Other explorers: Diaz, da Gama, Vespucci and Magellan
Bartolomeu Dias and the Cape of Good Hope, 1488
While Columbus was still trying to find a sponsor, the Portuguese had already made their most significant African breakthrough. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa in stormy conditions, naming the headland the “Cape of Storms.” King John II of Portugal renamed it the “Cape of Good Hope” — because it offered hope of finding the sea route to India. Dias had solved the geographical puzzle that had blocked Portuguese progress for decades: Africa had an end, and beyond it lay the Indian Ocean.
Dias did not proceed to India on this voyage; his crew, exhausted after months at sea, mutinied and forced a return. He set up a stone pillar on the cape to mark Portugal’s claim and turned back. His contribution was crucial nonetheless: he proved the route was viable and provided the knowledge that made da Gama’s later voyage possible.
In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to round the southern tip of Africa (Cape of Good Hope), proving a sea route to Asia existed — but his crew mutinied before he could reach India.
Vasco da Gama and the Route to India, 1497–1499
Vasco da Gama set out from Lisbon in July 1497 with four ships and about 170 men. He followed Dias’s route around the Cape of Good Hope, then crossed the Indian Ocean with the help of a local navigator (traditionally identified as Ahmed ibn Majid, though this attribution is disputed by some historians). In May 1498 he arrived at Calicut (modern Kozhikode) on the Malabar Coast of India — the heart of the spice trade.
Da Gama’s reception in Calicut was mixed. The Hindu ruler (the Zamorin) was unimpressed by the cloth and trinkets Portugal offered as trade goods; Arab merchants, whose profits would be cut by a new European sea route, worked to undermine Portuguese trade. Da Gama returned to Portugal in 1499 with a cargo of spices that more than repaid the cost of the expedition. Portugal had achieved its goal. A direct sea route from Europe to the spices of Asia was now open, bypassing the Ottoman-controlled overland routes entirely.
The direct sea route to India transformed European trade. Spice prices in Europe fell as Portuguese ships bypassed Arab and Ottoman middlemen. Lisbon became one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, replacing Venice (which had profited from overland trade) as the hub of the spice trade. The Portuguese established trading posts and fortified positions along the African and Indian coasts — the beginning of a maritime empire that stretched from Brazil to the Spice Islands. Da Gama made two further voyages to India (1502 and 1524), dying in Cochin (modern Kochi) in December 1524.
Amerigo Vespucci and the Naming of America
Amerigo Vespucci made at least two voyages to the South American coast (c.1499–1504). In letters that circulated widely in Europe — most notably the “Mundus Novus” (New World) letter of around 1502 — he argued that the lands Columbus had found were not part of Asia but a previously unknown continent. This was the crucial insight Columbus himself had refused to make. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published a world map labelling the new continent “America” in Vespucci’s honour — the first known use of the name. Columbus’s name was never attached to the continents he had reached first.
Amerigo Vespucci argued in his “Mundus Novus” letter (c.1502) that the Americas were a previously unknown continent, not part of Asia. German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller named the continent “America” after Vespucci on his 1507 world map.
Ferdinand Magellan and the First Circumnavigation, 1519–1522
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sailor who, after falling out with the Portuguese king, offered his services to Spain. His proposal: to find a westward route to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas) by sailing around the southern tip of South America. In September 1519 he departed from Seville with five ships and around 270 men.
The voyage was gruelling. Magellan navigated the treacherous passage at the southern tip of South America (now called the Strait of Magellan) in November 1520 and emerged into a vast, calm ocean he named the Pacific (“peaceful”). The crossing took ninety-nine days — far longer than expected. The crew ran out of food and were reduced to eating leather, rats and sawdust. When they finally reached Guam in March 1521 and the Philippines shortly afterwards, the relief was immense.
Magellan was killed in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, fighting alongside local allies in the Battle of Mactan. Command eventually passed to the Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano. By the time the expedition reached the Spice Islands and began the return journey across the Indian Ocean and around Africa, only one ship — the Victoria — and eighteen men from the original crew of around 270 survived. They arrived back in Seville on 6 September 1522. The circumnavigation proved definitively that the Earth was a sphere and that the Americas were entirely separate from Asia. Spain had failed to reach the Spice Islands cheaply by this route; the Pacific crossing was too long and costly.