200 Réis - Carlos I Discovery of India

Issued to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's 1498 arrival at Calicut, this coin was part of a broader commemorative program Portugal mounted at a moment of acute national self-consciousness. By 1898, the overseas empire that da Gama's voyage had inaugurated was contracting — the 1890 British Ultimatum had forced Portugal to abandon territorial claims in central Africa, a humiliation that shook the monarchy and accelerated republican sentiment. The anniversary celebrations were partly an exercise in shoring up prestige that the present could no longer supply.

Carlos I would be assassinated ten years later, in 1908.