Pedro Álvares Cabral commanded the large Portuguese fleet sent toward India in 1500 after Vasco da Gama’s return. The expedition made a landfall on the coast of present-day Brazil before continuing toward Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Cabral’s fleet sailed southwest into the Atlantic rather than hugging West Africa. On April 22, 1500 the expedition sighted land in what is now Brazil.
Pero Vaz de Caminha, the fleet’s clerk, wrote a detailed letter to King Manuel describing the coast, Indigenous people, ceremonies and early encounters. Because the letter is near-contemporary and tied directly to the expedition, it is one of the most important sources for the landfall.
The Portuguese claim did not represent the “discovery” of an empty land. Indigenous societies already occupied the region, and Caminha’s own account documents their presence.
After sending a ship back to Portugal with news, Cabral continued toward the Cape of Good Hope. Severe storms destroyed several ships, including the vessel carrying Bartolomeu Dias.
The surviving fleet reached India, where conflict at Calicut led to violence. Cabral then established trade relations at other ports before returning to Portugal.
The voyage connected two future pillars of the Portuguese empire—Brazil and the Indian Ocean—but those systems developed over later decades and should not be projected fully onto the 1500 expedition.
For TransitSatellite, Caminha’s letter should anchor the Brazil section of the route, while open-ocean tracks remain reconstructed rather than falsely precise.