WEBVTT - How Was Vasco da Gama, Portugal's Columbus, Just as Controversial? 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:08.639 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.120 when kids learn about the so called Age of Discovery, 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.520 the fifteenth and sixteenth century maritime exploits of Spain and Portugal, 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.640 mainly they memorize a list of a half dozen European 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.640 men in funny hats who sailed bravely into uncharted waters 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:31.040 to discover far off lands. Among them is Vasco da Gama, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.600 a Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:40.960 to spice rich India by rounding the southern tip of Africa. But, 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.120 like his contemporary Christopher Columbus, de Gama is a complex 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.959 and controversial historical figure. A devout Christian and loyal Portuguese subject, 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.680 the Gama had no qualms about using violence, including against 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.320 unarmed civilians, to force his way into the lucrative Indian 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.320 and African trade routes dominate at the time by Arab 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:06.160 Muslims and the Ottoman Empire. For the article this episode 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.200 is based on haw Stuff Work, spoke with Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.959 a history professor at e CLA who wrote an eye 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:16.160 opening book about de Gama. He explained that Degama left 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.240 almost no personal writing or journals compared to the prolific Columbus, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.720 but that scraps of letters and journal entries penned by 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.560 de Gama's crew paint a and I quote troubling picture 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.720 of an ill tempered, even dangerous character. He said. The 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.760 accounts written by people on da Gama's voyages portray someone 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.520 who was, even by the standards of the time, a 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:44.400 violent personality. In the fourteen hundreds, the Spanish and Portuguese 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.400 were in a bitter race to find a sea route 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.440 to India that bypassed the tortuously long and expensive overland 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:56.040 trade route grew unfriendly Ottoman and Egyptian territory. In fourteen 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.160 eighty eight, the Portuguese took the lead when Bartolomew Diaz 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.240 successfully nap negated around the Cape of Good Hope. Diaz 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.560 called it the Cape of Storms in modern day South Africa, 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.720 and became the first European to reach the Indian Ocean 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.600 by water. But Diaz returned to Portugal with bad news. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.239 The winds and currents in the Indian Ocean blew northeast 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.600 to southwest, making it all but impossible to cross the 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:25.560 sea from Africa to India. What DEAs didn't understand was 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.639 how the seasonal monsoons of the region were and that 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.760 the winds actually switched directions for half the year. Thinking 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.760 it was hopeless, Portugal didn't attempt another southern run to 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:41.240 India for a decade. In the meantime, Columbus, who learned 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.120 his trade in Portugal, discovered what he believed to be 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.440 a western route to the Indies or possibly Japan for Spain. 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.680 In fourteen ninety two. For the Portuguese, the pressure was on, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.640 and King Manuel the First ordered a new expedition to 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:59.079 India via the South African route and put Vaskodagama in command. 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.000 Historians know little of de Gama's early life, just that 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.760 he was born sometime in the fourteen sixties in a 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.120 small coastal city of Scenes to a knight and a noblewoman, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.640 which afforded him a good education in navigation and advanced mathematics. 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.400 At some point he gained practical experience on ships and 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.600 may have become a captain as early as twenty years 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.200 of age. He proved a loyal enforcer when he was 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.800 sent to put an end to a conflict between Portuguese 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.160 and French merchants, and by his thirties was considered a 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.560 guy who got stuff done. On July eighth, fourteen ninety seven, 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.440 Degama set sail from Lisbon with four ships and one 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:44.200 hundred and seventy men, including his brother Paolo. There was 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.880 nothing easy about navigating fifteenth century sailboats through unruly seas, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.960 but Degama wisely took the advice of Diaz and swung 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.640 far west into the Southern Atlantic, only six hundred miles 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.560 or about one thousand kilometers off of Brazil, in order 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.440 to catch strong winds that would propel them eastward toward 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:07.280 the tip of Africa. This risky plan worked, and after 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.080 thirteen long weeks on the open water, out of sight 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.040 of land, Dagama landed just north of the Cape of 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.760 Good Hope on November seventh, nearly four months after leaving Portugal. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.320 The expedition slowly worked its way around the stormy cape 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.960 and entered the Indian Ocean around Christmas time. But now 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.680 came the real test, figuring out how to cross the 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.919 sea to India. For that, he needed a knowledgeable local captain, 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.480 who he hoped to recruit or kidnap from eastern Africa. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.960 Dagama's first major encounter with an African kingdom was in Mozambique, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.320 where he was poorly received, an experience that would be 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.960 repeated throughout his first voyage. Dagama was following the example 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.760 of Columbus, who had won over native leaders with simple 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:59.560 European goods like bells, flannel, and metalwork. For the article 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:01.760 this episode, it is based on how Stuff Works, also 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.080 spoke with Mark Nukupp, a historian and museum manager in 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:10.640 Hanover County, Virginia. He said, but when Dagama stopped at 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.800 ports in Eastern Africa and offered these items for trade, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.680 people would laugh at him. These weren't impressive to local traders. 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.080 In Mozambique, the sultan and his people were actually offended 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.320 and started to riot. Dagama fled back to a ship 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.120 and lobbed a few cannonballs at the city as parting shops. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.200 They were better received in the African kingdom of Malindi, 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.080 where Dagama was able to recruit a local pilot who 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:42.400 could guide them across the tricky Indian Ocean. After a 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.080 twenty seven day journey, Dagama and his men arrived in Calicut, 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:51.599 a coastal city in southern India known today as Krikota. There, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.200 the Portuguese were shocked to find that Muslims were running 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.400 the spice trade in India. Subramanyam said they were under 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.360 the impression that there were a lot of Christians in 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:06.640 India and that these people would be their natural allies. Instead, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.560 Dagama found outposts of an extensive African Indian trade network, 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.480 operated largely by Arab Muslims, and again there nobody was 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.159 impressed with the poultry goods the Portuguese had brought to 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.120 trade for high end spices. The local traders and merchants 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.159 made it clear that gold was the only currency that mattered. 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.160 After a torturous journey home against the monsoon wins, Dagama 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.640 returned to Lisbon nearly empty handed, but he was still 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.440 greeted as a hero for reaching his destination at all 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.479 and making it home again after two years and twenty 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.760 four thousand miles at sea about thirty eight thousand kilometers, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.039 a sadly scurvy had claimed all but fifty four of 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.000 his one hundred and seventy man crew, including his brother. 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.839 Before Degama returned to India, another Portuguese explorer named Pedro Alaves, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.799 Cabral was given command of an Indian expedition. A Cabral 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.520 sailed with a much larger crew of one thousand, two 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.320 hundred men and thirteen vessels, including one captain by Diaz. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.840 Following the Gama's route, Cabral swung far west, but he 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.360 ended up going farther than intended and accidentally found what's 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:21.120 now Brazil, which he claimed for the Portuguese. Cabral eventually 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.800 continued onto India, encountering terrible storms that claimed four of 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.360 his ships, including the one captain by Diaz. When he 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.520 finally arrived in Calicut, he met fierce resistance from the 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.960 Arab Muslim traders, who killed some Portuguese sailors in an attack. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.880 Cabral responded by bombarding the city, raiding ten Arab ships, 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.720 and killing an estimated six hundred people. It was a 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:50.520 quote unquote diplomatic style that Dagama would follow to terrible effect. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.320 In fifteen oh two, Dagama set sail again for India 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.760 in command of ten ships, with his sights set on 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.520 breaking the Muslim monopoly on the spice trade once and 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.400 for all. On his way, he threatened African leaders with 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.480 its cannons in exchange for vows of loyalty to Portugal, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.680 and then waged campaign of terror along India's Malabar coast. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.920 In perhaps the most horrific incident, Dagama intercepted a ship 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.280 carrying Muslim families returning from a religious pilgrimage to Mecca 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.440 in modern day Saudi Arabia. Dagama locked up the hundreds 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.680 of passengers in the ship's hull, and, despite pleas from 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.000 his own crew members not to do it, set the 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:36.280 pilgrim ship ablaze, killing all of them. Subrahmanyam said maybe 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.840 he was trying to create an image for the Portuguese 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.160 you don't mess with us, and that message did come across. 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.920 The Pilgrimship. Incident cemented the reputation of the Portuguese as 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:52.280 very dangerous and violent people in the Indian Ocean. In Calicut, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.240 there were more skirmishes between Dagama and Arab traders. Dagama 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.560 responded by killing thirty unarmed local fishermen, dismembering their bodies 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.200 and letting the remains wash in on the tide. The 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.679 combined cruelties of Cabral and Dagama succeeded in establishing Portuguese 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.920 trading outposts in Calicut and in the southern Indian state 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:19.079 of Goa, where the Portuguese ruled until nineteen sixty one. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.920 Dagama had married after his first voyage and fathered six 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.440 sons and one daughter. He spent twenty years as an 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.400 adviser on Indian affairs to the Portuguese king. In fifteen 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.000 twenty four, he was sent back to Goa as viceroy 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.559 to deal with some corruption in the government the Portuguese 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.360 had established there. He soon became ill and died that 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:45.280 same year. In India, Subrami Yam explained that one of 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.000 the main reasons why Degama's name rings down through the 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.520 centuries is because the Portuguese needed a national hero to 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.960 rival Columbus. He said, the Spaniards made a big deal 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.719 of Columbus, and the Portuguese were very annoyed by that. 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.840 The Portuguese made a very deliberate attempt in the sixteenth 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.560 century to build up de Gama as their Columbus. This 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:11.000 included a twelve part epic poem called The Discovery of India, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.840 written by the famed sixteenth century Portuguese poet Luis vas 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:19.280 d Kamois. It portrays Degama as a Greek style hero, 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:25.600 rivaling not only Columbus, but Achilles and Odysseus. Reconciling that 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.080 kind of propaganda with the reality of de Gama's ruthless 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.040 cruelty is part of the work that we all have 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.520 to do in considering how European exploration and colonization has 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:42.640 shaped our world. Newcup said, was he a great explorer? No? 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.480 But through his efforts, Portugal established a European sea route 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.800 to India and eventually further to China and the Indies, 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.360 and helped create what would become the Portuguese Overseas Empire. 0:10:54.320 --> 0:11:02.080 Whether that's progress or not is up for debate. Today's 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.800 episode is based on the article Basco de Gama Portugal's 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.240 Columbus is just as controversial on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.800 by Julia Layton. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.240 Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.640 produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.199 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:21.280 to your favorite shows.