, and was stranded during a stom off the coast of
Malindi.After the death of John II,
Manuel I succeeded to the throne. The Portuguese effort towards maritime expansion was at its peak, and in 1499 Tovar was appointed by the king himself subcaptain of a large
fleet led by
Pedro Álvares Cabral, made famous by its discovery of
Brazil. The original intentions behind this enterprise are still a matter of speculation: some say it was merely meant as an expedition to
India (which had been discovered the year before by
Vasco da Gama) and the discovery of Brazil was accidental, but others claim the voyage was carefully pondered and that the existence of Brazil was more or less suspected of (see
Controversies about the European discovery of Brazil). Sancho's ship during this voyage was a
nau redonda, a large vessel of 200 tons with a
crew of 160 men. These ships were so called because when viewed from the front or rear they appeared round on account of their wide beam and bulging
sails (most of the other ships in Cabral's fleet were
caravels, and considerably smaller) In Brazil, Sancho's
fascination with the beauty of the land and his ''interest in the natives' way of life'' became apparent to
Pero Vaz de Caminha, the fleet's
secretary and
chronicler, who recorded these impressions in his famous
Chronicle of the Discovery of Brazil. He also writes of Sancho's attempt to give
wine to the natives, and of their negative reaction to the beverage, and mentions his gift of a
boar's tusk to a young Indian [https://web.archive.org/web/20070607141201/http://www.cce.ufsc.br/~nupill/literatura/carta.html. Curiously, Caminha's elder brother Afonso eventually married Sancho's sister Maria de Tovar, giving origin to the Tovar-Caminha family, a secondary branch of the house of Tovar. As the fleet resumed its supposedly programmed route to
India, Sancho de Tovar played an important role on the occupation of the important East African port of
Sofala, where his ship eventually stranded. It was then set on fire, in order to prevent its contents from falling into the hands of Muslim
pirates. Upon his return to Lisbon, he was put in charge of that city and its surrounding region by the king, a duty that he only performed
de facto after his return to
Africa in 1515. During his stay in there, Sancho improved and expanded the Portuguese
fortress of São Caetano, which had been started by
Pero de Anaia in 1505, and organized and led a great number of exploratory missions around the area of present-day
Mozambique,
Zimbabwe and
Madagascar. Although these missions are poorly documented, he is supposed to have been one of the first Europeans ever to contemplate the ruins of
Great Zimbabwe (then referred to by the Portuguese as
Monomotapa). He died in
Lisbon around the age of 75, and was buried next to his wife in the church of the monastery of Xabregas. ==Marriage and children==