Pedro Mascarenhas

Who was Pedro Mascarenhas?

D. Pedro Mascarenhas was a Portuguese explorer and colonial administrator. He was the first European to discover the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 1512. He also encountered the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in 1512, although he may not have been the first Portuguese explorer to do so; earlier expeditions by Diogo Dias and Afonso de Albuquerque may have encountered the islands. In 1528 explorer Diogo Rodrigues named the islands of Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodrigues the Mascarene Islands, after Mascarenhas.

Mascarenhas served as Captain-Major of the Portuguese Malacca from 1525 to 1526,

He was ambassador to Portugal in the Holy See, where he appealed to Pope Paul III for the coming of the first jesuits for the Portuguese missions India, at request of King John III and Diogo de Gouveia. The March 15, 1540, ending his mission, he travelled to Portugal together with Francis Xavier.

He was viceroy at Goa, capital of the Portuguese possessions in Asia, from 1554 until his death in 1555, in Goa. He was succeeded as viceroy by Francisco Barreto. While viceroy of Portuguese India, at the direction of the King of Portugal he sent Fr. James Dias and Fr. Gonçalo Rodrigues to Ethiopia in order to determine whether Emperor Galawdewos would be receptive to receiving a Patriarch anointed by the Roman Catholic church.