Pedro Álvares Cabral

Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1460-c. 1526), Portuguese navigator, who claimed the Bahia region of Brazil for Portugal. He was born probably in Belmonte. In 1500 Emanuel, King of Portugal, appointed him commander of a trading expedition to India. With 13 vessels and more than 1,000 men, Cabral left Lisbon under orders to proceed along the Cape of Good Hope route pioneered in 1497-1498 by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama. To avoid storms and calms, Cabral set a more westerly course than that followed by da Gama, but winds and currents drove his vessels still farther westward.

On April 22, 1500, about three months after the arrival of the Spanish explorer Vincente Yáñez Pinzón, Cabral reached the area of the present-day Bahia State of Brazil. After claiming possession of the region for Emanuel, he sent a vessel to Portugal with news of his discovery. It has also been speculated that Cabral sailed too far west deliberately, hoping to find land on Portugal's side of the Line of Demarcation, a boundary set up in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), arbitrated by Pope Alexander VI to divide the world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence. The Portuguese had agitated for the line to be set as far west as possible, in order to increase the chances of parts of the emerging American continent falling within their control—a policy which bore fruit when Brazil became established as a Portuguese possession.

After this diversion, Cabral resumed his voyage, sailing eastwards, but four of his vessels were lost in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope. The remainder of his expedition succeeded in reaching Kozhikode (Calicut), India. There he negotiated a commercial treaty with the native ruler and established a trading post. Little is known of Cabral after his return to Portugal in 1501.