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Pedro Álvares Cabral ( or ; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life are unclear, it is known that he came from a minor noble family and received a good education. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. The object of the undertaking was to return with valuable spices and to establish trade relations in India—bypassing the monopoly on the spice trade then in the hands of Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants. Although the previous expedition of Vasco da Gama to India, on its sea route, recorded signs of land west of the southern Atlantic Ocean (in 1497), Cabral is regarded as the first captain who ever touched four continents, leading the first expedition that united Europe, Africa, America, and Asia.〔See: *; *; *; *; *.〕 His fleet of 13 ships sailed far into the western Atlantic Ocean, perhaps intentionally, where he made landfall on what he initially assumed to be a large island. As the new land was within the Portuguese sphere according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, Cabral claimed it for the Portuguese Crown. He explored the coast, realizing that the large land mass was probably a continent, and dispatched a ship to notify King Manuel I of the new territory. The continent was South America, and the land he had claimed for Portugal later came to be known as Brazil. The fleet reprovisioned and then turned eastward to resume the journey to India. A storm in the southern Atlantic caused the loss of several ships, and the six remaining ships eventually rendezvoused in the Mozambique Channel before proceeding to Calicut in India. Cabral was originally successful in negotiating trading rights, but Arab merchants saw Portugal's venture as a threat to their monopoly and stirred up an attack by both Muslims and Hindus on the Portuguese entrepôt. The Portuguese sustained many casualties and their facilities were destroyed. Cabral took vengeance by looting and burning the Arab fleet and then bombarded the city in retaliation for its ruler having failed to explain the unexpected attack. From Calicut the expedition sailed to the Kingdom of Cochin, another Indian city-state, where Cabral befriended its ruler and loaded his ships with coveted spices before returning to Europe. Despite the loss of human lives and ships, Cabral's voyage was deemed a success upon his return to Portugal. The extraordinary profits resulting from the sale of the spices bolstered the Portuguese Crown's finances and helped lay the foundation of a Portuguese Empire that would stretch from the Americas to the Far East. Cabral was later passed over, possibly as a result of a quarrel with Manuel I, when a new fleet was assembled to establish a more robust presence in India. Having lost favor with the King, he retired to a private life of which few records survive. His accomplishments slipped mostly into obscurity for more than 300 years. Decades after Brazil's independence from Portugal in the 19th century, Cabral's reputation began to be rehabilitated by Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Historians have long argued whether Cabral was Brazil's discoverer, and whether the discovery was accidental or intentional. The first question has been settled by the observation that the few, cursory encounters by explorers before him were barely noticed at the time and contributed nothing to the future development and history of the land which would become Brazil, the sole Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. On the second question, no definite consensus has been formed, and the intentional discovery hypothesis lacks solid proof. Nevertheless, although he was overshadowed by contemporary explorers, Cabral today is regarded as a major figure of the Age of Discovery. == Early life == Little is certain regarding Pedro Álvares Cabral's life before, or following, his voyage which led to the discovery of Brazil. He was born in 1467 or 1468—the former year being the more likely—at Belmonte, about from present-day Covilhã in central Portugal.〔See: *; *; *; *.〕 He was a son of Fernão Álvares Cabral and Isabel Gouveia—one of five boys and six girls in the family.〔See: *; *; *.〕 Cabral was christened Pedro Álvares de Gouveia and only later, supposedly upon his elder brother's death in 1503,〔See: *; *; *.〕 did he begin using his father's surname. The coat of arms of his family was drawn with two purple goats on a field of silver. Purple represented fidelity, and the goats were derived from the family name (''cabral'' pertains to ''goats'' in English). However, only his elder brother was entitled to make use of the family arms. Family lore said that the ''Cabrais'' were descendants of Caranus, the legendary first king of Macedonia. Caranus was, in turn, a supposed 7th-generation scion of the demigod Hercules. Myths aside, the historian James McClymont believes that another family tale might hold clues to the true origin of Cabral's family. According to that tradition, the ''Cabrais'' derive from a Castilian clan named the ''Cabreiras'' (''cabra'' is Spanish for goat) who bore a similar coat of arms. The Cabral family rose to prominence during the 14th century. Álvaro Gil Cabral (Cabral's great-great-grandfather and a frontier military commander) was one of the few Portuguese nobles to remain loyal to Dom João I, King of Portugal during the war against the King of Castile. As a reward, João I presented Álvaro Gil with the hereditary fiefdom of Belmonte.〔See: *; *; *.〕 Raised as a member of the lower nobility, Cabral was sent to the court of King Dom Afonso V in 1479 at around age 12. He received an education in the humanities and learned to bear arms and fight. He would have been roughly age 17 on 30 June 1484 when he was named ''moço fidalgo'' (young nobleman; a minor title then commonly granted to young nobles) by King Dom João II. Records of his deeds prior to 1500 are extremely fragmentary, but Cabral may have campaigned in North Africa, as had his ancestors and as was commonly done by other young nobles of his day.〔See: *; *; *.〕 King Dom Manuel I, who had acceded to the throne two years previously, awarded him an annual allowance worth 30,000 ''reais'' on 12 April 1497. He was concurrently given the title ''fidalgo'' (nobleman) in the King's Council and was named a Knight of the Order of Christ. There is no contemporary image or detailed physical description of Cabral. It is known that he had a strong build and matched his father's height of .〔See: *; *; *.〕 Cabral's character has been described as well-learned, courteous, prudent, generous, tolerant with enemies, humble, but also vain and too concerned with the respect he felt his honor and position demanded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pedro Álvares Cabral」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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