The 4th Portuguese India Armada was a Portuguese fleet that sailed from Lisbon in February, 1502. Assembled on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of Vasco da Gama, it was the fourth of some thirteen Portuguese India Armadas, was Gama's second trip to India, and was designed as a punitive expedition targeting Calicut to avenge the numerous defeats of the 2nd Armada two years earlier.
Along the way, in East Africa, the 4th Armada established a Portuguese factory in present-day Mozambique, made contact and opened trade with the gold entrepot of Sofala and extorted tribute from Kilwa. Once in India, the armada set about attacking Calicut shipping and disrupting trade along much of the Malabar Coast. But the ruling Zamorin of Calicut refused to accede to Portuguese demands, arguing that the violent exactions of the armada exceeded any claims they might have for compensation. The 4th Armada left without bringing the Zamorin to terms and leaving matters unresolved. Before departing, the armada established a crown factory in Cannanore and left behind a small patrol under Vicente Sodré, the first permanent Portuguese fleet in the Indian Ocean.
Background
The Second India Armada, commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, had arrived in Portugal in the summer of 1501 in a terrible shape. Ship and human losses were tremendous, its mission objectives failed. They had failed to establish a factory in Sofala, the outlet of the Monomatapa gold trade in East Africa, and, more worrisomely, opened hostilities with the city-state of Calicut (Calecute, Kozhikode), the principal commercial entrepôt of the Kerala spice trade and dominant city-state on the Malabar coast of India.
By the time this news was received, the 3rd India Armada under João da Nova had already departed, a commercial expedition unequipped to deal with the hostile turn of events in the Indian Ocean.
As a result, King Manuel I of Portugal ordered a new fleet to be assembled, the 4th India Armada, armed to the teeth, with the explicit objective of bringing Calicut to heel.Chroniclers are generally unanimous about the avenging nature of the expedition, e.g. Castanheda, p. 130
Appointment of Gama
The command of the 4th Armada was offered to Pedro Álvares Cabral. But various factions in the Portuguese court and the Casa da India, opposed Cabral's appointment, on the grounds that it was Cabral's 'incompetence' that had created this unhappy situation to begin with. However, Cabral had his own political supporters Subrahmanyam (1997: p. 177) notes that Cabral was a knight of Manuel's Order of Christ, while Vasco da Gama was a knight of the Order of Santiago. It is tempting to cast the Gama-Cabral quarrel to be one between the rival orders, i.e. that Cabral was the 'candidate' of Order of Christ, Gama of Santiago. That may have a kernel of truth as far as explaining Cabral's appointment to the 2nd Armada. But for the 4th Armada, the principal opposition to Cabral's new appointment actually came from Gama's uncle, Vicente Sodré, a leading figure of the Order of Christ, alcaide of their spiritual home, the citadel of Tomar. that could not be ignored. The king tried to compromise by offering Cabral the position of captain-major (capitão-mor), but letting it be clearly understood that his command of the fleet would not be absolute, that at least one squadron would be placed under the separate command of Vicente Sodré (an uncle of Vasco da Gama, and leading opponent of Cabral). Finding this condition an unacceptable affront, Cabral withdrew his name in a huff.Subrahmanyam (1997: p. 191). Manuel I immediately appointed Vasco da Gama himself as captain-major.
The intrigues behind the appointment have been variously told. By some accounts, the initial offer to Cabral was a pro forma gesture to palliate his faction rather than an earnest offer. In other words, the king never had any intention of letting Cabral lead the expedition, that the onerous conditions were introduced knowing Cabral would find them unacceptable.Barros (p. 22): "como elle era homem de muitos primores ácerca de pontos de honra" [trans: 'because he was a man very particular about points of honor']. That these conditions were only revealed at the last minute, just before the fleet's departure, lends credence to the theory, i.e. the monarch did not want to give Cabral time to reconsider or allow opposition to mount against Gama's rapid appointment.
Chronicler Gaspar Correia tells a slightly different story – he does not mention Sodré's command, but rather relates how King Manuel I summoned Vasco da Gama a mere three days before the scheduled departure date and expressed his "disappointment and mistrust" of Cabral's "dubious fortune" at sea.,"El Rey tinha desgosto e disconfianca da duvidosa fortuna de Pedralvarez Cabral" (Correia, p. 267) Interjecting, the queen 'helpfully' pointed out that such ill-fortune did not seem to afflict Vasco da Gama. but that he had made a promise to Cabral and could not break it. On this hint, Gama produced a royal letter (issued by Manuel back in 1500, and reiterated in October 1501), promising Gama a determining role in any future India expedition, and demanded command of the expedition for himself.According to Correia (pp. 267–268), Gama felt the destruction of the Calicut factory was ultimately his fault, because, on his first expedition in 1497–1499, he had allowed the Zamorin's offenses to go unpunished, which only encouraged him to do even greater injury to Cabral. Thus, the punishment of the Zamorin should be his (Gama's) responsibility. The king was caught between two commitments – honoring the letter to Gama, or his appointment to Cabral. Hearing of the king's quandary, Cabral voluntarily withdrew his name to graciously allow Manuel I to honor his letter.Correia (p. 268); Subrahmanyam (1997: p. 191)
The 16th-century chroniclers seem to agree that King Manuel I wanted to deprive Cabral of command, and that the Sodré appointment and/or the Gama letter was just a ploy by the king to wiggle out of appointing Cabral.Correia is clear that Manuel I hoped Gama would invoke the letter, "ElRey dissimulou o muyto prazer do seu coracao" (Correia, p. 267). Castanheda (p. 130) states only that Cabral was deprived of command "por algũs justos respeitos" ('for some just reasons'). But some later authors have interpreted the accounts differently, that King Manuel I was wholly behind Cabral, but was forced to yield to the unsavory machinations of the Gama-Sodré family.e.g. Sanches de Baena (1897: pp. 46ff)
Just before his departure, in a solemn ceremony at the Lisbon Cathedral on January 30, 1502, King Manuel I bestowed upon Vasco da Gama the newly created title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") - an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus. (Evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Seas' running around, then surely Portugal should have one too.)Barros, p. 24
On a side note, this was the first India armada for which the vintena de Belém was introduced - that is, the 5% tax on profits of private trading by captains and officers of Portuguese India Armadas, earmarked for the construction and maintenance of the Jerónimos Monastery in the Belém district of Lisbon.Correia, p. 270 The vintena would continue until 1522.
The Fleet The 4th Armada was composed of 20 ships and between 800 and 1800 men.Barros (p. 268) says 1800 soldiers; Gaspar Correia (p. 269) says 800 men-at-arms. The Armada was originally envisaged as two squadrons – 15 ships under the admiral to head to India, 5 under the vice-admiral designated to patrol the mouth of the Red Sea. As it turns out, not all ships were ready by the launch date, so the armada was re-arranged into three squadrons, the first two squadrons (10 under admiral Vasco da Gama, 5 under his uncle, vice-admiral Vicente Sodré) to head out at once, and the five remaining ships to go out a little while later as a third squadron under Gama's cousin, Estêvão da Gama, with instructions to catch up to the main fleet along the way.
The exact composition of the three squadrons differs in the various accounts. The following list of ships should not be regarded as authoritative, but a tentative list compiled from various conflicting accounts.
First Squadron (Vasco da Gama)Second Squadron (Vicente Sodré)Third Squadron (Estêvão da Gama) 10 ships (4 large "naus + 4 navetas (nta) + 2 caravels (cv)) 5 ships (2 naus + 3 cvs) 5 ships (2 naus + 3 cvs) 1. São Jerónimo (Vasco da Gama) 11. Leitoa Nova/Esmeralda (Vicente Sodré or Fernão d'Atouguia?) 16. Flor de la Mar (Estevão da Gama) 2. Lionarda (D. Luís Coutinho) 12. São Paulo (Álvaro de Ataíde or Pêro de Ataíde 'Inferno') 17. Julia (Lopo Mendes de Vasconcellos) 3. São Miguel/Gabriel (Gil Matoso) Fernão Rodrigues 'Bardaças', cv) 18. (Thomaz de Carmona/Cremona, cv) – Italian 4. Batecabello (Gil Fernandes de Sousa) 14. Estrella (António Fernandes Roxo, cv) 19. Ship of Bartolomeo Marchionni (Lopo Dias, cv) 5. São Rafael (Diogo Fernandes Correia, nta) 15. Garrida (Pêro Rafael or Brás Sodré, cv) 20. Ship of Rui Mendes de Brito (Giovanni Buonagrazia (João da Bonagracia, cv) – Italian 6. Santa Elena (Pedro Afonso de Aguiar, nta) 7. Bretoa (Francisco da Cunha 'Marecos', nta) 8. Vera Cruz (Rui de Castanheda/da Cunha, nta) 9. Fradeza (João Lopes Perestrello, cv) 10. Salta na Palha (António do Campo or Antão Vaz, cv)