In order to keep their mission secret, the European interlopers initially pretended that they were Turks and fellow Muslims. The Iberian peninsula had been recently freed from Arab rule and there were several Arabic speakers in Da Gama’s crew. However, the pretence soon broke down and the Portuguese narrowly escaped being ambushed by the Sultan of Mombasa.
The fleet now kept sailing up the Swahili coast but news of their arrival seemed to have travelled ahead of them. Da Gama desperately needed a friendly harbour to replenish supplies and, most importantly, a pilot who could guide them across the ocean to India. At last, he received a friendly welcome at Malindi—the source of one of the giraffes Zheng He had taken to China. The port was also a bitter rival of Mombasa and a Shia outpost in an increasingly Sunni coast.10 Its ruler had no illusion about Da Gama’s mission but he desperately needed allies. So, it was the Sultan of Malindi who provided Vasco da Gama with an experienced pilot for the crossing to India.
The crossing took less than a month and the fleet arrived at Calicut (Kozhikode, Kerala) on 14 May 1498. The open harbour was filled with vessels of all sizes and the beach was lined with shops and warehouses. When the Europeans arrived, many boats rowed up to sell them coconuts, chicken and other fresh produce. Families of curious sightseers, along with their children, came out to see the ships that looked quite different from those usually plying the Indian Ocean. A crowded street called the Avenue of Trees led to the palace. The ground was strewn with white blossoms from the trees. We are also told that the rich and powerful were carried about in palanquins and were preceded by men blowing a trumpet to clear the way. This may explain why modern Indians love to blow their car horns; it is an assertion of their self-importance. On his way to the palace, Vasco da Gama even stopped to pray at a Hindu temple under the mistaken belief that the Hindus were heretical Christians!
The opulent palace was spread over a square mile and surrounded by lacquered walls. The Samudrin of Calicut received Vasco da Gama in his royal chamber while seated on a green couch below a silk canopy. He was bare-bodied above the waist except for a string of pearls and a heart-shaped emerald surrounded by rubies, the insignia of royalty. Vasco da Gama knelt and presented a letter from King Manuel (John II’s successor). He also laid out the gifts he had brought with him. The Samudrin was evidently not impressed with the gifts but agreed to trade in pepper and other spices in exchange for gold and silver.
The Arab merchants of Calicut were understandably unhappy to see their monopoly being broken. They even arranged to kidnap da Gama before he could return to his ship but the Samudrin intervened and had him freed. The prosperity of Calicut depended on free trade and he had to ensure that the principle was upheld even if he felt uneasy about the newcomers. The Portuguese fleet, however, did not wait for long. After purchasing pepper, they lifted their anchors and headed home. Da Gama wanted to get home as soon as possible to tell his king about his discoveries. He received a rapturous welcome and was showered with honours and 20,000 gold cruzados. However, the human cost of the expedition had been great—two-thirds of the crew had perished during the voyage, including Vasco da Gama’s brother. This did not deter King Manuel from declaring himself ‘Lord of Guinea, and of the Conquest, the Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India’.
Preparations now began for sending a much larger fleet to India. It would have thirteen ships armed with cannons and 1200 men under the overall command of Pedro Alvares Cabral. Despite the loss of some ships along the way, the fleet arrived in Calicut in September 1500 and demanded that the Samudrin expel all the Arabs and trade exclusively with Portugal. The Indians, understandably, were not keen on such an arrangement. While prolonged negotiations were continuing, a large Arab ship loaded with cargo and pilgrims decided to set sail for Aden. Cabral seized the ship and the Arabs retaliated by attacking a Portuguese contingent that was in the city. The Portuguese now seized ten more ships in the harbour and burned their crew alive in full view of the people ashore. Next they bombarded the city for two days and even forced the Samudrin to flee from his palace—a humiliation that the rulers of Calicut would never forget.
Thus began the European domination of the Indian Ocean. The fleet now headed south for Cochin (Kochi), a rival port that had lived in the shadow of Calicut since the time of Zheng He’s visit. As had happened in the case of Malindi, the Portuguese would exploit a local rivalry in order to establish themselves. Cabral hurriedly loaded his ship with pepper and other spices, made payments in gold coins, and headed home. In order to gauge the potential profits, note that pepper that made its way to Venice by the traditional Rea Sea route would cost sixty to a hundred times its price on the Kerala coast. With the discovery of the new route, it was clear that Venice was ruined.11
Using the profits from these successful voyages, the Portuguese now rapidly scaled up the number of fleets operating in the Indian Ocean. Within a couple of decades they had sacked or occupied many of the important ports in the western Indian Ocean region—Muscat, Mombasa, Socotra, Hormuz, Malacca and so on. Even by the standards of that time, they established a well-deserved reputation for extreme cruelty. For example, when Vasco da Gama returned on a second voyage to Calicut, he refused to negotiate and simply bombarded the city for three days. He also seized all the ships he found in the harbour and their crews—800 men in all. They were paraded on ships’ decks and then killed by having their arms, noses and ears amputated. The body parts were piled into a boat and sent ashore. When the Samudrin sent a Brahmin to negotiate for peace, he was gruesomely mutilated and sent back. His two sons and a nephew, who had accompanied him, were hanged from the mast. In other words, the maritime world of the Indian Ocean rim now experienced a shock similar to what had been experienced by the inland cities of Asia during the Turko-Mongol invasions.
The Islamic world clearly needed to respond and it fell on the Turks to provide a comeback. The Ottoman Turks were the most powerful Muslim empire of that time and had taken Constantinople (i.e. Istanbul) in 1453, thereby ending the last vestige of the Byzantines. Although their military tactics were derived from the Central Asian steppes, they had recently developed naval capability in the Mediterranean. However, they were aware that their galleys were not capable of dealing with the much more demanding conditions in the Indian Ocean. The traditional vessels of the Arabs were also deemed unsuitable as the stitched ships could not take the shock wave from firing cannons. Thus, twelve large warships were custom-built on the Red Sea and fitted out with cannons. Interestingly, Venice provided the Turks with inputs from their spies in Portugal and even put a team of gunners at the Sultan’s disposal. Clearly, economic interests trumped all other differences.
The Turkish fleet sailed down the Red Sea in early 1507 under the command of Amir Husayn and headed for the Indian coast. Together with reinforcements sent by Calicut, the Turks won a battle against a small and unprepared Portuguese fleet anchored at Chaul (near modern Mumbai). The Portuguese were enraged and a large fleet was assembled. The two sides met near the island of Diu, just off the coast of Gujarat in February 1509. In the battle that followed, the superiority of European ship and cannon designs was fully displayed. Within hours, Husayn’s defensive line had been shattered and the Turks were forced to flee. An additional factor that helped the Portuguese was the fact that forces sent by the Sultan of Gujarat remained neutral rather than help their fellow Muslims. The Turkish admiral would complain bitterly about this treachery when he faced the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul.
Despite these victories, the Portuguese were still operating like nomadic pirates and did not have a permanent establishment in the Indian Ocean yet. After another unsuccessful raid on Calicut, it was decided that Goa would be a good place to build a base. Under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque, the Portuguese attacked and took Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510. Albuquerque would boast to King Manuel in a letter:
Then I burned the city and put everyone to the sword and for four days your men shed blood cont
inuously. No matter where we found them, we did not spare the life of a single Muslim; we filled the mosques with them and set them on fire. . . . 12
Soon the Portuguese had built a network of fortifications around the Indian Ocean rim from where they controlled their maritime empire. Perhaps the best preserved of these forts can be seen today on the island of Diu. The ramparts offer fine views over the Arabian Sea and an excellent collection of early cannons still stand guard. The fort would fend off a second Turkish attempt against the Europeans in 1538. The only reminder of this second failed attempt is an enormous Turkish cannon that can be seen in Junagarh fort museum on the mainland.
The Swashbucklers
Better technology may partly explain Portugal’s success, but it was also driven by the fact that its expeditions attracted extraordinary adventurers. Often cruel and bloodthirsty, they were also willing to take enormous personal risks. Two such characters were Ferdinand Magellan and Francisco Serrao, close friends who would participate in the first Portuguese attempt to capture Malacca in 1509. Magellan would later become famous for having led the first successful circumnavigation of the globe (although he would be killed in the Philippines and would not complete the voyage himself). Serrao is now almost forgotten but his story is just as fascinating and closely linked to that of Magellan.
The first Portuguese attack on Malacca ended in defeat and Serrao narrowly escaped with his life thanks to a last-minute rescue by Magellan. Two years later, he returned as part of a large fleet under the personal command of Afonso de Albuquerque. The Malaccans put up a spirited defence but were eventually overcome. Albuquerque then ordered the construction of a new fort on a natural hill overlooking the town; the Dutch would later destroy most of it but the remains of one of its gates survive. Meanwhile, Serrao was made captain of one of three ships sent out to scout the Spice Islands further east.13
Although his ship was leaking badly, Serrao somehow made it to the Banda Islands, the world’s only source of nutmegs. While the other ships loaded nutmegs, Serrao purchased a Chinese junk as replacement. It tells us something about the man’s self-confidence that it was manned with a crew of just nine Portuguese and a dozen Malays. On the return journey, however, a storm separated the three ships. Serrao’s junk was blown into a reef and he lost several of his men. The survivors were now marooned on a small uninhabited island with no water. Nonetheless, Serrao kept his cool and took care to retrieve his guns before hiding his men in the undergrowth in anticipation of local pirates who may come to investigate the wreck. Sure enough, a boatload of pirates arrived and, at a pre-decided signal, the Portuguese party rushed to the beach and captured the pirates and their boat.
The survivors now headed for the nearest inhabited island of Hitu. The chiefs of this island were at this time at war with a nearby island and Serrao decided to impress them by joining in a surprise attack. There were only a handful of Portuguese guns, but the defenders were totally unused to them and were routed. Serrao and his band of merry men retuned as heroes to Hitu and their fame spread to nearby islands. While they were celebrating their victory with women and arrack, a flotilla of war canoes arrived with an invitation from the Sultan of Ternate.
The twin volcanic islands of Tidore and Ternate were the world’s only source of cloves but their rulers were bitter rivals. Serrao must have already heard of them and he accepted the invitation. News of Portuguese victories in the Indian Ocean had clearly reached these parts, for Serrao was received like royalty when he reached Ternate. He soon established himself as the Sultan’s right-hand man. When a Portuguese fleet finally reached the island a couple of years later, the captain was amazed at the influential status held by Serrao and by his lavish lifestyle. They seethed in envy at a colleague who they saw as a renegade and deserter who had gone native. For the moment, however, they recognized that Serrao’s unique position was an advantage and he was allowed to continue.
Serrao sent back letters to his superiors as well as to his friend Magellan, whom he urged to join him in the Spice Islands. These letters were what inspired Magellan with the idea that Ternate and Tidore were so far east that they could be accessed easily by sailing west from the Americas. The problem was that the Portuguese authorities were not keen on exploring an idea that could provide the Spanish with easy access to the Spice Islands. So, Magellan took his plans to the Spanish who agreed to fund his expedition.
In March 1521, after sailing around South America and enduring many hardships, Magellan’s fleet managed to reach the Philippines. When the Spanish landed on the island of Cebu, the area was ruled by a Hindu dynasty of possibly Tamil origin. Magellan signed a treaty with Raja Humabon and converted him to Catholicism. This is the basis on which the Spanish would later claim the islands. One of Humabon’s vassal chiefs Lapulapu, however, refused and the Spanish were obliged to demonstrate their military superiority. It is not known why Magellan decided to storm Lapulapu’s island personally but it is possible that he was trying to live up to Serrao’s exploits. In any event, he was surrounded and killed on the beach.
Magellan’s remaining fleet, however, continued on its voyage and a few weeks later anchored at Tidore. Here they heard that Serrao had died a few weeks earlier, possibly poisoned by local rivals. It is amazing how close Serrao and Magellan had come to achieving their rendezvous on the other side of the world. Thus ended a story of friendship and swashbuckling adventure. Only one ship from Magellan’s fleet with twenty-one survivors would make it back to Spain. Its cargo of cloves was valued at ten thousand times what it had cost in Tidore.
In the Name of the Cross
One of the enclaves acquired by the Portuguese during the sixteenth century was Mumbai, then a collection of marshy islands. The sculpted caves of Elephanta Island suggest that the area had been an important commercial hub in the seventh and eighth centuries, but it had since declined. The first Portuguese landing on the islands in 1509 was a brutal raid: ‘Our men captured many cows and some blacks who were hiding among the bushes, and of whom the good were kept and the rest were killed.’14 Over the next few decades the Portuguese managed to establish a small enclave here. One of its earliest European residents was Garcia da Orta, a physician and naturalist, who would spend decades quietly studying the medicinal properties of local herbs and their use by Indian and Arab doctors. His best-known work is Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India, first published in Goa in 1561. The treatise would turn him into a national hero in Portugal. This is ironical as Garcia was living quietly in this remote outpost because he wanted to stay away from the authorities in Lisbon!
In order to understand why, we need to go back to 1492 when the Spanish ended Moorish rule in the Iberian peninsula and ordered the mass expulsion of Jews and Muslims. Those who remained behind were forced to become Christians known as New Christians. However, it was always suspected that these new converts continued to practise their old religion in secret. It was to ferret out these covert Jews and Muslims that the Spanish Inquisition was originally founded. Garcia da Orta’s parents were Spanish Jews who fled to Portugal to escape persecution. Unfortunately, a few years later, the Portuguese too expelled the Jews. Indeed, Vasco da Gama’s voyage had been partly funded by the wealth expropriated from the expelled Jews. The Orta family, however, remained in Portugal by ostensibly converting to Catholicism but they were always afraid of being investigated by the Inquisition.15
There is evidence that the Ortas continued to practise Judaism in secret and even had secret Hebrew names. Garcia’s secret name was Abraham. This is the real reason that Garcia da Orta was living quietly in Mumbai (incidentally, he refers to the place both as Bombaim and Mombaim in his writings). Over time, he used his contacts in the colonial headquarters in Goa to bring over family members and other New Christians from Portugal. In this way, Goa and other Portuguese enclaves ended up with a sizeable New Christian population. Although there was always an air of uncertainty, things were tolerable till the arrival of Francis Xavier, a Jesuit missionar
y, in 1542.
Xavier, later to be canonized as a saint, is known today in India for the numerous Jesuit schools and colleges named after him. However, it was he who invited the Inquisition to Goa before leaving for Malacca. When the Inquisition arrived in Goa, the vast majority of the local population practised Hinduism and there were numerous temples dedicated to goddess Shanta-Durga. Egged on by the Jesuits, the Portuguese would destroy hundreds of temples. Thousands of Hindus would be killed or forcibly converted to Christianity. Many small children were forcibly taken away and baptized.16 The remains of destroyed temples can still be seen in Goa, some with churches built over them. In recent years, a handful of these temples have been rebuilt by local Hindus. One example is the Mahalasa Narayani temple in the village of Verna, which was destroyed in 1567 and was rebuilt in 2000–05 (incidentally the site also has a large stone carving of a female figure that may date back to the Neolithic age).17
The Inquisition soon turned on the communities of Syrian Christians who had lived peacefully on India’s west coast for over a thousand years before the arrival of the Portuguese. Their ancient rituals were condemned as heretical and they were forced to accept Latin rites; many of their books and records composed in Syriac were burned.18 Not surprisingly, the Inquisition also began to scrutinize the New Christians. Many would be tortured and killed including Garcia da Orta’s sister Catrina who was burned at the stake as ‘as an impertinent Jewess’ in 1569, a year after Garcia’s death. Her husband confessed under torture that the famous physician had kept ‘the Sabbath on Saturday’. It is a reflection of the vindictiveness of the Inquisition that Orta’s remains were dug out of his grave and burned, and the ashes thrown into the Mandovi River.19
The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History Page 18