12. Armenian Merchants in Portuguese Trade Networks in the Western Indian Ocean in the Early Modern Age

According to Caspar Correia it was a Moorish pilot who gave Vasco da Gama the first information of Armenian presence in the Índian Ocean some 500 years ago. The pilot informed Gama in Mozambique Island haven that he could find fellow-Christian merchants in the great trade port of the Swahili Coast: Kilwa. Thus, Gama had reached one of the objectives set by King Dom Manuel I (r. 1495-1521) for his exploratory voyage, to collect information about Christians in Asia (Felner, 1921-1969, i, [1922]...