Part
III:
The Establishment
of the Portuguese Empire:
Following the proclamation
of Portugal’s independence
in 1143, Affonso Henriques
and his son focused their
attention on consolidating
their power, defending their
country against Spanish encroachments,
sustaining their crusade against
Muslims, and staging campaigns
to seize the trade routes
that were under the control
of Muslim powers in Africa
and Asia. These policies were
retained as high priorities
of the Kingdom of Portugal,
notably under the House of
Aviz, the new royal line that
ascended to the Portuguese
throne with the help of England
in 1385.
In implementation
of these policies, King João
I, the first Aviz king, concluded
with England the Treaty of
Windsor in 1386. This treaty
was a pact of continuous friendship
between the two countries.
It served as a political alliance
that henceforth became a cornerstone
of Portuguese foreign policy
for nearly 500 years. Being
a balance-of-power arrangement,
the treaty alienated both
Spain and France, the governments
of which viewed with apprehension
the implications of the treaty
and their respective powers.
In implementation
of the same policies, King
João I launched a campaign
that later was described as
the venture that signaled
the start of the age of discovery.
It was a prolonged aggression
against northern African Moorish
sites, designed to capture
Ceuta and other Muslim trading
posts in that region. Carried
out under the command of the
king’s youngest son,
Henry the Navigator (July
1992, 133), it was seminal
in various ways, one being
the discovery by Portuguese
navigators of the Madeira
Islands in 1419.
Inspired by these
discoveries, Prince Henry
began to fund schools specializing
in the art of ship design,
map making, and systems of
navigation. Moreover, he built
a “marine research station
at Sagres on a promontory
overlooking the ocean and
directed decades of inquiry
into the science and technique
of steering and sailing on
the high seas” (Landes
1998, 86). He could see that
wealth was made with trade,
and he believed that the way
to capture trade was through
navigation of the seas. It
was at his insistence that
the Portuguese ventured ever
farther into the Atlantic
and along the coast of Africa.
These seafarers,
after finding the Madeiras,
in 1434 passed Cape Bojador
and by 1439 discovered the
Açores. In 1442 they
reached Cape Branco and in
1443, the Arguin Islands,
as well as the Cape Verde
Islands. Three years later
(1446), they discovered Guinea-Bissau
(Keefe 1977, 28-30).
Prince Henry
the Navigator died in 1460.
By that year, Portugal’s
naval fleet was already involved
in trade as far south as present-day
Sierra Léone. But the
monetary gains that Portugal
wanted to acquire from West
Africa and India still eluded
its navigators. So they pressed
on. By 1475, a Lisbon merchant,
Fernão Gomes, had explored
the West African Coast more
extensively and discovered
abundant supplies of gold
in a region the Portuguese
called the Costa da Mina.
As a result of
the discoveries, forts and
garrisons were established
along the coast of West Africa
to organize trade in a series
of state-run monopolies. The
many different commodities
included pepper, gold, and
slaves.
In 1481, João
II succeeded to the throne
of Portugal. Like his predecessor
he sustained his country’s
interest in finding a sea
route to India. During this
king’s reign, Diogo
Cão discovered the
Congo River at the hub of
intersecting trade routes,
and he established relations
with the natives in 1483 (July
1992, 135). Two years later
(1485), São Tomé
and Príncipe were also
discovered, and Portuguese
navigators started to move
towards present-day Angola.
In 1487 Bartolomeu
Dias rounded the Cape of Storms,
later renamed the Cape of
Good Hope. This was truly
one of the most phenomenal
achievements during that period
of Portuguese history. Dias
turned around when he saw
the East Coast of Africa (near
present-day Port Elizabeth,
South Africa). Regardless,
his voyage conveyed to the
world that Portugal had the
knowledge, ability, and persistence
to sail to any place on the
earth (Landes 1998, 79-88).
During the same
year, 1487, Pedro da Covilha
ventured into the Arabian
Peninsula, setting up garrisons
in what later became Aden,
Yemen, Oman, U.A.E., and Bahrain.
In 1485, Portuguese explorer
Mestre Affonso had sailed
from Madagascar to Ormuz (or
Hormoz), Iran, and set up
a post there. Then he traveled
by land and by sea back to
Portugal, via the Black Sea,
and Italy (Landes 1992, 125-130).
In an effort to consolidate
these achievements, in 1491,
a special mission was sent
from Portugal to convert Nzinga
Kuvvu, the manikongo (paramount
chief)of the Kongo kingdom,
and his court to Christianity,
as well as to cement Portugal’s
ties with the natives. The
mission consisted of artisans,
merchants, and missionaries
that came bearing gifts and
ideas that appeased King Kuvvu.
“The motivation of the
Portuguese appears to have
been modest and straightforward--
an alliance between equals
by which Christianity and
Western technology would be
exchanged for prospecting
and trading rights...”
(July 1992, 135).
In 1497, Vasco
da Gama left Portugal, sailed
around Africa, and continued
up the eastern coast of Africa.
Da Gama stopped in Durban,
South Africa; Maputo, Moçambique;
Quelimane, near the Zambezi
River in Moçambique;
Zanzibar and Tanga in Tanzania;
and then finally in Malindi,
Kenya. In 1498 he sailed from
present-day Kenya to Calicut
(Calcutta), India (Russel-Wood
1992, 8-26).
Having established
footholds in the newly discovered
lands Portugal’s foreign
policy focused on connecting
and deepening its presence
through military fortifications
and operations. In East Africa,
for example, it set up garrisons
or fortresses in Kilwa in
1502, Zanzibar in 1503, Sofala
in 1505, and eventually the
whole area of Moçambique
in 1507 (Ibid., 8-26). In
1509, its forces destroyed
a combined fleet of Egyptian,
Gulf Arabs, and Persians off
the coast of present-day Tanzania
(Ibid., 8-26). Subsequently,
Portugal set up forts and
garrisons in Mombasa, Malindi,
Pate Island, Brava, Opone,
and the Island of Socotra
(Socatra), and ventured into
the Gulf of Aden. In 1520,
its forces reached Ethiopia,
where they set up a garrison
in Massawa and even one in
Adulis (Ibid., 8-26).
Vasco da Gama’s
voyage to India took about
two years and covered some
27,000 miles. When he returned
to Portugal he had only 54
of the original crew of 170.
Though costly, his venture
was richly renumerative in
terms of wealth and trade.
More important, it made Portugal
realize the advantages of
controlling trade completely,
from the supply of raw materials
to the finished products,
and their transportation and
shipping. In addition, the
experience made it clear that
established traders and trade
routes, especially of Muslim
powers would challenge future
ventures.
However, da Gama’s
observations convinced Portugal
that it could overcome Muslim
challenges. Da Gama’s
account suggested that Europeans
(in most cases) were stronger
and bigger than the natives,
and that natives had inferior
weapons and lacked guns, and
moreover, possessed inferior
ships. Most importantly, the
events convinced the Portuguese
Crown that there was a huge
profit to be made if Portugal
assumed the role of an intermediary
in East-West trade.
Following da
Gama’s return from India,
Portugal dispatched new fleets
to the Indian Ocean to establish
trading posts on the Indian
sub-continent. Its efforts,
however, were not without
challenges. For example in
1510, Affonso Albuquerque
landed in what is now Goa,
but was driven out by Adil
Shah. Portugal sent Albuquerque
back with reinforcements to
overcome the resistance. Even
so, Albuquerque managed to
reclaim only a small portion
of that territory. But after
consolidating its forces in
Goa, Portugal established
garrisons up and down the
coast of India, notably in
the ports of Diu, Daman, Goa,
and Ceylon. Eventually, all
these ports reigned as major
centers of the spice trade
in the Indian Ocean (Ibid.,
8-26).
In 1511, the
Portuguese sailor Antonio
de Abreu reached the coast
of the Malay Peninsula. The
Spice Islands, or Mulluccas
as they were known, proved
to be so rewarding as business
sites that Portugal set up
trading posts on many of them.
One of the most important
of these trading posts was
established on the Island
of Timor.
The next areas
that Portuguese ships reached
were those along the shores
of the South China Sea as
well as the East China Sea.
Then under the command of
Peres de Andrade, in 1542,
Portuguese navigators sailed
all the way to Japan. And
by 1547, they found the second
most important overseas port
in Macao (Ibid., 8-26).
Regarding the
Atlantic Ocean explorations--in
1500, Pedro Alvares Cabral
discovered Brazil, where he
set the grounds for Portuguese
colonization that lasted for
322 years, until 1822. By
then, what had begun as a
small piece of territory on
the fringe of the Atlantic
coast had turned into half
of the continent of South
America (Ibid., 8-26).
The Portuguese
did not explore North America
extensively. Probably this
was because they focused on
capturing trade in gold and
spices in areas they learned
of from Muslim traders and
sailors. Nevertheless, a few
explorers were deployed across
the northern parts of the
Atlantic Ocean. In 1500, for
example, Gaspar Corte Real
traveled from Portugal to
present-day Newfoundland,
Canada and Greenland. In another
example, Pedro Fernandes de
Queiros sailed from New Hebrides
(New Caledonia), near Fiji
Island, to near the southern
Mexican state of Michoacan.
Then traveled farther south
and eventually sailed back
to the Spice Islands from
what is now Peru (Livermore
1967, map 6, 178).
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