Common instructions included helping establish staging posts and warehouses, serving as laborers in a new colony, or garrisoning a fledgling fort.
Degradados abandoned on unfamiliar shores (known as lançados, literally 'the launched ones') were often instructed to conduct exploratory work inland, searching for rumored cities, making contact with unknown peoples.
Some degredados achieved a measure of fame as inland explorers, making their name almost as famous to posterity as that of the great discoverer captains themselves (e.g. António Fernandes).
Others 'went native', building up a new life of their own among the local inhabitants, obliterating their past altogether (e.g. the 'Bachelor of Cananeia') In the early years of Portuguese discoveries and empire-building in the 15th and 16th centuries, outbound ships usually carried a small number of degredados, to assist in tasks deemed too hazardous or onerous for ordinary crewmen; e.g. upon reaching an unfamiliar shore, a degredado or two were usually landed first to test if the native inhabitants were hostile.
After opening contact was made, degredados were often assigned to spend the nights in the native town or village (while the rest of the crew slept aboard ships), to build up trust and collect information.