The Portuguese Presence in Western India

y z z ISSN: 1042-864X gal had accomplished in the East the worldview that his generation was incomparably greater than the was privileged to enjoy through The Portuguese heroic motifs of Homer or Virgil. It the maps, travel accounts, and Presence in had a national importance, but it politico-philosophical treatises of Western India boasted of an even wider import, the time.2 It is good to recall that inasmuch as Portugal was engaged little Portugal played an important in a fight for the spiritual values of part in unrolling the “Great Map,” — John Correia-Afonso, S.J. Europe and for the true faith. especially in the fifteenth and six Vasco da Gama embarked from The repercussions of Portugal’s teenth centuries, and we might Lisbon in a fleet of four vessels on 8 achievement were momentous, and almost say that the unrolling be July 1497, and sighted India on 18 expanded the horizons of man’s gan with western India, on whose May 1498. Two days later he dropped knowledge. “Now the Great Map of shores terminated the European anchor a few miles north of Calicut, Mankind is unrolled at once,” wrote voyage of discovery of the sea at the port of Capocate. It was not till Edmund Burke in 1777 concerning route to India. the end of the month that he was It is not our intention to deal received by the Zamorin, who were here with the impulses behind the far from impressed by the gifts which Age of Discovery and the efforts da Gama had brought, but seemed of Prince Henry the Navigator and pleased at the contents of the letter his collaborators and successors. of which he was the bearer. Let it just be mentioned that ac The the national epic of Lusiads, cording to Charles Boxer, the Portugal, is the story of a small na eminent British historian, the four tion which in the space of a little over main motives (and they were of a century spread over the seas, ten mingled) which inspired the carrying the flag and the faith of their Portuguese were, in chronologi country from Brazil to Japan. Luis de cal order: a crusading zeal; a Camões sang of “heroes, who leav desire for Guinea gold; the quest ing their native Portugal behind them for Prester John, the Christian king opened the way to Ceylon and be said to rule over a kingdom in yond, across seas no man had ever Africa; and the search for spices.3 sailed before.”1 He adopted the Another summary listing is that of voyage of Vasco de Gama to India Antonio do Carmo Reis, who as his fundamental theme in clear speaks of a “motivating penta recognition of the key role played by gon”: scientific curiosity (to know the opening of Asia in the evolution what lands there might be beyond of the Portuguese nation and of its the Canary Islands); commercial literature. For Camões, what Portu Vasco da Gama I The Portuguese 23 Special Report: 33 The National Presence in “Mozambique Update” Commission on the Western India -Dawit Toga Commemoration of An Interview with Albie Sachs the Portuguese 6 The Indo-Portuguese Discoveries Experience in on Mozambique Today the Context of “Coping with the 34 Upcoming Events: World History Consequences of War: The Meadows Museum The Rights of the Child" presents... I I Boxer on Boxer: -llene Cohn A Conversation “The Power of 35 Notes on Contributors •*’=*-*. Jit■' Music in Mozambique” to this Issue -Lynette Peck m-— The C am ões C enter Q uarterly is m ade possible by a grant from The Tinker Foundation. prospects (from the products which conquered, and settled lands. Their trade between the Asian ports also might be found there); military strat dominion on the coasts and seas of helped to bring parts of Asia close to egy (through more accurate knowl Africa and Asia is essentially and one another, joining India, South edge of the Muhammadan power); peculiarly connected with the begin east Asia, China, and Japan. political alliance with Christian rulers nings of the maritime expansion of Noteworthy too is the difference (in the spirit of the Crusades); and Europe and Christendom which, between the Portuguese experience finally religious conversion (evangeli above all else, marks off the modern in Asia, and their own in Africa and zation).4 from the medieval world. Here in that of the Spaniards in South Amer But what did the Portuguese ex deed was the beginning of a new ica. “The Portuguese showed Eu plorers achieve? They were the age, for before the Iberian discover rope how to trade profitably in areas pathfinders of Europe’s seaborne ies the most striking feature of the with advanced civilizations and empires. Their discoveries not only history of civilization was the disper strong indigenous governments.”6 extended the limits of the world known sion and isolation of the different Though the Portuguese were not to Europe, but contributed greatly to branches of mankind. “It was the devoid of injustice and cruelty in their its more accurate representation. At Portuguese pioneers and the Cas relations with native princes and their the end of the fifteenth century a tilian conquistadores from the west peoples, these relations were basi revolutionary cartographical innova ern rim of Christendom, who brought cally of mutual recognition and even tion was made with the introduction together, for better of for worse, the of “cousinly” friendship. of a scale of latitudes, and subse widely sundered branches of the One may also stress the long quently Portugal became the Euro great human family. They thus first duration of the Portuguese presence pean center for geographical and made humanity conscious, however in western India. They were the first cartographical knowledge. The fa dimly, of its essential unity.”5 Europeans to establish themselves mous Cantino planisphere (1502) is This unity was made more real by in the subcontinent, and the last for the earliest dated map to delineate the bonds of trade. Not only were the mally to leave it. Almost exactly four the Portuguese discovery of India. two hemispheres brought closer to and a half centuries passed between The Portuguese did not just sail each other, but the European mer the conquest of Goa by Afonso de and chart the seas, but also traded, chants engaged in the intercoastal Albuquerque (1510) and the lower ing of the Portuguese flag in that territory (1961). In this period they also cast deeper roots in the land than did the Dutch, the English, and the French elsewhere in India. Camões, no doubt with the benefit of hindsight, had already placed before M ichael T eague Vasco da Gama an impressive vi sion: “This celebrated coast of India, as you see, continues to run south ward till it ends in Cape Comorin, once Cape Cori, facing Taprobana or Ceylon. Everywhere along these shores Portuguese soldiers still to come will win victories, lands, and cities, and here for long ages they will make their abode.”7 Contrary to popular belief, and probably owing its origin to the Por tuguese chroniclers lauding their country’s naval and military feats, the Portuguese were, in fact, more concerned with trade than with con quest. “The principle laid down by Albuquerque was always adhered to. Portugal must only hold key for tresses and trading factories. She must rely on naval power to defend them. Territorial empire was beyond her powers and would be unprofit able.”8 According to Charles Boxer, 2 there were probably not more than or the French. On the whole, the ten thousand able-bodied Portu Portuguese rulers took the line that guese in all the Portuguese over religion and not color should be the seas territories in the sixteenth cen criterion for full Portuguese citizen tury. It would have been foolish for ship, and that all Asian converts to them to believe that India could be Christianity should be treated as the conquered and held by such small equals of their Portuguese coreligion numbers. And so the high-sounding ists. Yet, the religious orders in the term Estado da India (State of India), Portuguese possessions would not in fact, designated basically a series admit nonwhites to their ranks for a of posts along commercial sea routes very long time. Among the Portu controlled by Portugal in varying guese in India, odious distinctions degrees. With the decline of this were made between the reinois, control and the rise of the Dutch and those born in the reino or Portugal English navies in the seventeenth itself, and the indiaticos, those born in Asia of Portuguese parents. More century, the Estado da India declined Father John Correia-Afonso: “Culturally rapidly to a shadow of its former self. over, slavery was an important pillar speaking, the Portuguese, according to If the commercial motive prevailed of the Lusitanian empire. Antonio da Silva Rego, were unconscious over the military and political, how In India the Portuguese kings receivers and conscious givers." did it fare with regard to the evangeli usually favored the policy of interra It must be remembered that six cal or missionary? The reported cial marriages which had been initi teenth-century Portugal was a poor answer of Vasco da Gama’s men ated by Albuquerque after his con country, “rotten at the core, an when questioned at Calicut about quest of Goa in 1510. There were enormous deadweight of which Philip the reason for their long journey is few white women in the Estado da was to find himself master in 1580,” well-known—“Christians and India, and many Portuguese men as Fernand Braudel wrote.13 As his spices.” According to Boxer, this entered into either regular or irregu torian Michael Pearson notes: “In close association between God and lar unions with Asian and Eurasian deed, anyone who travels today on Mammon formed the hallmark of the women.

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