The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Frankopan, Peter

  103C. Delaney, ‘Columbus’s Ultimate Goal: Jerusalem’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 48 (2006), 260–2.

  104Ibid., 264–5; M. Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia, 1987), p. 12. For the text of the letters of introduction, S. Morison, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (New York, 1963), p. 30.

  Chapter 11 – The Road of Gold

  1O. Dunn and J. Kelley (ed. and tr.), The Diario of Christopher Columbus’ First Voyage to America, 1492–1493 (Norman, OK, 1989), p. 19.

  2Ibn al-Faqīh, in N. Levtzion and J. Hopkins (eds), Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge, 1981), p. 28.

  3R. Messier, The Almoravids and the Meanings of Jihad (Santa Barbara, 2010), pp. 21–34. Also see idem, ‘The Almoravids: West African Gold and the Gold Currency of the Mediterranean Basin’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17 (1974), 31–47.

  4V. Monteil, ‘Routier de l’Afrique blanche et noire du Nord-Ouest: al-Bakri (cordue 1068)’, Bulletin de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire 30.1 (1968), 74; I. Wilks, ‘Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. 1. The Matter of Bitu’, Journal of African History 23.3 (1982), 333–4.

  5N. Levtzion, ‘Islam in West Africa’, in W. Kasinec and M. Polushin (eds), Expanding Empires: Cultural Interaction and Exchange in World Societies from Ancient to Early Modern Times (Wilmington, 2002), pp. 103–14; T. Lewicki, ‘The Role of the Sahara and Saharians in the Relationship between North and South’, in M. El Fasi (ed.), Africa from the Seventh to Eleventh Centuries (London, 1988), pp. 276–313.

  6S. Mody Cissoko, ‘L’Intelligentsia de Tombouctou aux 15e et 16e siècles’, Présence Africaine 72 (1969), 48–72. These manuscripts were catalogued in the sixteenth century by Muammad al-Wangarī and formed part of the magnificent collection that belong to his descendants to the present day; initial reports indicating that the documents had been destroyed by the Tuareg in 2012 proved to be wrong.

  7Ibn Fal Allāh al-Umarī, Masālik al-abār fī mamālik al-amār, tr. Levtzion and Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources, pp. 270–1. The depression in the value of gold is widely noted by modern commentators; for a more sceptical view, see W. Schultz, ‘Mansa Musa’s Gold in Mamluk Cairo: A Reappraisal of a World Civilizations Anecdote’, in J. Pfeiffer and S. Quinn (eds), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East: Studies in Honor of John E. Woods (Wiesbaden, 2006), pp. 451–7.

  8Ibn Baūa, Travels, 25, 4, p. 957.

  9B. Kreutz, ‘Ghost Ships and Phantom Cargoes: Reconstructing Early Amalfitan Trade’, Journal of Medieval History 20 (1994), 347–57; A. Fromherz, ‘North Africa and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Christian Europe and the Almohad Islamic Empire’, Islam and Christian Muslim Relations 20.1 (2009), 43–59; D. Abulafia, ‘The Role of Trade in Muslim–Christian Contact during the Middle Ages’, in D. Agius and R. Hitchcock (eds), The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe (Reading, 1994), pp. 1–24.

  10See the pioneering work of M. Horton, Shanga: The Archaeology of a Muslim Trading Community on the Coast of East Africa (London, 1996); also S. Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes? Italy, Ifriqiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade’, Al-Masāq 25.1 (2013), 70–91.

  11D. Dwyer, Fact and Legend in the Catalan Atlas of 1375 (Chicago, 1997); J. Messing, ‘Observations and Beliefs: The World of the Catalan Atlas’, in J. Levenson (ed.), Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration (New Haven, 1991), p. 27.

  12S. Halikowski Smith, ‘The Mid-Atlantic Islands: A Theatre of Early Modern Ecocide’, International Review of Social History 65 (2010), 51–77; J. Lúcio de Azevedo, Epocas de Portugal Económico (Lisbon, 1973), pp. 222–3.

  13F. Barata, ‘Portugal and the Mediterranean Trade: A Prelude to the Discovery of the “New World”’, Al-Masāq 17.2 (2005), 205–19.

  14Letter of King Dinis of Portugal, 1293, J. Marques, Descobrimentos Portugueses – Documentos para a sua História, 3 vols (Lisbon, 1944–71), 1, no. 29; for the Mediterranean routes see C.-E. Dufourcq, ‘Les Communications entre les royaumes chrétiens et les pays de l’Occident musulman dans les derniers siècles du Moyen Age’, Les Communications dans la Péninsule Ibérique au Moyen Age. Actes du Colloque (Paris, 1981), pp. 30–1.

  15Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Crónica da Tomada de Ceuta (Lisbon, 1992), pp. 271–6; A. da Sousa, ‘Portugal’, in P. Fouracre et al. (eds), The New Cambridge Medieval History, 7 vols (Cambridge, 1995–2005), 7, pp. 636–7.

  16A. Dinis (ed.), Monumenta Henricina, 15 vols (Lisbon, 1960–74), 12, pp. 73–4, tr. P. Russell, Prince Henry the Navigator: A Life (New Haven, 2000), p. 121.

  17P. Hair, The Founding of the Castelo de São Jorge da Mina: An Analysis of the Sources (Madison, 1994).

  18J. Dias, ‘As primeiras penetrações portuguesas em África’, in L. de Albequerque (ed.), Portugal no Mundo, 6 vols (Lisbon, 1989), 1, pp. 281–9.

  19M.-T. Seabra, Perspectives da colonização portuguesa na costa occidental Africana: análise organizacional de S. Jorge da Mina (Lisbon, 2000), pp. 80–93; Z. Cohen, ‘Administração das ilhas de Cabo Verde e seu Distrito no Segundo Século de Colonização (1560–1640)’, in M. Santos (ed.), Historia Geral de Cabo Verde, 2 vols (1991), 2, pp. 189–224.

  20L. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700 (Minneapolis, MN, 1984), pp. 60–3; J. O’Callaghan, ‘Castile, Portugal, and the Canary Islands: Claims and Counterclaims’, Viator 24 (1993), 287–310.

  21Gomes Eanes de Zuara, Crónica de Guiné, tr. C. Beazley, The chronicle of the discovery and conquest of Guinea, 2 vols (London, 1896–9), 18, 1, p. 61. For Portugal in this period, M.-J. Tavares, Estudos de História Monetária Portuguesa (1383–1438) (Lisbon, 1974); F. Barata, Navegação, comércio e relações politicas: os portgueses no Mediterrâneo occidental (1385–1466) (Lisbon, 1998).

  22Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Chronicle, 25, 1, pp. 81–2. For some comments about this complex source, L. Barreto, ‘Gomes Eanes de Zurara e o problema da Crónica da Guiné’, Studia 47 (1989), 311–69.

  23A. Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freemen in Portugal, 1441–1555 (Cambridge, 1982); T. Coates, Convicts and Orphans: Forces and State-Sponsored Colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550–1755 (Stanford, 2001).

  24Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Chronicle, 87, 2, p. 259.

  25Ibid., 18, 1, p. 62.

  26H. Hart, Sea Road to the Indies: An Account of the Voyages and Exploits of the Portuguese Navigators, Together with the Life and Times of Dom Vasco da Gama, Capitão Mór, Viceroy of India and Count of Vidigueira (New York, 1950), pp. 44–5.

  27Gomes Eanes de Zurara, Chronicle, 87, 2, p. 259.

  28J. Cortés López, ‘El tiempo africano de Cristóbal Colón’, Studia Historica 8 (1990), 313–26.

  29A. Brásio, Monumenta Missionaria Africana, 15 vols (Lisbon, 1952), 1, pp. 84–5.

  30Ferdinand Columbus, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his Son Ferdinand, tr. B. Keen (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992), p. 35; C. Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem (London, 2012), pp. 48–9.

  31C. Jane (ed. and tr.), Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus, 2 vols (London, 1930–1), 1, pp. 2–19.

  32O. Dunn and J. Kelley (eds and trs), The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–3 (Norman, OK, 1989), p. 67.

  33Ibid., pp. 143–5.

  34W. Phillips and C. Rahn Phillips, Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge, 1992), p. 185. For the publication of the letter across Europe, R. Hirsch, ‘Printed Reports on the Early Discoveries and their Reception’, in M. Allen and R. Benson (eds), First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old (New York, 1974), pp. 90–1.

  35M. Zamora, ‘Christopher Columbus’ “Letter to the Sovereigns”: Announcing the Discovery’, in S. Greenblatt (ed.), New World Encounters (Berkeley, 1993), p. 7.

  36Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, p. 144.

&n
bsp; 37Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 1.92, tr. P. Sullivan, Indian Freedom: The Cause of Bartolomé de las Casas, 1484–1566 (Kansas City, 1995), pp. 33–4.

  38E. Vilches, ‘Columbus’ Gift: Representations of Grace and Wealth and the Enterprise of the Indies’, Modern Language Notes 119.2 (2004), 213–14.

  39C. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley, 1966), p. 109.

  40L. Formisano (ed.), Letters from a New World: Amerigo Vespucci’s Discovery of America (New York, 1992), p. 84; M. Perri, ‘“Ruined and Lost”: Spanish Destruction of the Pearl Coast in the Early Sixteenth Century’, Environment and History 15 (2009), 132–4.

  41Dunn and Kelley, The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage, p. 235.

  42Ibid., pp. 285–7.

  43Ibid., pp. 235–7.

  44Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia, 3.29, p. 146.

  45Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés: The Life of the Conqueror by his Secretary, tr. L. Byrd Simpson (Berkeley, 1964), 27, p. 58.

  46Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Book 12, tr. A. Anderson and C. Dibble (Santa Fe, NM, 1975), p. 45; R. Wright (tr.), Stolen Continents: Five Hundred Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas (New York, 1992), p. 29.

  47S. Gillespie, The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexican History (Tucson, AZ, 1989), pp. 173–207; C. Townsend, ‘Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico’, American Historical Review 108.3 (2003), 659–87.

  48An image now held in the Huntington Art Gallery in Austin, Texas, shows Cortés greeting Xicotencatl, leader of the Tlaxcala, who saw an opportunity to take advantage of the new arrivals to strengthen his own position in Central America.

  49J. Ginés de Sepúlveda, Demócrates Segundo o de la Justas causas de la Guerra contra los indios, ed. A. Losada (Madrid, 1951), pp. 35, 33. The comparison with monkeys was erased from the manuscript used by Losada, A. Pagden, Natural Fall of Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge, 1982), p. 231, n. 45.

  50Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 12, p. 49; Wright (tr.), Stolen Continents, pp. 37–8.

  51Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 12, pp. 55–6.

  52I. Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People who Greeted Columbus (New Haven, 1992); N. D. Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge, 1998).

  53R. McCaa, ‘Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in Mexico’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1995), 397–431. In general, see A. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, CT, 2003).

  54Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Mexico City, 1992), p. 491; López de Gómara, Life of the Conqueror, 141–2, pp. 285–7.

  55Cook, Born to Die, pp. 15–59. Also Crosby, Columbian Exchange, pp. 56, 58; C. Merbs, ‘A New World of Infectious Disease’, Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 35.3 (1993), 4.

  56Fernández de Enciso, Suma de geografía, cited by E. Vilches, New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain (Chicago, 2010), p. 24.

  57V. von Hagen, The Aztec: Man and Tribe (New York, 1961), p. 155.

  58P. Cieza de León, Crónica del Perú, tr. A. Cook and N. Cook, The Discovery and Conquest of Peru (Durham, NC, 1998), p. 361.

  59For Diego de Ordás, see C. García, Vida del Comendador Diego de Ordaz, Descubridor del Orinoco (Mexico City, 1952).

  60A. Barrera, ‘Empire and Knowledge: Reporting from the New World’, Colonial Latin American Review 15.1 (2006), 40–1.

  61H. Rabe, Deutsche Geschichte 1500–1600. Das Jahrhundert der Glaubensspaltung (Munich, 1991), pp. 149–53.

  62Letter of Pietro Pasqualigo, in J. Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 23 vols (London, 1867), 1.1, pp. 116–17.

  63For Anne Boleyn, in Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, ed. R. Brown et al., 38 vols (London, 1970), 4, p. 824.

  64Francisco López de Gómara, Historia general de las Indias, ed. J. Gurría Lacroix (Caracas, 1979), 1, p. 7.

  65Pedro Mexía, Historia del emperador Carlos V, ed. J. de Mata Carrizo (Madrid, 1945), p. 543. Also here Vilches, New World Gold, p. 26.

  66F. Ribeiro da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa: Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden, 2011), pp. 116–17; Coates, Convicts and Orphans, pp. 42–62.

  67E. Donnan (ed.), Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, 4 vols (Washington, DC, 1930), 1, pp. 41–2.

  68B. Davidson, The Africa Past: Chronicles from Antiquity to Modern Times (Boston, 1964), pp. 194–7.

  69Brásio, Missionaria Africana, 1, pp. 521–7.

  70A. Pagden, Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination: Studies in European and Spanish-American Social and Political Theory, 1513–1830 (New Haven, 1990).

  71Letter of Manoel da Nóbrega, cited by T. Botelho, ‘Labour Ideologies and Labour Relations in Colonial Portuguese America, 1500–1700’, International Review of Social History 56 (2011), 288.

  72M. Cortés, Breve compendio de la sphere y el arte de navegar, cited by Vilches, New World Gold, pp. 24–5.

  73R. Pieper, Die Vermittlung einer neuen Welt: Amerika im Nachrichtennetz des Habsburgischen Imperiums, 1493–1598 (Mainz, 2000), pp. 162–210.

  74Diego de Haëdo, Topografía e historia general de Arge, tr. H. de Grammont, Histoire des rois d’Alger (Paris, 1998), 1, p. 18.

  75E. Lyon, The Enterprise of Florida: Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Spanish Conquest of 1565–1568 (Gainesville, FL, 1986), pp. 9–10.

  76Jose de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias, in Vilches, New World Gold, p. 27.

  Chapter 12 – The Road of Silver

  1H. Miskimin, The Economy of Later Renaissance Europe, 1460–1600 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 32; J. Munro, ‘Precious Metals and the Origins of the Price Revolution Reconsidered: The Conjecture of Monetary and Real Forces in the European Inflation of the Early to Mid-16th Century’, in C. Núñez (ed.), Monetary History in Global Perspective, 1500–1808 (Seville, 1998), pp. 35–50; H. İnalcık, ‘The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600’, in H. İnalcık and D. Quataert (eds), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 58–60.

  2P. Spufford, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1988), p. 377.

  3Ch’oe P’u, Ch’oe P’u’s Diary: A Record of Drifting Across the Sea, tr. J. Meskill (Tucson, AZ, 1965), pp. 93–4.

  4Vélez de Guevara, El diablo conjuelo, cited by R. Pike, ‘Seville in the Sixteenth Century’, Hispanic American Historical Review 41.1 (1961), 6.

  5Francisco de Ariño, Sucesos de Sevilla de 1592 a 1604, in ibid., 12–13; Vilches, New World Gold, pp. 25–6.

  6G. de Correa, Lendas de India, 4 vols (Lisbon, 1858–64), 1, p. 7; A. Baião and K. Cintra, Ásia de João de Barros: dos feitos que os portugueses fizeram no descombrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente, 4 vols (Lisbon, 1988–), 1, pp. 1–2.

  7A. Velho, Roteiro da Primeira Viagem de Vasco da Gama, ed. N. Águas (Lisbon, 1987), p. 22.

  8S. Subrahmanyam, The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 79–163.

  9Velho, Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, pp. 54–5.

  10Ibid., p. 58.

  11S. Subrahmanyam, ‘The Birth-Pangs of Portuguese Asia: Revisiting the Fateful “Long Decade” 1498–1509’, Journal of Global History 2 (2007), 262.

  12Velho, Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, p. 60.

  13See Subramanyam, Vasco da Gama, pp. 162–3, pp. 194–5.

  14Letter of King Manuel, cited by Subrahmanyam, Vasco da Gama, p. 165.

  15B. Diffie and G. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 172–4; M. Newitt, Portugal in European and World History (2009), pp
. 62–5; Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, pp. 124–5; J. Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World (London, 1997), pp. 71–2.

  16M. Guedes, ‘Estreito de Magelhães’, in L. Albuquerque and F. Domingues (eds), Dictionário de história dos descobrimentos portugueses, 2 vols (Lisbon, 1994), 2, pp. 640–4.

  17M. Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668 (London, 2005), pp. 54–7; A. Teixeira da Mota (ed.), A viagem de Fernão de Magalhães e a questão das Molucas (Lisbon, 1975).

  18R. Finlay, ‘Crisis and Crusade in the Mediterranean: Venice, Portugal, and the Cape Route to India (1498–1509)’, Studi Veneziani 28 (1994), 45–90.

  19Girolamo Priuli, I Diarii di Girolamo Priuli, tr. D. Weinstein, Ambassador from Venice (Minneapolis, 1960), pp. 29–30.

  20‘La lettre de Guido Detti’, in P. Teyssier and P. Valentin, Voyages de Vasco da Gama: Relations des expeditions de 1497–1499 et 1502–3 (Paris, 1995), pp. 183–8.

  21‘Relazione delle Indie Orientali di Vicenzo Quirini nel 1506’, in E. Albèri, Le relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato durante il secolo decimosesto, 15 vols (Florence, 1839–63), 15, pp. 3–19; Subrahmanyam, ‘Birth-Pangs of Portuguese Asia’, 265.

  22P. Johnson Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany, NY, 1994), pp. 33–6; Subrahmanyam, ‘Birth-Pangs of Portuguese Asia’, 274.

  23G. Ramusio, ‘Navigazione verso le Indie Orientali di Tomé Lopez’, in M. Milanesi (ed.), Navigazioni e viaggi (Turin, 1978), pp. 683–73; Subrahmanyam, Vasco da Gama, p. 205.

  24D. Agius, ‘Qalhat: A Port of Embarkation for India’, in S. Leder, H. Kilpatrick, B. Martel-Thoumian and H. Schönig (eds), Studies in Arabic and Islam (Leuven, 2002), p. 278.

  25C. Silva, O Fundador do ‘Estado Português da Índia’, D. Francisco de Almeida, 1457(?)–1510 (Lisbon, 1996), p. 284.

  26J. Aubin, ‘Un Nouveau Classique: l’anonyme du British Museum’, in J. Aubin (ed.), Le Latin et l’astrolabe: recherches sur le Portugal de la Renaissance, son expansion en Asie et les relations internationales (Lisbon, 1996), 2, p. 553; S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Letters from a Sinking Sultan’, in L. Thomasz (ed.), Aquém e Além da Taprobana: Estudos Luso-Orientais à Memória de Jean Aubin e Denys Lombard (Lisbon, 2002), pp. 239–69.