Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India
Vasco da Gama returns to Lisbon after his first India voyage
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The commander was the last prominent member of his own expedition to reach home. He had stopped in the Azores to bury his brother.
A probable date, not a fixed one
Portuguese institutional accounts traditionally place da Gama's return at Lisbon on 18 September 1499, though the public broadcaster RTP describes that date as only probable.
The disagreement runs deeper than a day. João de Barros gives 29 August; other traditions give 8 September or 18 September. The surviving voyage journal ends before the homecoming, so the detailed arrival narrative comes from sixteenth-century chronicling.
Flags on the Tagus
In the narrative followed by the historian F. C. Danvers, da Gama's vessel entered Lisbon decorated with flags while Manuel I watched from the House of Mines.
Manuel sent the courtier Jorge de Vasconcelos aboard with royal greetings, and nobles escorted da Gama ashore to an audience with the king and queen. The same narrative says Manuel granted him the honorific Dom the following day.
Arriving last, and separately
This was not the day Portugal learned the expedition had reached India. Nicolau Coelho's Bérrio had brought that news in July and the São Gabriel followed in August; da Gama came last, delayed by a stop in the Azores with his gravely ill brother Paulo, who died there.
The human cost is recorded in the muster-roll scholarship: against competing estimates of 148 or 170 people who set out, Castanheda and Góis report 55 returned.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes Date disputed
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~1499-09.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The exact arrival date is not secure. João de Barros gives 29 August, other traditions give 8 or 18 September, and modern Portuguese educational material calls 18 September probable.
- The detailed royal-reception narrative derives from sixteenth-century chronicling rather than the surviving voyage journal, which ends before the homecoming.
- This was da Gama’s personal return, not the day Portugal first learned that the expedition had reached India.