The historian João de Barros, reports that Gaspar da Gama informed him that his parents were from Bosna (or Posner, i.e., Poznań) in Poland.
The Israeli journalist Elias Lipiner studied the documentation of the Portuguese chroniclers of the Age of Discovery and considered João de Barros version to be the most faithful to facts, suggesting that Gaspar da Gama must have been born in Alexandria around 1458.
Other historians, such as the scholar of Brazilian Jewish history Arnold Wiznitzer, think he was born in Granada or circa 1440 in Bosnia (perhaps confusion with the name of Poznań).
As reported by Álvaro Velho, clerk of the Portuguese fleet, Gaspar da Gama said that he was "working for a powerful lord who owns an army of more than 40 thousand horsemen, and that upon hearing of their arrival he had asked to see them.
After having hot oil dropped on his skin, Gaspar da Gama told he was a Jew from Granada who had converted to Christianity and after traveling to Turkey and Mecca went to the Indies, and that there was no plan to attack the Portuguese.
[7] King Manuel I of Portugal enjoyed Gaspar da Gama and called him frequently to the court to hear his stories about the lands and customs of the East.
[7] Always with a cap on his head and dressed in white linen, Gaspar da Gama was one of the more exotic characters in the fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral.
[5] Although not the only linguist at the expedition that discovered the Brazil, he was the main interpreter in the trade negotiations between the Portuguese and Brazilian Indians, along with Gonçalo Madeira.
In 1501, the fleet met the expedition of Gaspar de Lemos appointed by the king of Portugal to explore the newly discovered lands of Brazil, near modern Dakar, Senegal.