He led the first European expedition round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, sighting and naming Natal on Christmas Day before crossing the Indian Ocean and arriving in Calicut in 1498. The Portuguese king Manuel I (1469–1521) chose him to lead a second expedition to Calicut in 1502. Da Gama forced the raja of Calicut (who had massacred Portuguese settlers from an earlier expedition) to make peace, also establishing colonies on the coast of Mozambique.