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Hi y'all

I'm doing some light research on Portuguese expansion at the moment and found something interesting.

There was no official records of any expedition between the one in 1488, led by Bartolomé Dias which passed the Cape of Good Hope and the one in 1498, led by Vasco de Gama which went all the way to Calicut.

There is a theory that between the two were a number of secret expedition sent to map out the road before de Gama. The theory rests on several points:

  • Bartolomé Dias went about hugging the coast all the way to SA while de Gama went in a wide route, almost touching Brasil
  • It's strange ten years passed between after such a major breakthrough
  • de Gama has very little prior official experience and would not be the best fit for such a massive expedition
  • There were big orders from the King for sea worthy food that are not linked to any official expedition
  • At Tordesillas, the Portuguese pushed for having the frontier further away from Europe, conveniently encompassing the wide route
  • There are records of Arabs sighting a European shipwreck on the East coast of Africa (Sofala I think) in 1496

Meanwhile, Sanjay Subrahamian just dismisses the hypothesis out of hand, saying the ten years wait was just the Portuguese court being divided about the whole far east issue and was stunned by Colombus' success, which seems a bit light.


Any thoughts on this?
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