker 1: thirteen long weeks on the open water, out of sight
Speaker 1: of land, Dagama landed just north of the Cape of
Speaker 1: Good Hope on November seventh, nearly four months after leaving Portugal.
Speaker 1: The expedition slowly worked its way around the stormy cape
Speaker 1: and entered the Indian Ocean around Christmas time. But now
Speaker 1: came the real test, figuring out how to cross the
Speaker 1: sea to India. For that, he needed a knowledgeable local captain,
Speaker 1: who he hoped to recruit or kidnap from eastern Africa.
Speaker 1: Dagama's first major encounter with an African kingdom was in Mozambique,
Speaker 1: where he was poorly received, an experience that would be
Speaker 1: repeated throughout his first voyage. Dagama was following the example
Speaker 1: of Columbus, who had won over native leaders with simple
Speaker 1: European goods like bells, flannel, and metalwork. For the article
Speaker 1: this episode, it is based on how Stuff Works, also
Speaker 1: spoke with Mark Nukupp, a historian and museum manager in
Speaker 1: Hanover County, Virginia. He said, but when Dagama stopped at
Speaker 1: ports in Eastern Africa and offered these items for trade,
Speaker 1: people would laugh at him. These weren't impressive to local traders.
Speaker 1: In Mozambique, the sultan and his people were actually offended
Speaker 1: and started to riot. Dagama fled back to a ship
Speaker 1: and lobbed a few cannonballs at the city as parting shops.
Speaker 1: They were better received in the African kingdom of Malindi,
Speaker 1: where Dagama was able to recruit a local pilot who
Speaker 1: could guide them across the tricky Indian Ocean. After a
Speaker 1: twenty seven day journey, Dagama and his men arrived in Calicut,
Speaker 1: a coastal city in southern India known today as Krikota. There,
Speaker 1: the Portuguese were shocked to find that Muslims were running
Speaker 1: the spice trade in India. Subramanyam said they were under
Speaker 1: the impression that there were a lot of Christians in
Speaker 1: India and that these people would be their natural allies. Instead,
Speaker 1: Dagama found outposts of an extensive African Indian trade network,
Speaker 1: operated largely by Arab Muslims, and again there nobody was
Speaker 1: impressed with the poultry goods the Portuguese had brought to
Speaker 1: trade for high end spices. The local traders and merchants
Speaker 1: made it clear that gold was the only currency that mattered.
Speaker 1: After a torturous journey home against the monsoon wins, Dagama
Speaker 1: returned to Lisbon nearly empty handed, but he was still
Speaker 1: greeted as a hero for reaching his destination at all
Speaker 1: and making it home again after two years and twenty
Speaker 1: four thousand miles at sea about thirty eight thousand kilometers,
Speaker 1: a sadly scurvy had claimed all but fifty four of
Speaker 1: his one hundred and seventy man crew, including his brother.
Speaker 1: Before Degama returned to India, another Portuguese explorer named Pedro Alaves,
Speaker 1: Cabral was given command of an Indian expedition. A Cabral
Speaker 1: sailed with a much larger crew of one thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred men and thirteen vessels, including one captain by Diaz.
Speaker 1: Following the Gama's route, Cabral swung far west, but he
Speaker 1: ended up going farther than intended and accidentally found what's
Speaker 1: now Brazil, which he claimed for the Portuguese. Cabral eventually
Speaker 1: continued onto India, encountering terrible storms that claimed four of
Speaker 1: his ships, including the one captain by Diaz. When he
Speaker 1: finally arrived in Calicut, he met fierce resistance from the
Speaker 1: Arab Muslim traders, who killed some Portuguese sailors in an attack.
Speaker 1: Cabral responded by bombarding the city, raiding ten Arab ships,
Speaker 1: and killing an estimated six hundred people. It was a
Speaker 1: quote unquote diplomatic style that Dagama would follow to terrible effect.
Speaker 1: In fifteen oh two, Dagama set sail again for India
Speaker 1: in command of ten ships, with his sights set on
Speaker 1: breaking the Muslim monopoly on the spice trade once and
Speaker 1: for all. On his way, he threatened African leaders with
Speaker 1: its cannons in exchange for vows of loyalty to Portugal,
Speaker 1: and then waged campaign of terror along India's Malabar coast.
Speaker 1: In perhaps the most horrific incident, Dagama intercepted a ship
Speaker 1: carrying Muslim families returning from a religious pilgrimage to Mecca
Speaker 1: in modern day Saudi Arabia. Dagama locked up the hundreds
Speaker 1: of passengers in the ship's hull, and, despite pleas from
Speaker 1: his own crew members not to do it, set the
Speaker 1: pilgrim ship ablaze, killing all of them. Subrahmanyam said maybe
Speaker 1: he was trying to create an image for the Portuguese
Speaker 1: you don't mess with us, and that message did come across.
Speaker 1: The Pilgrimship. Incident cemented the reputation of the Portuguese as
Speaker 1: very dangerous and violent people in the Indian Ocean. In Calicut,
Speaker 1: there were more skirmishes between Dagama and Arab traders. Dagama
Speaker 1: responded by killing thirty unarmed local fishermen, dismembering their bodies
Speaker 1: and letting the remains wash in on the tide. The
Speaker 1: combined cruelties of Cabral and Dagama succeeded in establishing Portuguese
Speaker 1: trading outposts in Calicut and in the southern Indian state
Speaker 1: of Goa, where the Portuguese ruled until nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: Dagama had married after his first voyage and fathered six
Speaker 1: sons and one daughter. He spent twenty years as an
Speaker 1: adviser on Indian affairs to the Portuguese king. In fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty four, he was sent back to Goa as viceroy
Speaker 1: to deal with some corruption in the government the Portuguese
Speaker 1: had established there. He soon became ill and died that
Speaker 1: same year. In India, Subrami Yam explained that one of
Speaker 1: the main reasons why Degama's name rings down through the
Speaker 1: centuries is because the Portuguese needed a national hero to
Speaker 1: rival Columbus. He said, the Spaniards made a big deal
Speaker 1: of Columbus, and the Portuguese were very annoyed by that.
Speaker 1: The Portuguese made a very deliberate attempt in the sixteenth
Speaker 1: century to build up de Gama as their Columbus. This
Speaker 1: included a twelve part epic poem called The Discovery of India,
Speaker 1: written by the famed sixteenth century Portuguese poet Luis vas
Speaker 1: d Kamois. It portrays Degama as a Greek style hero,
Speaker 1: rivaling not only Columbus, but Achilles and Odysseus. Reconciling that
Speaker 1: kind of propaganda with the reality of de Gama's ruthless
Speaker 1: cruelty is part of the work that we all have
Speaker 1: to do in considering how European exploration and colonization has
Speaker 1: shaped our world. Newcup said, was he a great explorer? No?
Speaker 1: But through his efforts, Portugal established a European sea route
Speaker 1: to India and eventually further to China and the Indies,
Speaker 1: and helped create what would become the Portuguese Overseas Empire.
Speaker 1: Whether that's progress or not is up for debate. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article Basco de Gama Portugal's
Speaker 1: Columbus is just as controversial on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written
Speaker 1: by Julia Layton. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.