Last Crusade, The

by Cliff, Nigel

  280 “a barbarous orchestra of trumpets”: Quoted in Hart, Sea Road to the Indies, 203.

  281 “bigger than Lisbon”: Letter of Girolamo Sernigi, n.d. [July 1499], quoted in Journal, 125, 134–35. Guido Detti echoed the news; the people of Calicut, he explained, “are not strictly speaking Christians, because they baptize themselves once every three years as a means of confession and purifying their sins. But they recognize the existence of Christ and Our Lady. They have churches equipped with bells, where there are only two basins, one for holy water and the other for balm, without any other sacrament, without priests or monks of any kind.” The notion that Hinduism was a variant of Christianity, or at least had some kinship with it, proved hard to shake. “The whole of Malabar believes, as we do, in the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three in one, the only true God. From Cambay to Bengal all the people hold this,” wrote Tomé Pires, an apothecary to the Portuguese royal family who was posted to India as “factor of drugs” and wrote a comprensive survey of Asia between 1512 and 1515. By 1552, João de Barros was still referring to the Hindu threefold god of Brahma with Vishnu and Siva as a Brahman trinity, though he noted that it was quite different from the Christian trinity. See Teyssier and Valentin, Voyages de Vasco de Gama, 183; The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, trans. and ed. Armando Cortesão (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), 1:66.

  282 “are in reality temples of idolaters”: Second letter of Sernigi, n.d. [1499], quoted in Journal, 138.

  282 Gaspar had been Jewish: Ibid., 137. Sernigi says Gaspar was born in Alexandria, as does Manuel in his letter to the Cardinal Protector. Barros adds that his parents had fled from Poznan in Poland when the Jews were banished in 1450. Castanheda says he had a Jewish wife; he also had a son, who was later christened Balthasar.

  282 a fantastical picture of India’s religions: Separate statistics for each region of India and other “kingdoms on the coast to the south of Calecut,” some of which are in fact in Southeast Asia, are appended to the Journal, 96–102.

  283 “Before he attacked the Moors”: Barros’s summary is cited in Henry E. J. Stanley, trans. and ed., The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and His Viceroyalty (London: Hakluyt Society, 1869), 186–87.

  283 “For one should truly believe that God”: Castanheda, quoted in Subrahmanyam, Career and Legend, 162.

  286 “So great was the consternation”: Castanheda, in Robert Kerr, A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1811–1824), 2:418.

  288 headed into the North Atlantic: The commander was Gaspar Corte-Real. In 1500 he reportedly reached Greenland and Newfoundland, where John Cabot, an Italian sailing under an English flag, may have already landed in 1497. The next year Corte-Real set out again and may have seen Chesapeake Bay and Nova Scotia, but he and his ship were lost; so, when he sailed to find him the following year, was his brother Miguel.

  289 There was only one man for the job: In fact, the command was first offered to Cabral, who still had his supporters at court. Cabral’s detractors, notably Gama’s maternal uncle Vicente Sodré, denounced Cabral as incompetent and successfully maneuvered against him. The problem was solved when Gama was given the right for life to assume command of any India-bound fleet.

  289 the late summer of 1499: The sources disagree over the date of Gama’s return. Barros, Goís, and Resende give the date as August 29, Castanheda as September 8, and other sources as September 18. Possibly, as Barros suggests, Gama spent his first days on home soil in seclusion before he publicly entered the city.

  289 “the king honored him”: Castanheda, in Kerr, General History, 2:394.

  289 an elaborate grant letter: Quoted in Journal, 230–32. The letter has traditionally been dated to January 10, 1502, but was likely issued in January 1500; see Subrahmanyam, Career and Legend, 169–70.

  290 “with all the honors, prerogatives, liberties”: Subrahmanyam, Career and Legend, 172.

  291 “First, every one attended a sumptuous Mass”: Ibid., 194–95.

  292 the shiny black gondola: The impressively gaudy vessel can still be seen in Lisbon’s Museu da Marinha.

  293 “to find rapid and secret remedies”: Quoted in Weinstein, Ambassador from Venice, 77–78.

  Chapter 14: The Admiral of India

  297 Vasco da Gama sailed out of Lisbon: Several eyewitness accounts of Gama’s second voyage have survived. Much the fullest is by Tomé Lopes, a Portuguese clerk who sailed on a ship, financed by Rui Mendes de Brito and captained by Giovanni Buonagrazia, which left Lisbon in April 1502 as part of the fleet under the command of Estêvão da Gama. Lopes’s narrative is known only in an Italian translation that was sent to Florence and was published in the 1550s by Giovanni Battista Ramusio; see “Navigazione verso le Indie orientali scritta per Tomé Lopez,” in Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, ed. Marica Milanesi (Turin: Einaudi, 1978–1988), 1:687–738. A second account was written in Portuguese by a sailor with Gama’s main fleet; it is particularly informative on the first leg of that fleet’s voyage, but then becomes more piecemeal. The manuscript is in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna and is reprinted in Leonor Freire Costa, ed., “Relação anónima da segunda viagem de Vasco da Gama à Índia,” in Cidadania e história: Em homenagem a Jaime Cortesão (Lisbon: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora, 1985), 141–99. A third source is a pair of letters written by an Italian factor named Matteo da Bergamo, whose ship was part of Estevão da Gama’s fleet; though they vary in length and detail, both are dated Mozambique, April 18, 1503, and were sent, by different ships for safety, to his employer, a Cremonese named Gianfranco Affaitadi, who ran a merchant business in Lisbon. Two copies are in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice; both versions, in French translation, are in Paul Teyssier and Paul Valentin, trans. and eds., Voyages de Vasco de Gama: Relations des expeditions de 1497–1499 et 1502–3, 2nd ed. (Paris: Chandeigne, 1998), 319–40. The other surviving accounts are shorter but are valuable for recounting the experiences of ordinary seamen, especially those who were wide-eyed newcomers to the ways of Africa and India. The first, which was already known by 1504, is by a Fleming who sailed with the main fleet on the Leitoa Nova. A facsimile of the original with English translation was published as Calcoen: A Dutch Narrative of the Second Voyage of Vasco da Gama to Calicut, trans. J. P. Berjeau (London: B. M. Pickering, 1874). The second, which follows the Portuguese account in the Vienna manuscript, is in German; the writer was also with Gama’s fleet, but the surviving text is incomplete and often confused and is likely a copy of a report put together from notes or a diary on the fleet’s return. It was first published along with the Portuguese manuscript in Christine von Rohr, ed., Neue quellen zur zweiten Indienfahrt Vasco da Gamas (Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1939). A variant, generally abridged version of this account, which probably belonged to a commercial agent named Lazarus Nuremberger, who was active in Lisbon and Seville, was found in the 1960s in the Lyceum Library, Bratislava (now in the Central Library of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), and is published, with English translation, together with other manuscript fragments on the early voyages of discovery, in Miloslav Krása, Josef Poli[š]enskyâ, and Peter Ratko[š], eds., European Expansion (1494–1519): The Voyages of Discovery in the Bratislava Manuscript Lyc. 515/8 (Codex Bratislavensis) (Prague: Charles University, 1986). The different accounts are inconsistent or contradictory in many details, but as before I have steered clear of long-winded explanations of my deductions. Except where English versions are noted above, translations are my own.

  298 “The people there were stark naked”: Calcoen, 22.

  299 “rain, hail, snow, thunder and lightning”: Ibid., 23.

  299 “a chill such as in Germany cannot occur”: Krása, Poli[š]enskyâ, and Ratko[š], European Expansion, 78.

  300 the famed gold-trading town of Sofala: Though the Christian beliefs about Sofala were mere fantasies, Muslim writers described it as an important source of gold as early as the tenth century. The sands have shifted dramatically since Gama’s arriva
l, and the once-thriving port is long lost to the sea. The author of Calcoen dramatically claims that its inhabitants refused to trade with the Portuguese out of fear that they might sail up the river and find their way into the realm of Prester John, which was located inland and was otherwise entirely enclosed by walls. The sultan of Sofala, he adds, was at war with Prester John’s people; from some who had been taken as slaves, the Portuguese learned that their land was awash with silver, gold, and precious stones. Shipboard gossip was no doubt behind the rumors.

  302 the most powerful sultans in East Africa: Kilwa’s ruins are still impressive, though the island can now only be reached by wading through the shallows. For its fascinating history, see H. Neville Chittick, Kilwa: An Islamic Trading City on the East African Coast (Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1974). For a near-contemporary view, see Hans Mayr, “Account of the Voyage of D. Francisco de Almeida, Viceroy of India, along the East Coast of Africa,” in Malyn Newitt, ed., East Africa (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002).

  303 “Their bodies are well shaped”: Hans Mayr, in Newitt, East Africa, 14.

  304 The emir handed over three dignitaries: According to Castanheda and Correia, who for once more or less agree, the emir handed over his archenemy as a hostage and refused to pay the tribute, in the hope that Gama would kill him; in the end the hostage came up with the money himself. When the deal was done, Gama graciously asked his new vassal if he had any enemies he could help him with; the emir, trying to salvage something from the situation, told him they greatly feared Christians in Mombasa—his main rival—and would no doubt shell out a handsome tribute if asked.

  305 “on account of which I armed myself”: Letter dated Quiloa [Kilwa], July 20, 1502, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, Reservados, Mss. 244, No. 2, quoted in Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 202.

  305 Gama had warned in his letter: “If before you enter this port, this letter is handed to you outside, do not enter it, because this port is difficult to exit from, but instead go on ahead, and follow everything that has been said above,” he wrote.

  306 “We all thought it was advisable”: See Teyssier and Valentin, Voyages de Vasco de Gama, 328. Of the chroniclers, Barros says the fleet put in at a bay eight leagues south of Malindi; Castanheda says Gama briefly visited the city; Correia offers an elaborate description of Gama’s meeting with the sultan, who once more embraces him as a brother. All are contradicted by the eyewitness accounts.

  306 “and we killed the people and burned the ships”: Calcoen, 26. The Flemish sailor says the fleet headed northeast on the monsoon winds and arrived on August 21 off “a great city called Combaen.” The city was Cambay, an important Gujarati port for six hundred years; now known as Khambhat, its harbor has long ago silted up. Sailing down the coast, he says the fleet reached a city named Oan (likely Goa); it was there, he claims, that they captured and burned 400 ships. The attack is not corroborated in the other accounts. Matteo da Bergamo says the storm blew them to Dhabul (Mumbai); Lopes describes a similar place but calls it Calinul.

  307 Rui Mendes de Brito: The shipowner was likely a member of a family of “New Christians” who were prominent Portuguese gem dealers and merchant bankers. Rui Mendes is mentioned as a financier of armadas at Antwerp between 1504 and 1508, when the city was already becoming the main European entrepôt for Portugal’s spices. In 1512 a Diogo Mendes, possibly of the same family, moved permanently to Antwerp and became a fabulously rich spice baron; by the mid-sixteenth century the dynasty handled the lion’s share of the spice trade and controlled several stock markets. See Marianna D. Birnbaum, The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2003), 15–22.

  308 “the ships which carry the spices”: Calcoen, 27.

  308 sambuk: Different types of dhows were distinguished by their keel design rather than their purpose or their size, which could vary widely. Even the keel design evolved over time: sambuks, which were among the most successful of all dhows, later developed a square stern under Portuguese influence.

  308 a full account of the horrors: My account of the battle is based on Tomé Lopes’s blow-by-blow report, with additional details from the other eyewitnesses and the chronicles.

  309 240 men: The figure is given by the dependable Lopes, but estimates vary widely. Matteo da Bergamo and the anonymous Portuguese writer put the number at about 200; the Flemish sailor says 380 and the German sailor 600. Barros says 260, plus more than fifty women and children; Correia, exaggerating as usual, says 700.

  309 Jauhar al-Faqih: Lopes’s “Ioar Afanquy.”

  310 “When I commanded this ship”: See Lopes, “Navigazione verso le Indie orientali,” 701.

  310 “We couldn’t even speak about this capture”: See Teyssier and Valentin, Voyages de Vasco de Gama, 330. “On this subject there are moreover certain stories that it’s neither the time nor the place to reveal,” Bergamo darkly added.

  310 “It was a Monday”: See Lopes, “Navigazione verso le Indie orientali,” 703.

  313 “with such vehemence”: Ibid., 704.

  314 “And so”: Ibid., 705.

  314 Almost all the rest: On the return of the first ships to Lisbon, the Florentine merchant Francesco Corbinelli was told that Gama burned the Mîrî with all its gold but saved all the Muslim merchants. Unless he made a glaring mistake, at least one person was ashamed of Gama’s actions. Letter dated Lisbon, August 22, 1503; see Teyssier and Valentin, Voyages de Vasco de Gama, 354.

  315 seventeen children: The figure given by the anonymous Portuguese writer; Matteo da Bergamo says twenty. At least some were later given to the monastery at Belém as apprentice friars.

  315 “was a demonstration of the manner”: João de Barros, quoted in Subrahmanyam, Career and Legend, 208.

  Chapter 15: Shock and Awe

  317 “we knew his will”: See Paul Teyssier and Paul Valentin, trans. and eds., Voyages de Vasco de Gama: Relations des expeditions de 1497–1499 et 1502–3, 2nd ed. (Paris: Chandeigne, 1998), 329.

  320 a fiendish conspiracy: The Portuguese factors regularly complained that they were being charged inflated prices; in reality, they were often short on hard currency, their trade goods were seldom in demand, and they invariably refused to pay market rates.

  320 “who as he well knew”: See “Navigazione verso le Indie orientali scritta per Tomé Lopez,” in Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Navigazioni e Viaggi, ed. Marica Milanesi (Turin: Einaudi, 1978–1988), 707.

  324 “because since the beginning of the world”: Ibid., 712.

  325 “A palm tree”: Ibid., 714.

  326 distributing the Muslim captives: According to the German sailor, Gama asked the captives, through a Dutch Jew who had been baptized in Portugal, whether they wanted to die as Christians or keep their own faith. Most, he insists, asked to be baptized, not because they thought it would save their necks but so they could breathe their last believing in the all-powerful God. The anonymous Portuguese account says thirty-two were hanged.

  327 a letter from the admiral: Barros reports the first part, Lopes the second. Gaspar Correia, typically, manages to make the episode even more ghastly. The fake friar, he says, was put in a boat with his ears, nose, and hands strung around his neck and a message to the Zamorin suggesting he make a curry out of them. The rest of the surviving prisoners were similarly mutilated and their body parts were thrown in the boat; then Gama “ordered their feet to be tied together, as they had no hands with which to untie them: and in order that they should not untie them with their teeth, he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves, and they knocked them down their throats; and they were thus put on board, heaped up upon the top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them, and the sails to be set for the shore, and the vessel set on fire.” More than eight hundred Muslims, Correia declares, were so murdered; more were strung up by their feet and wer
e used by the Portuguese for target practice. Three of those begged to be baptized, and after they had prayed with a priest, Gama charitably strangled them so “that they might not feel the arrows. The cross-bow men shot arrows and transfixed the others; but the arrows which struck these did not go into them nor make any mark upon them, but fell down.” Correia’s story is uncorroborated and is almost certainly invented; even so, Gama’s gruesome actions have to be seen in the context of an age in which such claims were made not to indict the admiral but to glorify him and his Crusade. Henry E. J. Stanley, trans. and ed., The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and His Viceroyalty (London: Hakluyt Society, 1869), 331–34.

  333 “We kept asking ourselves”: See Teyssier and Valentin, Voyages de Vasco de Gama, 332–33.

  333 “in this way”: See Lopes, “Navigazione verso le Indie orientali,” 720.

  334 Quilon: Now known as Kollam; the burial place of St. Thomas, though, is traditionally held to be Mylapore, in southern Chennai.

  334 the story went: The legends are recounted in The Book of Duarte Barbosa, trans. Mansel Longworth Dames (London: Hakluyt Society, 1921), 2:97–99, 127–29. There are numerous variant versions; the episode of the martyrdom of the peacock likely derives from a Hindu or Buddhist story.

  335 They had eventually arrived in Persia: Most likely it was the Persians who first arrived in India. Missionaries belonging to the Persian Church or Church of the East, one of several denominations of Syriac Christianity that emerged from the fifth-century Christological controversies, reached the Malabar Coast and China in the sixth century; in the ninth century many Syriac Christians migrated to southern India. Tamerlane virtually wiped out Persian Christianity at the end of the fourteenth century; the Indian community was one of the few survivors, though it had split into two groups that followed different Syriac rites. In the seventeenth century it fell into further schisms as some St. Thomas Christians entered communion with Rome under Portuguese pressure and others rebelled against the Portuguese and broke with Rome, creating a patchwork of West Syriac St. Thomas Christians, East Syriac St. Thomas Christians, West Syriac Roman Catholics, East Syriac Roman Catholics, non-Syriac Roman Catholics, two Orthodox Syriac denominations, and others that still persists today.