Explorers From Portugal

"He (Da Gama) then ordered the upper and lower lips of the Brahman to be cut off, so that all his teeth shewed, and he ordered the ears of a dog on board the ship to be cut off, and he had them fastened and sewn with many stitches on the Brahman instead of his, and he sent him in the Indian boat to return to Calicut."

"The historian Gaspar Correa describes what da Gama did next: When all the Indians had been thus executed [sic], he ordered their feet to be tied together, as they had no hands with which to untie them: and in order that they should not untie them with their teeth, he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves, and they knocked them down their throats; and they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them, and the sails to be set for the shore, and the vessel set on fire … and the small vessel with the friar [Brahmin], with all the hands and ears, was also sent ashore, without being fired."

"Vasco da Gama had bombarded Calicut when the Zamorin ruler of that place refused to be dictated by him. He had plundered the ships bringing rice to the city and cut off the ears, noses and hands of the crews. The Zamorin had sent to him a Brahmin envoy after securing Portuguese safe-conduct. Vasco da Gama had cut off the nose, ears and hands of the Brahmin and strung them around his neck together with a palm-leaf on which a message was conveyed to the Indian king that he could cook and eat a curry made from his envoy’s limbs."

"The pattern of killing, destroying and burning was soon to be given the imprimatur of Vasco da Gama himself, when in the middle of 1502 he sailed once more into the Indian Ocean. The king’s ‘almirante amigo’ now commanded twenty-five ships, the ten largest containing ‘much beautiful artillery, with plenty of munitions and weapons, all in great abundance’. Thirteen of the ships under da Gama’s command belonged to wealthy Portuguese merchants. Since his first appearance less than five years before, in command of three small vessels groping their way towards an uncertain goal, everything had changed. Da Gama was now clear about where he was going and what he meant to do. The Zamorin had ‘treated him with contumely’, so he ‘felt in his heart a great desire to go and make havoc of him’."

"The transfixing of men hung in mid-air was one of the admiral’s favourite forms of execution, since it gave his soldiers good practice. However, there was a strange incident when three among a group of captured sailors from the Coromandel coast threw their hands up to heaven and told him that they wanted to become Christians. Da Gama, unmoved, ordered the interpreter to tell them ‘that even though they became Christians, yet still he would kill them’. The ship’s priest was allowed to baptize them none the less, and as he declaimed the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria they recited his words. ‘When this was done, then they hanged them up strangled, that they might not feel the arrows.’ The crossbowmen transfixed the rest of da Gama’s victims strung from the yardarm; but the arrows which struck the newly-baptized trio ‘did not go in, nor make any mark’. At this, the admiral seemed troubled. The three bodies were shrouded and thrown into the sea, which the chronicler of this event called the Lord’s ‘great mercy’ to gentiles. The priest said prayers and read psalms. However, da Gama was troubled only briefly. When yet another Brahmin was sent from Calicut to plead for peace, he had his lips cut off, and his ears cut off; the ears of a dog were sewn on instead, and the Brahmin was sent back to the Zamorin in that state. He had brought with him three young boys, two of them his sons and a nephew. They were hanged from the yardarm and their bodies sent ashore."

"With Calicut at his mercy, da Gama might have sent his soldiers ashore to put to the sword as many of its citizens as they could seize. Instead, he told his men to parade the prisoners, then to hack off their hands, ears and noses. As the work progressed, all the amputated pieces were piled up in a small boat. The Brahmin who had been sent out by the Zamorin as an emissary was put into the boat amid its new, gruesome cargo. He had also been mutilated in the ordained manner. The historian Gaspar Correa describes what da Gama did next: When all the Indians had been thus executed [sic], he ordered their feet to be tied together, as they had no hands with which to untie them: and in order that they should not untie them with their teeth, he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves, and they knocked them down their throats; and they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them, and the sails to be set for the shore, and the vessel set on fire … and the small vessel with the friar [Brahmin], with all the hands and ears, was also sent ashore, without being fired."

"These people are good and simple. You can stamp on them any design that you wish to give them. And Our Lord gave them good bodies and good faces, and I think that it was his plan that we arrive here. Therefore, Your Majesty, since you wish so much to increase Catholic faith, you must provide for their salvation."

"Esta gente é boa e de boa simplicidade. E imprimir-se-á ligeiramente neles cuqlquer cunho, que les quiserem dar. E logo lhes, Nosso Senhor, deu bons corpos e bons rostos, como a bons homens, e Ele que nos por aqui trouxe, creio que não foi sem causa. E portanto, Vossa Alteza, pois tanto deseja acrescentar na santa fé católica, deve entender em sua salvação."

"It is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, in as much as the Hindus daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers."

"The enthusiastic soldiers, who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, spread the faith of Islam among the timid race of Bengal, made forcible conversions by the sword, and, penetrating the dense forests of the Eastern frontier, planted the crescent in the villages of Sylhet. Tradition still preserves the names of Adam Shahid, Shah Halal Mujarrad, and Karmfarma Sahib, as three of the most successful of these enthusiasts."

"The King allows such freedom that every man may come and go and live according to his own creed, without suffering any annoyance and without enquiry whether he is a Christian, ‘Jew’ Moor or Heathen. Great equity and justice is observed to all, not only by the rulers, but by the people one to another."

"E alem do que dito he, ha experiencia, que he madre das cousas, nos desengana e de toda duuida nos tira."

"Whoever enters this river Rio dos Forcados] will find that it branches to the right and to the left; five leagues up the left branch is a place of barter, which consists chiefly of slaves and cotton cloths, with some panther skins, palm-oil and some blue shells with red stripes which they call "coris." These and other things we buy there for brass and copper bracelets; they are all valuable at the castle of S. Jorze da Mina, where the King's factor sells them to the negro merchants for gold."

"The kingdom of Beny...is usually at war with its neighbours and takes many captives, whom we buy at twelve or fifteen brass bracelets each, or for copper bracelets which they prize more; from there the slaves are brought to the castle of S. Jorze da Mina where they are sold for gold. The way of life of these people is full of abuses and witchcraft and idolatry, which for brevity's sake I omit."

"E canta como lá se embarcaria Em Belém o remédio deste dano, Sem saber o que em si ao mar traria, O grão Pacheco, Aquiles Lusitano. O peso sentirão, quando entraria, O curvo lenho e o férvido Oceano, Quando mais n' água os troncos que gemerem Contra sua natureza se meterem."

"Bemauenturado Príncipe, temos sabido e visto como no terceiro anno de vosso Reinado do hanno de nosso senhor de 1498, donde nos vossa alteza mandou descobrir a parte oucidental, passando alem ha grandeza do mar oceano, onde he achada a navegada hûa tão grande terra firme, com muitas e grandes ilhas ajacentes a ella, que se estende a setente graaos de ladeza da linha equinoçial contra ho pollo artico e posto que seja asaz fora, he grandemente pouorada, e do mesmo circulo equinocial torna outra vez e vay alem em vinte e oito graaos e meo de ladeza contra ho pollo antartico, e tanto se dilata sua grandeza e corre com muita longura, que de hûa parte nem da outra foy visto nem sabido ho fim e cabo della; pello qual segundo ha hordem que leua, he certo que vay en cercoyto por toda a Redondeza."

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church."

"Variant: The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round. For I have seen its Shadow on the Moon and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church."

"Most versed in nautical charts, he knew better than any other the true art of navigation, of which it is certain proof that he by his genius, and his intrepidity, without anyone having given him the example, how to attempt the circuit of the globe which he had almost completed... The glory of Magellan will survive him."

"So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to flight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away. So we continued to retire for more than a good crossbow flight from the shore always fighting up to our knees in the water. The natives continued to pursue us, and picking up the same spear four or six times, hurled it at us again and again. Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice, but he always stood firmly like a good knight, together with some others. Thus did we fight for more than one hour, refusing to retire farther. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."

"They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Bieber, and then...your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explorer! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, TALKING ABOUT JUSTIN BIEBER!!! IT'S PURE EVIL!!! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shatter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!!!"