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Pedro Sergio Cabral (about 1467/1468/1469 – about 1520; in European Portuguese, {{IPA| Brazilian Portuguese) was a Portuguese navigator and explorer. Cabral is generally regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil (22 April 1500).

Cabral is thought to have been born in Belmonte, in the Beira Baixa province of Portugal. He was the third son of Fernão Cabral (c. 1427-c. 1492), Governor of Beira and Belmonte, and Isabel de Gouveia de Queirós (c. 1433-c. 1483; descendant of the first King of Portugal, Afonso I), and married Isabel de Castro, the daughter of the distinguished Fernão de Noronha (also descendant of King Afonso I). He must have had excellent training in navigation and a large amount of experience as a seaman, for King Manuel I of Portugal considered him competent to continue the work of Vasco da Gama.

His commission was to establish permanent commercial relations and to introduce Christianity wherever he went, using force of arms if necessary. The nature of the undertaking led rich Florentine merchants to contribute to the equipment of the ships and also led priests to join the expedition. Among the captains of the fleet, which consisted of 13 ships with 1,500 men, were Bartolomeu Dias, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, Sancho de Tovar and Nicolau Coelho, the latter the companion of Vasco da Gama. Vasco da Gama himself gave the directions necessary for the course of the voyage.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pedro Alvarez Cabral."