Portuguese empire Flashcards
The Treaty of Alcáçovas
1479
“the field reserved for the future discoveries” of Spain and Portugal, specifically delineating “the respective rights of the two crowns over the territories of the African Continent and the Atlantic islands”. Empowering European powers to divide the world into ‘spheres of influence’
rounding of the Cape of Good Hope
1488
Diego Cão’s expedition to the mouth of the Zaire (Congo) river
o 1484
Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut in West India
1498
Treaty of Tordesillas
1494
Treaty of Tordesillas denotes Spanish/Portuguese zones - The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile
when did Portugal reach Brazil
o 1500: Pedro Álvarez Cabral reaches Brazil
- The Estado da Índia
The Portuguese crown’s possessions in maritime Asia and East Africa were called collectively the Estado da India –
which territories did Portugal have in India
o Capture of Goa (1510), Melaka (1511), and Hormuz (1515) under governor Afonso de Albuquerque
Goa becomes the permanent seat of the viceroy
o 1530:
o Key losses to the Dutch East India Company (VOC, est. 1602)
Ambon (1605), Melaka (1641), the Gold Coast (1642), Sri Lanka (1658), Cranganor, Cannanore, and Cochin (1662-63)
o Key losses to the English East India Company
(EIC, est. 1600): Surat (1615), Hormuz (1622), Tangier (1651)
Anglo-Portuguese truce
signed at Goa o 1635
ended a period of hostilities between the two countries. It allowed for the resumption of trade and cooperation, particularly in the context of their colonial interests and maritime activities.
granted England certain trading privileges and commercial concessions in Portuguese territories, including Brazil. +England promised naval protection to Portugal agaisnt Spain
Portuguese traders expelled from Japan
o 1649:
Dutch incursion on Portugal in Americas
▪ 1624: Dutch capture (then abandon) Salvador
▪ 1628: Dutch capture an entire Spanish silver fleet near Cuba
c20 historiography on Portugal and Spain
o 1581: Philip II of Spain proclaimed king of Portugal, although overseas possessions continue to be managed by Portuguese officials
o Iberian Union lasts until 1640 – Marcocci argues for connected history of the 2 empires on this basis
official crown control of trade in India
o Crown-controlled feitorias were established in many key locations including Goa, Cochin, Diu, Hurmuz, Melaka and Ternate. In each of these places an official factor was appointed to supervise state trade
Crown restriction on sea trade
o Portuguese corso against certain categories of Asian shipping was sanctioned by the crown from as early as 1500, when Cabral was ordered to prevent spices reaching Egypt via the Red Sea. The long, intermittent corsair war that followed off western India had a strong anti-Islamic flavour and was conceived in the tradition of the razia.
o The crown took 20% of all booty taken, plus another 40% if the privateer involved was a royal ship.
crown monopolies
o Royal participation reached a peak near the end of Manuel’s reign, when crown monopolies were declared on intra-Asian trade in pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, shellac and various other products( 1495 until his death in 1521. )
o all trade in spices was to be done only by themselves, or by people licensed by them. Offenders against this, were to be severely punished, and their goods confiscated.
restrictions of the monopoly system
o Disney- beyond Sri Lanka the monopoly system never became as entrenched as it did to the west. In Far Eastern seas early crown trading was conducted mostly in conjunction with local merchants such as the Melaka-based Klings. Moreover, the crown’s monopolies were resented and frequently evaded by Asian and private Portuguese merchants alike. Nor could the system be effectively enforced over so vast an area.
how did Portuguese establish their monopoly
captured a series of strategically located port cities, and patrolled the waters of the Indian Ocean searching for ‘illicit’ traders.
The Portuguese wanted to direct, and tax, all trade in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese required that all ships trading in the ocean take a licence, or cartaz , from a Portuguese authority.
o Can pay Portuguese ships to ‘protect you’; they can then force you to sail to a Portuguese port to pay customs
Cartaz
allowed a ship to proceed as long as it paid customs duties at a Portuguese-controlled port, was not transporting prohibited goods such as pepper or munitions and did not have aboard persons considered hostile to Portugal.
. The cartaz served as a form of maritime passport, granting Portuguese vessels the right to navigate freely and engage in commercial activities without interference from other European powers or local ruler
Customo
taxes; charge people for using certain ports
Imposed licensing fees and customs duties, justified on the grounds that the king of Portugal was lord of the navigation and commerce of maritime Asia and East Africa…
Cartaz and customs revenue
The primary purpose of the cartaz system was to boost customs revenue. The crown maintained customs houses at various strategic locations, the most important being at Goa, Hurmuz, Melaka, Bassein and Diu- In the 1580s they together accounted for over 85 per cent of the viceroyalty’s revenue.
Portuguese protection
o In Sri Lanka – cinnamon as tribute
Tribute gives rulers security against rivals and protection of their sovereignty – a Portuguese obligation to defend these
Segmentation of trade in Portugal
) bilateral trade between Europe and India, which was a royal monopoly and which focused on the exchange of European and South American bullion (gold and silver extracted from mines) for Asian spices, pepper, cotton and silk textiles;
o b) intra-Asian trade, more or less under official supervision, which sought to amass profits sufficient to purchase Asian goods for Europe and thus to minimize Portugal’s bullion exports. To the latter end, cottons were purchased in India and exchanged in the archipelago for spices and pepper, which along with bullion were sold at the Portuguese post of Macao for Chinese silks. Silks were then traded in Japan for silver, which sold in China and India for more textiles. As a source of supply for both segments of trade, Southeast Asia thus filled a critical role
portuguese expansion and Ottoman competition
driven by desire to circumvent the Ottoman monopoly on the overland spice trade for money
o Cinnamon on Sri Lanka; pepper in Kerala (SW India); cloves/nutmeg on SE Asian islands
Portugal profit from Asian spice sales at the expense of Muslim traders and obtain cargoes for royal vessels rounding the Cape of Good Hope sufficient to supply some 75 percent of Europe’s pepper and as much or more of its fine spices. Thus the Portuguese gutted the venerable Levant–Venice spice route
decline in Spice trade
o Decline of the spice trade due to demystification proposed by Halikowski-Smith – Portugal pivots to textile trade= pivot from the spice trade to the textile trade in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
How Portugal actually inspired growth of Muslim port cities
o Portuguese interventions unwittingly joined rising prices to accelerate the growth of new Muslim port cities.
as global demand increased, Melaka’s concentration of trade at a single site was bound to come under strain, with specialized ports and producing zones seeking to carve out independent spheres. By inducing Asian traders, Muslims in particular, to seek spices and pepper outside Melaka and by splitting that city’s trade into Indian Ocean and South China Sea segments, Portugal in 1511 ensured precisely such an outcome.
the unintended beneficiaries included Aceh, which became the chief western rendezvous for Indian Ocean spice and pepper traders; and Johor, Pattani, Banten, and Brunei, which specialized in exports to China
Portuguese spurred islamisation
Official toleration, however, rarely extended to religion, and the Portuguese crown, like the Spanish, energetically promoted evangelization. But Christianizing efforts, and the close link between religious and commercial affiliation, soon led Muslims to intensify their own efforts. Thus, Aceh framed its anti-Portuguese struggle in religious terms, and Portugal’s 1570 assassination of the ruler of Ternate led his son to seek revenge by championing Islam.
Why could Muslim traders still succeed
Lieberman- Muslim traders-cum-missionaries were far more successful, in part, because Islam did not require subordination to an alien military power; in part because sufis and individual Muslims could accommodate local beliefs more readily than centrally controlled friar orders; and in part, simply, because Muslim proselytizers were far more numerous than Jesuits and Dominicans.
Chinese influence at time
- From the fifteenth century, Zheng- ethnic Chinese in positions of political power in Southeast Asian kingdoms
The Sultanate of Banten, formed in the 16th century, the Javanese north coast (pasisir) by 1600 boasted a considerable Chinese population,. Chinese traders and revenue farmers consolidated, the major Javanese state of the early modern period
whether one looks at the Philippines, Indo- China, or even Dutch Batavia, the Chinese community is an important one, which plays the role of intermediary in diplomacy, recruits and manages labor, conducts overseas trade
religion preceding Portugal’s empire
Subrahmanyam-the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the expansion of Islam on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and the growing presence of Muslim mercantile communities, whether in East Africa, India, or Southeast Asia. The centuries immediately preceding the arrival of the Portuguese in Asia therefore saw a redefinition of the religious map of the continent, and the expansion of Islam, and to a lesser extent Theravada Buddhism, religions that laid greater stress on the individual and individual salvation
Portugal as weak empire
- Subrahmanyam: the Portuguese had a “weak empire,” built on “war, coercion and violence,” which could not affect “the traditional commercial structure” in Asia seriously, since the commercial and economic forms of the Portuguese Asian regime were the “same as those of Asian trade and Asian authority.”… The Portuguese colonial regime, then, did not introduce a single new economic element into the commerce of southern Asia
Dutch strength
- The Dutch VOC also accumulated a permanent capital far beyond Portugal’s means with which to sustain investment, outfit ships, and hire seamen. Portugal’s decision from the mid-1600s to concentrate on the defence of Brazil and Africa, not Asia, only reinforced this discrepancy. Thus, whereas by 1688 the VOC was sending 24 ships a year to Asia where it employed 22,000 men, the Estado da India at its height sent an average of 6 ships and employed but 7,000 to 9,000.
Papal bulls legitimising empire expansion
o Papal bulls in 1452 and 1455 grant Portugal full secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over lands from NW Africa to India
o 1493 papal bull legitimises conquest in the name of Christianization
Hindu destruction by Portuguese
o Viceroy Dom Constantino de Bragança (r.1558-61) has Hindu temples destroyed and 36,000 Indians baptised
Jesuit separation from Portuguese
o Jesuits in Brazil: backed by Mem de Sá; in 1553 Brazil constituted into a sperate Jesuit province beyond episcopal control.
Christianity legitimised individual rule
o Conversion to Christianity as part of vassalage – eg Philip II becomes heir to the king in Sri Lanka 1557 after he converts
construction of churches
eg Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, opened in 1605
o Even administration of informal settlements was generally similar to, but more rudimentary than, those of official possessions. Usually the priority was to construct one or more churches and retain a Catholic priest or two. Within a decade or so of its foundation in 1580 the Portuguese community at Hughli already possessed functioning Augustinian and Jesuit churches.
Roman diplomacy of Portuguese empire
o Local rulers in Asia offered amizade (friendship) or irmandado ( brotherhood) with the king of Portugal
▪ First employed by da Gama at Calicut 1498
▪ Each port city in S India ruled by a different king – easy to gain a foothold and play them off against one another
failure of Roman diplomacy of Portugal
offer of friendship and address of ‘brother’ highly offensive to Chinese emperor during Tomé Pires’ embassy 1517-24
This and Chinese anger at the seizure of Melaka has Pires removed from court; he dies in prison in the 1530s
Initial policy of leaving native people and institutions mostly untouched and ruling indirectly
Albuquerque confirms the Hindu population in possession of their lands after annexing Goa.
Portugal - leaving untouched through coastal strategy
o Portugal’s pre-1511 colonial experience, focusing on African and South Asian port-cities, predisposed them to a coastal strategy. Whereas the 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza awarded Spain authority over stateless, poorly commercialized Philippine societies, Portugal received archipelagic areas with strong polities and dense trade.
by the time the Portuguese arrived in the western and central archipelago, Islam was far too strong to be dis- lodged. Accordingly, Portugal’s influence on Southeast Asia was less sustained or territorially focused than that of Spain.
relationship between formal and informal empire
o Newitt: When parts of the formal empire were lost, as happened to the Estado da India and the Mina forts in the seventeenth century, the informal empire tended to grow: when the formal empire expanded as in Brazil, Angola and Mozambique in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Portuguese authority was extended and the informal empire beyond the frontiers became increasingly formalized.
mutually dependent in a variety of ways. - Mozambique depended on the private trade of its moradores in the Comoro Islands, Madagascar and along the east African coast.
Informal empire
Newitt- This private or unofficial side of the formal empire often ran directly counter to the interests of the Crown and amounted to an unofficial empire growing like a parasite within the body of the official empire. It became, in effect, difficult to distinguish between the private trade of a Portuguese who settled in the territory of an Asian ruler and the private trade of a Portuguese who remained within the structures of the Estado da India.
informal empire and bringing locals into community
o Migrants leaving Cape Verde for the mainlands, the more successful of them married local women and formed part of the kinship networks of their wives families. They also acquired slaves, clients and dependants who in time became part of the ‘Portuguese’ community of the mainland which had few if any direct links with Portugal.
Portuguese individual’s rebellion in Mexico
o Cf Cortes’ expedition in Mexico – completely illegal; he even defeats a governor sent to subdue him and his conquests later become a crown colony
prominence of unofficial empire
o Disney – Macau in 1620s had a larger Portuguese population than Goa despite not being an official part of the Estado.
informal empire as expansion of Portuguese trade interests- Thailand
o East of Burma and northeast of the Malay peninsula the Portuguese made contact with Thailand, where a treaty was signed with King Ramathibodi II in 1518 allowing Portuguese traders to settle in Thai ports
r.
informal empire as expansion of Portuguese trade interests- nutmeg
o Commercial nutmeg was grown exclusively in Banda, a tiny group of islands clustered south of Seram. These islands were still pagan in the early sixteenth century, and the village elders (orang kaya) would allow no settlement in their territory by outsiders. This meant the Portuguese could not establish a permanent fort or feitoria there. Trading in nutmeg was therefore seasonal only.
informal empire as expansion of Portuguese trade interests- china and Japan
From about 1542 , the Portuguese China traders were permitted by local officials, probably without reference to Beijing, to establish an informal feitoria at a place called Liampo ´ At about the same time the Portuguese made contact with Japan, private traders began exchanging Chinese silk for Japanese silver
informal empire as vulnerable
: In 1632 , the thriving settlement at Hughli, which had been in existence for about a century, was suddenly attacked – for reasons still not entirely clear – by the Mughal governor of Bengal. No help for the residents was forthcoming from Goa, and after a three-month siege the settlement was taken.
informal empire and customs
o Even for customs/ control: The Habsburg administration assigned the collection of customs duties levied in Lisbon on private cargo from Asia- –to Giovanni Battista Rovalesca and associates in 1586. As in all contracts of this type, the contractors paid a fixed sum annually to the king and in return collected the customs due the crown in Lisbon.
implications of Spanish and Portuguese unification
by early C17 come to be viewed as a single entity under a single monarchy
o 1640: Macau and Sao Paulo declare loyalty to Philip IV rather than restored Portuguese kingdom
unification of Spain and Portugal
o 1581: Philip II of Spain proclaimed king of Portugal, although overseas possessions continue to be managed by Portuguese officials
o Iberian Union lasts until 1640
distance problems of Estado da India
o Portuguese empire as ‘flea bites’; spatially fragmented and decentralised
Distance between the kingdom based in Lisbon and the viceregency in Goa
o Goa remote from SE and E Asia on the west coast of India – though close to key region of Malabar
o Because of the remoteness of Goa – de facto power rests with the captains on the ground in fortresses
