It was Joao Nunes, a convict sent by Gama on a reconnaissance mission,” he said. But the first man to set foot on Malabar soil was not da Gama. Da Gama followed the instructions and came straight to Calicut. The place was a main port for the spice trade in the Malabar region by then. “When he arrived in India, Malabar was divided into various principalities, of which the most powerful was the Zamorin of Calicut (today’s Kozhikode in Kerala). Indians, Arabs and Persians had been crossing the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf to as far as China through the Strait of Malacca for several hundred years.” But was da Gama the first one to set foot on Malabar soil? No, according to More. Speaking on ‘Portuguese interactions with Malabar and its Muslims in the 16th century’ at Roja Muthiah Research Library, More explained, “The second leg - crossing the Arabian Sea to the Malabar coast from East Africa - was not da Gama’s discovery. Da Gama followed the route established by his predecessors such as Diogo d’Azambuja, Diogo Cao and Bartolomeu Dias on the first leg of his journey,” said More, who teaches at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Economiques et Commerciales, Paris. “The coming to Malabar of Vasco da Gama by the African sea route at the close of the 15th century is not a great navigational exploit from the geographical and historical point of view. But, Paris-based historian J B P More disagrees with this history textbook answer. CHENNAI: Who was Vasco da Gama ? A Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail directly to India is the usual answer. ![]()
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