Pedro Mascarenhas

Portrait of Pedro Mascarenhas in Faria e Sousa's book "Ásia Portuguesa" from 1674

Pedro Mascarenhas (* around 1484 in Mértola , Portugal ; † June 23, 1555 in Goa , India ) was a Portuguese navigator , explorer and diplomat . Mascarenhas is considered to be the discoverer of the Mascaren islands , which he is named after.

Life

Mascarenhas served in the fleet of the Portuguese viceroy of India , Dom Garcia de Noronha , and, as the son of a wealthy family, was instrumental in the spice trade . When he heard of local uprisings in the Goa region while circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope in 1510 , he separated from the rest of the fleet and tried to find a faster sea route to rush to the aid of the troubled Portuguese.

The then known route to India went north along the African east coast, where the Indian Ocean was crossed to land on the Indian Malabar coast . Mascarenhas, on the other hand, sailed eastwards from the Cape of Good Hope into little-known waters and in April 1512 discovered the island of La Réunion , part of the archipelago that was later named Mascarenes after him . In addition to Réunion, this archipelago includes the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues .

Later in his career Mascarenhas was from King Dom João III. appointed ambassador to Rome , where he represented Portuguese interests to the Papal States . In 1554 Mascarenhas was named Viceroy of Portuguese India by Philip II. He died nine months after taking office in Goa at the age of 71.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Auguste Toussaint: History of the Indian Ocean . University of Chicago Press 1966, p. 109.
2. ↑ Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas Brian (Ed.): Contemporaries of Erasmus. A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2003, ISBN 0-8020-8577-6 , p. 405.