Age of Discovery

==Indian Ocean (1497–1513)==

===Vasco da Gama's route to India===

{{see also|Portuguese India Armadas}}

[[File:Caminho maritimo para a India.png|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Vasco da Gama]]'s 1497–1499 travel to India (black). Previous travels of [[Pero da Covilhã]] (orange) and [[Afonso de Paiva]] (blue), and their common route (green)]]

Protected from direct Spanish competition by the [[Treaty of Tordesillas]], Portuguese eastward exploration and colonization continued apace. Twice, in 1485 and 1488, Portugal officially rejected [[Genoa|Genoese]] [[Christopher Columbus]]'s idea of reaching India by sailing westwards. King [[John II of Portugal]]'s experts rejected it, for they held the opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of {{convert|2400|mi|km|-1}} was low,<ref>[[#Morison 1942|Morison 1942]], pp. 65–75.</ref> and in part because [[Bartolomeu Dias]] departed in 1487 trying the rounding of the southern tip of Africa. They believed that sailing east would require a far shorter journey. Dias's return from the [[Cape of Good Hope]] in 1488, and [[Pero da Covilhã]]'s travel to [[Ethiopia]] overland indicated that the richness of the [[Indian Ocean]] was accessible from the Atlantic. A long-overdue expedition was prepared.

[[File:Map of Portuguese Carreira da India.gif|thumb|upright=1.35|left|Outward and return voyages of the [[Portuguese India Armadas]] in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, with the [[North Atlantic Gyre]] (''[[Volta do mar]]'') picked up by [[Henry the Navigator|Henry]]'s navigators, and the outward route of the South Atlantic westerlies that [[Bartolomeu Dias]] discovered in 1488, followed and explored by the expeditions of [[Vasco da Gama]] and [[Pedro Álvares Cabral]]]]

In July 1497, a small exploratory fleet of four ships and about 170 men left [[Lisbon]] under the command of [[Vasco da Gama]]. By December the fleet passed the [[Great Fish River]]—where Dias had turned back—and sailed into waters unknown to the Europeans. Sailing into the Indian Ocean, da Gama entered a maritime region that had three different and well-developed trade circuits. The one da Gama encountered connected [[Mogadishu]] on the east coast of Africa; [[Aden]], at the tip of the Arabian peninsula; the Persian port of [[Hormuz, Iran|Hormuz]]; [[Cambay]], in north western India; and [[Calicut]], in southwestern India.<ref name="ReferenceD">[[#Abu-Lughod 1991|Abu-Lughod 1991]], 252</ref> On 20 May 1498, they arrived at [[Kozhikode|Calicut]]. The efforts of Vasco da Gama to get favorable trading conditions were hampered by the low value of their goods, compared with the valuable goods traded there.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World|last=Bernstein|first=William J.|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=978-0-8021-4416-4|date=2008|location=New York|language=en}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2017}} Two years and two days after departure, Gama and a survivor crew of 55 men returned in glory to Portugal as the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. Da Gama's voyage is romanticized in the [[Os Lusíadas]], an [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] by fellow discovery-era traveler [[Luís de Camões]]. The poem is widely regarded as Portugal's greatest literary achievement.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2001-05-21 |title=The Lusiads |url=http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/may/22/artsfeatures2 |access-date=2022-08-24 |website=the Guardian |language=en |archive-date=2022-08-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220824004732/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/may/22/artsfeatures2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Fiegl |first2=Amanda |title=Adventures of a Portuguese Poet |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/adventures-of-a-portuguese-poet-8433719/ |access-date=2022-08-24 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en |archive-date=2022-08-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220824004730/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/adventures-of-a-portuguese-poet-8433719/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1500, a second, larger fleet of thirteen ships and about 1500 men were sent to India. Under command of [[Pedro Álvares Cabral]], they made the first landfall on the Brazilian coast, giving Portugal its claim. Later, in the Indian Ocean, one of Cabral's ships reached [[Madagascar]] (1501), which was partly explored by [[Tristão da Cunha]] in 1507; [[Mauritius]] was discovered in 1507, [[Socotra]] occupied in 1506. In the same year [[Lourenço de Almeida]] landed in [[Sri Lanka]], the eastern island named "[[Names of Sri Lanka|Taprobane]]" in remote accounts of [[Alexander the Great]]'s and 4th-century BC Greek [[geographer]] [[Megasthenes]]. On the Asiatic mainland the first [[factory (trading post)|factories (trading-posts)]] were established at Kochi and Calicut (1501) and then [[Old Goa|Goa]] (1510).
{{clear}}

===The "Spice Islands" and China===
[[File:Malaccaship.JPG|thumb|left|upright|Replica of the Portuguese ''[[Flor de la Mar]]'' [[carrack]] in the Maritime Museum of [[Malacca]] in [[Malaysia]].]]

The Portuguese continued sailing eastward from India, entering a second existing circuit of the Indian Ocean trade, from Calicut and [[Kollam|Quillon]] in India, to southeast Asia, including [[Malacca]], and [[Palembang]].<ref name="ReferenceD"/> In 1511, [[Afonso de Albuquerque]] conquered Malacca for Portugal, then the center of Asian trade. East of Malacca, Albuquerque sent several diplomatic missions: [[Duarte Fernandes]] as the first European envoy to the [[Ayutthaya Kingdom|Kingdom of Siam]] (modern [[Thailand]]).

Learning the location of the so-called "spice islands", heretofore a secret from the Europeans, were the [[Maluku Islands]], mainly the [[Banda Islands|Banda]], then the world's only source of [[nutmeg]] and [[clove]]s. Reaching these was the main purpose for the Portuguese voyages in the Indian Ocean. Albuquerque sent an expedition led by [[António de Abreu]] to Banda (via [[Java]] and the [[Lesser Sunda Islands]]), where they were the first Europeans to arrive in early 1512, after taking a route through which they also reached first the islands of [[Buru]], [[Ambon Island|Ambon]] and [[Seram]].<ref>[[#Milton 1999|Milton 1999]], pp. 5–7.</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Armando|last=Cortesão|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h82D-Y0E3TwC&q=Simao%20Afonso%20Bisagudo&pg=PR81|title=The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: an account of the east, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515/The Book of Francisco Rodrigues rutter of a voyage in the Red Sea, nautical rules, almanack and maps, written and drawn in the east before 1515|publisher=The [[Hakluyt Society]]|year=1944|access-date=2016-02-10|isbn=978-81-206-0535-0|archive-date=2021-11-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211114161316/https://books.google.com/books?id=h82D-Y0E3TwC|url-status=live}}</ref> From Banda Abreu returned to Malacca, while his vice-captain [[Francisco Serrão]], after a separation forced by a shipwreck and heading north, reached once again Ambon and sank off [[Ternate]], where he obtained a license to build a Portuguese fortress-factory: the Fort of São João Baptista de Ternate, which founded the Portuguese presence in the [[Malay Archipelago]].

In May 1513 [[Jorge Álvares]], one of the Portuguese envoys, reached China. Although he was the first to land on [[Nei Lingding Island|Lintin Island]] in the [[Pearl River Delta]], it was [[Rafael Perestrello]]—a cousin of the famed [[Christopher Columbus]]—who became the first European explorer to land on the southern coast of mainland China and trade in [[Guangzhou]] in 1516, commanding a [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] vessel with crew from a Malaccan junk that had sailed from [[Malacca]].<ref>[[#Pfoundes 1882|Pfoundes 1882]], p. 89.</ref><ref>[[#Nowell 1947|Nowell 1947]], p. 8.</ref> [[Fernão Pires de Andrade]] visited Canton in 1517 and opened up trade with China. The Portuguese were defeated by the Chinese in 1521 at the [[Battle of Tunmen]] and in 1522 at the [[Battle of Xicaowan]], during which the Chinese captured Portuguese [[breech-loading swivel gun]]s and reverse engineered the technology, calling them "Folangji" 佛郎機 ([[Farangi|Frankish]]) guns, since the Portuguese were called "Folangji" by the Chinese. After a few decades, hostilities between the Portuguese and Chinese ceased and in 1557 the Chinese allowed the Portuguese to occupy [[Macau]].

To enforce a trade monopoly, [[Muscat]] and [[Hormuz Island|Hormuz]] in the [[Persian Gulf]] were seized by [[Afonso de Albuquerque]] in 1507 and in 1515, respectively. He also entered into [[Diplomacy|diplomatic relations]] with [[Safavid Iran|Persia]]. In 1513, while trying to conquer [[Aden]], an expedition led by Albuquerque cruised the [[Red Sea]] inside the [[Bab al-Mandab]], and sheltered at [[Kamaran]] island. In 1521, a force under [[António Correia (admiral)|António Correia]] conquered [[Bahrain]], ushering in a period of almost eighty years of Portuguese rule of the Gulf archipelago.<ref>[[#Cole 2002|Cole 2002]], p. 37.</ref> In the Red Sea, [[Massawa]] was the most northerly point frequented by the Portuguese until 1541, when a fleet under [[Estêvão da Gama (16th century)|Estevão da Gama]] penetrated as far as [[Suez]].