Gabriel , to find a sailing route to India and the East. To embark on the journey, da Gama pointed his ships south, taking advantage of the prevailing winds along the coast of Africa. His choice of direction was also a bit of a rebuke to Christopher Columbus, who had believed he'd found a route to India by sailing east. Following several months of sailing, he rounded the Cape of Good Hope and began making his way up the eastern coast of Africa, toward the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean.
By January, as the fleet neared what is now Mozambique, many of da Gama's crewmembers were sick with scurvy, forcing the expedition to anchor for rest and repairs for nearly one month.
In early March of , da Gama and his crew dropped their anchors in the port of Mozambique, a Muslim city-state that sat on the outskirts of the east coast of Africa and was dominated by Muslim traders.
Here, da Gama was turned back by the ruling sultan, who felt offended by the explorer's modest gifts. By early April, the fleet reached what is now Kenya, before setting sail on a day run that would take them across the Indian Ocean. They reached Calicut, India, on May But da Gama's own ignorance of the region, as well as his presumption that the residents were Christians, led to some confusion.
The residents of Calicut were actually Hindu, a fact that was lost on da Gama and his crew, as they had not heard of the religion. Still, the local Hindu ruler welcomed da Gama and his men, at first, and the crew ended up staying in Calicut for three months. Not everyone embraced their presence, especially Muslim traders who clearly had no intention of giving up their trading grounds to Christian visitors.
Eventually, da Gama and his crew were forced to barter on the waterfront in order to secure enough goods for the passage home.
In August , da Gama and his men took to the seas again, beginning their journey back to Portugal. Da Gama's timing could not have been worse; his departure coincided with the start of a monsoon. By early , several crew members had died of scurvy and in an effort to economize his fleet, da Gama ordered one of his ships to be burned.
The first ship in the fleet didn't reach Portugal until July 10, nearly a full year after they'd left India. In all, da Gama's first journey covered nearly 24, miles in close to two years, and only 54 of the crew's original members survived. When da Gama returned to Lisbon, he was greeted as a hero.
The crew reached India in just six months, and the voyage included a firefight with Muslim merchants, where Cabral's crew killed men on Muslim cargo vessels. More important for his home country, Cabral established the first Portuguese trading post in India. In , da Gama helmed another journey to India that included 20 ships. Nowadays vindaloo is well known across Europe and the Western world but has become a rather generic curry with a little more heat than most, but otherwise undistinguished.
I prefer to make mine with the sourness of vinegar and tamarind prominent, although I will admit to using commercial vindaloo pastes suitably doctored.
Pork is still common in Goa because the Goanese were converted to Christianity and, therefore, had no prohibitions against it. I suggest the following recipe from memory. Vary the spices as you see fit but make sure you include tamarind. Pulse until you have a smooth paste. Place the paste in a sealable bag along with 1 kg of pork cut into cubes.
Boneless pork shoulder is cheap and works well. It can be reasonably, but not too, fatty. Seal up the bag leaving a small air hole. Squeeze out as much air as possible and then seal completely. Shake the bag around so that the pork is fully coated with the marinade and refrigerate over night.
Your Comment. Name required. E-mail required. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Da Gama arrived in Goa with the task of combating the growing corruption that had tainted the Portuguese government in India. He soon fell ill, and in December he died in Cochin. His body was later taken back to Portugal for burial there. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. In , Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias c. The story of North American exploration spans an entire millennium and involves a wide array of European powers and uniquely American characters.
In search of fame and fortune, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan c. En route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian-born merchant and explorer who took part in early voyages to the New World on behalf of Spain around the late 15th century.
By that time, the Vikings had established settlements in present-day North America as early as 1, A. The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in , , and He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not really Henry Hudson made his first voyage west from England in , when he was hired to find a shorter route to Asia from Europe through the Arctic Ocean.
After twice being turned back by ice, Hudson embarked on a third voyage—this time on behalf of the Dutch East India Company—in
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