SPICES AND CHRISTIANS

By KLAUS l\'lEHNERT .I

Onc oj the greatest battles 01 all time is 710'10 being lought for the control of the Indian Oeclm, which Japan with hcr m'ighty blows against the Brit.ish Navy is w"esting from Britannia. But this is 110t the first battlc to be /Vll.yec1 ove,' this vast ocean which links the continents 0/ .".iriea, Asia, (Iud A/tstralia. 111 the following article the slory is told of the first European 1)01('C1' to Teach and conquer the Indian Oeea.n. It i8 all l'xci/'i,lg a.nd important page oj 11 is/ory.

N THE silence of the night to the treasures and spices of the Far I the Prince lay on his East, to discover a sea route to the couch, buried in thoughts Pacific; Prince Henry the Navigator and plans. His was the first far-sighted leader of this brain was whirl. trend. ing, as if from In recent times this conception feverish dreams. has been attacked and, as usual, the Shapes of men dispute resulted in the modern historian and ships surged having a far more complicated picture before his sleepless eyes. Suddenly he of the events than his predecessors. jumped up. His shouts brought the servants running into his chamber. In RISE OF A NATION amazement they heard their Prince The beginnings of Portugal, situated ordering them, as if by divine inspira­ on the outer edge of Europe, were tion, to prepare ships for a journey modest. Originally nothing but a part along the coast of Africa. of Spain, the county of Portugal­ With this dramatic scene in the what is today northern Portugal-was life of Prince Henry, so wrote the old given in 1095 in fief to Henry of chroniclers of the kingdom, began Burgundy, one of the numerous crusad­ Portugal's march to the Pacific. And ers then aiding the kings of Spain even among those historians who were against the yoke of the Moors, who skeptical about this anecdote, many were ruling the southern and eastern were at fir t inclined to believe that parts of the peninsula. In 1147 his the Portuguese expansion toward the son, Alfonso I, who made Portugal Indian Ocean had been the result of a practically an independent kingdom, definite plan of this Prince. In this wrested Lisbon, the future capital, way the following notion arose and from the Moors. He was assisted by endured for a long time: the Euro­ an army of crusaders composed of Pacific land route, made famous by Englishmen, Germans, and Flemings Marco Polo, was lost due to the decline which was on its way to the Holy of the Mongol Empire and the rising Land. And While the Crusades them­ supremacy of the Mohammedan Turks selves did not lead to any lasting in the Near East. This in turn successes, their by-product, Portugal, compelled Christian Europe, accustomed became one of the few enduring SPICES AND CHRISTIANS 449 monuments of European co-operation. "the Navigator," is one of the most A hundred years later, the Crescent disputed figures of the late Middle had been forced out of southern Ages. Was he the visionary genius Portugal too, and the kingdom had who perceived a sea route to the achieved its final European borders. Pacific? Had he designs only on Africa? Was he perhaps no better than a low The poverty of the Portuguese soil; slave-trader '! On the basis of the the length of her coast and her favor­ scanty material now available the fol­ able situation on the sea route from lowing can be said. the Mediterranean to northern Europe; the blood of Roman, Suebic, Gothic, It is possible but not proved that and Moorish conquerors; frequent hos­ Henry, whose brother Pedro had re­ tilities with her Spanish neighbors, ceived in Venice a copy of Marco Polo's Castile and Leon, who controlled her book of travels, had India and the land routes to the Continent; relations Orient as a distant goal in mind when with northern countries originating in he ordered the coastal voyages along Crusade times and outlasting them: Africa. His two immediate aims are all this led the Portuguese to the sea, more obvious: first, to reach the coast encouraged by their kings who rec­ of Guinea, so rich in gold and ivory, ognized that the destiny of their country by circumnavigating the Mohammedan Jay on the ocean. stronghold of North Africa; and sec­ King Diniz had trees planted for ondly, to co - operate politically and future ship-building, and in 1317 he militarily against these hereditary appointed the Genoese Manoel Pessanha enemies with the legendary "Prester hereditary admiral of the Portuguese John," who was supposed to be some­ Fleet, with high pay and many honors. where beyond the Moors. The rapidly His descendants abided by the agree­ prospering slave trade benefited Henry's ment, and Pessanha, and after him his plans for discovery by directing the heirs, drew other seafarers from Genoa hitherto slumbering attention of the to Portugal. This resulted in close Portuguese towards the economic signif­ relations between the two states for icance of the African coast, but later many generations and, in 1341, in the had unfortunate moral and racial con­ Portuguese expedition to the Canary sequences for the Portuguese nation. Islands led by a Genoese, which was the first step to be taken by Portugal THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT on the Atlantic. No matter how much historians King Ferdinand encouraged shipping disagree on Henry's motives and aims, by granting ship- builders numerous there can be no doubt as to his impor­ privileges in 1377. John I devoted his tance in history. It does not lie in main attention to the Navy. And the the length of that part of the African maritime development of Portugal coast which was opened up to Portu­ reached a peak in her conquest of the guese knowledge by his untiring and African stronghold of Ceuta, which often disappointing activities: the represented the first reaching out of 1,250 miles or so from Cape Bojador, Europe into Moorish Africa. It was which was already known, to the here that the royal princes, among southernmost point in Sierra Leone, them Henry-who had English blood reached under Henry-the result of the through their mother, the sister of forty-five years from the conquest of Henry IV of England-earned the honor Ceuta to the Prince's death-are noth­ of being knighted. ing compared to the vast stretches discovered in the following decades. HENRY THE ENIGMA Yet Henry deserves his place in the history of the world as the man whose Prince Henry, who is known to his­ lifework is the foundation, not only tory by the not very suitable name of for the great voyages of the Portuguese 450 THE XXth CENTURY to the southwest Pacific, but also­ North Pacific, so Henry's ghost aailed indirectly, through the impressions in the ships of Diaz and da Gama. absorbed by Columbus in Portugal­ for the discovery of America. EQUATORIAL HORRORS It was owing to the Prince that the The first nine years after Henry's former circum - African adventures, death saw only one important coastal which we shall speak about shortly, voyage, which went several hundred were replaced by the systematic geo­ miles beyond Sierra Leone. In 1469 graphical and political conquest of the the King gave a five-year lease on the coast of the Dark Continent. That trade with the Gold Coast to a rich Cape Bojador-really quite harmless Lisbon merchant by the name of but endowed by tradition with all the Gomes, on condition that he should terrors of the unknown - was rounded discover a hundred miles of coast in 1434 was every year. entirely due Gomes was to his person­ zealous in al influence. carrying out With this an this task. It obstacle had was a bitter been over­ d isappoint­ come which, ment when altbough it the coast only existed in unexpectedly superstitious .....;f..!A;:.-:..::::'ARASIA ':::'. ~ turned south imagination, :..... '::':::':>=9" '.' ./t~v .." in Cameroon had hindered naviga­ >. ··~::::7}::~:/F. .. :~~S1;:::i .:i~~i!lij:j~:~:::;~:;~:~~I~lil· jii :~~t~~~~~ tion much longer and more obsti- nately than even the Cape of Tempests. The barren desert coast of the Sahara gave way to the inhabited and wooded coast of Sen- egal. Africa at the Time of the Portuguese Discoverers fur at that Henry's time there efforts were directed towards the were fantastic ideas about the deadly training of sailors, the collecting of heat of the equator and the slope of the nautical knowledge, the development earth on its southern hemisphere. But of more seaworthy craft, and, aided after a brief hesitation the voyages by experienced geographers, the im­ were continued. The equator was con­ provement of maps. He inoculated quered, and nothing terrible happened. the blood of his people with the con­ viction of navigaTe necesse est and PERFECT JOHN made navigation and discovery a Among the members of the Portu­ national cause. And just as centuries guese royal house, John II, known later the will of the dead Peter as "the Perfect," was Henry's true drove on his Russians along the spiritual heir. Gifted witb Henry's Arctic coast of Asia and across the thirst for geographical knowledge and, in SPICES AND CHRISTIANS contrast to him, in possession of the there is no doubt that for the latter royal power-which, moreover, in India was the goal. It is true that accordance with the times, was taking he, too, sought a connection with on increasingly absolute forms-he Prester John, fi.rst overland from West carried the work of his great-uncle a Africa and then by sending out Covil­ great deal further. His importance in han and Diaz. But for him Prester the Portuguese expansion is threefold. John was only a stop on the way to First of all he made the previous India. discoveries safe by erecting Fort Mina "It seemed to the King," wrote on the rich Gold Coast of Guinea (1482). Barros, the first great historian of By seeing to it that a mass was read Portugal, in the sixteenth century, "that every day for Henry in the church of by way of Prester John he might find this outpost he stressed his relationship an entrance into India, because through to that prince. Abyssinian friars who had gone from Secondly he equipped-chiefly with Portugal to Jerusalem with orders to the gold from Guinea-three large obtain news of this Prester John, he expeditions along the African coast: had learnt that his country was beyond the first two under Diego Cao (1482-87) Egypt and stretched to the southern extended Portugal's knowledge of sea." Africa in a great double thrust as far The two expeditions sent out in 1487 as Cape Cross (about 22 degrees confirmed the King's hopes. Diaz southern latitude); the third, under brought the welcome news that Africa Bartholomew Diaz (1487-88), rounded could be circumnavigated, and Covil­ the Cape of Tempests, which the King han's voyages proved that the domain symbolically renamed the Cape of of Prester John touched upon a sea Good Hope, and reached the Great Fish on which one could sail to India as River on the southeastern coast of the well as southward along the east coast Dark Continent. of Africa. The Portuguese now knew And thirdly, in 1487, the King sent the entire coast of the Dark Continent, out Pedro da Covilhan on a journey, with the exception of the 1,250 miles in the course of which, sailing from between the Great Fish River and Aden to Cawlanore (India), da Covilhan Sofala, the southernmost point reached became the first Portuguese to set foot by Covilhan. The sea route to India on Indian soil. On his way back, after was almost a certainty: the way had adventurous voyages on the Indian been cleared for Vasco da Gama. Ocean which took him as far south as Sofala in the Mozambique of today, he WHY INDIA? was also to be the first member of his There is a pause of nine years be­ nation to visit the legendary Prester tween the return of Diaz and da Gama's John, who, instead of being the power­ fleet's putting to sea, a pause which is ful Christian ally one had hoped for, surprising if one thinks of the quick turned out to be the powerless Negus succession of expeditions during the of Abyssinia. first six years of John's rule. But this pause can be explained: the mistaken IN QUEST OF INDIA belief of Columbus that he had found We cannot tell with certainty when Asia on his first voyage (1492) suddenly Portugal turned her gaze from the raised the possibility that Marco Polo's immediate goal of Africa to the distant treasures could be reached to the west goal of India. Some historians, in­ by an incomparably shorter route than cluding the Portuguese eulogists, be­ that around the Cape of Good Hope. HeTe that they can discern an Indian The partition of the world into Portu­ plan as early as Prince Henry's times, guese and Spanish spheres of influence while others find only later indications in the treaty of Tordesillas (1494) also of it, some as late as John II. But took time. Moreover, in spite of his 452 TH E XXth CE!\TU RY youth the King was a sick. to the present day, when and broken man since a a great war is being riding accident had fought again for these snatched away his only very same islands. son, Alfonso, in 1491. Four years later, at the age of As if imbued with magic forty, he died of uremia. power, the spice trade brought wealth and flower­ From the fact that King ing of culture with its John put great energy and coming and decline with a lot of money into dis­ its going-to the Arabian covering a sea route to Levant and northern Italy, India, it is but a step to Portugal and the Neth­ to the next question: erlands. It is strange why to India '! Why did India exert so that so far there has been no historian great an attraction on the imagination to deal with this extraordinarily rich of the Occident? What did they hope and important material. The follow­ to find there? "Spices and Christians" ing pages make no pretense at filling was the famous reply to this question this noticeable gap in history, for this given by the scout sent ashore by can only be done in a lengthy study. Vasco da Gama the day he first reached They only wish to serve as an intro­ India. In their hope, grown out of duction to the subject of spices, which their struggle against the Crescent, to is woven like a scarlet thread into the find or win Christians in India, the history of the Pacific. Portuguese were disappointed (at which they did not fret for long); not, We cannot go back to those pre­ however, in their desire for spices. historic times when spices began to play an important role. Skipping ancient THE PRECIOUS SPICES times, we must be content with the There is hardly any branch of trade fact that during the Middle Ages, that can be compared in age and especially after the Crusades, spices historical importance with the spice had turned from lu.xury articles into trade. Its history co," ers a vast period. expensive necessities and had achieved Itis indeed a long and eventful road an importance which we can scarcely from that scene in the Old Testament imagine today. For our standards, where Jehovah ordered Moses on Mount prices were out of all proportion. In Sinai to compound an anointing oil of the England of Marco Polo's times, a spices ("Take thou also unto thee pound of pepper or ginger cost as much principal spices, of pure myrrh. .. and as a whole sheep, while nutmeg cost as of sweet cinnamon... and of sweet much as three and cloves as much as calamus, .. and of cassia. .• ") to seven sheep. that other scene in 409 where Alaric, the victorious leader of the Visigoths, WHY THEY LIKED THEM promised to spare conquered Rome for It is easy to eJl..-plain our ance tors' a ransom of gold, silver, and three predilection for spices. Not only were thousand pounds of pepper; to King they very limited in their choice of Edward I of England, whose household, food, compared with today, but it was during the times of Marco Polo, con­ also difficult to preserve food before sumed spices worth almost £1,600 a the invention of cans and refrigerators. year; to the centuries in which the Spices offered the threefold advantage white powers fought each other bitterly of giving food greater variety of taste, for the possession of the spice islands; of preserving it longer, and of making it to modern times, when anyone can for edible even in a very "high" condition. a few cents buy all the spices he During the centuries when there were desires at the corner grocery shop; up no bathtubs, their perfume helped to SPICES AND CHRISTIANS overcome other odor". Moreover, spices, centuries made its reopening impossible. coming as they did from unknown fairy­ So the trade was concentrated on the lands and costing so much more than sea route around southern Asia. From otber medieval victuals, carried the Malacca (near present-day Singapore/ same social prestige as caviar does to­ Shonan), the collecting place for the day. They made their owners just as goods of the East Indian Archipelago, proud and satisfied as we would be if the spices were shipped overseas we had in our larder samples of some through the Bay of Bengal to Calicut outlandish condiments that had been and other trade centers of the Malabar fetched in fantastic circumstances from Coast of India. From here, increased the moon by a rocket-ship. by the spices of Ceylon and India, It was also believed that spices con­ they were shipped on by two routes. tained magic powers. When the Ger­ One led through the Arabian Sea, via man Emperor Henry VI entered Rome, Aden, and on through the Red Sea to the streets were fumigated with nut­ Alexandria; the other to Orrnuz, con· meg and other spices; and when the trolling the entrance to the Persian Black Death was ravaging Europe in Gulf, on through the Gulf to Basra, and the fourteenth century the doctors pre­ then through Mesopotamia to the ports scribed meat prepared with ginger, of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. cloves, and pepper. There are count­ The Mohammedan control of these less examples of the use of spices to be sea routes-fI'om the home of spices collected from medieval literature. They to Alexandria, Antioch, and Trebi­ leave no doubt that spices were among zond-did not mean that the West the most desirable goods and the most was cutoff from the goods of the imoortant art.iclell of trade of that time. Ea:lt. But it dId mean that the Moslem For hundreds of ye~r!'l Europa wns world hnd n monopoly which it \;uull1 content to know that spices camp. from exoloit with huge profito. If a Euro­ "somewhere," far away toward where pean power wished to break the mo­ the sun rises. Then the time of the nopoly in this ideal artic1p. of tl'Ade, Mungol supremacy with its extensive which combined the least weight with journeys into A~i~ bl'ought somowha.t tho groo.tcat pl"ofit, or Lo ::;ecure this more exact information. It was monopoly for itself. it had ejth~r to eopcc1a.lly M,uco Polo who returned destroy the position of Islam in the to Europe with much newg 9bout N~al" RAgt or find Ct ncnCl route to !lIltl· the home of spices, although he did aba1' and M ala.cca. rn!l.l~o a. few mi.,tQkt::~ (In sayIng, PHARAOHS AND GENOESE for instance, that nutmeg and clove~ came from Java). At any rate, the The idea of sailing round Africa goes West gained a mon: or less accurate far back iuto antiquity. Herodotus impression, namely, that the home of relates that Phoenician mariners, at spices wa5 to lJe found in southern and the cummand of the Pharaoh Neku southeastern Asia, that their chief ports (609-593 B.C.), carried it out success­ of transshipment were in India, and fully, and, although doubt was cast on that their trade routes were in the this fact later on, it remained in the hands of Europe's religious and political subconscious of Europe as a possibility. hereditary enemies-the Mohammedans. The hope that it might be possible to circumnavigate the Dark Continent THE FRAGRANT ROUTE was later strengthened by rumors that Toward the end of the Middle Ages Moorish caravans crossing the Sahara the spice trade followed well-defined had found that the coast to the south routes. By the end of the fourteenth of West Africa ran from east to west. century the old overland route from the Ancient and medieval man was not Pacific across Central Asia had fallen interested in discovery for its own into disuse, and the political conditions sake. Hence definite reasons in the in Central Asia during the next few sphere of trade or politics were neces- 454 THE XXth CENTURY sary to drive him out onto the high before he died, however, he was obliged seas. Thus Strabo tells of a man to see Charles of Hapsburg mount the called Eudoxos in the second century Spanish throne. And yet history has before Christ who wanted to break dubbed him "the Lucky," for a whim Egypt's monopoly in the trade with of fate threw the prize of Henry's India and lost his life in the attempt and John's efforts, the sea route to to sail around Africa from the Pillars India, in his lap. And he knew how of Hercules. Almost fifteen hundred to make use of this stroke of good years later a similar commercial and fortune. Against the judgment of the political situation was responsible for majority of his advisers, and perhaps a repetition of this episode. Once again as a reply to the voyages of Columbus, Egypt, this time under the Moham­ he took the final, decisive step. medan Mamelukes, was placed in a strategic position in the trade between V ASeO DA GAMA REPORTS Europe and Asia. With the indignation It was one of the greatest hours in of good Christians and keen commercial the history of the West, and the rivals, the Genoese saw their deadly crowning of the efforts of many enemies, the Venetians, peacefully co­ generations of Portuguese, when Vasco operatiolZ' with an Islamic power and do. Gama triumpha.ntly ~ntAl'An LiRhon accumulating large profits as the main in the late summer of 1499 and made agents uf Oriental goOds in the eastern his report to the King. In little more Mediterranean. In 1291 two ships tban two years he had successfully under Vivaldo put out to sea from carried out the longest sea voyage CenoA ut par mara oocanun~ in:mt ad known till then, il"Om the TagulS rouml 'Partes Indiae. mercimonia utilia inde Mrica to Innia. :mn h$l.~k: with his de/erentes. They sailed through the tiny fleet of three ships. and thrown Straits of Gibraltar and followed the entirely upon his own resources, he African coast to the south. where they had shown his mettle in the rear of disappeared - aliqua certa nova non the mortal enemies. the Mohammedans, habue?'unt de eis. and on the seas ruled by them; he had convinced tho porto alon'g the eoaat3 of VAIN f!.J'J1'J1'UKI'S Africa (including those in Mozambique) Whothor it wa.o the dioa.ppointing and Indillo or LIII: llaclug- ur the Pur­ outcome of the Vivaldo expedition or tu£uese: he had established relations her concentration on the decades of with Indian princes and-for the first gtrifo with VCzUOQ, we know of no time in hil'tory - hllod Ll-uug-hL !Jack further attempts on the part of Genoa sDices direr-fl11 from thp. Tnni$l.o Deean to find the sea route around Africa. to Europe, the value of which exceeded But while !She was beIng locked ever the cost of the whole expedition by closer in the exhausting struggle with many times. her rival, her heir and pupil grew up On the other hand, the triumph was unnoticed and unconsciously in the not quite complete: hardships and southwestern corner of Europe. Almost disease, above all scurvy, had carried exactly two huodred years after off a large part of the crew as well Vivaldo's disappearance, Diaz sailed as Vasco's brother; the "Christians" into the Indian Ocean. of India had all kinds of curious An ironic fate gives and takes habits which made their Christianity according to its own whims and seldom seem somewhat doubtful (later it was according to our desires. The aim in discovered that the Hindus had been life of Manuel I of Portugal (1495-1521) mistaken for Christians); and above was to bear the royal crown of a all the entire trade in the waters united Portuguese-Spanish Empire. To between Africa and India, especially this end he married three Spanish the trade in spices, was firmly in the princesses in succession, by whom he hands of the hated Mohammedans, who, begot numerous children. Not long moreover, had great in1luence with the SPICES AND CHRISTIANS 455

Indian princes and the population of Venice's annual import of spices from the ports, and who-there could be no the Levant sank from 3.5 million pounds, doubt about this-would not give up the amount it had reached during the their monopoly without a bitter struggle. last few years of the fifteenth century, OUTBURST OF El\ERGY to about 1 million pounds for the years 1502-1505, while during the same time Portugal was equal to her task. 2.3 million pounds of spices reached 'I'he next ten years passed in a dream. Portugal every year via the newly In a supreme effort, the little country discovered sea route. In 1504 Portuguese sent one fleet after another into the ships brought spices to England, and Indian Ocean: in March 1500, Cabral the trading station founded by King with thirteen ships and the pick of John II of Portugal in Antwerp began Portuguese mariners; in March 1501, to develop into the leading spice market four ships under da Nova; in 1502, of the North. The time did not seem two fleets under Vasco and Stephen far off when the entire spice trade da Gama with altogether twenty ships; would go around Africa and through in 1503, three fleets; 1504, 1505 ... nnd Lisbon instead of through the Levant so on. Driven by a boundless lust for and Venice. adventure, by greed and religious thirst for revenge, the sons of Lusi­ Finally Mohammedan Egypt took a tania roamed the seas between Mrica band. Her strong fleet sailed to India, and India, heroically fighting against destroyed a few Portuguese ships, overwhelmingly superiorforces, pillaging killing the son of the Viceroy, and, and murdering with revolting cruelty, aided by more than a hundred Indian trading and negotiating with skill, ships, prepared for the decisive blow. building fortifications and churches, Almeida, enraged at the death of his sinking ships, being sunk, and leaving a son, threw himself at the enemy with bloody trail of destruction in their wake. his nineteen ships and, in one of the The Mohammedan traders were forced decisive battles of Asiatic history, into the defensive, the Sultans of inflicted a bloody defeat on him on Turkey and Egypt saw themselves February 3, 1509, off Diu. robbed of their profits from the spice In less than ten years after the return trade, and the Venetians of the main of Vasco da Gama from the first voyage sources of their wealth. But Portugal to India, the centuries-old position of paid no heed to their threats. Swash­ the Mohammedan trade world was buckling Francisco de Almeida was smashed, as if it had been ripe for appointed the first Viceroy of India, downfall, and the ocean between Africa with absolute power over all Portuguese and India had become a Portuguese east of the Cape of Good Hope. In pond. The title which Manuel the Lucky all seriousness he undertook completely had assumed in 1499 no longer sounded to drive out the Mohammedans and to so absurd: "By the Grace of God King divert the spice trade around the Cape. of Portugal, on this side of the sea and In March 1506 he won the sea battle beyond in Africa, ruler of Guinea and of Cannanore against the fleet of the of the conquest, shipping, and trade of Prince of Calicut. Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India."