Pedro Álvares Cabral

Hello! My name is Pedro Álvares Cabral. I was an explorer from a country called Portugal. I was born around the year 1467 in a town called Belmonte. My family was important, and growing up, I learned all about being a leader and a sailor. I always dreamed of sailing on the big, blue ocean to see what was on the other side of the world.

When I grew up, the King of Portugal, whose name was Manuel I, gave me a very special job. In the year 1500, he asked me to be the captain of a whole fleet of ships. There were thirteen ships in all! My big mission was to sail all the way to a faraway place called India. I was supposed to trade for wonderful things like spices, which were very valuable back then.

On March 9th, 1500, my ships and I left the shores of Portugal to begin our adventure. To catch the best winds that would help our sails, I steered our fleet far out into the Atlantic Ocean. We sailed for many, many weeks across the water. Then one day, on April 22nd, 1500, one of my sailors shouted, 'Land!'. But the land we saw didn't look like India. It was a new, beautiful land with huge trees and colorful parrots flying everywhere.

We had found a place that people from my part of the world didn't know about yet. I named it the 'Island of the True Cross,' and I claimed the land for my king and for Portugal. Today, you know this amazing country as Brazil. After we explored for a little while, I sent one ship back home to tell the king our good news. The rest of us had to keep going on our long and dangerous journey to India. We faced big storms, but we finally made it there and traded for the spices.

My voyage back home was tough, but we made it in 1501. My journey became famous because I connected my home in Europe with the giant land of Brazil. I lived to be about 53 years old. People today remember me as the explorer who introduced Brazil to the European world, changing the map and history forever.