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Vasco da Gama's voyage to India
1497–1499 (reached India May 1498)· Event· Asia
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama sailed around Africa to India in 1497–1499, opening the first all-sea route from Europe to Asia.
See it on the History map →What happened
Da Gama left Lisbon in July 1497 with four ships and about 170 men. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope, first passed by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, and hired a local pilot at Malindi, in today's Kenya, to cross the Indian Ocean. He reached Calicut in May 1498. Its ruler was unimpressed by his trade goods, but the pepper and cinnamon he brought home sold at a large profit. Scurvy and illness killed over half his crew.
Why it matters
It broke the Venetian and Middle Eastern hold on the spice trade and began centuries of European sea empires in Asia, starting with Portugal's armed trading posts at Goa and Malacca.
How we know
An anonymous crew member's journal (the Roteiro), Portuguese royal letters and chronicles, and Indian and Arab accounts of the Portuguese arrival.
Still debated
The identity of his Indian Ocean pilot is uncertain; the old claim that he was the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid is now doubted.
Connections (2)
▸Zheng He's treasure fleets had reached East Africa before Vasco da Gama's voyage to IndiaWell documented
The connection
Zheng He's fleets reached Mogadishu, Malindi and other East African ports by about 1418, bringing giraffes back to the emperor. Eighty years later da Gama, coming the other way around Africa, stopped at Malindi and hired a pilot to cross to India on routes long sailed by Arab, Indian and Chinese ships. By then China had withdrawn from the ocean.
When and how
East African coast, about 1417–1422 for the Chinese fleets, and April 1498 for the Portuguese at Malindi, in today's Kenya.
How we know
Ming records of envoys and gifts from Malindi, Chinese porcelain found along the Swahili coast, and Portuguese accounts of da Gama's stop.
Debates and open questions
A local tradition says shipwrecked Chinese sailors settled on Kenya's Lamu archipelago; whether they came from Zheng He's fleets is unproven.
▸Vasco da Gama's voyage to India opened the sea route used by East India Companies: the first great corporationsWell documented
The connection
Da Gama's route around Africa let European ships buy Asian spices, textiles and later tea directly, bypassing Venice and Middle Eastern middlemen. Portugal dominated it for a century. The English and Dutch then chartered companies, in 1600 and 1602, to break Portugal's hold, using the same Cape route and the sailing knowledge Portuguese pilots had gathered.
When and how
The Cape of Good Hope route, from 1498; Portuguese until about 1600; then English and Dutch fleets based in London and Amsterdam.
How we know
Company charters and ship logs show their fleets following the Cape route; the Dutchman Jan Huygen van Linschoten published Portuguese sailing directions in 1595–96.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate how much the Cape route really cut overland trade; Middle Eastern caravan and Red Sea routes kept carrying spices well into the 1600s.