Gaspar da Gama

Gaspar da Gama (Poznań (Poland) or Alexandria (Egypt) 1444 - Calicut or Lisbon, c. 1510 - 1520) was a merchant of Jewish origin who acted as interpreter ("Língua", in old Portuguese) and provided many services to the Portuguese, since he first approached Vasco da Gama fleet returning from the first travel from Europe to India. He was known to speak several East and West languages. He sailed with several Portuguese fleets between Europe and India, including the fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral that discovered Brazil.

His original name is unknown. He appears with the name "Gaspar da Gama" or "Gaspar of the Indies" in the chronicles and reports of discovery written by Gaspar Correia, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, Jerónimo Osório, Damião de Góis and Álvaro Velho but was known to Indians as Mahmet. Some sources confuse the latest with Gaspar de Lemos, a Portuguese sailor who commanded a ship in the fleet that discovered Brazil. Other sources also call him "Gaspar de Almeida" given his friendship with Francisco de Almeida, 1st Viceroy of India.

There are several versions of his life before meeting Vasco da Gama in India. Some of these were sourced at Gaspar da Gama himself, but he probably tried to hide some "inconvenient" facts about his own past. Chronicler Gaspar Correia states that, when found by the Portuguese, Gaspar da Gama was Captain of the fleet of Yusuf Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, Arab governor of Goa in India. Damião de Góis says Gaspar da Gama was a Jew born in the city of Poznań in the Kingdom of Poland and that at that time he did not speak Spanish, but the Venetian language, the very language used in European based commercial centers in the East.

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