João da Gama (c. 1540 – after 1591) was aPortugueseexplorer and colonial administrator in theFar East in the last quarter of the 16th century. He was the grandson ofVasco da Gama. João da Gama sailed fromMacau to northeast and roundedJapan by north. He crossed thePacific Ocean at the northernmost latitudes taken until then by Europeans. Forced by the circumstances of his voyage, he became also acircumnavigator (one of the first to do it eastwards). The lands northeast of Japan which João da Gama discovered were the target of legend and speculation in the centuries that followed, inspiring its search by European powers.
Not much is known of his childhood and youth, though is believed that he was born around 1540. His parents were Guiomar de Vilhena, Countess of Vidigueira and Francisco da Gama, 2ndCount of Vidigueira, son of the explorerVasco da Gama, the discoverer of the sea route to theEast. He was married with Joana de Menezes and had one son, Vasco da Gama, who later became captain inChaul.[1] João da Gama became the captain ofMalacca between 1578 and 1582. He received cordially the Portuguese representative who brought the news of the coronation ofPhilip II of Spain as king of Portugal, but only recognized the new order later, after indication of the Viceroy ofIndia. He had numerous political conflicts within his mandate, caused by alleged personal irregularities that had brought him into political confrontation with the administrative bodiesof the city, which led to a Judicial process.[2] He was accused of harming the interests of Malacca and called toLisbon to answer for his actions and expose his defense.
He returned to the East with the aim of fulfilling thenanban trade (the "voyage of Japan"), between Macau (China) andNagasaki (Japan), a trade route monopolized by Portugal. Gama was married to the daughter of D. João de Meneses Baroche, Captain of Cochin. He left his wife at his residence inCochin and headed to Macau in 1588, accompanied by his brother Miguel da Gama. In that year the annual voyage had not yet been carried due to the sudden death of the captain of Macau, Jerónimo de Sousa. Following the trade agreement between the Portuguese-JewNew Christian Bartolomeu Landeiro and the city of Macau, Jerónimo de Sousa was also preparing to send a ship to thePhilippines. In parallel to this, was then issued the anti-Christian edict in Japan. João da Gama, hoping to get a higher profit and new possibilities, and against all prohibitions, decided for an expedition toNew Spain at his own expense and at his own risk.[3][4]
Da Gama was well-regarded in Macau, as can be seen from the letter that the Macau City Council wrote to the king on 30 June1588, in which praises da Gama, then captain of Macau and Japan. They also asked the king that he be granted for life with this captaincy. TheCâmara of Macau also mentions the subject of a recent Spanish (Castilian) travel to Macau, and the reasons why should be prohibited, among other subjects. Gama and the Council of Macau also argued that the profits of the voyage could sustain churches, aMisericordia, and two hospitals, being a leper one of them. Da Gama took possession of a carrack of 600 tons that instead of going from Macau to India, went to Mexico, where they could accomplish much more lucrative deals, which were coveted by residents of Macau. Years later, members of the Macau City Council would publicly condemn and criticize da Gama and his voyage.
The decision of D. João da Gama, a risk taker, was taken with the knowledge that it was an illegal enterprise, since it was well known the prohibition of trade between the world areas of Portugal andCastile (laterSpain) by the Treaties ofTordesillas andZaragoza, ban reinforced by the letters personally written by Philip II to the Viceroys of New Spain and India, and also directly to the administrative bodies of Macau and the Philippines in 1589 and 1590s, leading to the expulsion of the Spanish from Macau in 1592.
The unusual and exceptional decision to make the journey was due to the expectation that the initiative might be regarded with tolerance, as happened to some Spanish precedents to Macau, but on the other hand, seems it had been taken in desperate position because da Gama was possibly aware that if he returned toGoa, he would possibly be arrested due to charges of having committed serious irregularities. This reality is reflected in the letter that the king Phillip II (I of Portugal) sent to the Viceroy on February 6, 1589, which ordered him "that the noble (João da Gama) that came from China, should be arrest in irons and taken to the Kingdom aboard this Armada", as was also appointed before, in 1587, by the Crown.
João da Gama, however, seemed unaware of this reality in 1588, since he sent from Macau, on November 20 of the same year, a letter to the king informing him of his intention to go to Spain via Mexico, with an alleged justification of give in person to the king part of his mission to China, and show how easy it seemed to be undertaken its conquest (in fact the Portuguese in Macau were against such project). Two days earlier, on November 18, Domingos Segurado, in Macau, also wrote to the king to inform the wreck of a Spanish ship from New Spain in Macau, and the shipment of its crew on da Gama's ship, owner of the voyage to Japan, which, once in Macau, accepted the order of theViceroy of India to transport that crew to Mexico, being himself in the office of Captain of Macau during Gama's absence, even suggesting his own appointment to that office, or as a reward for his services, the provision of two voyages from China to New Spain.
After starting the voyage in Macau and due to a damage caused by a typhon, da Gama was forced to seek refuge at the island ofAmakusa on the Japanese coast. After repairs, he continued on his voyage in October 1589. He reached Mexico after having traversed the Pacific at a much higher latitude (around 45° N and possibly further north) than the course ordinarily taken by the SpanishManila galleons (usually near or around 40° N) travelling between Manila and Mexico. Da Gama touched at a place which has since been called Ezo (Yezo) – the island ofHokkaido, followed by unveiling a 'Land of Gama", which may correspond to one or some of theKuril Islands. Arriving at Acapulco in March 1590, the navigator may well have gone north along the Japanese main coasts and the Kuril Islands, to near theAleutians and then down to the American coast. His name was attached, originally on Portuguese maps, to a vague land he sighted northeast of Japan.[5]
The hypothesis that João da Gama explored or reachedNorth America as far north asJuan Rodriguez Cabrillo,Bartolomé Ferrer,Francis Drake, andFrancisco Gali, who (in 1584) had sailed from Macau and possibly sighted islands with metals 500 leagues to the east or east-northeast of southeast Japan (around 29° N or further north),[6][7] or as later,Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho, or landed further north, taking into account his route from the East, lacks direct evidence, due to the loss of much of the documentation on the nearby North American route he took and on his other possible landings in North America, except on the news of his successful arrival inAcapulco, in March 1590.[citation needed] Nevertheless, several maps later point to João da Gama's exploration and discovery of a large portion of the west and northwest of the then unknown and known coasts of North America. In the 1630s, documents came into possession of the Portuguese cartographerJoão Teixeira Albernaz when he was in Seville. The papers eventually included a sketch of a long north Pacific coast which João da Gama skimmed en route.[8]
Arriving in Acapulco, before being arrested, he managed to sell the goods, through twoSephardic New Christians, and getting in the negotiations 22,000 pesos, of which two thousand would be used to pay debts and the remaining twenty thousand would be sent toBrazil inland through his representatives (four traders, two of which would possibly be New Christians). It seems they were successful in the mission.
Da Gama's voyage was directly contrary to the Iberian crown legislation, prohibiting commercial transactions between theSpanish and thePortuguese empires. Accordingly, he was arrested and his ship and remained cargo impounded by the local authorities. However, in spite of the fact that Portugal and Spain were then "united", da Gama's remained goods and his charts and logs of navigation were confiscated. His remained goods were evaluated at 140,000 pesos. The process of João da Gama went toCasa de la Contratación inSeville, where it came to drag. Indeed, the enterprise of João da Gama was no more welcome to Spain that had been that of Vasco, his grandfather, a century before. The Portuguese crew and merchants who had participated in the trip returned to Macau via Philippines, after a stay in Mexico, where they brought silver, and he himself was sent to Seville to be tried by the audiencia of the Casa de la Contratación.[9][10][11] João da Gama became one of the first men to complete an eastward circumnavigation of the globe.[12]
In the trans-Pacific crossing from Macau to Acapulco da Gama was preceded by Francisco Gali andPedro de Unamuno.
Before seeing solved the process to which he was subjected, João da Gama have possibly died in Spain or Portugal after 1591 or 1592.
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In the 18th century, theRussians, after crossingSiberia and reaching theBering Strait between Siberia andAlaska, took the initiative in exploring the northern edges of the Pacific. One of the goals of the RussianGreat Northern Expedition, led by theRussian (Danish-born) explorerVitus Bering, was to proceed fromOkhotsk onKamchatka and reconnoiter from there for the legendary "Joao-da-Gama-Land". From "Joao-da-Gama-Land", Bering's group was to set out farther east to the coast of North America.
The mythical Gamaland was believed either to have existed between Kamchatka and the American continent. During the next 150 years contradictory maps depicted a jumble of real or imagined islands between Hokkaido and Kamchatka, confusing the existing Kuril Islands with theCompany's Land,State Island (named after the exploration in 1643 of the main southern Kuril Islands andSakhalin by the Dutch explorerMaarten Gerritsz Vries), Terra Esonis, and Gamaland. Sometime around 1731, the Russian Admiralty College requested the Academy of Sciences to prepare a map of the North Pacific.Joseph Nicolas Delisle prepared the map and an accompanyingmémoire based on work done by his elder brotherGuillaume. This showed the three islands mentioned above and the "Land seen by Dom Juan de Gama", which trails off in the direction of America. When the route of the second voyage of Vitus Bering was determined inPetropavlovsk in May 1741, this map or another based on it clearly influenced the choice.[13]