Accounts from the state of Kerala, India, are unequivocal in their descriptions of Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese admiral who, in 1498, became the first European to traverse the sea route from the cities of Lisbon to Calicut via the Cape of Good Hope. Da Gama was not the first person to cross the Arabian Sea from eastern Africa to India. Arabs, Persians, Ethiopians, Somalis, and others had been doing so for at least one thousand years. When conquistadors planted flags in lands afar and patted themselves on the back for their so-called “discoveries,” no doubt indigenous peoples and existing expatriates were rolling their eyes. Don’t they see us?
At first, Indians assumed that da Gama’s wafting ripeness was from months of hard travel, but in subsequent days, the Admiral and his crew refused to bathe, believing it to be an unhealthy practice per European norms of the time. For example, England’s Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled from 1558 to 1603, bathed every few months and only if necessary. As for da Gama’s hosts in Kerala, they would dip into one of region’s many rivers twice a day, scrubbing with coconut fibers laced with turmeric paste, a natural disinfectant, emerging from the water dyed a sunny yellow (turmeric stains). One imagines that Indians gagged in the proximity of the Portuguese, who were dressed in mildewed woolens, beards infested with lice, and visible signs of venereal disease, which the Portuguese helpfully passed on to local women, who must have been pinching their noses during the act.
Questionable hygiene and unsafe sex was one thing, but cheap presents were worse. Indians were outraged when Vasco da Gama displayed his gifts for the king of Calicut. Bells, hats, trinkets good enough only for a Dollar Store, and oddly–given their aversion to water–washbasins. Not some jewel-encrusted wonder but basic ones aka the utility sinks we install in our laundry rooms next to the washer and dryer and Downy Fabric Softener. Da Gama was particularly proud of the butter that he had brought as a gift, even though it had turned during the voyage. Ships’ rats were notorious for eating anything on board, even nibbling at the bits of unsuspecting sailors, but even the rats would back away from the bacteria frat party that was the butter. Gold is more appropriate for a king, said one Indian commentator, disdainfully. Da Gama was eager to present his butter but was persuaded otherwise due to the real possibility of losing his smelly head. Dying over a disagreement about condiments wasn’t worth it.
Well, for some condiments. Battling over India’s spices was a different matter. Then, our reeking heroes morphed into the MMA fighters of the octagon. Before we get to that, one more tale about da Gama’s cluelessness, during his hop-on/hop-off tour of the area. At one point, the guide stopped at a temple of the Hindu goddess Kali. Now, Kali is unmistakable. She has several arms, wears a necklace of skulls, and blood drips from her outstretched tongue. Our dear da Gama took one look at Kali and thanked the guide for bringing him to a statue of Jesus’s mother. Why da Gama mistook the murderous Kali for the sweet, virginal Mary is inexplicable. Perhaps da Gama concluded that Kali was Indians appropriating the Blessed Mother. Or maybe he just needed to consult an optometrist.
Spices were the reason the Portuguese made for India in the first place, why they braved months of sea sickness and stale biscuits, why they accepted scurvy as a professional hazard, why they tolerated this place that had no decent red wine to speak of (the Douro vintages of Portugal were a distant dream). But the Portuguese and other western Europeans–eastern Europeans were saved by the tasty Turkish cookery of the adjacent Ottoman Empire–could take no more of bland food seasoned only with salt. Imagine no pepper on your eggs, no cinnamon to sprinkle on your too-expensive Starbucks’ latte, no cloves or cardamom for an Easter pork roast. Like undergraduates weary of cafeteria cuisine–Admit it students! The first thing you do when you return home for the holidays is order Thai takeaway and Siracha wings!–the Portuguese were desperate to satisfy their taste buds. Asia’s spices were worth their weight in gold, literally.
It was da Gama’s turn to curse when he was taken to a spice emporium. There, merchants from all over south Asia and southeast Asia, as well as the middle east and east Africa, sold, purchased, and bid for wares in an open market. The highest bidders got the goods. The lowball bid of the Portuguese–I’m sure they offered to throw in free washbasins and butter to sweeten the deal–was immediately rejected and mocked, with lots of harrumphs from the spice-sellers.
Also, da Gama found upsetting and baffling that some of the merchants in Kerala were essentially his brethren: Jews and Muslims from Spain and Portugal who had been unfairly expelled in 1492, due to what some today might call antisemitism and Islamophobia. They had found safe haven in India, where Hindu kings welcomed them, gave them land, and bestowed social privileges. Alongside these Jews and Muslims were others from the middle east, Africa, and southeast Asia as far as Japan, as well as various eastern-rite Christians, my ancestors included (from either Israel or its environs, they were some of the first Jews to convert to Christianity, then made their way to India in the 4th century C.E.). Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims were colleagues and neighbors coexisting in cosmopolitan India. Notably, India is the only country in the world without a history of antisemitism, so Jews persecuted elsewhere found peace and prosperity in India.
On the return journey, da Gama stopped north of Kerala, near the city of Goa, to restock fresh water. There, a young man decked out in fine silk paddled to the Portuguese ships. He introduced himself as an official of the local monarch, a Muslim whom we can describe as an early supporter of DEIB in the workplace. The sharp-dressed man was a Jew from Poland. In all likelihood, he had left home to escape pogroms. In India, he was part of a diverse group of expatriates employed by the monarch, who, unaware of da Gama’s faux pas in Kerala, extended the Admiral an invitation to court. Instead of replying with a polite RSVP–‘My apologies, I must get home before the rats polish off the nutmeg’–da Gama tied up the young man, forcibly converted him to Christianity, and spirited him off to Portugal. The poor man was rechristened, wait for it–“Gaspar da Gama.” His actual name is unknown.
Vasco da Gama resolved to change how Kerala did business. During his second trip, he was armed to the teeth. ‘Say hello to my little friend,’ da Gama could have proclaimed (Young people reading this–that’s an iconic line from the movie Scarface), before bombing Calicut and cutting off the ears of royal messengers. The hostilities occurred on September 11, 1502. Da Gama seized all the spices he could lay his hands on, then proceeded to the cities of Cranganore and Cochin, where the smash and grab continued, with the burning of traders’ homes. Cochin’s Hindu king was so livid that he eventually set aside land adjacent to his palace for Jews’ protection.
Other Portuguese admirals followed in Vasco da Gama’s wake and colonized several regions on India’s west coast, including Cochin and Calicut. Their biggest prize was Goa, annexed in 1510 by Affonso Albuquerque after bloody war during which some defeated troops were cast into a crocodile-infested river. At its height, the Portuguese empire included Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Malacca, and Timor.
Vasco da Gama died in Cochin in 1524. He was buried at St. Francis Church, the first European church in India and founded in 1503. (There are, by the way, many older, eastern Christian churches, dating from as early as 52-54 C.E.). Da Gama’s body was disinterred and now lies in the Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon. I have visited St. Francis Church and Jerónimos Monastery. The former has a simple concrete slab indicating where da Gama was once buried. Looking at it, you realize that he was a small man. He had a big reputation, though, as the elaborate crypt in Lisbon indicates.
Today in Portugal, Vasco da Gama is considered a complicated figure. Lisbon in 2025 looks a lot like Kerala in 1498: a mosaic of peoples, many from the former colonies. A Gen Z named Vasco (I know, I know) told me that he was proud and embarrassed by the exploits of his namesake. As for the fate of Vasco Senior’s reluctant godson, “Gaspar da Gama,” he made his way back to India, married a Jewish woman of Cochin, and resided in the city’s Jewish neighborhood. Some sources say that “Gaspar da Gama” was an agent for the Portuguese East India Company, but I would like to believe that he returned to the faith of his ancestors, in one of the few places in the world where he could do so, and lived openly and freely. Shalom.