The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

The first viceroy he selected was Dom Francisco de Almeida, a Portuguese nobleman of high rank, who had learned the art of war under Gonsalvo da Cordova, better known in Spanish history as the “Great Captain,” and had been a favourite of King John II. The fleet with which he set sail from Belem on March 25, 1505, consisted of sixteen ships and sixteen caravels, and carried fifteen hundred soldiers besides many officials for the new establishment. On his way to India, Dom Francisco de Almeida occupied Quiloa and Mombassa on the south-eastern coast of Africa, and erected forts, which should make them safe resting-places for the Portuguese fleets; and on his arrival at Cannanore on October 22nd he took the title of Viceroy of Cochin, Cannanore, and Quilon. The great Portuguese nobleman looked upon the state of affairs in India from a very different point of view to Cabral, Vasco da Gama, and Pacheco; he did not regard commerce as the sole purpose of the establishments of the Portuguese in the East, and instead of trying to open up trade as Pacheco had done, and only defending himself when attacked, the first viceroy adopted a vigorous policy of active interference with native states, proselytism, and offensive war. He established his seat of government at Cochin, and sent forth expeditions along the Malabar coast, which generally came to blows with the Mohammedan merchants, who saw with dismay that their commerce with Egypt by way of the Red Sea would soon disappear. His chief commander was his son, Dom Lourenço de Almeida, a boy in years, but a hero in the fight. On October 19, 1505, young Lourenço cannonaded and nearly destroyed Conlão, the modern Quilon; on March 18, 1506, he almost annihilated the fleet of the Zamorin of Calicut, consisting of eighty-four ships and one hundred and twenty prahs, with only eleven vessels, and received a check at Dabul, the modern Dábhol; in 1507, he discovered the Maldive Islands, and with Tristão da Cunha sacked the port of Ponáni, and in 1508 the young hero was killed at Chaul in a combat against an Egyptian fleet, which had been sent by the Mamluk Sultan to expel the Portuguese from India under the command of an admiral named Emir Hoseyn. But a more serious danger was impending; the wrath of the Mohammedan sovereigns, whose domains extended to the north-western coasts, and especially of the kings of Bijápur and Gujarāt, was aroused by these aggressions, and they collected powerful fleets and joined Emir Hoseyn. The Viceroy of India, nothing daunted, sailed northward to avenge his son’s death, with only nineteen ships, and after sacking Dábhol he entirely defeated the Mohammedan fleet of more than one hundred ships, on February 2, 1509, off the island of Diu. While the first Portuguese Viceroy was undertaking these operations, his appointed successor, Affonso de Alboquerque, with whom he had quarrelled, and the admiral Tristão da Cunha were exploring the Indian Ocean, and after stopping some time at the island of Socotra, they stormed the wealthy city of Ormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. These explorations had the most important results, and Affonso de Alboquerque was glad, when the appointed time arrived for him at the close of 1509, to take over the government of India as second viceroy.

Affonso de Alboquerque was the greatest of all the Portuguese heroes who served in India, and he owes his fame not only to his feats of arms, numerous and glorious as they were, but to the wisdom and justice of his civil government, and to the fact that he was a great and a far-seeing statesman, as well as a brave warrior. Like Francisco de Almeida, he had been a favourite and an intimate friend of King John II., in whose reign he filled the Court office of Master of the Horse. He commenced his viceroyalty by making a fresh attack on Calicut, the headquarters of the Moplas. He succeeded in burning the palace of the Zamorin and wrecking the city, but the populace then arose in force and drove the Portuguese back to their ships, killing many of their leaders, including the Marshal of Portugal, Dom Fernando Coutinho. Alboquerque then proceeded to take a more important step; he soon perceived that Cochin was too far south to serve as the headquarters of either the trade or the political dominion of the Portuguese, and that it was necessary to occupy some more central spot on the Malabar coast for a capital. The place he selected was Goa, a port in the possession of the Mohammedan king of Bijápur. Thither he sailed with twenty ships and twelve hundred men; and one feat of arms, performed by Antonio de Noronha, at Panjim, at the mouth of the river Goa, where the present capital of the Portuguese possessions in India is situated, laid the city open to him. The citizens, who had been discouraged by the prophecies of a holy mendicant that they were about to be conquered by a foreign people from a distant land, surrendered at once; eight leading men gave Alboquerque the keys of the gates, and the Portuguese viceroy entered the city in triumph on February 17, 1510. But he did not hold it long, for on August 15th, Yūsuf Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, recaptured the city after fierce fighting. Alboquerque did not despair; he received reinforcements from Portugal, and on November 25th, he carried the city by storm, slaying over two thousand Mohammedans, and firmly established himself there.

But Alboquerque was not satisfied with conquering an appropriate capital for Portuguese India, he determined to make his country supreme throughout the Eastern seas. With this idea he undertook two famous expeditions to the east and to the west. The first Portuguese settlers upon the Malabar coast had been told by the native traders that spices and other produce of Asia could be obtained more cheaply further to the east, and these stories had been repeated to King Emmanuel, who determined to send an expedition to these “Spice Islands,” under the command of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. This captain reached the Malabar coast in safety, and was favourably received by the Viceroy, Francisco de Almeida, who found an experienced pilot for him, and gave him sixty well-seasoned soldiers, under the command of Francisco Serrão, and Fernão de Magalhães, who, under the name of Magellan, was to leave his mark upon the map of the world. The pilot led the fleet skilfully, and on September 11, 1509, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira anchored off the city of Malacca, where the Malay chief permitted him to found a factory. On his return to India, he reported to Alboquerque on the wealth of Malacca and of the island of Sumatra, and that spices were both better and cheaper there than in India. The great viceroy at once determined to see these rich countries for himself, and, after some sharp fighting with the Malays, he established the Portuguese power in that quarter upon a firm basis, and returned to Goa. His expedition westwards was not so successful. During his former campaign, in which he had taken Ormuz, he had observed that the greater portion of the Asiatic trade, which still followed the old routes, went not by way of the Persian Gulf, but by way of the Red Sea, and that the great entrepôt was the city of Aden. In order to secure the entire monopoly of the Eastern trade for the new Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope, it was therefore necessary to occupy Aden. With this intention Alboquerque sailed westwards in 1513, and on Easter Eve he arrived before the city. On Easter Day he attacked it fiercely with a force of over two thousand soldiers; but he failed, and had to content himself with destroying the shipping in the port. He then explored the Red Sea, and returned to Goa for the last time.

It has been said that Alboquerque was a great statesman as well as a great warrior, and no better proof of this can be adduced than his treatment of the Hindu princes. He alone of Portuguese viceroys recognized the fact the Hindus did not take kindly to the rule of the Mohammedans, and that they would much sooner be ruled by Europeans, if they were only just and fair-minded. It was from Mohammedan powers that the Portuguese had met with such bitter opposition, from the Moplas of Calicut and the King of Bijápur, and if the successors of Alboquerque had but grasped this fact they would have found little difficulty in leading the Hindus against the votaries of Islam. They would then have waged against Mohammedans in India the same relentless war that their ancestors had waged in their own fatherland, and might have established a protectorate over the Hindus without much difficulty. The wide-minded tolerance which Alboquerque showed in his communications with the Hindu princes, he also showed in the details of administration. He maintained the village system, which he found existing in Goa at the time of his conquest, and avoided all appearance of fresh taxation with as much care as a modern English collector. The expedition to Aden was the last he ever undertook, and on December 16, 1515, this truly great man died at Goa, and was buried there by his own directions in the costume of a commander of the Order of Santiago. “In such veneration was his memory held, that the Hindus, and even the Mohammedans, were wont to repair to his tomb, and there utter their complaints, as if in the presence of his shade, and call upon God to deliver them from the tyranny of his successors.”[15] What better proof of the qualities which have won for him the title of Alboquerque “the Great” could be given than this!

The tyranny of the successors of Alboquerque has been much exaggerated, and in recording the accusations against them it must be remembered that the Portuguese viceroys and governors were regarded at home as being placed in power for two reasons, the one to send home yearly large fleets laden with the commodities of Asia, purchased at such a low price as to afford the king a handsome profit for his treasury, and the other to propagate the Christian faith. Neither of these causes for the Portuguese dominion were likely to be regarded as satisfactory by the natives of India. The orders of the Directors of the English East India Company to Warren Hastings, to take care that they should have good dividends to declare in England, were not more imperative than the orders of King Emmanuel and King John III. to the Portuguese governors, that fleets heavily laden with Asiatic goods should be despatched to Lisbon without their demanding any money from home for their purchases. This of itself was enough to make the demands of the Portuguese viceroys upon the natives oppressive, and it must also be remembered that men do not leave their fatherland to live in an unhealthy climate for their own pleasure, and that the Portuguese official was as much tempted in the sixteenth century to “shake the pagoda tree” for his own benefit, and to exert his authority to that effect, as an English civil servant in the eighteenth century. Yet this search after gain was not wholly sordid, and many gallant deeds mark the period between the death of Affonso de Alboquerque, and the arrival of the greatest of his successors, Dom João de Castro.

The rule of Lopo Soares de Albergaria, from 1515 to 1518, was chiefly notable for his buildings at Goa, and for his success in opening up a trade with Ceylon by establishing a factory and building a fort at Colombo; and his successor, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the discoverer of Malacca, and fourth governor, did much to increase the development of this trade. The fifth governor, Duarte or Edward de Menezes, had to meet so many difficulties, and to put down so many insurrections at Ormuz, Malacca, and Ceylon, that he begged earnestly to be relieved; and in 1524 John III. determined to send out Vasco da Gama again, with the title and powers of Viceroy, which had not been conferred since the death of Alboquerque. But the great navigator was now an old man, and never reached Goa to take up his office. He did, however, reach the Indian coast, which he had first seen a quarter of a century before, and died at Cochin, on Christmas Day, 1524. His body was buried in the principal chapel of the Franciscan convent at Cochin, but it did not long remain there; for in 1538 it was removed to Portugal, and finally interred at Belem. Henrique de Menezes, who succeeded Vasco da Gama as governor, managed to put down most of the insurrections, and after a short interval of the rule of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha, the son of the great navigator, Tristão da Cunha, succeeded to the governorship in 1526. His government was marked by more important events than any since that of Alboquerque, for he extended the influence of Portugal along both the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and established settlements at Diu, off the coast of Kathiawār on the western, and at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, on the eastern coast of India. The Portuguese had, ever since the days of Dom Francisco de Almeida, desired to obtain possession of the island of Diu, which could be easily fortified, and would form a good headquarters for their trade and political influence on the north-western coast of India. But all their efforts had been in vain until the year 1535, when Bahādar Shah, the Mohammedan king of Gujarāt, permitted them to build a fortress on the island, and garrison it with their own troops. This he did because he was being closely pressed by Humāyūn, the Moghul emperor, and father of Bābar. But the Mohammedan monarch soon regretted that he had given the Portuguese such an important foothold in his dominions, and it was after a visit he had paid to Nuno da Cunha there that he was killed in a scuffle while disembarking from a Portuguese ship. His successor, Mohammed III. of Gujarāt, regarded the murder of his uncle as a proof of treachery on the part of the Portuguese, and at once besieged Diu by sea and land. But the fortress was nobly defended; the Portuguese women vied with the men in gallantry, and after being reduced to the greatest extremities, the commandant, Antonio de Silveira, beat off the assailants. The other important event of Nuno da Cunha’s rule was the establishment of a Portuguese factory at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, in the dominions of the King of Bengal, which for the first time tapped the trade of that most wealthy province. These great services during his long rule of twelve years did not protect Nuno da Cunha from malicious accusations being brought against him at Lisbon; exaggerated accounts of his cruelty and of the corruption of his government were reported against him, and in 1538 he was superseded by a viceroy, Dom Garcia de Noronha. Nuno da Cunha died on his way back to Portugal, and the absence of his strong hand was soon felt in India. Garcia de Noronha, a former officer of Alboquerque, died almost immediately after his arrival, and his successors, as governors, Estevão da Gama and Martim Affonso de Sousa distinguished their governments by an expedition to the Red Sea, during which Da Gama was defeated by the Turks at Suez, and by the defeat of De Sousa at Tebelicavi. These checks greatly affected the profits of the Indian trade, and John III. determined to make a fresh departure by despatching to India Dom João de Castro, a hero of the old Portuguese type, and the intimate friend of his uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja.

In summing up thus briefly the history of the Portuguese in India, weight has been laid only upon its political and commercial aspect. It was for purely commercial reasons that Prince Henry “the Navigator” had striven to find a direct sea route to India, and Vasco da Gama’s success had at first been looked upon merely as opening up the Indian trade; the idea of dominion had not then occurred to the minds of the Portuguese, and it was not until it became obvious that the commercial stations or factories would have to be guarded and defended, that troops were despatched as well as factors. The successful defence of Duarte Pacheco against the army of the Zamorin of Calicut, showed how easy it would be for the Portuguese to do more than just defend their factories, if attacked, and Francisco de Almeida commenced a war of offence by attacking native potentates, who refused to allow factories to be established in their dominions. Affonso de Alboquerque originated the idea of playing off the Hindu princes against the aggressive Mohammedans, but none of his successors followed out his policy in this respect. It must not, however, be thought that the Portuguese had any idea of establishing such an empire in India as the English have built up during the last century. Their great system was to occupy, by force if necessary, all important centres of trade along the coasts, and there to erect powerful cities and fortresses, whither the native merchants could bring down their commodities to be purchased and placed on board Portuguese ships for passage to Lisbon. They made no attempt to force their way into the interior, and only sent envoys to native princes to secure protection for the native traders coming to their ports. They occupied, indeed, small rural districts around their most important stations, such as Goa and Diu, which they ruled, according to the fashion adopted by Alboquerque in Goa, by regarding the village communities as units, and regulating taxation accordingly. If these facts are grasped, the tales of Portuguese tyranny and oppression fall to the ground, for the only natives they could oppress were the merchants, who brought goods down to the ports, and the inhabitants who chose to dwell within the Portuguese borders. The merchants and traders did indeed suffer, because they had to sell their merchandise by a scale which cut their profits down much more than they relished, and the inhabitants of the cities were ruled as inferiors, who were bound to be subject to the Europeans in every respect. The Portuguese judges naturally favoured their own people, and thus in many instances treated the natives unjustly, but it may be pointed out that no merchant could be forced to come down to the ports, and that no native could be compelled to dwell in the Portuguese cities against his will. These considerations, joined to a recollection of the inevitable accusations always brought by a subject population against a race of foreign rulers, tend to prove that the accusations of tyranny and oppression brought against the Portuguese have been greatly exaggerated, and it is quite certain that the Hindus were quite as badly, if not worse, treated by their Mohammedan conquerors.