Vasco da Gama's voyage round Africa to Calicut in 1498 opened a direct sea route from Europe to the pepper coast of India and launched a Portuguese maritime empire built on forts, passes and force.
Overview¶
At the end of the 15th century almost all Asian spices reaching Europe passed through Mamluk Egypt or Ottoman and Levantine ports, and then through Venetian or Genoese hands. Portugal, a small Atlantic kingdom with long experience of sailing down the African coast, set out to bypass that chain by sea. Vasco da Gama's arrival at Calicut in May 1498 achieved it, and began a century in which the Portuguese tried, with great violence and partial success, to control the Indian Ocean spice trade.
Timeline¶
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1415 | Portugal captures Ceuta in North Africa |
| 1420s–1460 | Voyages sponsored by Prince Henry ("the Navigator") push down the West African coast |
| 1488 | Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope |
| 1494 | Treaty of Tordesillas divides newly found lands between Spain and Portugal |
| July 1497 | Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon with four ships |
| May 1498 | Da Gama reaches Calicut (Kozhikode) |
| 1499 | Da Gama's surviving ships return to Lisbon |
| 1500 | Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet, bound for India, touches the coast of Brazil |
| 1502 | Da Gama's second voyage, marked by extreme violence |
| 1505 | Francisco de Almeida becomes first viceroy of the Estado da Índia |
| 1509 | Portuguese defeat a Mamluk–Gujarati fleet at the Battle of Diu |
| 1510 | Afonso de Albuquerque takes Goa |
| 1511 | Albuquerque takes Malacca |
| 1512 | Portuguese ships reach the Banda Islands and the Moluccas |
| 1515 | Portugal takes Hormuz |
| 1529 | Treaty of Zaragoza: Spain gives up its claim to the Moluccas |
Da Gama's first voyage¶
Da Gama's fleet left Lisbon in July 1497, swung far out into the South Atlantic to catch favourable winds, and rounded the Cape in November. On the East African coast it met hostility at Mozambique and Mombasa but found an ally in the ruler of Malindi, who provided a pilot familiar with the monsoon crossing. Later tradition identified this pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ahmad ibn Majid; historians consider that unlikely, and the pilot was probably a Gujarati.
The fleet reached the coast near Calicut on 20 May 1498. An account of the voyage, attributed to one of the crew, reports that when a man sent ashore was asked what they wanted, he replied that they came "in search of Christians and spices". The meeting with the ruler of Calicut, the Zamorin, went badly: the Portuguese gifts were considered paltry, and Muslim merchants already trading there were hostile. Da Gama nonetheless left with a cargo of pepper and other spices. The return crossing, against the monsoon, took around three months and scurvy killed many of the crew; roughly half of the men who set out never came home. The cargo still paid for the expedition many times over.
Force and the cartaz¶
The Portuguese quickly concluded they could not outcompete Asian merchants on price, and turned to force. On his second voyage in 1502 da Gama captured a ship returning from Mecca, the Miri, carrying pilgrims, and burned it with most of those on board; he then bombarded Calicut. Under Albuquerque, the Portuguese seized a string of strategic ports and imposed the cartaz system: Asian ships were required to buy a Portuguese pass and call at Portuguese-held ports to pay duties, or risk capture.
The Estado da Índia, ruled from Goa, was an empire of forts and sea lanes rather than territory. Spices shipped to Lisbon were handled by the royal Casa da Índia and sold on, largely through Antwerp.
How much did it change?¶
In the first years Venetian supplies dropped sharply and Venice was alarmed. But the Portuguese never controlled the whole trade. By the mid-16th century, the Red Sea route to Cairo and Alexandria had recovered and, by some estimates, carried as much pepper to the Mediterranean as the Cape route did. Portuguese profits were eaten into by shipwrecks, corruption and the cost of fleets and forts. The larger change was the opening of the sea route itself, which the Dutch and English would exploit more thoroughly after 1600.
The Moluccas and the Spanish challenge¶
After taking Malacca, the Portuguese sent ships east to the Banda Islands and the clove islands of Ternate and Tidore. Spain, arguing that the Moluccas lay on its side of the Tordesillas line, sponsored Ferdinand Magellan's voyage west in 1519. Magellan died in the Philippines in 1521, but the Victoria, under Juan Sebastián Elcano, returned to Spain in 1522 with a cargo of cloves, completing the first circumnavigation. In the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529) Spain relinquished its claim to the Moluccas to Portugal in return for 350,000 ducats. See the Spice Islands.
📜 Cabral and Brazil
Cabral's fleet of 1500, sent to follow up da Gama's success, reached the coast of Brazil on the way, and Portugal claimed it. Brazil later became central to the other great transfer of plants in this period, including the spread of the chilli. See how chillies spread around the world.
Legacy¶
Portuguese Goa, Cochin, Malacca and Macau became channels through which American plants, including chillies, and European tastes entered Asia, and through which Asian spices and ideas reached Europe and Africa. Goan and Kerala Christian cooking, vindalho (from the Portuguese vinha d'alhos, wine and garlic) and Portuguese-influenced cooking in Malacca are among the culinary results. See also the spice trade and pepper in history.