Rulers of India: Albuquerque

by H. Morse Stephens

In April, 1498, he reached Melinda, a port situated 200 miles to the north of Zanzibar, where he was kindly received by the ruling chief. The passage across the Indian Ocean was well known to the navigators of the South-East coast of Africa, for there was a considerable amount of trade conducted between the two localities which was almost entirely controlled by Muhammadans. At Melinda, Vasco da Gama was able to obtain experienced pilots, and after a stay there of one month according to most authorities, and of three months according to Correa, Vasco da Gama pursued his way to India.

The Portuguese ships arrived off Calicut in June or August, 1498. The powerful Hindu ruler on the Malabar coast, who was known as the Zamorin,¹ had his capital in that city. His body-guard and most of his aristocracy consisted of Nairs and Nestorian Christians, but all commerce was in the hands of the Muhammadan merchants. These Muhammadans were Moplas, or descendants of Arab traders who had long settled upon the Malabar coast. They quickly perceived that if Vasco da Gama could make his way direct from Portugal to India other Portuguese ships could do the same, and that then their lucrative monopoly of the Indian trade with Europe by way of the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf, would be at an end. They therefore intrigued with the Hindu ministers of the Zamorin to repulse the endeavours of Vasco da Gama to procure a cargo of Indian commodities for his ships, and it was only after much difficulty and some danger that he was able to take on board an inadequate amount of merchandise. On leaving Calicut the Portuguese Admiral visited Cannanore, and he eventually reached Melinda on his way home in January, 1499. He had a long and difficult passage back to Europe; in the island of Terceira his beloved brother Paulo da Gama died, and when he got safely to Lisbon at the end of August, 1499, he had with him but fifty-five of the companions who had started with him on his adventurous voyage.

¹ The title Zamorin is a version of the Malay[a-macron]lim word T[a-macron]m[a-macron]tiri or T[a-macron]m[u-macron]ri, which is a modification of the Sanskrit S[a-macron]mundri 'the Sea King.'

King Emmanuel of Portugal, and his people, received Vasco da Gama with the utmost enthusiasm. The dreams of Prince Henry the Navigator and of King John II were fulfilled. King Emmanuel took the title of 'Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India,' which was confirmed to him by a Bull of Pope Alexander VI in 1502, and he commenced the erection of the superb church at Belem as a token of his gratitude to Heaven. On Vasco da Gama the King conferred well deserved honours. He was granted the use of the prefix of Dom or Lord, then but rarely conferred; he was permitted to quarter the Royal Arms with his own; he was given the office of Admiral of the Indian Seas; and in the following reign, when the importance of his voyage became more manifest, he was created Count of Vidigueira.

King Emmanuel determined to take immediate advantage of the trade route opened to him by Dom Vasco da Gama's voyage. On March 9, 1500, a fine fleet of thirteen ships was despatched under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral, well laden with merchandise, to trade with India. On his way out this Portuguese fleet was driven far to the westward, and to Cabral belongs the honour of discovering Brazil, which was eventually to become far more valuable to Portugal than the Indian trade. On leaving Brazil, Cabral followed the course taken by Dom Vasco da Gama, and with the help of pilots from Melinda anchored safely in the port of Calicut. At that place he established a factory or agency for the sale of the merchandise he had brought with him and for the purchase of Indian commodities, and then sailed for Cochin.

But the Mopla merchants were still the declared enemies of the Portuguese. They raised a riot in the city of Calicut, and Ayres Correa, the Portuguese agent, was killed with several of his associates. It is worthy of remark that this murderous attack was entirely the work of the Arab Moplas. The Hindu Zamorin showed no disinclination to trade with the Europeans; the Malabar Muhammadans, that is the natives who had been converted to Islám, did not share in the outrage, and one of their principal merchants even interfered to save the lives of Correa's children and of some of the Portuguese clerks.

Cabral then loaded his ships at Cannanore and Cochin, where Hindu Rájás, inferior in power to the Zamorin, but not so much subject to Mopla influence, ruled, and after burning some of the Indian ships in the harbour of Calicut he returned to Lisbon in July, 1501. Cabral had not been so fortunate as Vasco da Gama, for he only brought back five out of the thirteen ships which he had taken with him. But, on the other hand, he did what Vasco da Gama had feared to do, and in spite of the fate of Ayres Correa and his associates, Cabral left a Portuguese factor with a considerable staff at Cochin to purchase goods for despatch to Portugal by the next fleet which should arrive.

On the return of Cabral from India, King Emmanuel resolved to send once more to the East the famous captain who had discovered the direct sea route to India. It was obvious to the king that large profits were to be made by the Eastern trade, but at this early period he had formed no distinct idea as to the policy he would pursue. On one point only he was resolved. It was quite certain that Portuguese agents would have to be left at the places of export if a prosperous trade was to be developed, and it was therefore necessary to give a severe lesson to the Zamorin of Calicut for the murder of the Portuguese factor at his capital. Adequate protection to Portuguese agents could only be given by maintaining a strong force in the Indian Seas. Vasco da Gama was therefore ordered to punish the Zamorin and to leave a squadron of ships for the defence of the Portuguese factors.

The establishment of commerce was at this time the chief aim of the Portuguese in the East, as it was in the succeeding century the chief aim of the Dutch and the English. But in the same way that the Dutch and English East India Companies were compelled to become military powers in order to defend their local agents, so King Emmanuel of Portugal was obliged to provide for the military defence of the first Portuguese factors. It was the fierce enmity of the Muhammadan merchants which caused the early European traders to take the attitude of invaders. The original Portuguese visitors had no more idea of establishing a Portuguese power in the East than the original English adventurers of the reign of Elizabeth foresaw that their successors would become the rulers of India. The position of a military and ruling power was forced on the Portuguese as it was afterwards on the Dutch and the English.

In February, 1502, Dom Vasco da Gama, Admiral of the Indian Seas, set sail from Lisbon with twenty ships, of which five were lateen-rigged caravels or lightly built warships which he was directed to leave behind him in the East. The Admiral followed his previous course, and after renewing his friendship with the Chief of Melinda he reached the Indian coast in safety. He found that the Portuguese factor at Cochin and his clerks had laid in a good store of Indian commodities, and that they had been kindly treated by the Rájá of that city in spite of the threats of the Moplas of Calicut. He then proceeded to repeat the lesson which Cabral had given to the Zamorin, and after destroying, under circumstances of atrocious cruelty, the crew of a large ship belonging to a wealthy and important Muhammadan owner, he bombarded the city of Calicut.