Pedro Álvares Cabral

Pedro Álvares Cabral came from minor Portuguese nobility and received a solid education, though his early years are hazy. In 1500 he was handed command of a 13-ship expedition bound for India via Vasco da Gama's new African route, tasked with breaking the Arab-Turkish-Italian stranglehold on the spice trade. His fleet veered far into the western Atlantic - perhaps on purpose, perhaps not - and in April made landfall on what Cabral thought was an island but soon realized was a continent: South America, inside Portugal's zone under the Treaty of Tordesillas. He sent word home, reprovisioned, and pushed on toward India. A storm in the southern Atlantic sank several ships; the six that survived regrouped in the Mozambique Channel and reached Calicut, where Cabral secured trading rights until Arab merchants incited a joint Muslim-Hindu raid that killed his men and torched his facilities. He retaliated by burning the Arab fleet and shelling the city, then sailed to Cochin, loaded up on spices, and returned to Lisbon. The profits were staggering, the voyage declared a triumph - but Cabral quarreled with King Manuel I, was passed over for the next expedition, and faded into p