The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  This conflict was resolved fairly amicably in the Treaty of Alcáçovas of 1479: the Portuguese retained their rights in the Atlantic islands, including those yet to be discovered, and along nearly all the Guinea Coast, while Castile was allowed to keep hold of the Canary Islands and a notch of the mainland opposite. This was a less generous concession than it might seem, since Grand Canary and Tenerife, the two largest islands, were still unconquered.24 The Treaty of Alcáçovas was the first step to the more ambitious division of the world between Spain and Portugal by drawing a line down the Atlantic that followed Columbus’s discoveries in the Caribbean.

  By now Portuguese (and rival) ships had rounded Cape Palmas, which lies on the present-day border between Liberia and the Ivory Coast, and which marks the beginning of the roughly horizontal coastline of the southern shore of west Africa, several degrees north of the Equator. At the western end, along the ‘Ivory Coast’, there were swamps and lagoons, so obtaining ivory there was not as easy as the name given to this area suggested; still, it was elephant country, and when one did reach land, tusks were there for the asking. Moving ever eastwards, a further stretch of coast was discovered in 1471; here the Portuguese found villages whose inhabitants hardly gave a second thought to adorning themselves with gold ornaments. The story grew: it was assumed that there must be a massive gold mine somewhere near these villages, so this stretch of the shore was baptized ‘Mina’, or ‘mine’.25 In reality this was the steamy environment in which the Portuguese eventually made contact with rulers who would supply them with gold that had been brought down from the River Niger through the thick belt of forest that separates the savannah from the sea. These were also lands into which Islam had not yet penetrated; they included the seat of wealthy kingdoms such as Benin, famous nowadays for its ivories and bronzes; ruled over by its Oba, or king, Benin contained a massive city but, like the other towns of west Africa, it lay nowhere near the Atlantic Ocean.26 For the moment Benin City was beyond reach; but Portuguese ships reached the sharp bend of Africa by 1472, discovering the uninhabited islands that were to become major bases later on – São Tomé and Príncipe, on the Equator.

  Finding the route to gold was more difficult than the optimistic first generation of Portuguese explorers had ever imagined; but with the discovery of the Mina coast Fernão Gomes became wealthier than ever – and the king began to think about what would happen when Gomes’s licence expired in 1474, which would provide an ideal opportunity for the Crown to take charge of such a lucrative sea route. Observing the ever-increasing flow of gold from Mina, and aware that the Castilians and others would like to muscle in on the success of the Portuguese, King Afonso decided that Gomes’s contract should not be renewed; but Gomes would be rewarded for his service with a grant of noble status and of a coat of arms bearing the heads of three black slaves.27 Thirty-seven years had elapsed between the rounding of Cape Bojador and the discovery of the gold-rich villages. The Portuguese advance along the coast of Africa looks rapid in retrospect, and was certainly purposeful; but the speed of advance only increased rapidly from 1469 onwards, and then slowed down again in the decade before Vasco da Gama left for India (in 1497).

  Under Gomes, and still more under the Crown, the Portuguese assumed the right to a trading monopoly in Guinea. Still, both the Portuguese and the Spanish interlopers did begin to obtain gold along the Mina coast; in 1478 Joan Boscà of Barcelona visited Mina, exchanging gold for cowrie shells, brass and other sundry goods; he thought things were going well until the Portuguese sent out ships to intercept him – in 1479 his treasure of gold was seized; but even after the Treaty of Alcáçovas Spanish ships kept trying to intrude.28 Even more interesting is the presence of Flemings so very far from home; the North Sea and the southern Atlantic were beginning to connect well before the end of the fifteenth century.29 Eustache de la Fosse from Tournai in Flanders was one of several north European merchants and travellers who penetrated this region in 1479, setting out from Bruges and conducting business in northern Spain before moving down to Seville, where he collected the merchandise he would be taking for sale at la Minne d’Or.30 It is obvious from the account he left of his voyage that precise knowledge of the geography of west Africa had spread all the way to northern Europe, with which, after all, Portugal had close commercial and political ties. En route to the Mina coast his ship not surprisingly had to dodge Portuguese caravels.31

  As he travelled down the coast of Africa, Eustache marvelled at the sight of Malagueta pepper, or ‘grains of Paradise’ as he called them; he also marvelled at the naked inhabitants of the Guinea Coast, but not enough to dissuade him from buying several women and children in return for brass bracelets and other metal goods; however, he and other merchants had it in mind to sell the slaves along the Mina coast in return for gold. This shows that there was a market for black slaves among the black population further east; it has been seen that there was reluctance to enslave one’s brethren, but less reluctance to own or sell slaves from neighbouring ethnic groups. In due course, Eustache was delighted to find a place where he and his partners could buy gold – as much as twelve or fourteen pounds of it. All seemed to be going well in what was, after all, a fairly deserted area of ocean until his ship was pounced upon by a Portuguese squadron of four ships commanded by Fernando Pô and Diogo Cão, an intrepid explorer who would before long be travelling very much further along the coast of Africa; ‘we were pillaged of everything’ – fumes tout pillez.32 Taken back to Portugal, Eustache and his colleagues were clapped in prison; the penalty for unlicensed trade on the Mina coast was death, for it was seen as a pure act of piracy. Eustache bribed his jailer with 200 ducats and was able to sneak out of prison at night-time, escaping to Castile.33

  Everyone wanted to cash in on the Guinea trade. In 1481 there were plans afoot in England to send ships to west Africa. The Portuguese king prevailed upon his English ally, Edward IV, to forbid the English ships to sail, though it has been suggested that the ringleaders, John Tintam and William Fabian, may have visited Africa a year or so earlier, and that an English expedition far into the Atlantic just now should come as no surprise: as has been seen, this was the period when English ships were ranging deep into the Atlantic in other directions too.34

  IV

  Trading with villagers by anchoring offshore was one way of doing business; but what appealed much more to the Portuguese Crown was the creation of a permanent base on the Mina coast, comparable to Arguim and Cacheu.35 For the Portuguese kings were claiming to be masters of ‘the navigation of Guinea’, rather than planning to build an empire on the African mainland, even if an occasional African king loosely acknowledged their overlordship. The so-called Portuguese empire began as a network of trading stations, and for much of its early history it would continue that way, as it spread into the Indian Ocean and Pacific, as far as Goa, Melaka, Macau and Nagasaki. But trading stations needed a patch of territory and a guarantee of safety, which made negotiation with local rulers essential. The decision to build a fort at what became known as São Jorge da Mina, or Elmina, followed logically from the success of the Portuguese in buying impressive amounts of gold along the Mina coast; they had been trading through an African village called Shama, but its water supplies were limited and the Portuguese caravels, standing offshore, were sitting ducks so long as there were no defensive walls behind which the merchants could hide and so long as interlopers continued to evade Portuguese patrols.

  In 1481 King João II of Portugal put together an expedition under the leadership of a faithful and experienced commander, Diogo de Azambuja.36 The king even obtained a crusading privilege from the pope, promising a plenary indulgence to anyone who might die in the castle of ‘Mina’: its name preceded the choice of its exact site, let alone its construction. The pope was terribly confused about who lived in this part of Africa, speaking of ‘Saracens’ ripe for conversion, but also permitting trade in weapons with them – the term ‘Saracen’ often being applied to pagans as well as Muslims. O
ddly, given papal approval, the expedition made no attempt to spread the Gospel in Mina; the priest or priests who accompanied the voyage ministered to the Portuguese alone. Although the Portuguese did not lose sight of missionary opportunities, they were already placing the lure of gold higher than the lure of souls; they would have argued that all this gold would eventually pay for victorious wars against the Muslim Infidel, even though the people of the Mina coast were not Muslims. In the sixteenth century an influential Portuguese chronicler, João de Barros, insisted that the real plan was to tempt the Africans with trade goods, and then to tempt them still further with the inestimable goods of Heaven, but this was a much later rereading of the evidence.37

  Ten caravels were assigned to the expedition, carrying 500 soldiers as well as 100 stonemasons and carpenters, but two further ships, sturdy urcas, were sent ahead, loaded with dressed stone prepared in Portugal, so that prefabricated windows and gateways could be fitted quickly on site; and there were plenty of tiles, bricks, timber joists and other essential supplies that would not be available along the Mina coast. The big urcas were to be broken up when the fortress was built, which would put to good use the mass of timber they contained.38 Early in 1482 the ideal spot was identified about twenty-five miles beyond Shama, at a place called the Village of the Two Parts, perhaps because the village lay on the boundary between two tribes; this offered a rocky promontory, some high ground and access to the river that led inland, and it was already known to be a good base for trading in gold. This was not the gold that had for centuries been traded through Timbuktu and other towns and then carried northwards across the Sahara; sources were local, in the thickly forested interior that was cut off from the goldfields the Portuguese had so long hoped to reach – still, it was gold, and there was plenty of it.39

  On 20 January, after only a couple of days at the site, Azambuja was ready to hold an interview with the local ruler, who is known to history as Caramansa, though this was probably his title rather than his name. This interview was a comedy of errors: Azambuja, like many an explorer of his day, chose to meet the king dressed up to the nines, with a bejewelled golden collar around his neck; his captains wore festive costumes. Caramansa was not to be outdone. He arrived with his soldiers, accompanied by drummers and trumpeters who (Barros related) produced music that ‘deafened rather than delighted the ear’. Whereas Europeans imagined that fine clothes (hardly suitable for the tropics) were the way to display power and prestige, Caramansa and his followers arrived naked, their skins shining from the oils they had rubbed into them; all that was covered was their genitals, though the king wore gold bracelets, a collar from which little bells dangled, and gold bars in his beard, which had the effect of straightening the tightly curled hairs.40

  Barros piously but implausibly insisted that Azambuja did raise the question of conversion at the start; but the conversation mainly turned on the question of building a Portuguese fort on the site of the meeting. Caramansa was promised that this would bring him power and wealth, and that, rather than religion, was the argument which convinced the king. However, Caramansa was also aware that the Portuguese had considerable firepower, and he was anxious to avoid a clash with the hundred well-armed soldiers aboard the caravels. He did complain that previous European visitors to his village had been ‘dishonest and vile’, but graciously conceded that Azambuja was not of that ilk – indeed, his lavish clothes proclaimed that he too was the son or brother of a king, a statement that the overdressed commander had to refute with embarrassment.41 So building was allowed to begin; there were hitches, when the Portuguese began to cut into a sacred rock, because they still needed some local stone in addition to what they had brought. Fighting broke out, but Caramansa’s subjects were appeased with extra gifts. A fort was thrown up in three weeks, and, once a secure area had been created for a Portuguese garrison, it was extended to include a courtyard and cisterns. All that was built outside the walls was a small chapel. Sixty men and three women stayed behind after the fort was built, and the rest of the Portuguese went back home.42

  Just as important as the creation of the settlement, which lasted for many centuries first under Portuguese and then under Dutch rule, was the creation of a set of rules controlling trade from the Castelo de São Jorge (generally known simply as Elmina, ‘The Mine’). Trade was conducted in the courtyard of the fortress, not within the African village that developed beneath the castle walls.43 These rules were refined over the next few decades, but they testify to the difficulty in keeping control of movements over the unprecedented distances (by European standards) that the Portuguese ships were now sailing. The most important rule was that ships had to sail directly from Lisbon to Elmina, a journey that would normally take a month. Everything was carefully regulated: the provisions on which the sailors would depend during their long voyage included prescribed amounts of biscuit, salted meat, vinegar and olive oil, not just to make sure the crew was fed but to make sure they did not load surplus goods and sell them in Elmina at a profit. On leaving Lisbon, special pilots stayed on board until the ship left the Tagus; their job was to check that no skiffs came alongside, loading contraband out in the estuary. On arrival in Elmina there were further strict rules about signalling arrival by raising a flag and waiting for the Elmina garrison to answer back with their own flag. These rules applied not just to the ships coming in from Lisbon, but to the small craft that plied between São Tomé and Elmina, bringing fruit, fish and above all slaves who had been taken off the shores of Kongo and Angola or were bought in the kingdom of Benin.

  Ships were supposed to be sent out from Portugal once a month; in most years fewer ships came from Lisbon – in 1501 only six ships arrived from there, although the slave ships from São Tomé kept coming even in years when nothing at all arrived from Portugal. Whereas single ships set out from Lisbon in the early days, from 1502 onwards the Portuguese sometimes put together a small convoy, which was a much safer way to travel. On the return journey the chests containing gold were sealed and the sailors’ own sea chests were often closely inspected for contraband gold, which was easy enough to carry, as the gold took the form of small nuggets and gold dust. The value of these cargoes was out of all proportion to their weight, so on the return journey ships had to be weighted down with rock ballast.44 Coming out to Africa, the Elmina caravels brought textiles, not just European ones but striped Moroccan ones which were in strong demand in west Africa; they brought brass goods, as elsewhere; they brought cowrie shells. Paying for the gold was not a problem. Relations with the local inhabitants were increasingly cordial, and African soldiers helped to man the battlements of the fort from 1514 onwards; the Portuguese and their African neighbours came to depend on one another.45 There were also Portuguese private traders who travelled into the interior and made sure that Elmina was well supplied with food, as the settlement could not simply rely on Lisbon for sustenance.46

  Meanwhile slaves brought through São Tomé were assigned menial tasks in the fort, including the unloading of goods from the supply ships. Many slaves were sold to black African masters in Caramansa’s kingdom, and Caramansa’s subjects preferred to be paid for their gold not in cowrie shells or cloth but in slaves.47 Ships plied back and forth between São Tomé and Elmina, carrying up to 120 slaves on each four-week voyage to Elmina; a rough calculation would suggest that somewhere around 3,000 slaves were coming through Elmina each year.48 Even so, Elmina was not seen as a centre of the Portuguese slave trade. The Portuguese king was determined to extract literally every ounce of profit from the gold trade. By 1506 Elmina was bringing in a revenue of nearly 44,000,000 reis, more than ten times the revenue from Guinea slaves and Malagueta pepper.49 This was what funded the imperial expansion of Portugal as the little kingdom’s fleets broke their way into the Indian Ocean.

  V

  Reaching the Indian Ocean had always been on Portugal’s agenda. The search for the ‘River of Gold’ had been based on the assumption that the river flowed right across Africa, l
inking the oceans, as if any known river did such a thing. But the aim was to gain mastery over gold; slaves were a convenient substitute when gold was not to be had; Malagueta pepper whetted the appetite for the real pepper of the Indies. The pioneer who was entrusted with the exploration of further stretches of the African coast was Diogo Cão, who first appears in the record as captain of a caravel that became involved in the arrest of the Flemish interloper Eustache de la Fosse. For de la Fosse, Cão was ung bien rebelle fars, ‘a very bad sort’, who bought de la Fosse’s ship from his captors, forced de la Fosse to sell his own expropriated goods up and down the African coast, and then made him render an account of his sales each evening.50 The Portuguese explorers possessed the ruthlessness of pirates even when they were serving their king.

  Cão’s commission from King João II was described by a sixteenth-century writer, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, as the discovery of ‘the dominions of Prester John of the Indies of whom he [the king] had report; so that by that way it would be possible to enter India and he would be able to send his captains to fetch those riches which the Venetians brought for sale’.51 Since the term ‘India’ was used to describe any lands along the shores of the Indian Ocean, including east Africa, it seems more likely that the king of Portugal aimed to send his men to Ethiopia rather than to India, hoping that he would find a Christian ally willing both to satisfy his craving for gold and spices and to join when appropriate in the war against Islam. This ‘Priest John’ had surfaced in the twelfth century and appeared to live for ever, while his kingdom moved around in the medieval imagination from India to further Asia to Africa. However, the assumption that a Christian kingdom existed in east Africa was perfectly well founded, and João was not alone in seeking out the ruler of Ethiopia. During his long reign (1416–58) King Alfonso V of Aragon sent friars to Ethiopia and even dreamed up a plan for a marriage alliance between an Aragonese princess and an Ethiopian prince.52