Duarte Pacheco Pereira

Duarte Pacheco Pereira
Duarte Pacheco Pereira
Captain-major of Portuguese Gold Coast
In office 1519–1522
Monarch	Manuel I of Portugal
Preceded by	Fernão Lopes Correia
Succeeded by	Afonso de Albuquerque
Personal details
Born	1460 Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal
Died	1533 (aged 72–73) Kingdom of Portugal
Nationality	Portuguese
Spouse(s)	Antónia de Albuquerque
Children	João Fernandes Pacheco Jerónimo Pacheco Maria de Albuquerque Isabel de Albuquerque Garcia Pacheco Gaspar Pacheco Duarte Pacheco Lisuarte Pacheco
Military service
Allegiance	Portuguese Empire
Battles/wars	Battle of Cochin

Duarte Pacheco Pereira (European Portuguese: [duˈaɾt(ɨ) pɐˈʃeku p(ɨ)ˈɾejrɐ]; c. 1460 – 1533), called the Portuguese Achilles (Aquiles Lusitano) by the poet Camões, was a Portuguese sea captain, soldier, explorer and cartographer. He travelled particularly in the central Atlantic Ocean west of the Cape Verde islands, along the coast of West Africa and to India. His accomplishments in strategic warfare, exploration, mathematics and astronomy were of an exceptional level.

Pacheco Pereira was the son of João Pacheco and Isabel Pereira. In his youth he served as the King of Portugal's personal squire. In the year of 1455, having graduated with honors, he was awarded a study fellowship from the monarch himself. Later on, in 1488 he explored the west coast of Africa. His expedition fell ill with fever and lost their ship. Pacheco Pereira was rescued from the island of Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea by Bartolomeu Dias when Dias was returning from rounding the Cape of Good Hope for the first time.

The knowledge he collected from Dias expedition as well as his own explorations granted him the post of official geographer of the Portuguese monarch. In 1494 he signed the Pope-sanctioned Treaty of Tordesillas, which shared the non-Christian world between Portugal and Spain.

In 1503 Duarte Pacheco Pereira departed for India as captain of Espírito Santo, one of the three ships in the fleet headed by Afonso de Albuquerque. In 1504, he was placed in charge of the defence of Cochin, a Portuguese protectorate in India, from a series of attacks between March and July 1504 by the ruling Zamorin of Calicut. (see Battle of Cochin (1504)). Having only 150 Portuguese and a small number of Malabarese auxiliaries at his disposal, Cochin was vastly outnumbered by the Zamorin's army of 60,000. Nonetheless, by clever positioning, individual heroics and a lot of luck, Duarte Pacheco successfully resisted attacks for five months, until the humiliated Zamorin finally called off his forces. His son Lisuarte (or Jusarte) took a leading part in the fight.