2nd India Armada (Pedro Álvares Cabral)
(1st Brazil Armada )
Although Pedro Álvares Cabral's armada discovered Brazil for the Portuguese crown en route to India, the expedition failed on the diplomatic front. Cabral's primary mission was to secure a treaty with Calicut's ruling Zamorin and establish a trading factory in the Malabar coast's dominant city-state. Instead, Cabral provoked open hostility in Calicut. However, Cabral managed to establish Portugal's first eastern trading post in nearby Cochin.
The second priority, assigned to Bartolomeu and Diogo Dias, was to locate the East African port of Sofala, near the mouth of the Zambezi., which had been visited and described by the Pêro da Covilhã, and identified as the outlet of the Monomatapa gold trade a decade earlier (c. 1487). The Dias brothers were instructed to establish a factory there and, if necessary, secure the consent of Kilwa, the East African coast's dominant city-state.
Departed Lisbon: 9 March 1500; Arrived Anjediva Island: 22 August 1500
Left India: Jan 1501; Arrived Portugal: June(Coelho)/July (others) 1501.
