[2] Da Gama appears to have entered the court of Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal as an enslaved person: a 1543 invoice for clothing refers to her as a slave.
Thus Da Gama created the Recolhimento (Retreat) do Salvador do Mundo in Évora, to house women who were in a similar situation, although she never came to profess herself as a nun.
Gama had expected the support of Henry, King of Portugal, known as the Cardinal-King, but, instead, he ordered the home to be knocked down to make way for an expansion of the College of Jesuit Fathers, instructing the women to live with relatives.
[6] During the second half of the century, possibly around 1555, she published the work Ditos da Freira - Ditos Diversos Feitos por uma Freira da Terceira Regra, Nos Quais se Contêm Sentenças Mui Notáveis e Avisos Necessários, (Sayings of the Nun - Various Sayings Made by a Nun of the Third Rule, which contain Very Notable Sentences and Necessary Notices), copies of which have survived to the present.
However, Da Gama, did not choose ecclesiastical life: she chose to create a retreat and live in it according to her own rules.