Vasco Da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia 0195651812, 9780195651812

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Vasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia

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yasco da Gama and the Linking of Europe and Asia edited by

Anthony Disney

and Emily Booth

OXFORD VNIVEJlSITY PllESS

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OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

YMCA Library Building. Jai Singh Road. New Delhi 110001

?.. 6

O °axford U11iversity Press is a departn1e11t of the U11iversity of Oxford. It fttrthers the U11iversity's objective of excellence in researcl1, scholarship, and edttcation by pttblishi11g worldwide i11 Oxford New York Atl1ens At1ckla11d Ba11gkok Bogota Bue11os Aires Cala1tta Cape Tow11 Cl1e11nai Dares Salaam Dell1i Flore11ce Ho11g Ko11g Ista11bttl Karacl1i Kt1ala Lt1111pur Madrid Melbot1n1e Mexico City t,{u1nbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paolo Sl1a11gl1ai SiI1gapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated con1panies i11 Berli11 lbadan Oxford is a registered trade 111ark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other cou11tries Pttblished in l11dia By Oxford University Press, New Dell1i © Introduction with the volt1111e editors © l11dividtial essays witl1 tl1e autl1ors T11e n1oral rigl1ts of the at1thor have bee11 asserted Database rigl1t Oxford U11iversity Press (niaker) Oxford University Press 2000

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Contents

Introduction

1

Professor Denys Lombard: A Tribute

8

I. Plenary Lectures I.

11

The Indian Ocean in World History

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

2.

Travelling with the Fifteenth-century Discoverers: Their Daily Life

30

A.H.H. de Oliveira Marques 3.

The Unity of Opposites: Abraham Za'.cut, V asco da Gama and the Chronicler Gaspar Correia

48

Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam 4.

Ships, Seafaring and the Iconography of Voyages in the Age of V asco da Gama

72

John Villiers II. Trade and Economic Relations 5.

Soldiers, Diamonds and Jesuits: Flemings and Dutchmen in Portuguese India (1505-90)

84

John Everam 6.

Christians and Muslims in the Surat Sea: Ships, Merchandise and Goods Captured in a Naval Battle in 1630

105

Artur Teodoro de Matos and Paulo Lopes Matos

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Vasco Ja Gam11 and tht Lin/ting ofEuropt and Asia

Vl

7.

The East African Coast in 1498: A Synchronic Study

116

M.N. Pearson 8.

The Portuguese in the Far East, 1540-1640

131

Om Prakash 9.

Camphor in East and Southeast Asian Trade, c. 1500: A Synthesis Portuguese and Asian Sources

of

142

Five Centuries, Five Modalities: European Interaction with Southeast Asia, 1497-1997

167

Roderich Ptalt 10.

Anthony Rtid III. Religious and Cultural Interactions 11.

Some Observations on Portuguese Renegades in Asia in the Sixteenth Century

178

Dtjanirah Silva Couto .

12.

The Encounter of Languages: Reflections on the Language of the Other in Roteiro da Primeira

202

Viagem de Vasco da Gama Elena Losada Soler 13.

Converts, Proteges and Assimilated Natives: The Advantages of Christianization anc:l·the Beliefs of Goan Christians (Eighteenth Century)

220

Maria de Jesus dos Mdrtires Lopes 14.

233

The Jesuits and Japan

Derek Massare/la. 15.

Goa-Macao-Beijing: The Jesuits and Portugal>s China Connection

248

Paul Rule 16.

For God, King and Mammon: The Portuguese outside of Empire, 1480-1580

A.JR Russell-Wood

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Conunts

17.

Vil

Islands and Beaches: Indigenous Relations with the Portuguese in Sri Lanka after V asco da Gama

280

Chandra R de Silva IV. Sources, Texts and Representations

18.

From the West to the East: The Return of the Printed Word

295

J oao J osl Alves Dias 19.

Portuguese as seen by the Historians of the Qing Court

307

Carney T. Fisher 20.

South Sulawesi Chronicles and Their Possible Models

322

Campbell C Macknight 21.

When Poetry and History Meet: The First Voyage ofVasco da Gama in Literary Texts

333

Maria Alzira Seixo 22.

Myth and Power: Vasco da Gama as Bourgeois Appropriation in the Opera of the Nineteenth Century

340

Isabel Sokr Quintana 23.

Was There a Vasco da Gama Epoch? Recent Historiography

350

John E. Wills, Jr. V. Empire, Politics and Diplomacy 24.

The Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese Assistancy in Asia: The Fate of Survivors, 1760-77

361

Dauril Aldm 25.

Divesting a Myth: Seventeenth Century Dutch-Portuguese Rivalry in the Far East

387

Leonard Blussl 26.

Continuity and Change: The Portuguese Presence in British Bombay, c. 1660-1860

403

Mariam Dossa/

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Vlll

27.

Va.sco da Gama and tht Linking ofEuropt and Asia Portuguese Timar on the Eve of the Pacific War

419

Robert Lee 28.

Vasco da Gama and the Later Portuguese Colonial Presence in India

437

Ttotonio R de Souza 29.

Spiritual Peoples at Odds: Portugal, India and the Goa Question, 1947-61

452

Douglas L. Wheeler .

30.

.

Faction, Administrative Conuol and the Failure of the Portuguese India Company, 1628-33

471

Lo"aine Whitt 31 .

Few Thanks to the King: The Building of Portuguese India

484

George Winius Contributors

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Introduction The thirty-one contributions that make up this volume were originally presented as lectures or papers at the Vasco da Gama Quincentenary Conference held in Melbourne and Fremantle, Australia, in June 1997. The purpose of the conference was to re-examine-in the light of recent scholarship, and from both Asian and European perspectives-the voyage ofVasco da Gama to Calicut in 1497-8, its role in linking Portugal and the world of the Indian Ocean, and the complex and multi-faceted interactions between East and West that developed in the years which followed. The conference was attended by scholars from a range of disciplines and orientations from Australia, Portugal, India, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Macao, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As might be expected from such a diverse gathering, the wealth of interests and views represented was very considerable, and cannot be fully encompassed in this introduction to the revised papers. However, some of the main concerns and conclusions will be suggested, followed by a brief description of the individual papers, in the order in which they appear in this volume. Interest at the conference in seafaring and navigational aspects of the Portuguese intrusion was considerable, and is manifested in several contributions. How was it that the Portuguese came to enter the Indian Ocean by sea at the close of the fifteenth century? Why did the breakthrough not occur in the reverse direction, especially given that the Indian Ocean had a much longer and richer tradition of maritime trade and long-distance voyaging, than the Atlantic? Readers will find these basic questions addressed by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, who emphasizes the fundamental difference between operating within a monsoonal environment as compared with one dominated by trade winds. Antonio de Oliveira· Marques's down-to-earth description of life aboard

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Portuguese ships in the fifteenth century likewise helps explain how it was done-and invites comparison with earlier work on the carreira da India by scholars such as Charles Boxer, or on Indian voyaging by Jan Qaisar. John Villiers, after an evocative description of the voyage itself of V asco da Gama, gives a sobering overview of deep ocean navigation in pre-modern times. He recounts its many and persistent uncertainties, stressing that the technology of navigation, despite significant advances, was still far from ensuring a favourable outcome. The complexities and contradictions inherent in Early Modern voyaging arc strikingly brought out in comparing the approaches adopted here by Villiers and Oliveira Marques. Both describe the discomforts and perils of life at sea, and the widespread sense among seamen that their fate-resided in the hands of God. Yet, where Villiers highlights the fantastical awa that sometimes surrounded voyaging, drawing parallels between the spiritual preparations for Gama's expedition with 'a knight...bcfore setting out on crusade', Oliveira Marques stresses the curiosity. and spirit of inquiry which led voyagers, even in Prince Henry's day, eagerly to observe and describe the new, in the manner of the Ewopean Renaissance. One of the more general issues explicitly or implicitly present in many of these papers concerns the nature, and also the significance, ·of Portuguese i,nfluence on the l:1dian Ocean region. In this regard, we think it is fair to say that the '¥eight of opinion here is heavily against the view, that has in some quarters been gaining some credence in recent years, that the Portuguese can be dismissed as having had only a very minor and insignificant impact. On the contrary, there is much to suggest that Portuguese influence on maritime Asia was important, though frequently in raqier more subtle ways than is often supposed. This is brought out, for example, in John Wills's paper. Wills uses modernization theory to argue that the Estado da India represented a form of state formation that was new to the Indian Ocean region. The Estado da India was an interventionist, trade-promoting organization which, moreover, introduced the 'terrible novelty' of asserting its 'right' to control maritime trade and navigation. Its 'precocious stacism' , Wills argues, prepared the way for the later, more potent statism of the great Ewopean trading companies. Other papers, including those of Orn Prakash, Anthony Reid, and Mariam Dossal, also bear in various ways on the nature and pervasiveness of long-term Portuguese influence. How did indigenous states and communities react to, and .then go on to manage, the Portuguese intrusion? While-it is necessary to be cautious not to over-generalize on this complex question, a number of the contributions to this volume underline that in the western part of the Indian

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Introduction

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Ocean, indigenous authorities were uaditionally non-interventionist towards maritime trade-a situation which clearly advantaged the Portuguese as newcomers. For example, Michael Pearson shows that neither the Swahili cities ofcoastal East Africa, nor the Mutapa 'authority' of the southern interior plateau, sought to control or interfere with the uade activ~ties they hosted, and which were operated mainly by Gujaratis and other foreigners. Similarly, Chandra de Silva, using evidence of Sinhala reactions to the arrival of the Portuguese from local sources - such as the R.ajavaliya, shows that in Sri Lanka the state considered, or at least rationalized, that such 'lowly traders' were not worth fighting. The unwillingness or fail we of indigenous powers in much of the western side of the Indian Ocean to become directly involved in trade, contrasts with what occurred further east, where states like Aceh and Johore were • • • more 1ntervennon1st. • As is well-known, in maritime Asia cast of Cape Comorin the formal Portuguese presence was always weaker than on the western side of the Indian Ocean. But what about the informal presence which, it is apparent, was pervasive throughout the region? Several papers in this collection, including A.J.R. Russell-Wood's wide-ranging review of Portuguese 'outside of empire', and the contributions of Orn Prakash and Dejanirah Couto, deal with this question. An informal Portuguese presence invariably meant a presence maintained on Asia's terms. This point is brought out strongly in Couto's richly-documented study of Portuguese 'rencgadcs'-that is, Portuguese who embraced Islam, or other foreign faiths, in the course of a process of indigenization. It was a phenomenon which, as Couto makes clear, was much more common in sixtecnth-centwy Asia than the official Portuguese view was willing to acknowledge, or perhaps ever understood. Of course the reverse side of this coin was the conversion of Asians and other indigenous peoples to Catholicism. This process receives attention in a number of papers here, notably those of Maria de Jesus dos Martires Lopes, Derek Massarella and Paul Rule. A related development was the process whereby some, mainly coastal, communities redefined their sense of identity in response to the Portuguese p~esence. Among them .were a number of pro-Portuguese Christian convert communities. But there were also groups which reacted with hostility to the Portuguese, especially in the early and more violent phase of contact, in the process re-affirming and further defining their uaditional self-image. Such a situation is described by Silva in coastal Sri Lanka-but in other areas, such as the Swahili coast studied by Pearson, 1498 does not appear to have amounted to such a critical watershed.

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Another notable preoccupation of the conference was with linguistic encounters. Associated with this was concern about how the Portuguese and the various peoples they encountered saw each other--or, more technically, the 'Other'. How was this expressed in contemporary literature, and how did cultural interactions influence that literature? The linguistic processes involved in the first contact at Calicut are examined in a paper by Elena Losada Soler, who analyses the Malayalam vocabularly appended to the narrative attributed to Alvaro Velho. Maria Seixo uses tools of literary analysis on the Velho narrative itself to explore how the cxpcditionaries of 1497-8 selected, interpreted, and represented what they saw, or at least thought they had seen. From the other side of the beach, Silva uses Sinhala poems and ballads to show how the arrival and actions of the Portuguese were interpreted to satisfy particular interest groups in Kotte, while Campbell MacKnight looks at possible Portuguese influence, among other factors, in the development of a tradition of historical writing among the Bugis ofMakasar. The paradoxical re-introduction of printing into Asia by the Portuguese-an art which, of course, originally came to Europe from China-is described by Joao Jose Alves Dias. To assist readers in finding their way through the thirty-one contributions that comprise this collection, they have been arranged into five sections. The first section brings together the four conference Plenary Lectures. Here will be found Fcrnandez-Armesto's analysis of the Indian Ocean in world history, and the challenge faced by the Atlantic navigators who broke through to reach it, together with Oliveira Marques's description of fifteenth-century Portuguese voyaging, and its many vicissitudes. These are followed by Maurice Kriegel and Sanjay Subrahmanyam's contribution, which is a substantially revised and updated version of the lecture presented at the conference by Subrahmanyam. This paper suggests that one of the explanations given for King Manuel's decision to proceed with the 'enterprise of India', based primarily on a l~ose reading of the account in Gaspar Corrcia's Lcndas da India, is in need of serious reconsideration. Using Portuguese texts together with a number of little-known Hebrew sources, the authors suggest that Corrcia's invocation of the famous contemporary Jewish savant, Abraham Zacut, served an ideological purpose as did the use of prophecy and divination in general. Villiers's review of Portuguese ships and voyaging in the sixteenth-century Indian Ocean, already discussed above, concludes the section. Six papers arc clustered into the second section, entitled Trade and Economic Relations. Here John Everaertwrites about the various northern

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Introduction

Europeanr-Flemings, Dutchmen, Germans and others-who played such an important if often under-recognized part in Portuguese trade and enterprise in Asia in the sixteenth century. Artur Teodoro de Matos and Paulo Lopes Matos reveal something of the richness and variety of Indian maritime trade in the early seventeenth century, through their analysis of a rare cargo manifest. Michael Pearson describes and analyses the economic and cultural identity of the Swahili cities of the East African coast at the time of Gama's voyage, concluding that, despite their adoption of the Muslim faith and their participation in the Indian Ocean trading system, the Swahili remained incontrovertibly African, and were always part of the Bantu world. While the arrival of the Portuguese certainly had an impact on the Swahili, Pearson cautions that ic was not as significant as that of che arrival of Islam, or even of the Omanis in the eighteenth century. Orn Prakash follows with a paper on the mainly private Portuguese trade with China and Japan. Roderich Peak contributes a meticulous case study of the camphor trade at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in ease and Soucheast Asia. Then, moving from the particular to the general, Anthony Reid's bold paper on a possible schematization of European-Asian interaction, from Gama's time to the present, concludes the section. The next section we have is entitled Religious and Cultural Interactions. It opens with Couto on the illusive, informal society of Portuguese renegades in Asia, and their behaviour patterns. The section also includes Losada Soler's study of linguistic contacts developed during Gama's first voyage, and three papers on the activities of the Jesuits-that ofMartires Lopes, mentioned earlier, on the conversion methods of the Society in Goa in the eighteenth century as revealed in relevant church records, Derek Massarella on the missions in Japan, and Paul Rule on the traditionally undervalued contribution of Portuguese Jesuits, as opposed to Jesuits of other nationalities, in the China mission. There follow RussellWood's review of Portuguese who operated outside the formal Portuguese empire, and Silva's ethnographic and literary study of indigenous reactions to the Portuguese in Sri Lanka. Sources, Texts and Representations contains six contributions. It begins with Alves Dias's description of how the art of printing was taken back to Asia, in its Europeanized form, in the sixteenth century. Carney Fisher reviews early P9rtuguesc contacts with China, and the varying Chinese reactions to the newcomers, especially as expressed in the Ming shi, or Ming coun histories. Macknight's paper on South Sulawesi chronicles follows, and then Seixo's study of the classic Roteiro of Gama's voyage. Isabel Soler Quintana shows how the saga of Vasco da Gama was

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Vasco Ja Gama and tht Lin/ting ofEurope And AsiA

subsequently transformed into myth, a process which arguably reached its somewhat grotesque apogee in Mcyerbccr's nineteenth-century opera L'Africaine. The section ends with Wills's re-examination of the notion of a Vasco da Gama epoch, in the light of post-Panikkar historiography. The final section encompasses the papers on Empire, Politics and Diplomacy. Here Dauril Alden, on the basis of his exhaustive study in the relevant archives, reports on the circumstances pertaining to the suppression of the Jesuits in the Porruguese eastern dominions in 1760-4, tracing and describing, in particular, what happened to the 282 members of the Society then serving in these regions. Leonard Blussc, building on the classic work of C.R. Boxer, but writing from a more Asia-oriented standpoint, compares the tactics used by the Portuguese and Dutch in trying to enter China and Japan, and describes the tense war of nerves waged by both protagonists as they strove to out-manoeuvre and discredit each other. The focus of Dossal's paper is the remarkable persistence of Portuguese cultural influence and institutional forms in British Bombay, from language to land-ownership, and law to religion, long after it was handed over to the East India Company. Drawing mainly on Australian diplomatic reports, Robert Lee investigates the murky world of intrigue in Portuguese Timor at the start of the 1940s, showing why this obscure colony was of concern to various combatants on the eve of the Pacific war. T eotonio R. de So• 1za's wide-ranging paper considers Asian responses to the arrival of the Portuguese, stressing the paradox of collaboration alongside resistence. Douglas Wheeler looks at the diplomatic contest between India and Portugal over Goa in the years 1947-61, demonstrating the emblematic importance of the territory to the Salazar regime. The political backgrourad t~ the formation, operation, and eventual failure of the Portuguese India Company of 1628-33 is the subject of Lorraine White's.carefully researched paper. The section then concludes with a challenging review by George Winius of the formation of the Estado da India, which he argues was largely the work of men on the spot, and accomplished in spite of, rather then because of, the bungling leadership emanating from Lisbon. A very regrettable but sadly unavoidable omission from this volume is the paper offered at the conference by Denys Lombard, which concerned the trading system ofAsia before the arrival of the Portuguese. Oenys's unexpected and untimely death occurred before h,t had had the opponunity to submit his text. A tribute to him, and to his enormous contribution to the field of Asian maritime history, will be found later in these pages.

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Introduction

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The editors would like to take the opportunity to thank th~ institutions whose generous support made the V asco da Gama Quincentenary Conference possible. In Portugal, these were the Comissao Nacional para as Comemora~oes dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, the Caloustc Gulbenkian Foundation, the Oriente Foundation, and the Luso-American Development Foundation. In Australia it was the Vice-Chancellors of La Trobe and Curtin Universities, while the La Trobe-University of Barcelona Exchange Program supported the attendance of our Spanish • • pamc1pants. Without the confidence in our enterprise of these various organizations and individuals, and their indispensable backing, there is no doubt that this volume would never have eventuated. Anthony Disney Emily Booth La Trobe University, July 1999

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Professor Denys Lombard: A Tribute When Denys Lombard joined our V asco da Gama Conference party at La T robe University in June 1997, he must already have been suffering from the illness which finally defeated him on 8 January. He hid it absolutely from everybody, and continued to discuss matters great and small with his colleagues from around the world. Only afterwards would some of us wonder whether the particular words of kindness and concern he had on that occasion had something to do with his knowing that they would be his last opportunity. The son of distinguished Islamic scholar Maurice Lombard, Denys was a passionate Asianist all his life. Despite Edward Said he would have preferred the term Orientalist, since it linked him to a proud European tradition rather than a shallow Anglophone one. He was also a passionate heir of French and European heritages, so steeped in his own culture that he had no fears in immersing himself in others. The theme of the last (54th) issue of Archipe/ in which he had a hand, 'Destins croises entre l'Insulinde et la France', might almost have been intended as an epitaph. This volume, with its last message from him to me, reached my desk as I was trying to come to terms with his premature and tragic death. That a consummate scholar of such energy and intensity should have adopted Indonesia as his field of concenuation proved very important for the direction of Asianist scholarship in post-war France. Though he also studied Chinese and Arabic, he presumably chose to focus on Malay and Indonesian because 'pour l'Indonesie, le travail reste presque entier' ( 1967). The challenge of dethroning Eurocenuism was the more exciting because this margin of Eurasia had been so little worked on by his predecessors. Largely because of Denys Lombard's restless and imaginative energy, Paris has become one of the undoubted world centres for the study of Indonesia.

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A Tribute

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His was preeminently the energy and flair which founded and sustained Archipelsince 1971. Published in French, Indonesian and English, this lively biennial contained a diverse m1x of documents, reports and serious articles on the 'Monde ins~lindien', by which was meant Ausuoriesian Southeast Asia and fyiadagascar. 'Archipel would like above all to be a link between these diverse regions, for the most part ignorant of each other, between the different methodologies which approach them in a fragmented way, and especially between "specialists" and "nonspecialists", locked in an unproductive quarrel' (Archipe/, vol. 1, 1971). At least during its first decade there were usually three or four different pieces per issue from the Lombard hand-reviews, articles, reports on conferences and on visits to Indonesia, and discoveries. The same passion, energy and imagination made Denys central to the Indonesianist circles in France and indeed Europe. Directeur d' etudes at the prestigious Ecole des· Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), he organized a weekly graduate seminar which for decades drew all the students~ visitors and hangers-on concerned with the island world. His Annaliste colleagues in the EHESS, Fernand Braudel and Jean Aubin in particular, did much to demonstrate the interconnectedness of commercial and intellectual networks throughout Eurasia. On the European scene, Denys was one of the founders of the European Conference on Indonesian and Malaysian Studies (ECIMS) and later represented France on broader European bodies concerned with Southeast Asian and Asian Studies. At the end of his life he occupied the most prestigious post for a French Asianist as Director of the Ecole Fran~aise d'Extreme-Orient (EFEO), and did much to transform it into a modern research organization with projects in a dozen countries. Several of his publications centred on the history of Aceh (northern Sumatra), each demonstrating his reverence for original. documents in every language. Le sultanat d'Atjeh au temps d1skandar Muda (1967) brought together Malay, Chinese, French, Dutch and English materials on this great seventeenth-century crossroads. Soon after (1970) he produced an edition of the fascinating Dictionary-cum-phrasebook-cumethnography which Frederick de Houtman had compiled during his 1599-1601 imprisonment in Aceh, adding modern Indonesian and French translations to the original Malay and Dutch. Towards the end of his life he returned ·to the study of Aceh with a new edition of one of the finest of seventeenth-century travel accounts, Augustin de Beaulieu's voyage to Sumatra and Malaya (1996). Much of the time in between was occupied with his constant pieces in Archipe/ and other French journals, but somehow this was all leading towards his masterwork of

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Vasco da Gama and the Linking ofEurope and Asia

1990. The three volume Le carrefour javanais is a magnificent synthesis of the influences that created.Indonesia. While tracing with fascinating and loving detail the ways in which Chinese, Islamic and European networks have interacted with the islands, his purpose was to reveal the 'originalite profonde' of the Archipelago's culture. Now available in Indonesian, it must eventually find its publisher in English. Denys is survived by his distinguished wife Dr Claudine Salmon, who has made the historical study of the Southeast Asian Chinese her field of unrivalled expertise. They visited Australia together in 1979, among many other travels. The sympathies of all who were at the La Trobe Conference go out to her especially, and to French Asianists, who have lost an irreplaceable leader. Major publications of Denys Lombard:

Le su/tanat d'Atjeh au temps d1skandar Muda, EFEO, Paris, 1967. 'Le "Spraeck ende Woord-boek" de Frederick de Houtman: Premier methode de malais parle (fin du XVIe s.)', (edited with Jean Aubin), EFEO, Paris, 1970. 'Marchands et hommes d' affaires asiatiques dans l'Ocean Indien et la Mer de Chine, l 3e-20e siecles', EHESS, Paris, 1988. Le carrefour javanais: Essai d'histoire globale, 3 vols, EH£SS, Paris, 1990. Memoires d'un voyage aux lndes Orientales, 1619-1622, Augustin de Beaulieu, Un marchand normand a Sumatra, EFEO, Paris, 1996·. Anthcny Reid ANU, Canberra 30 January 1998

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I. PLENARY LECTURES Chapter One

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The Indian Ocean in World History Felipe Fernandez-Armesto The pleasure and pride I take in being here arc almost equalled by my surprise. I say this not as a mere captatio benevolentiae, about myself in particular, but because it is genuinely surprising that so many of us are here, commemorating a voyage which might too easily be dismissed as a minor escapade, of dubious morality, by marginal men. More surprising still is that ours is only the first of a series of commemorative eventsincluding at least four more conferences that I know of-to be held around the world over the next couple of years. The Columbus quincentennial demonstrated the _hazards of academic commemorations of the politically incorrect. I should not expect anyone here today to be deterred by that, but I should expect all of us to respect and even reflect the major findings of current research; and the whole, trend of relevant scholarship since van Leur 1 and even since Lybyer2at least since the Second World War, that is, and in some respects since the First-has been to diminish the significance commonly attributed to V asco's voyage. Of course, the voyage remains of interest for reasons easily identified with today's anxieties: it was a stage in the globalization of trade; it was an occasion of unprecedented cultural encounters and it opened a new route of exchange of influences between the extremities of Eurasia. All these considerations have plenty of contemporary resonance. The reasons traditionally said to make Vasco's exploit memorable, however, have vanished under scholarly scrutiny. Western imperialism in the Indian Ocean in V asco's wake is now seen as a feeble affair and the 'Vasco da Gama era' is regarded as not much different, in that part of the world, from the period which preceded it. Indigenous empires and trading states remained dominant and largely intact, with European sovereignty confined-at least until well into the seventeenth century-to spots

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which hardly modified the overall pictwe and outside which colonization was a 'shadow' presence 'improvized' at private initiative.3 Even in the eighteenth century the 'equality of civilizations' was little compromised by Western intrusions into Asia." The European merchants who penetrated the ocean in the meantime by way of the Cape of Good Hope arc now seen as similar in character to their ancient and medieval predecessors, who usually came by way of the Nile and the Red Sca: 5 they fitted into the existing framework of trade, served regional markets and suppliers and caused, at worst, local and temporary disruptions. 6 Only in the seventeenth century did the situation change radically, because the Dutch East India Company pioneered a new, fast route across the ocean, enforced monopolies of key products and, late in the century, moved directly. to selective control of production as well as of trade routcs; 7 but to ascribe this revolution to V asco da Gama seems impertinent. Finally, the belief that the Cape Route wrenched east-west trade out of its historic pattern by diverting commerce from the traditional Eurasian routes has long been exposed as mythical. The volume of trade along traditional routes continued to grow, together with that of the new route, virtually throughout the sixteenth century, as world demand and supply expanded in the key products: pepper and exotic spices. 8 Traditional trade was not seriously warped out of any of its time-honoured channels until well into the seventeenth century. It is now generally thought that the first casualty of the new era-the inter-continental caravan routes of central Asia- suffered not so much from Portuguese competition as from political turmoil of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deep in the interior of Asia. 9 Seventeenth century crises in the spice trade generally are blamed on the Dutch, for whose depredations V asco can be assigned, at most, a rather remote and indirect rcsponsibility. 10 Nor is Vasco properly honoured because of his prowess as an explorer. It is easy to express the well-known facts of the voyage in a way that traduces the commander. His famous track, far into the South Atlantic, deserves to be commended as an open-sea excursion of unprecedented duration for a European navigator. But it was a demonstration of audacity rather than ability. Vasco can be presumed to have made the detour in order to find winds that would carry him beyond the Cape of Good Hope. Instead, he mis:ook his latitude, made his easting too early and fetched up on the wrong coast ofAfrica. He had then to confront adverse currents, which drove him back and almost defeated him. Though he arrived in the Indian Ocean by a new route-never, as far as we know, sailed before-he crossed it along a shipping lane known for centuries,

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relying on a local guide. When he got to India, he prejudiced the future of European missions and commerce in the region by mistaking Hindw for Christians and offending his hosts so severely that, by report, 'the entire land wished him ill'. On his way back, he recklessly defied local knowledge and risked the outcome of the adventure by trying to depart for the West in Augwt, against prevailing storms. Over the whole course of the expedition, the strain on his men's endurance was such that over half were lost; at one point the ships were reduced to active crews of only seven or eight men and one ship had to be abandoned, in January 1499, near Mombasa for want of survivors to sail it. Nor is Vasco an inviting character to study for his own sake. Materials from his hand are trivial bwiness-letters in unrevealing officialese. Even in his grandew, when he became admiral, count and viceroy, he remained silent and almost unsung. Biographers have therefore tended to fall back on legend: a golden legend of a trail-blazer among lesser breeds and a black legend of a ruthless, leech-like imperialist. In reality, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam's recent work reveals him, he was neither hero nor villain but an irascible provincial with no stomach for the court; a hobereau catapulted into unaccustomed magnificence; a fall guy made good, entrusted with responsibility for the voyage by acquiescence of a faction who hoped he would fail; a xenophobe improbably transplanted to the tropics; a frwtrated adept of the Renaissance cult of fame, trying to enhance commerce by bloodshed. 11 In any case, by no means was Vasco's voyage necessarily the most important in the history of the Indian Ocean. If we think of the great unknown genius or adventurer who first opened communications across the Arabian Sea between the civilizations of Sumer and the Indus; or the anonymow pioneers of direct sailings between Arabia and the China Seas; or those responsible for the transmission of the Chinese artefacts unearthed by archaeology in Axum or Tanzania; or the entrepreneur who first took pilgrims by sea to ~ecca; or the Waq-waq navigators who crossed the ocean with the south-east trades; or the explorers of the route via the Maldive Islands which enabled commercial voyages to go from China to the Persian Gulf and back within nine months; or of the last voyage of Zheng He, which marked the end of potential Chinese oceanic imperialism; or of the early seventeenth-century Dutch discovery of an unprecedented route from the Cape to the Spice Islands across the path of the trade winds; or of the pioneering steamship journeys which broke or at least curtailed the tyranny of the winds: we have to acknowledge that there are lots of contenders for the accolade of the

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voyage that did most to re-shape the history of the ocean, some of them rather better qualified than Vasco's. Curiously, perhaps, Vasco's real importance might be thought to lie outside the Indian Ocean. The voyage of 1497-9 had a transforming impact on the history of the Atlantic. For it linked that primiti\·e arena of exchange, which was only just beginning to experience the effects of trans-oceanic navigation, with by far the world's richest and oldest zone of long-range maritime trade. In the eyes of their hosts, the Portuguese were barbarians from the margins of the world, whose mean gifts and trivial truck stamped them as contemptible. For shore-dwellers of the Atlantic, on the other hand, new contacts with the Indian O cean promised transmutative riches. Moreover, by revealing the nature of the windsystem of the South Atlantic, Vasco's voyage created the possibility of maritime links between Europe, Africa and much of South America, which otherwise would have remained inaccessible. For Portugal, for western Europe, for Brazil an~ neighbouring regions and for parts of western and southern Africa, it had reshaping and enduring consequences greater than those which befell most of the Indian Ocean. It was part of the wider Atlantic breakthrough of the 1490s: a breakthrough which justifies its reputation as one of the great defining moments in the history of the world. 12 Mention of the Atlantic brings me to che broader context of che events we are commemorating and co the subject on ,vhich I should like to focus: comparative study of the history of seas. 13 When sailing conditions in the Indian Ocean are compared with those elsewhere, the extraordinary role of the ocean in world history becomes intelligible. This is where long-range navigatio11 was probably born. Myth credited Buddha with feats of pilotage. In the fifth century AD, Prince Manohara was said to have mapped his voyage from India to the legendary mountain of Srikunja, eight hundred years before surviving sea charts appeared in the West. 14 The legendary Persian shipbuilder Jamshid was said to have crossed 'the waters and pass[ ed] from region to region with celerity' . 15 These legends reflect a reality: the precocity of long voyages and of exchanges of culture over a vast range in this part of the world. In remote antiquity, seafarers opened routes that interlocked to cover the full breadth of the ocean. The Harappan and Sumerian civilizations were in touch by sea in the second millennium before the Christian era, albeit presumably by coastbound routes. 16 The ports of western India and of almost the whole length of the East African coast were part of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, probably towards the middle of the first century AD 17 Pliny thought he knew the length of a v~yage from

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Aden to India. 18 From the fifth century AD there is copious evidence of voyages between China and the Persian Gulf, as well as of a great deal of emporium trade, over an even longer period, linking the routes in between. 19 No other sea-lanes of comparable length saw so much activity so early. Other oceans played for most of the time a subdued role in world history. Except for the Icelandic link with Markland, which was kept up sporadically from the eleventh century to the fourteenth, or the connexion between Scandinavia and the Norse colony in Greenland, which survived precariously from the late ninth century until the fifteenth, 20 there was no commercially viable transatlantic route before Columbus' discovery. Strictly speaking, there was none until 1493, for it was in that year that Columbus established the best routes back and forth across the central Atlantic. The vastness of the Pacific took even longer to conquer. Traditional Polynesian navigators were among the most adept in the world but, sailing always with the wind in their explorations, with only very rudimentary technology for the stowage of food and fresh water, they were limited to distances which they could attain and unable to maintain contact with their remotest outposts in New Zealand, Easter Island and the Hawaiian Islands.21 Even those willing to make the presumption that ancient Chinese and Japanese navigators may have reached the western coast ofAmerica do not normally suppose that any regular crossings ensued. As far as we know, no one crossed the Pacific in both directions until Fray Andres de Urdaneta's expedition of 1564-5. 2 2 Until the sixteenth century, therefore, the Atlantic and Pacific were obstacles co communication, keeping peoples apart, whereas the Indian Ocean was already a centuries-old system of highways, linking most of the cultures which lined its shores. The volume and reach of its trade exceeded those of other oceans until the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, across its breadth, some of the great world-shaping exchanges of history have taken place: transmissions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam to Southeast Asia; the shipping of pilgrims to Mecca on journeys which made them vectors of cultural change; the transformation of the ocean, in what we think of as the Middle Ages, into a sort of Islamic lake; the long, culturally influential seaborne trade of East Asia with Africa and the Near and Middle East and, in part, the . transfer of Chinese technology to the West, especially in the Sung period.23 Along Indian Ocean routes, influential imperial experiments have been fed. On them depended, for instance, the inland trading empires of East Africa, such as M wene Mutapa and Ethiopia in successive

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phases, the maritime states of India, Southeast Asia, Arabia and the Gulf, and the business imperialism and colonization that flowed from medieval and early modern Fukien into Southeast Asia. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Indian Ocean remained a major theatre of new initiatives in world history as a laboratory of Westerners' experiments in 'ecological imperialism'. 24 When waterways can be exploited as avenues of communication they often generate this sort of cultural ferment and exchange; but no such effect occurred anywhere else on this scale until the opening up of the Pacific and the Atlantic. Although small by the standards of these latecomers, the Indian Ocean was much bigger than other early maritime highway-systems, such as the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Caribbean, the Bight of Benin and the coastal waters of Atlantic Europe and Pacific Japan. From the point of view of world history, distance matters. The wider a source of influence reaches, the more nearly global the results. · The reason for the long seafaring, sea-daring tradition of the Indian Ocean lies in the regularity of the monsoonal wind-system. Above the equator, north-easterlies prevail in winter. For most of the rest of the year, the winds blow steadily from the south and west. By timing voyages to rake advantage of the monsoon, navigators could set sail, confident of a fair wind out and a fair wind home. It is a fact not often appreciated that, overwhelmingly; the history of maritime exploration has been made by voyagers who headed into the wind: presumably because it was at least as important to get home as to get to anywhere new. Spectacular exceptions, like Columbus' crossing of the Atlantic or the early Spanish trans-Pacific navigations, registered extraordinary achievements precisely because their protagonists had the boldness to sail with the wind at their backs. Conditions in the Indian Ocean liberated navigators from any such constraints. One must try to imagine what it would be like, feeling the wind, year after year, alternately in one's face and at one's back, and gradually coming to realize that a venture with an outward wind will not necessarily deprive one of the means of returning home. The predictability of a homeward wind made the Indian Ocean the most benign environment in the world for long-range voyaging. The sailors who actually experien~ed this environment did not, of course, always express appreciation of their luck. All seafarers are alert to the dangers and difficulties of their own seas and the indigenous literature of the ocean is full of scare-stories, calculated to inhibit competitors or instil divine fear. To story-tellers, seas are irresistible moral environments where storms are shafts from the quivers of meddlesome deities; most cultures regard freak wirids as phenomena peculiarly

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manipulable by God or the gods. Those wed to the Indian Ocean in the age of sail shared, along with these traditions, a heightened perception of its obstacles. To judge from first-hand accounts, one would have to classify every marine environment as hostile to man. 25 To appreciate the relative benignity of some seas over others, a comparative approach is essential. There was poetic truth in the old maps that showed the Indian Ocean landlocked, for it was a hard sea to get out of. The lost but much-cited sailing directions known as the Rahnama, which go back at least until the twelfth century, warned of the 'circumambient sea, whence all return was impossible' and where Alexander was said ro have set up 'a magical image, with its hand upraised as a warning: "This is the ne plus ultra of navigation, and of what lies beyond in the sea no man has knowledge'". 26 Hard ro get out of, the ocean was correspondingly hard to get into. Access from the east was barely possible in summer, when typhoons tore into lee shores. Until the sixteenth century, the vast, empty expanse of the neighbouring Pacific preserved rhe ocean against approaches from beyond the China Seas. Shipping from rhe west could enter only by way of an arduous detour through the south Arlanric and around Africa, while stores wasted and fresh water spoiled. The southern approaches, which then had to be crossed, were guarded in summer by fierce storms: no one who knew the reputation of these waters would venture between about ten and thirty degrees south or sixty and ninety degrees east without urgent reason in the season of hurricanes. The lee shores towards the rip ofAfrica were greedy for wreckage at the best of times. From al-Masudi 27 in the tenth century to Duane Barbosa28 in rhe sixteenth, writers of guides to the ocean noted that the practical limit of navigation was ro the north of the bone-strewn coasts of Natal and Transkei, where survivors of Portuguese ships wrote The Tragic History ofthe Sea.29 For most of history, the ocean therefore remained chiefly the preserve of people whose homes bordered it or who travelled overland-like some European and Armenian traders-to become part of its world. Even within this fairly tight circle of exchange, sailing could be hazardous. The ocean system allowed an apparently generous sailing season: from April to June for an eastbound ship, with the south-west monsoon, after which, following an interval during the months of strongest winds, westbound sailing could be taken up with the north-east monsoon. How- . ever, to get the greatest benefit from the system-to go farthest and get back fastest with new trade goods or profits-it was necessary to sail in one direction with the tail-end of the monsoon, in order to reduce the turn-around time: the rime, that is, a laden ship spent waiting for the Digitized by

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new season and the change of wind. Particularly on the eastward run, the late monsoon had the most dreadful reputation among sailors. It was vividly captured by a fifteenth-century ambassador from Persia to the court of Vijayanagar. He was detained at Hormuz. so that the favourable time for departing by sea, that is to say the beginning or middle of the monsoon, was allowed to pass, and we came to the end of the monsoon, which is the season when tempests and attacks from pirates arc to be dreaded...As soon as I caught the smdl of the vessel, and all the terrors of the sea presented themselves before me, I fell into so deep a swoon, that for three days respiration alone indicated that life remained within me. When I came a little to myself, the merchants, who were my intimate friends, cried with one voice that the time for navigation was passed, and that everyone who put to sea at this season was alone responsible for his death. 30 The choice of this most dangerous sailing time was also imposed on shipping that began its journey far up the Red Sea: to benefit from the northerlies that would help them out of that notoriously difficult bottleneck, they had to leave in July, making their open-sea crossing of the Arabian Sea in August. The ordeal bore one advantage: with the wind at its fiercest, the journey to India, if not fatal, would be over in as little as eighteen or twenty days. 31 Once a ship was afloat on the ocean, the well-frequented routes across two great gulfs- the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea-\vere racked by storms throughout the year. These are the seas ofSinbad, wl1ere fortunes changed with the wind and, according to a mid-twelfth century text, the crews of junks could not endure without strong drink.32 Here cycles of wreck and rescue were stretched out in stories as tall as a mast. My favourite such story is told by Buzurg ibn Shahriyar in the midtenth century text, The Book ofthe Wonders ofIndia. It concerns Abhara, a native ofKirman who, after careers as a shepherd and a mariner, became the most renowned sea-captain of his day. He made the journey to China and back seven times. To do so once in safety was considered a miracle; to do it twice incredible. According to the author, no one had ever \ completed the journey except by accident: it was an exaggeration, but representative of the renown Abhara attracted. On the occasion I am thinking of, he was discovered by an Arab crew, captained by the author's father, bound from Siraf for China in the Sea of Tonkin. The famous sailor was alone, afloat in a ship's boat with a skinful of water, in a flat calm. Thinking to recue him, the crew of the newly arrived ship invited him aboard. But he refused to join, except as captain with full authority and a salary of a thousand dinars, payable in merchandise at their destination at the market rate. Astounded, they begged him to save himself

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by joining them but he replied, 'Yow situation is worse than mine'. His reputation began to tell. · 'We said, "The ship has much merchandise and considerable wealth on board and very many people. It will do us no harm to have Abhara's advice for 1000 dinars."' So they made the bargain. Declaring, 'We have no time to waste', Abhara made them discard all their heavy merchandise, jettison the mainmast and cut the anchor cables to lighten the ship. After three days 'a large cloud like a minaret' appeared-the classic sign of a typhoon. Not only did they survive its onslaught, but Abhara got them profitably to China and, on the way back, was able to steer them to the exact place where some of their lost anchors could be retrieved, cast ashore on barely visible rocks, where, but for his intervention, the ship itself would surely have come to grief. 33 At one level, the tale reveals how the ocean seemed to those who sailed it: a sea of dramatic peripeteia, where only long practical experience, purchased at the risk of one's life, could overcome peril. At another level, however, the story of Abhara shows, I believe, what a privileged place for navigators the Indian Ocean was. This can be appreciated, in the spirit of a comparative study, by way of a text about one ofAbhara's Japanese contemporaries. I do not mean the well-known Tale ofthe Hollow Tree, which describes a journey, allegedly borne on a freak wind, from Japan to Persia-interesting though that is. I have in mind a story about another sea-a sea without name, although it has an obvious unity of its own: the system of bays and channels between islands that washes the Pacific shore ofJapan from Tokyo Bay to Kyushu. Around these waters the vast majority of Japanese have always huddled for their livelihood, crammed into a narrow arc of their country between the mountains and the shore. Though not, always classified as such, they are genuinely a maritime people, who throughout their history have depended on capricious, unpredictably hostile seas for communications and for a vital part of their diet. According to legend, Prince Firefade made a bargain with the sea, who gave him fish-hooks and riches; but he still feared her and in his dreams she twned into a coiling serpent.34 The document of 936 is famous among students ofJapanese literature but neglected by maritime historians. In diary form, it tells the story of a journey by sea from Kochi prefecture in southern Shikoku to the Bay of Osaka. On the map the distance seems short but in the context of the Japanese empire of the day it was crossing from a far frontier-a link between the capital and a remote island-outpost. The author is identified as the wife of the returning governor of the province. 'Diaries are things written by men, I_am told', she says. 'N~vertheless I am writing one, to

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sec what a woman can do'. The author's self-description has often been questioned on the grounds that the work cannot really be by a woman; yet women were among some of the most distinguished Japanese writers of a couple of generations later and the T osa Diary has the ring of truth. The excitement of being caught up in a fine piece of writing can blind a reader to the difference between literal narration and literary artificebut even the embellishments in this work convincingly reflect genuine experience of Japan's home waters, though one may suspect that not all the incidents can have happened quite as recounted. The pages of the diary arc full of the fear of the sea. At the journey's beginning, amid farewells that 'lasted all day and into the night', the travellers prayed 'for a calm and peaceful crossing' and performed rites of propitiation, tossing charms and rich gifts into the water. After seven days' sailing, they were delayed by adverse winds at Ominato, where they waited for nine days, composing poems and yearning decorously for the capital. On the next leg, they rowed ominously out of the comforting sight of the shore, 'further and further out to sea. At every stroke, the watchers slip into the distance.' As fear mounts and the mountains and sea grow dark, the pilot and boatmen sing to rouse their spirits. At Muroco, bad weather brings another five days' delay. When at lase they sec out with 'oars piercing the moon' a sudden dark cloud alarms che pilot. 'It will blow: I'm turning back.' A dramatic doublereversal of mood follows: a day dawns brightly and 'the master anxiously scans the seas. Pirates? T error!. ..All of us have grown white-haired. Tell us, Lord of the Islands, which is whiter-the surf on the rocks or the snow on our heads?' The pirates are eluded by a variety of techniques: prayers are intoned 'to gods and buddhas'; more paper charms are cast overboard in the direction of danger, while 'as the offerings drift', runs the prayer, 'vouchsafe the vessel may speed'. Finally the crew resort to rowing by nightan expedient so dangerous that only a much greater danger can have driven them to it. They skim the dreaded whirlpool of Awa off Naruto with more prayers. A few days into the third month of the journey they are prevented from making headway by a persistent wind. 'There is something on board the god of Sumiyoshi wants', the pilot murmurs darkly. They cry paper charms without success; then the master's precious mirror is sacrificed to the waves and the journey resumes. Osaka is reached the following day. 'There are many things which we cannot forget, and which give us pain', concludes the writer, 'but I cannot write them all down'. 35

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The journal form makes it possible to be precise about the length of the voyage as described. It began on the twenty-second day of the twelfth moon and ended on the sixth day of the third moon of the ·new year. For a journey which cannot much have exceeded 400 miles, the expedition therefore appears co have spent sixty-nine days at sea or in intermediate harbours waiting for a favourable wind. There are all sorts of reasons why this may have been an exceptionally slow journey. The rank of the passengers may have enjoined a stately pace. Reluctance to travel at night may have been greater, in this company, than normal. The presumably large galley may have been compelled to keep inshore, so as to have access to supplies and fresh water, at the sacrifice of open-sea shortcuts. But even if taken as a maximum duration, sixty-nine days seems dauntingly long. Alternatively, the diarist may have stretched the time-scale for dramatic reasons, to distribute incidents most effectively through the narrative. Even so, the order of magnitude must have been reasonable or the realistic impact of the work would be lost. In the time it took the T osa lady to get from southern Shikoku to Osaka, Abhara, setting sail from Palembang or Aceh in Sumatra in about the same period, could have crossed the entire breadth of the Indian Ocean as far as Ohofar or Aden with the north-east monsoon; even starting on the Fukien coast of China would have only added another forty days to his voyage·i6 or even a month or, in exceptionally favourable conditions, twenty days by some computations. 37 The return voyage always took longer. Partly this was because ships from the Persian Gulf would normally drop south to the latitude of Socotra before turning east in order to avoid the worst concentration of storms. Nor could those attempting to reach China in a single season rely on such favourable winds for a northward crossing of the China Seas as they might have enjoyed on their way out from Fukien. Fifty or sixty days had to be allowed between Sumatra and China.38 Only by the standards of the outward journey would this seem a vexatious delay. And in any case, over most of the voyage, when direct transoceanic traffic would be keeping roughly to a single latitude, the sailing time would be gratifyingly short. Abdu'r-Razzaq b. Ishaq, the timorous Persian ambassador already referred to, reached Calicut in only eighteen days once he had got to the Arabian coast. The favourable nature of the Indian Ocean as an environment for navigators is illustrated by the astonishingly rapid runs attainable within the monsoonal system. When one contemplates, by comparison, the difficulty of communicating between Shikoku and the capital, one can appreciate why Japanese imperialism never got far beyond its home islands until the steamship age.

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In case the Japanese example seems unrepresentative, it may be wise to try a comparison with the Mediterranean, a relatively docile, tideless sea with a reputation so placid that even Romans, who generally hated seafaring, called it aequor. The problems and dangers it posed were well known to the psalmist, where 'deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts and all thy waves and billows are gone over me'. Most early stories of the Mediterranean tell ofstorms and shipwrecks or safety encountered by surprise. W enamun, author of the earliest shipboard 'journal' I know of, was inordinately proud of accomplishing his modest voyage from Egypt to Biblos in the late eleventh century before Christ: storms thunder through his account of his mission to buy wood from Lebanon for the great ship of Amun. 39 The sea's unfriendly reputation was fully established by the time of the earliest known text to include practical directions for seafarers: The Works and Days ofHesiod. This extraordinary poem takes the form of an implied dialogue between Hesiod, sweating at the plough, and his wastrel brother, Perses, who lounges around, looking on and asking tiresome questions about how to get rich quick. 'Work, that hunger may abhor thee', is Hesiod's advice. 'Get a house first and a woman and a ploughing ox.' Perses, however, was determined to follow the example of their father, who had tried to escape 'from evil penury, which Zeus giveth unto men' by trading in a 'black ship'. The father's speculations were hardly encouraging, leading the family to 'debts and joyless hunger' in a corner of Boeotia 'bad in winter, hard in summer'. Nor did Hesiod feel qualified to give advice. He had only been to sea once, to take part in a poetry contest; but he called on his poet's privilege of communication with the gods and counselled his brother with all the authority of oracular utterance. He laid great stress on the shortness of the sailing season, limited-in his perhaps too conservative estimation:-to the brief spring spell and the fifty days immediately following the harvest. Even during these days of safety, ships would be at the mercy of unpredictable urges to destruction by Zeus or Poseidon.

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And with all speed make haste to return home again. Neither await the new wine and autumn rain and winter's onset and the dread blasts ... for money is the life of hapless men but dread is death amid the waves.

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The sequence ends with a characteristically Greek plea for moderation in all things. 'Neither set thou all thy livelihood in hollow ships but leave the greater part, and put on board the less.'"° The effect of a short sailing season was to limit the range of journeys that could be accomplished within a year. The nature of the wind sy~tem

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imposed, moreover, a grindingly long passage for most voyages from east to west. 41 The most detailed sources ori the duration of voyages date from the high and late middle ages, when sailing times were, if anything, probably shoner than in antiquity because of the development of sail-power and the adoption of time-saving open-sea routes between major destinations. But slow times were unavoidable: characteristic of the oar {which imposed coastwise routes with plenty of halts for water and supplies) and commonplace for sail, which on most west-bound and north-bound trips had to be managed against the prevailing winds. 42 Sixty days-the time required to traverse the Indian Ocean-were demanded for the return voyage of Bernard the Wise from J affa to near Rome in 867. IbnJubayr on a Genoese ship spent fifty-one days getting to Messina from Acre. St Louis' fleet on the Sixth Crusade took ten weeks to get back to Hyeres from Acre. 43 In 1395 a voyage from Jaffa to Venice took over five months. 44 This was exceptional but a journey of about seventy days was normal. Journeys into the western Mediterranean were even more tiresome for ships forced to face the Strait of Messina, where, as Ibn Jubayr said, 'the sea bursts like a dam and boils like a cauldron',45 or brave the pirate-ridden sea to the south of Sicily. In 1396, one ship took only fifty-three days to get from Beirut to Genoa. But this freakishly quick cruise was still wearisome, in relation to the distance involved, by Indian Ocean standarqs. West-east voyages in the • Mediterranean were correspondingly fast; 46 but for seafarers the timing is equally important in both directions. For most of history, the possibility of taking comparisons of this kind further afield would not even arise. There were virtually no uans-Atlantic journeys with which to compare those of the Indian Ocean. Columbus had the luck or skill to discover almost the best possible trans-Atlantic route and he accomplished it in rapid time. Yet this was a deceptive start. Over the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, the average length of a voyage from San Lucar to Vera Cruz was ninetyone clays in convoy. From Cadiz to the same destination took only seventy-five days on average, because there was no sand-bar of the sort which guarded San Lucar, but 101 days.was journey-time within normal limits. The return voyage from Mexico to Andalusia never took less than seventy days and could be much prolonged: the worst case on record was of a journey of 298 days at sea. To the Isthmus of Panama, journey times were not much different for those for New Spain on the outward trip, but the normal range for returning vessels was between 107 and 173 days. 47 ·

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On the face of it, compared with other seas, and with the Atlantic in particular, the Indian Ocean looks far more favourable to long-range navigation and to the imperial and commercial temptations and opportunities that go with it. In the light of these comparisons, the most curious problem of the history of the ocean seems to me to be one of frustration. Why did its long-range trade not extend, like that of the Atlantic, over the world? Why did its empires of long reach not. stretch, like those of Atlantic-seaboard peoples, into other oceans? Why did the relatively callow and inhibited empires and commercial systems of the Atlantic come to exceed those of the Indian Ocean in so many key dimensions? The problem is thrown into sharper relief when one considers two commonly unnoticed facts of Atlantic history. First, all the Atlanticside states of Europe became the 'mother countries' of overseas empires: the only possible exceptions are Iceland, Ireland and Norway; but these were countries which did not achieve statehood themselves until the twentieth century. The Irish, moreover, were major participants in the British empire of which they were also, at another level, victims, and the Norwegians today, with a certain Schadenfreude, are re-discovering the complicity of their fellow-countrymen in Danish and Swedish imperial ventures. Secondly, no European country beyond the Atlantic fringe had an overseas empire, with only three exceptions of limited significance: those of Russia, which reached out, across the Pacific, towards a short-lived American empire and unrealized fantasies about the acquisition of Antarctica; Italy, which had a modest lace-nineteenth and early-twentieth century empire in parts ofAfrica and the Dodecanese, approached across the Mediterranean and, in part, through the Suez Canal; and Courland, whose visionary mid-seventeenth century Duke Jacob bought the island of Tobago and founded forts in the Gambia in an effort to create a sugar-empire of the sort that enriched so many states further west. But the experiment did not outlive the Swedish invasion of 1658 and the subsequent death of the duke:'8 Most known explanations of the world-wide spread of western European influence fail to take account of the apparently essential part played by an Atlantic-side position. The traditional approach is to identify supposed elements of superiority in the society, economy, technology or, in general terms, the culture of western Europe as a whole. Wouldbe explainers assert, for example, the technical superiority of Western methods of navigation, warfare and economic exploitation. But the first and one of the greatest of all these far-flung empires, that of Spain, was constructed without any of the industrial technology in which, ultimately and briefly, western Europeans came to be privileged. Enquirers appeal

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t() socio-cultural explanations in the tradition of Weber, asserting differences in value-systems which made some people more prone to commerce and empire than others; there may be something in this line, of enquiry and I happily admit to having pursued it myself. 49 But ther~ is clearly something wrong, for instance, in an appeal to 'Confucian values' when it is used to explain phenomena as diverse and mutually exclusive as the frustration of Chinese maritime imperialism in the fifteenth century, the recovery of Chinese trade in the eighteenth and the explosion of business imperialism in the tiger economies of the twentieth century. Nor is it enough to say that the sea was a source of derogation in the east-a Confucian sub-value, a pollutant of castewhereas it was an ennobling medium for self-consciously chivalric adventurers in the Western tradition; for there were many exceptions to this general truth. 50 It is often said that Asian polities were generally hostile to commerce: this is an unconvincing generalization when applied to such a vast and diverse world, which included states which were in effect commercial enterprises. It might be thought that Indian Ocean traders were satiated with che opportunities to hand and that their shipping was fully absorbed by the demands of intra-oceanic commerce. While there may be something in this, to ignore genuine opportunities for further self-enrichment seems incompatible with a commercial vocation. Conversely, in a view I have long defended, 51 the precocity of western European explorers and conquistadores has been seen as a response to relative poverty, like the desperate efforts of 'emerging nations' today to drill for offshore resources. I do not mean to dismiss any of these variously useful explanations, or others of similar type-merely to suggest what I believe everyone working in this field suspects: that they are not sufficient. We have to acknowledge chat the Atlantic is a peculiar ocean and that an Atlanticside position, especially in western Europe, confers advantages unattained elsewhere. Whereas the Indian Ocean is a sea where navigators look inward, to within the monsoonal system and the sea-lanes between the storm-belts, the trade winds of the Atlantic reach out to the rest of the world. The route discovered by Columbus linked the densely populated middle band of Eurasia, which stretches from the eastern edge of the landmass co the shores of the Atlantic, with the environs of the great civilizations of the New World which lay, just beyond his reach, on the other side of the ocean. Along the route pioneered by Vasco da Gama, Atlantic winds drew ships south to the latitudes of the roaring forties, which led on to the Indian Ocean and circled the world. The frustration of the Indian Ocean, and the fulfilment of global ambitions in the

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Atlantic have to be explained in part with reference to the inescapable facts of geographical determinism: the tyranny of the winds. It took a long time for navigators to crack the Atlantic wind-code but once the task was accomplished the winds drew them on towards other oceans and other cultures. Now Atlantic supremacy is coming to an end in its turn, ceding to the Pacific the role of the ,vorld's greatest highway, a role which once belonged to the Indian Ocean. If the gathering pace of change is anything to go by, Pacific pre-eminence will also be short-lived. By comparison with the long period in which world history was shaped by traffic on the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and Pacific alike seem upstar_t-oceans, with only brief spells of global importance to their credit. For those who are working hard today co foster a sense of community of interests or sensibilities among the peoples who live by the Indian Ocean or in maritime Asia, there is no need to repine even if they feel that at present_ Atlantic-talk and Pacific-talk are louder than Ocean-talk. When those creatures of my imagination, the Galactic Museum-keepers, look back on our world from their terrible distance of time and space, they will see-,vith the objectivity which can be enjoyed only near the edge of the universe and the end of time-for how long and how thoroughl}' the Indian Ocean acted as a major avenue for the transmission• and transfusion of cul cure; and they will acknowledge it, despite the frustrations of its recent history, as the world's most influential ocean.

Notes , 1

J.C. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and So,·iety: Essays in .AJian Social and Economic History, The Hague, 1955, p .122. The seminal essay, 'On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History', first published in Dutch in 1940, appears in the same volume, pp. 268- 89; its influence is well summarized by A. Disney's 'Introductory Essay', in Disney (ed.) , Historiography ofEuropeans in Africa and Asia, 1450-1800, Aldershot and Brookfield, Vt, 1995, pp. xiii- xxix, especially pp. xiii- xvi. See also R. Raben, 'The Broad Waft and Fragile Warp: Conference on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian H istory', frinerario, vol. 18, 1994, pp. 10- 18. 2 A.H . Lybyer, 'The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of Oriental Trade', English Historical Review, vol. 30, 1915, pp. 577- 88. 3 G. W inius, 'The Shado,v Empire of Goa in the Bay of Bengal', ltinerario, vol. 7, 1983, pp. 83-10 I; S. Subrahmanyam, l,nprovising Empire: Portuguese Trade nnd Settlen1ent in the Bay ofBengal, 1500-1700, Delhi, 1990. ~ P. Marshall, ' Retrospect on J.C. van Leur's Essay on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History', ftinerario, vol. 17. 1993, pp. 45-58. 5 R.S. Lopez, 'European Merchants in the Medieval Indies: The Evidence of Commercial Documents', Journal of Economic History, vol. 3, 1943, pp. 164-84. On the Nile route see 0 .G.S. Cra,vford (ed.), Ethiopian Itineraries, ,·. 1400-1524, Cambridge, 1958.

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6

L.F.F.R. Thomaz, 'The Portuguese in the Seas of the Archipcl during the Sixtccnrh Century', in TraM and .'>hipping in tht Southtrn Seas: Stkcttd Rtadings fron, Archiptl, vol. 18, 1979, Paris, 1984, pp. 75-92; S. Subrahmanyam and L.F.F.R. Thomaz, 'Evolution of Empire: the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean during the Sixteenth Century', in J .D . Tracy (ed.), Tht Political Economy ofMtrchant Empirn, Cambridge, 1991 , pp. 298-331 ; K. McPherson, 'ChuJias and Klings: Indigenous Trade Diasporas and European Penetration of the Indian Ocean Littoral', in G . Borsa (ed.), TraM and Politi,, in the Indian Octan: Historical and Contemporary Ptrsptctivts, New Delhi, 1990, pp. 33- 46. 7 L. Blus~, 'The Run to the Coast: Comparative Notes on Early Durch and English Expansion and State Formation in Asia', ltintrario, vol. 12, 1988, pp. 195-214; A. Reid, Southtast Asia in tht Agt ofCommtrct, 2 vols, 1988-93, vol. 2, especially pp. 278303; A Disney, Twilight oftht Ptpptr Empirt: Portugunt TraM in Southwnt India in tht Early St11tntte111h-ctntu1y, Cambridge, Mass, 1978. ~Seethe admirable summary in M.N. Pearson (ed.), Spices in tht Indian Octan World. Aldershot and Brookfield, Ve, 1996, pp. xxvii- xxxi. 9 M . Rossabi, 'The "Decline" of the Cenrral Asian Caravan T radc' in J.D . Tracy (ed.),

Tht Rist ofMtrchant Empirts: Long-range Tra~ in the Early Modtrn World, 1350-1750, Cambridge, J990, pp. 351-70. 10

Note should be taken, however, of the re-introduction into the picture of some effects of Portuguese activity by 0 . Prakash, 'Asian Trade and European Impact: A Study of the Trade from Bengal, 1630-1720', in B.B. Kling and ?vl.N. Pearson, Tht Agt of Partntrship: Europeans in Asia before Dominion, Honolulu, 1979, pp. 43-70. 11 S. Subrahmanyam, The Carter nnd_Legend of Vasco da Gan1n, Cambridge, 1997, especially pp. 64 , 66-7, 224-6, 278- 9, 320. 11 F. Fernandez-Armesto, 'O mundo dos 1490', in D. Curto (ed.), O·Tempo de Vnsco da Ganin, Lisbon, I 998. 13 In what follows I use the term ' Indian Ocean ' in a specialized sense. O ceans do not really exist. They arc geographers' ways of classifying volumes of,vatcr. With landlubbers' logic, their limits arc usually defined with reference to land. They are separated by continents or rimmed bv . islands. Yet ,vhat counts in maritime historv' arc not oceans or seas as conventionally understood but wind-systems. It is winds and currents that unify bodies of water, not the land masses or islands round about. The single most important distinction is bet\veen monsoonal systems on the one hand and those with year-long prevailing ,vinds on the other. When I speak without qualification of the Indian Ocean, I therefore refer primarily to the monsoonal seas of Asia, including \\'hat in con,·entional terms would be called the northern Indian Ocean, above the latitudes of rhe south-east trades, together with the monsoonal waters of what is usually defined as the north-west Pacific. In practice, I select much the same area as the 'maritime Asia' ,vhich has become an i1nportant area of scholarly specilization in recent years. I do so, however, not out of what is now called 'oriencalism', or because I am unable to distinguish all the particularities of place which enliven this vast area, but for sound practical reasons arising from the real nature of the environment. •~F. Fernandez-Armesto (ed.), The Times Atlas of World Exploration, London, I 99 1, pp. 28- 9. is H. Hasan, A History ofPtrsian Navigation, London, 1928, p. l . 16 S. Ratnagar, Encounters: the Westerly Track of the Harappa Civilization, Delhi, 1981 . 17 L. Casson, Tht Ptrip/w Maris Erythraei, Princecon, 1989, pp. 7, 21-7, 34-5, 5861, 69, 74-89; G.\X'.B. Huntingford (ed.), Tht Ptrip/us ofthe Erythratan Sea, London, 1980, pp. 8-12, 81 - 6, 106-.20.

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Vasco da Gama and tht Linking ofEurope and Asia 11

Pliny, Natural History, VI, xxvi, p. 104. 19 There arc good, if somewhat conflicting, summaries of the evidence in 0.W. Wolters, &rly lndonesiun Co1111nerce: A Study of the Origins ofSrivijaya, Ithaca and Ne,v York, 1967, pp. 32-48, and M. Tampoe, Maritime Trade Bet111een China and the West: An

Archaeological Study of the Ceramics from Siraf, Pmian Gulf, 8th to l 5th centuries AD, London, 1986, p. 119. For even earlier Chinese navigation to India, perhaps of the midfirst millennium AC, see J. Needham et al. Scie,u·e and Civilisation in China. Cambridge, 1956-in progress, vol. iv, pare 111, 1971, pp. 442-4. Sec also K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Econon1ic Hi.story from the Rise ofIslam to l 750, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 49-53, on che chronology of the development of transoceanic . . navagauon. 2 °K. Seaver, The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration ofNorth America, c. 100-1500, Stanford, 1996. 21 P. Bell"·ood, A-fans Conquest of the Pacific: The Prehistory of Southeast Asia and O,·eania, Ne,v York, 1979, pp. 296-303 and The Polynesians: Pre-history ofan Island People, London, 1978, pp. 39-44; G. lnvin, The Prehistoric Exploration and Cownisation of the l'acific, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 7-9, 43-63; D.L. Oliver, Oceania: The Native Cultures ofAustralia and the Pacific Islands, 2 vols, Honolulu, 1989; v9l. l, pp. 361422. !z O.H.K. Spate, The Spanish Lake, Minneapolis, 1979, pp. 101-6; M. Mitchell, Friar Andris de Urdaneta, O.S.A., London, 1964, pp. 132-9. 2·~ W.H. McNeill. The Pursuit ofPower: Technology, Am1ed Force and Society since AD I 000, Chicago, 1982, pp. 24-62; NtedhJrn et al. Science and C~ivilisation; vol. 4, part l , 1962. pp. 330-2; pare 3, 1971, pp. 651-6; vol. 5, part 7. 1986, pp. 568-79. 4 l R.H. Grove, Green ln1perialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins ofE11viro11,11e11111lis111, l 600-1800, Cain bridge, 1995, pp. 168-263, 374-9, 38693. is cf. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization, p. 15. lG Hasan, Persian Navigation, pp. 129-30. 27 B. de Meynard and P. de Courteille (eds), Les Prairies d'or, 9 vols, Paris, 18611914; vol. 3, 1897, p. 6. ZR M. Lon~vorth Dames (ed.), The Book of Duarte Barbosa, 2 vols, London, 1898; vol.l,p.4. 29 C.R. Boxer (ed.), The Tragic History ofthe Sea, 1589-1622, London, 1959. 0 ·~ 'Narrative of the Journey of Abd-er-Razzak', in R.H. Major (ed.), India in the Fifteenth Century, London, 1857, p. 7. 31 'Narrative of the Journey of Abd-er-Razzak', p. 13; Casson, Periplw Maris Erythraei, p. 289. 32 J. Zang, 'Relations between China and the Arabs',joun1al ofOn1an Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 1983, pp. 91-109. 33 Buzurg ibn Shahriyar of Ramhormouz, The Book of the Wonders of India, G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville (ed.), London, 1981, pp. 49ff. 4 -~ D. Keene, Anthology ofJapanese literature, Ne,v York, 1960, pp. 54-8. 3 ~ Keene, Anthology, pp. 82-91. 3r. Tampoe, Maritime Trade, p. 121; Zang, 'Relations between China and the Arabs', p. 100. 37 van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society, pp. 85-6; J. Takakusu {ed.), 1-tsing: a Record ofthe Buddhist Religion, Oxford, 1896, pp. xxvii-xxx, xlvi. JR Hasan, Persian Navigation, pp. 117-19.

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-" H. Goedicke (ed.), Tht Rtport of Wtnamun, Baltimore, 1975. 411 A.W. Mair (ed.), Works and Days, Oxford, 1908, pp. 11-17, 23-5, 276-306, 392-420, 450-75,613-705. 41 J.H. Pryor, Gtography, Ttchnology and War: Studits in the Mariti111e History ofthe Mtdittrrantan, 649-1571, Cambridge, 1988, pp. 1-3, 23. 42 Pryor, Geography. pp. 89-90, 98. 4 -~ Ibid., p. 36. "" Ibid., p. 51. 45 R.J.C. Broadhurst (ed.). The Travels ofJbn Jubayr, London, I 952, p. 336. 46 Pryor, Geography, pp. 74-5. 47 P. Chaunu, Conqidtt tt exploitation des nouveaux montks (XV!e siecle), Paris, 1969, pp. 277-90; Seville tt l'Atlantiqut (1504-1650) Parr l, vol. 6, Paris, 1956, pp. I 78-89, 312-21. 4 H A.V. Berkis, TheHistoryofthtDu,·hyofCourland, 1561-1765, To,vson l\.fd, 1969, pp. 75-99, 144-57, 191-5. 9

E.g. F. Fernandez-Armesto, 'Inglaterra y el atlanrico en la baja edad media', in CanariaJ e lnglatt"a a travls dt la historia, Las Palmas, 1995; and 'The Sea and Chivalry in Late Medieval Spain', in J.B. Hattcndorf (ed.), Maritime History, 2 vols, l\.1alabar FI, 1996-7: vol. I, pp. 123-36. \o F. Fernandez-Armesto, 'Introductory Essay', in The Global Opportunity, Aldershot and Brookfield Vt, 1995. On merchant values and their relation to aristocratic ethos, as well as on the commercial interests of states (with particular reference to the Ottoman Empire) see S. Subrahmanyam, 'Introductory Essay', in Subrahmanyan1 (ed.), Merchant Networks in the Early Motkrn World, Aldershot and Brookfield, Vt, 1996, pp. xviii- xxi. 1 ' F. Fernandez-Armesto, The Canary Islands after the Gonquest: The Forn1ation ofa Colonial Society in the Early Sixteenth Century, Oxford, 1982. "

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Chapter Two

Travelling with the Fifteenth-century Discoverers: Their Daily Life A.H.H. de Oliveira Marques Duration The sailors of the fifteenth century spent a great deal of time at sea. Small ships of modest sail made poor time, and were at the mercy of winds, fearing those which were either too strong or, all too frequently, absent altogether. In favorable weather a ship could average 12.5 km per hour, but more often than not, progress was measured in slower speeds, especially in unfamiliar waters. It was normal to sail from Oporto to Lisbon, or from Lisbon to the Algarve, in two days. 1 Longer-distance voyages required, of course, more time. Lisbon to the Gibraltar Straits Ceuta, Tangier, Alclcer- Ceguer, Arzila-took some five days, reduced to two or three if putting out from the Algarve.2 With very favorable winds, such a trip could even be made in little more than a day, if embarking from the eastern Algarve.3 On the high seas, the miles far from land mounted up. The island of Porto Santo could be reached in three days and Madeira in five.• The Canaries, relatively nearby, required four days.5 But to make the Azores even the easternmost of the archipelago, 1400 km off Cabo da Rocacalled for a week at sea, or perhaps a bit less.6 Along the African coast, the distances stretched further and further: some ten days to Arguim, a dozen to Cape Verde and Guinc, up to two weeks to the islands of Cape Verde, more than a month to S. Jorge da Mina, a month and a half to S. T omc, at least three months to the Cape of Good Hope (after discovering the best route there), a month and a half to Brazil.7 Aside from these last two destinations, which arc more appropriate to the sixteenth than the fifteenth century, there were, • Digitized by

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nonetheless, many voyages which found the ship at sea for more than a month, especially those bound for the Mina and neighbouring regions.

Diet The demands of providing for crews, which numbered in tens or even hundreds, aboard the tiny and fragil~ ·vessels of the day, were many.8 The most pressing requirement, for certain, was feeding them. Feeding a crew on a long voyage was not something new to the age of the discoveries. Centuries of venturing tQ 'sea as fishermen, merchants and pirates had already taught the Portuguese what co take along as sea scores and how to calculate the rationing of those provisions in accordance with the expected length of time at sea. The new factor introduced by the age of long-distance voyaging was that the length of the trip could not be anticipated. This was a constant worry to captains and those charged with food and water distribution, and often forced missions to be cut short- turning back before reaching the desired objectives.9 Furthermore and unfortunately, their ignorance of the unexplored lands they coasted often led them to pass up possible replenishment stops. Sea biscuit (also known as ship biscuit or hardcack) and water were the standard staples, we know, from 1317. 10 Biscuit ovens existed in Lisbon and the Algarve from as early on as 1380 or thereabouts. Lacer, during the reign of John I, the 'Royal Biscuit Office' (a/moxarifot!J, do biscoito), an agency or department of the government, itself, was created, with a warehouse of its own. At least part, or perhaps all, of the manufacture of sea biscuit thus came under official jurisdiction. By the end of the fifteenth century, there were two manufacturing facilities, located in Lisbon and in Vale do Zebro (Barreiro). 11 'Biscuit', from Medieval Latin bis-coctus, 'twice-cooked', was a dense wheat-based bread which was baked at least twice-a process which gave the product a somewhat longer shelf-life. 'For short voyages', we arc told by Blutcau, writing in the early eighteenth century, 'it is baked twice [... ] /4nd four tim9 fof the long [voyages]' .12 Fernao de Oliveira, toward ~e middle of the 15.00s, insisted on high-quality biscuit, which was longer-lasting: 'the biscuit, · which is the principal sustenance, or" wheat is the best, because that made from rye and barley are damper and colder, and grows mouldier and spoils sooner'. In any event, by the end of the year, even good biscuit deteriorated, becoming infested with worms. 13 HLJ"d, dry and only slightly leavened, by reason of practicality and neccssicy·, it took the place of normal bread, which was always eagerly sought whenever possible.

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Thence [to] the provisioning determined for the Vencrian galleys which stopped over in Cascais in the early 15th century, and which included, besides the biscuit, meat, fruit and wine, 500 loaves of genuine white bread for each galley.14

Not all of the biscuit was loaded aboard ship, pre-cooked and packed away in barrels. Some ships are known to have loaded on board flow for baking the biscuit, or even real bread. We find direct evidence of this fact for the fourteenth century, 15 and the existence of kneading troughs, in the early fifteenth century, suggests that the practice continuedespecially, perhaps, in the cases of fleets carrying large numbers of persons. 16 Toward the end of the fifteenth century the daily ration of biscuit was around half a kilo, or a little more, per man. This amount probably corresponds to a centwics-old tradition, although we are aware of variations made according to the rank of the seamen. Doubts regarding the weight systems employed make it difficult for us to calculate accurate equivalents in today's weights and measures. Let us look at some figures which we do know: 17 Date

Ship Type

Quantity

Men

Days

Allowance per day

1488

fishing caravel

l arroba,

1

30

0.43-0.46 kg

1

30

0.35-0.37 kg

+l-27

+/-300

0.49- 0.66 kg

1488

caravel Godinha

l 21bs = 281bs 1 arroba, 71bs = 231bs 90 quintals, 2 arrobas, Bibs

1490

caravel of Gon~alo de Sousa

14 90

caravel of Afonso de Moura

233 quintals

64

300

0.53- 0.71 kg

1490

caravel of Fernao de Avelar

233 quintals

64

300

0.53- 0.71 kg

early 16th c.

by regulation

13 q11intals 3 arrohas 7 arrattls

31

30

0.65-0.87 kg

Water was the other essential consumable aboard any ship. However, unlike the situation with the biscuit, there were many places where water could be taken on in the islands, and along the African coast frequented by Portuguese vessels. Running out of water was only a danger on the longer voyages out into the open Atlantic, such as that of Vasco da Gama en route to India. Here, in the words of Alvaro Velho, 'we had

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sailed for so long without making land that we had hardly any water at all. For cooking, we used saltwater, and for drinking there was no more than a quartilho.. .'. 18 One quartilhtr-0r a quart of a canada is about 0.375 of a litre, 19 clearly inadequate for a day's work. 20 Besides the biscuit and water, the normal diet of the fifteenth-century seafarers included meat, fish, wine, olive oil, vinegar and dried fruit. The major items missing were fresh fruits and vegecables--a problem which left the crews susceptible to certain ~seases, notably scurvy. The caloric content of their diet was sufficient or even higher than necessary, but their diet was, overall, seriously unbalanced. 21 The meat-pork and others was usually salted or dried. Meat rations were calculated in terms of 'ribs' or 'sides' and the daily allotment per man was regulated in the early sixteenth century between 0.28 and 0.37 kg. It was packed and loaded aboard in casks (pipas). 22 It is clear that whenever they could, the mariners tried to load 'stores-of-opportunity' from shore, buying, stealing or catching sheep, goats, cattle, turtles and fowl which would later be slaughtered and eaten as they pleased. Fish-mostly sardines and whiting-were salted or smoked.· Daily allowances varied. In 1453, for example, thirty-four whiting and 800 sardines were loaded aboard a ship-to be consumed by fourteen men over a forty-five day voyage. These were co be rationed out daily, yielding, by calculation, only 1.2 sardines and a small portion of whiting per man per day. But by the early 1500s, the regulations had increased this scanty ration ofwhiting, conceding co each caravel of thirty-one crewmen a monthly supply of six dozen and five (a total of77}.23 As was the case with other scores-of-opportunity, but with far greater ease, fresh fish could be obtained while en route, simply by trolling a line or neesomething which they did whenever possible not only in order to liven their larder, but to help while away the hours. For obvious reasons it was necessary to take care not to exaggerate the crew's wine rations. In a document of 1453, we learn of a caravel which was allotted 75 a/mutks of wine for fourteen men for a voyage of a month and a half. This works out to between 1.66 and 2.14 litres of wine per man per day. 24 In regulations of the sixteenth century, the daily ration had been lowered to about 1.1 litres. 25 The amount of olive oil and vinegar apportioned to each man was quite little. As to the exact types of dried fruit in official provisions, the only evidence we have today is for figs, chestnuts, walnuts and prunes, although in all probability the variety was greater. In the early days of the voyage or when they could put in at a place where perishables could be had, their daily fare was surely better: fresh

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Vasco t'4 Gam11 11nd tht linlting ofEuropt """ Asuz

foods in abundance cooked up with the extra dash-and hot bread. When leaving, they would take live chickens, goats and sheep as they could manage, slaughtering them as time went by. These luxuries would gradually diminish as the days stretched into weeks, and mealtime turned saltier, drier and more monotonous. The provisions were stored belowdecks, at the stern, in a space called the paiol (storeroom) or sota (sterncastle). 26

Dress and Appearance It is impossible to say anything with total cenainty about clothing of the fifteenth-century mariners. We do know that in most cases there were no barbers aboard, and it is very probable that they cared little for their appearance, and that they more than likely let their hair, beards and moustaches grow fairly wild-in spite of the official guidelines that called for shaven faces and short hair. 27 The so-called 'Panels of St. Vincent de Fora', datable to the early 1470s, give us an idea of the clothes worn by the discoverers, if we accept that one of these-the 'Fishermen Panel'-accurately depicts the seamen.28 So, the first two 'fishermen' in front arc wearing white shirts, loose and opcnncckcd, the length of which we c,,.nnot tell, covered with long, hooded capes, green in one case and grey in the c-cher: On their heads they wear caps or cowls, of a dark color. Neither of them is young. The man in the foreground, prostrated in an attitude of adoration, seems to be covered with a similar cape, brown, but -beneath it a shirt (?) of the same color. His head is uncovered, revealing that he is bald and old, with a long, white beard. Further to the rear, the third one of the figures surrounded by the net wears only a white shirt, without even a hat. He is the youngest in the group and has short, black hair and no beard. In the background, three more shaved men can be seen, dressed in dark jerkins over white shirts, and cowls, also dark. They could perhaps be captains or pilots. 29

The usual maritime apparel would be, in effect, very simple: a large, comfortable shirt, some knee-length pants and a cap securing the hair. In case of cold or rain, a hooded cape would be added. Occasions of some formality would call for a jerkin over the shirt and some boots. The higher-ranking members of the crew would add something of a detail with a bit of flourish.

Sleeping arrangements On board the crew slept, as a rule, on the backward quarterdeck, in a co~partment located beneath a cover or wooden deck serving as the base of the poop castle. 30 -There they would all sleep together and keep

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their personal belongings. We can well imagine that on the warm, gentle nights which are common in the tropical and equatorial seas, they would abandon this compartment-poorly ventilated and foul smelling, as it no doubt was--and find a_spot topside on the main deck, wherever they would be out of the way. For the captain and the occasional VIP, as well as other passengers of standing, there were one or more cabins, located in the poop castle, which also served as meeting places for senior passengers and officers.31

Health There were no doctors or physicians on board, at least until the long voyages of the sixteenth century. Illnesses were either cured by means of treatment known to the crew, or they were not cured at all, and the patient died. Deaths at sea were common and increased with the length of the voyage. On Vasco da Gama's first trip to India from 1497-9, sixty-three per cent of the crew perished: of the one hundred forty-eight who left, only fifty-five returned. 32 True enough, this was the first really long voyage-replete with troubles chat were subsequently ironed out. But we must recognize that each expedition lost men through accident, illness and the injuries sustained in the arme·d conflict so often engaged in with the aborigines encountered. As always, and especially on the smaller vessels of the day, seasickness was a chronic malady. Due to pitching and rolling, many crewmen were stticken and remained so for days on end. But seasickness passes naturally, and with the demands of duty, not to mention psychological determination and various home remedies, well-known to those who venture to sea.

One of the more common affiictions was scurvy, brought on by a lack of vitamin C. Ever present since the end of the 1400s, when longdistance sailing without stops for weeks or months became common, we can imagine that its existence was already known in earlier days, although with less frequency. Alvaro Velho, who went with the first trip to India, recorded, referring to the landfall at Rio dos Bons Sinais (Quelimane) in February, 1498, that, 'here many men have fallen ill, whose feet and hands are distended and whose gums are so swollen over their teeth that they cannot eat' .33 On their return trip, during their slow and tortuous crossing of the Indian Ocean in October to December of the same year, 'every man on board had his gums so swollen that eating was impossible, and the bloating of our legs and other parts of the body was such that it drove many to their deaths, even though there was nothing else wrong with them'. 34 The mariners of that day already

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knew that their scurvy would be cured by eating citrus fruits, such as oranges, which they hastened to obtain.as soon as possible upon making pon.3s Other illnesses that befell them were St Anthony's fire and similar skin affiictions, fevers, eye problems, intestinal disorders and infections giving rise to tumors and abcesses. These were brought on either by lack of hygiene, intolerance of the exotic foods sometimes encountered in distant ports, or the sub-tropical climate. 36 Without doctors or even with them-all of these illnesses were treated with more or less experimental means, or not at all, leaving the unfortunate one to either pull through on his own or die. In many cases-and we know this with certainty, even from the earliest times-the crew suffered injuries in armed combat-wounds from arrows, swords, spears and other cutting weapons. Moreover, their contact with unknown peoples brought these Portuguese explorers face to face with poison-tipped projectiles, impregnated with venoms which were non-existent in Europe or the Muslim world. This was the case in sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil. As antidotes, they tried a number of things, notably a paste or unguent made of urine, olive oil and theriacbelieved to be the best thing available for the bites of venomous animals. 37 In 1446, in Guine, Alvaro Fernandes was shot with a poisoned arrow in the leg.

(

...because he had quickly been advised of the poison, he quickly extracted the arrow and irrigated with urine and olive oil and smeared it very well with theriac and it pleased God that it helped him, but there were certain days ,vhen he almost died. 38

This episode leads us to the belief that these sailors carried along a rudimentary pharmacy of which theriac, by the mid-fifteenth century, would have been a mandatory part.

Hygiene Certainly a great deal of the illness suffered resulted from poor hygiene. In fact, the opportunity for personal cleanliness on board these small ships was all but nonexistent. Seawater was plentiful enough, of course, but the high salt content made it unsatisfactory for washing. Soap, if there was any, didn't last long either getting used up or spoiling. The same clothes were worn day and night and hardly ever got washed, and there was surely no shortage of sweat. Below decks there was almost no ventilation to speak of. The crew would urinate and defecate directly overboard or into buckets when the weather or sea state dictated. Hair,

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eyebrows, moustaches, beards, arm-pits and groins were insufficiently, if ever, washed and were teeming with lice needing to be disinfected from time to time, as possible.

Sex Life We have no evidence that women were taken along earlier than the days of the large, sixteenth-century fleets. This does not rule out the possibility that the occasional prostitute was invited along, especially on the longer trips. However, in general, the men had to be patient until making port or landing ashore for raiding purposes, when they might have their way with Muslim captives or black slaves. Around the middle of the fifteenth century, a regional African ruler in the area of Senegal offered co Luis de Cadamosco 'a girl of 12 or 13 years age, black and very comely; and told me that he would give her to me for the service of my chambers: to which I accepted and sent her to my ship.' 39 We may surmise the type of 'services' that were expected of the girls ... Presents such as these, however, were destined only for the senior personnel in the ship's company. · Available alternatives included onanism and homosexual contact, both traditional favourites among the themes of sailors' sea stories, but alwa)'S difficult co substantiate in the written record. 40

Duties On any ship, including those of the fifteenth century, the crewmen had obligations upon their time from morning co night-and even at night, as well. There were four-hour watches to be stood-six per day. In the picturesque expression of Bluteau, the night watches served 'for half of the crew to sleep, and the other half to watch' .41 Regularly, at the order of the pilot, a cabin boy would turn the hour-glass a.nd cry out the time, · for all to hear. 42 Then there was the need to bail out the water which had found its way into the bilges during the night, swab the decks, calculate the ship's position and correct the course, hoist sail as needed, strike sail as needed, climb through the rigging, tie off lines, make new line from old, sew torn sail, mend nets, take constant soundings while manoeuvering in shallows to avoid running aground, drop anchor, weigh anchor, perform maintenance on this or chat, and in general, simply rise to any occasion called for. The man at the helm had to give unwavering attention to his task in order to keep the ship to its course. The purser tended to the provisions and to their equitable distribution. The ship's galley boy

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(grumm) cooked the meals, which the other boys dished out. The yeoman recorded the disbursement of pay and cargoes loaded or discharged. If there were horses or other large animals aboard, it was necessary to look after them. On the expedition of Afonso Gon~alves Baldaia to Rio do Ouro in 1436, there were two horses. 43 On that of Diogo Gomes to Guinc and the Cabo V crde archipelago, in 1462 or 1463, they took along ten. 44 Gon~alo Coelho took six horses to Guine in 1487 and presented them to the local rulcr. 45 These arc only a few of the many instances we know of where horses were taken aboard, notably to release on the newly-discovered islands or to leave with the factory-depots along the African coast. To the horses can be added other animals-oxen, cows, mules, donkeys and shcep--nccessary livestock for the settlements along the way. All of these animals required care, feeding and space. Other tasks which fell to the seamen were the care of the clothingtheir own and that of the officers washing and mending it as necessary, care of the sick when possible, and burial at sea of their comrades who had succumbed. Cleaning the hull of the ship, when this was undertaken away from the home port in Portugal, demanded teamwork and perseverance. There was also a great deal of work involved in reconnoitering the new lands, in contact with the natives-where the so-called lingua (interpreter) was of paramount importance-and in replenishing water and edibles. It was often necessary to act the part of a soldier, either in offensive operations or defensive. Capturing slaves was counted among the many normal duties. When fishing was the order of the day, the sailor became a fisherman, taking as much as he could with hook, net or harpoon, cleaning, filleting and and salting it away, or taking seals for their skins and oil.

Leisure Even though their duties placed enormous demands on their time, they also had a good deal of free time to kill, expecially when becalmed, when they were sailing well-known seas, or when the long, tropical days were too hot for strenuous labours. We should recognize that one of the pleasures of the fifteenth-century discoverers was, precisely, to discover. To gaze upon new lands, probe unknown coastlines, to witness changing landscapes, find pristine anchorages, to go ashore and enounter exotic peoples and observe their lives, to sec and catch animals, birds and fishes which didn't exist back home, identify sws and navigate under southern skies all of these tasks were amwing but equally wcful. They worked and they played.

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And there is no shortage of sowces we can turn to today which point up the fact that the Portuguese discoverers were able to distinguish what it was tliat was different and which deserved to be described. Curiosity, as a matter of fact, characterized many of the discoverers, and was one of the factors which motivated their enlistment in the naval service. As Zurara tells us, with reference to Dinis Dias, ' ... hearing news of that land[ ...], because he was a man who so wanted to see new things', and many more applied for the opportunity to go than could be accepted.•6 Black slaves and dark-skinned Moors were already known, of cowse, in North Africa and even in Europe, as well as Berbers and Arabs, also with dark skin. But the initial meeting with African negroes in their own natural habitat was the first thing that really amazed them. We can pinpoint the year to 1444 to the voyage of Dinis Dias. The shock of the meeting seems to have been more to the natives, who, upon seeing the caravel, 'were completely astounded, having, it seems, never seen or heard tell of anything like it-some taking it for a fish, others for a spectre, still others said that it could be some sort of bird that went upon the sea'.•7 There are, in the ChronickofZurara, plenty of references to the negroes, ' ...with their bucklers and spears', 'with bows in their hands', showing 'such threatening attitudes', 48 notwithstanding the beauty and fertility of their 'green' land, 'full of the good airs that came from land, for it was so pleasant there \vhere we landed that it seemed to them that they were in some pleasant grove'. 49 'And the people of this green land', the chronicler continues, 'are utterly black, and it is called the land of the negroes or the land of Guine' . 50 In one of the chapters are described in some detail the layout of the villages, and the dress and eating habits of the natives. 51 Various other descriptions-more rigorous and in greater detail-were recorded by chroniclers of much later periods. But these lacked the freshness and spontaneity of the first encounters. 52 Upon reaching the southern part of the African continent, the sailors came upon a race of negroes very distinct-the so-called Hottentots, 'dark men who ate nothing but sea lions and whales, the meat of gazelles and the roots of certain plants, and went around clad in skins, with just a sort of sheath For their sexual parts. And their weapons are dried horns fixed to the end of oleaster sticks' .53 Further details were recorded regarding the newly-encountered peoples and their customs, but there is no space to recount them here. 5• Animals, birds, fish, reptiles and insects, when exotic, drew attention and were recorded. Take the buffaloes, for example-'beasts of the same nature as oxen', as we are told by Rodrigo Eanes de Travassos and Dinis Dias in 1445, yet, walking right up to a herd of oxen, they were 'totally

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different'. ss Other sowccs singled out other species for description: gazelles, large deer or hinds, antas, camels, elephants and hippopownuscs--these last in great detail. 56 In the chapter on birds, the greatest interest fell to the pelicans, osuiches, flamingoes and penguins-even giving attention to the southern destinations of migratory birds, such as the swallows. To begin with, by watching the skies, the discoverers came to recognize a number of birds which they knew from their homeland. With regard to the arid Saharan zones, Zwara wrote, And in this place one can sec essentially all of the swallows and even all of those which we know periodically in our kingdom-for example: storks, quail, tunlcdovcs, wryncck woodpeckers, nightingales and linnets, as well as other wild types-and many they arc that, due to the chill of winter, depart this land in search ·o f a warmer. And others that depart that land in the winter-so it is with falcons, and herons and ring-doves and thrushes and others that arc hatched in that other land. And hence they come to recuperate and to search for the sustenance which here they find, in accord with their nature. And of these birds, many have been seen from the caravels at sea, and others on land in their nesting places. 57 ·

The pelicans too-known in those days as crois or cros58-greatly interested and amused the observers, upon being discovered in the Arguim region, in the 1440s, ' ... and all of them are white', writes Zurara, 'about the size of swans and with beaks of a covado (ea. 66 cm) or more in length, and more than three fingers wide, and they seem as embroidered hems, with such a beautifully worked appearance, that it could be taken as artificial [... ] and the mouth and its pouch is as large as a man's leg, big enough to hold a man's leg up to the knee'. 59 The ostriches-called emas in those daysCiO-were also mentioned by the chroniclers, marvelling at their enormous eggs, which, contrary to what was believed at the time, do not incubate by themselves, half buried in warm sand-but before hatching, 'here they lay 20 or 30 eggs which arc hatched like those of other birds'. 61 The flamingocs, 62 also encountered in sub-Saharan Africa, were described as 'birds the size of herons, with equally long necks, few feathers, and heads reasonably proportioned to the size of the rest of their bodies, but with stout beaks, so heavy that their necks are unable to suppon them well, so that in order to help, the beak is supported in their legs or feathers most of the time'.63 On their arrival in southern Africa, the men in Vasco da Gama's • fleet, and probably those of Bartolomeu Dias, described the strange penguins, 'some birds that are the size of ducks and do not fly because

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they have no feathers on their wings, and are called sotilicaios,64 and we killed them in any number we wished, and they brayed like d~nkeys'. 65 As part of the investigation which was the mission of practically every ship, the marine fauna were studied well. As was the case with the animals and birds, many species were recognized from European waters or had already been identified by erudite scholars. The novelty and wonder was found in the frequency and profusion in which they were now observed. This was the case with the large cetaceans-the sea lions torture forswear 'de apartado: incarceration, lifelong penitential garment 2. Cornelio Bique ( 12 Sept. 1563)

natural dt 0/anda Guilhermo x Harnante Anriques

Lutheran heretic forswear 'de apartado: incarceration, penitential dress and collar for life. 3. Filipe Brias (12 Sept. 1563) frammgolfrances (-Troia, Champafia) Nicolao Alins (olandes) x Maria Brias Goa; bachelor Lutheranism forswear 'de apartado: imprisonment, lifelong penitential habit 4. Bastiao Alaud ( 19 Aug. 1565) framengo (-Leeida do Ducado de Flandes) Matheus Alaud x Isabella - ; bachelor renegade ('mouro ') forswear 'de apartado: jail, penitential dress for life 5. Joao Mendez (23 June 1566)

framengo (Gronic, estado de Flandes) Menso x Catharina

Estado da India;- ; bombardeiro Lutheranism forswear 'de apartado; cell; penitential gown for life 6. Reinaldo Demeret, alias de Mer ( 15 June 1567)

flamengo de nafaO

bombardeiro

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Lutheranism forswear iJe apartado; imprisonment; lifelong penitential habit 7. Gil Balcste, alias Valcstem ( 15 June 1567) frammgo (la Haja, corte do Conde de 0/anda) Giraldo de Valcstem x Madalena Corbela

Estado Ja India Lutheranism forswear 'de apartado•; cell; lifelong penitential dress. 8. Nicolao Mont (4 Sept. 1575) natural de F/andes Guilherme x Margarita Goa; bachelor Lutheranism fugitive -> to the stake in 'estatua' 9. Vicente Alemao ( 1569; 17 July?) flammgo (-Hacometis, estado de 0/anda) Nicazio x Manina Cochin; lower vows (minor orders) • • • susp1c1ous treatise free on bail; trial suspended 10. Francisco Batel (20 Nov. 1581) framengo Luis Batel x Francisco Roiz (mestiza)

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renegade ('mouro J forswear iJe kvi' 11. Pedro Siura, a/iasCiura (1585, 10 Nov.?) jlamengo (Bilstre, na provincia do Alman)

bachelor Lutheranism forswear 'de apartado • 12. Adrial Cornet (4 July 1600) o/andes (Fraile, i/ha de 0/anda)

-

bachelor Lutheranism illiterate (?) -> instruction imposed Source: Biblioteca Nacional Lisboa, Reservados, Cod. 203, loan Delgado Figueyra, Repmorio gera/ de ... procesos, passim.

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Appendix III Jesuits From the Low Countries Name

Birth/death

Career in India

P. Gaspar Berse

Goes, 1515/ Goa, 1553

lr. Thomas?

orphan

P. Johannes Boukyau

Trazegnies?/ Bassein 1568

P. Marcus De Maeghc

Bruges, c. I 520/ Goa, 1601

1548/Chale (foundation college) 1549- 51/evangelization Ormuz 15 5 1/ Goa (rector college and vice-provincial) 15 5 2/Cochin (catechist and schoolteacher) 1555-61/Goa (father confessor) 1562-8/Bassein (confessor and teacher) 1563- 1601 /Goa (college-confessor and artist) 1566-8/Goa (novice) 1578-?/M oluccas (missionary work in Tidore) 1579-88/Salcete and Pearl Coast (rector T ravancore) 1579-81/Goa 1581- 1605 /Pearl Coast 1605- 11 /Ceylon 1579-8 1/Goa 1582-7/Pearl Coast 1583/Goa 1587-9 Japan

~

lr. Joao Framengo P. Rutger Berwouts

Sc Truiden, ?/?

P. Petrus Bolle

Bailleul, c. 1539/? ·

lr. Lambert Ruysch

Culemborg, 1549/ Colombo 1611

Ir. Nicolaus Paludanus

Liege, 1556/1629

lr. Theodor Mantels

Liege, c. 1560/ Malacca 159 3

•

P = padre (priest) Ir = irmao (friar)

Source: J. Wicki, 'Lisee der Jesuiten Indienfahrer 1541-1758' Portugiesische Forschungen der Gorresgesellschaft: I Reiche; Ausfacze zur Portugiesischen Kulturgeschichte 1 (1967), pp. 252-450. > Wicki and J. Gomes (eds), Documenta lndica, Rome, 1944-(19 vols to date) passim.

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Chapter Six

Christians and Muslims in the Surat Sea: Ships, Merchandise and Goods Captured in a Naval Battle in 1630 •

Artur Teodoro de Matos and Paulo Lopes Matos From the beginning of the seventeenth century the city of Surat, in the Gulf of Cambay, was more important than Goga, Broach, Suali and Render, the other harbours located in this gulf. Besides being an important pore-of-call on the routes to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, it was the terminus of the caravan network chat led to Agra and Lahore in the Mughal empire. A number of trade circuits were based here as well, which was the main reason why it was more enterprising than the other harbours in Gujarat. 1 Two important Indian Ocean trade products were exported from Surat: cloths, both cotton and silk, and indigo. The first, woven in Surat, Ahmadabad, Baroda, Pattam and Broach, were shipped from Surat co ports in East Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Goa, Sind and Southeast Asia. Indigo dye as well as opium, scented oils and lacquer, 2 followed the same routes. Pyrard de Laval, while describing the kingdoms of Cambay and Surat, mentions that 'the biggest and principal commerce of Goa' came from here, for three or four thousand ships known as the Cambay cafil.a (fleet),3 made the voyage twice each year. The author goes on, These ships or galliocs are propelled by oars, always sail near the land and, evc:n when they sail against the tide, they manage to proceed; and every vessel has its own sign and the symbol of its owner on its flag by which it is recognized from afar by the rr..erchant owners; and many mortars are shot from the city, the fortresses, and the palace of the viceroy, where they come to anchor, as all the other ships do. 4

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He also reports that almost all the inhabitants of Goa, either Christians or Muslims, boarded this fleet. The economic power of Surat always attracted the interest of the English who attempted, without success, to establish a factory there in 1604. 5 In 1615 they tried again, 6 but the Portuguese were already ahead of them as they had known for several decades of the trade of this port, and had the governor's as well as the merchants' trust. Three years after the establishment of the Portuguese in Surat, viceroy Jer6nimo de Azevedo managed to make peace with the Mughal emperor Jahangir and had his promise to throw out 'the European rebels' from the harbour.7 However, in 1618, Asafa Khan gave his permission to the English to let them establish a factory in Surat.8 The Dutch, knowing the importance of the commerce of Surat, and particularly of the cotton cloth trade which was shipped from Surat to the Moluccas, endeavoured successfully to establish themselves at this port. From here they set up factories in Agra, Ahmadabad, Burhampur and Broach, which were transit points for the exportation of several products through the port of Surat. 9 The English and Dutch traders, although rivals, then united their efforts against their common enemythe Portuguese. As one writer has it, 'Os olandezes estiio bem com os

imgrezes mas cada. frotta esta apartada a sua bandeira e nao comonycao huns com os outros. Mas pellas caladas se comeriio os figados huns aos outros: 10 (The Dutch are on good terms with the English, but each fleet is separate under its own flag, and they don't associate with each other. Secretly they will eat each others' livers.) These were the features that made Surat the centre of an uncontrolled commercial competition which begot conflicts and wars and led to high prices for both merchandise and for goods from captured ships. European traders competed with each other and with local ships which traded in alliance with one rival, against the interests of another. In these struggles the pugnacity of the Portuguese traders, and their experience gained from a century of trading in the Indian Ocean, were undoubtedly an advantage. Portuguese rowing vessels, although slower, had no difficulty in overcoming the East India Company ships of lower tonnage; but they could hardly overcome the Verenigde Oost-lndische Compagnie (VOC) which had faster ships, and heavy artillery. The Portuguese Northern Fleet-the Armada. do Norte which sailed each year for the Arabian Sea area, together with the Cape C_o morin and Kanaia fleets, tried to control navigation in each of these are~, pursuing the Malabar pirates, watching over the ea.ft/a which carried provisions and pepper, or giving assistance and supplies to the fortresses.

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Ant6nio Bocarro reports that the Northern Fleet sailed to the north coast (Gujarat) which was 'infested by enemies from Europe' and that the trading activities of the fortresses of Diu, Daman and Chaul were constantly disturbed either by these enemies, or by the great Malabar fleets of paraus. 11 The circumstances demanded that a Portuguese fleet ensure the safety of the cafila of Cambay, and of the northern forts, while also ensuring the maintenance of freedom of navigation for people and goods. 12 According to Pedro Barreto de Rezende, the Northern Fleet had twenty vessels. Each of these had, besides a captain and his attendant, a crew of twenty-five soldiers, forty sailors, two mocadoes, 13 and one Catureiro. 1• It also had twenty gunners, a fleet total of 1800 men. The cost of supporting such a naval force was also very high, amounting to twenty-five contos and 289,800 reais~a little more than the expenditure of che fortress of Diu. 15 In March 1630, Francisco Coutinho Deocem left for the northern country with the Northern Fleet. The next month, viceroy Count Linhares wrote in his diary that he had received serval letters from Francisco Coutinho informing him that he had captured a Muslim ship sailing along with Dutch and English vessels from Surat. His soldiers had pillaged everything they could. He added, however, that apart from five horses, some carpets, almonds, dried grapes and other similar products, there was nothing worth taking. 16 But the incident worried him, as retaliation was expected from the Great Mughal, owner of this vessel. Therefore, Francisco Coutinho had sent word to the northern fortresses to be on the look-out for trouble. Three days later, Francisco Coutinho had already returned to Goa with half of his fleet, his remaining ships staying in Bassein to guard the cafila with the supplies. Francisco brought with him two other ships he had captured from Muslims: the first one the viceroy had already known about and the other, bigger and better equipped, had been seized in Surat on the morning of 28 March 1630, after a long fight which had begun on the afternoon of the previous day. Count Linhares' account of these events was different. Francisco Coutinho, the captain of the Northern Fleet, while sailing off Daman had attacked a Muslim vessel which had reacted very violently. T-hey fought all through the night with many dead and wounded soldiers on each side. Six of the fifteen Portuguese ships abandoned the fight, and so the captain of the fleet was left with only nine vessels. 17 The Muslim ship sailed to Surat and ran aground before the city, where several English and Dutch vessels were berthed. Francisco Coutinho, with the help of

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five soldiers, taking advantage of the low tide, boarded the enemy ship. Finding it empty, as the crew had already left, he took all the gold and pearls from it. The Portuguese, two nautical leagues from the English and Dutch vessels in the port of Surat, under fire and in the presence of many people, waited for the high tide, when they managed to remove the Muslim ship and sailed back to Daman. In retaliation, the ea.ft/a intended to sail for Goa was held up in Surat. Merchants and merchandise had to remain there and an embargo was put on trading deals at all Portuguese ports. As Francisco's naval force passed Surat, a vessel came out to it bringing Father Ant6nio Pereira, and Provincial Ant6nio de Andrade, both Jesuits who had been detained in the city, along with three galliots. 18 (Francisco had sent it to fetch water). Mir-Murza, the Mughal governor of Surat, assigned Ant6nio Pereira to negotiate his freedom and that of the other Portuguese, ir1 return for the surrender of the Muslim ship, the horses unloaded at Daman and the other merchandise. He also confirmed an embargo placed on English and Dutch trade in Surat as Mir-Murza was, according to Antonio Pereira, annoyed that they had not defended the ship. All Francisco Coutinho could do, as he thought himself unauthorized to proceed with the negotiations, was to guarantee that the horses would stay in Daman in the possession of the Society ofJesus, an institution the Mughals respected, until he heard from the viceroy. 19 Count Linhares, in view of these events, reacted by detaining the Banians in Goa, and demanded a surety of 200,000 xerafins to release che citizens and merchandise of Surat, in an attempt to press the Mughals to free che Portuguese, and to drive away their other competitors from Mughal pores. Opportune orders were issued to the northern fortresses, where he expected to collect the same amount. The viceroy also mentions that ten or twelve men were wounded and seven or eight had died in the fighting. In order to reward the soldiers and the captains engaged in these actions, he decided to distribute among them part of the returns from the sale of all the merchandise as soon as it had been registered and auctioned, 'as it suited him to keep them happy'. 20 Father Antonio Pereira was in Goa on 1 May to negotiate with the viceroy the surrender of the ship, as well as the horses, against the embargo raised on the transactions by Portuguese merchants in Surat, and the freeing of those detained there. Count Linhares demanded the banishment of Dutch and English traders from Surat, and freedom for the ·Portuguese to trade. An agreement was then made. The ~orses and the

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ship returned to their former owners, and the Portuguese resumed their trading activities. Ant6nio Pereira's mission was therefore a success. 21 However, since Portuguese or Indian historians might have doubts concerning the veracity of the events recorded by Count Linhares in his diary, which was based on written and oral information given to him by the captain of the Northern Fleet, it is imperative to know the version of the Surat authorities. In fact, the two versions do not coincide. The viceroy had received a letter from the captain of Surat on 19 May, stating his desire to maintain their old friendship, but claiming that the captured ships had been seized inside the Surat harbour in spite of the Mughal authorization to trade there. However, 'as the captain general saw that the two ships were loaded with merchandise, he kept them'. The captain of Surat also assured him that Father Ant6nio de Andrade had seen the captain general steal the vessels. 22 The Portuguese viceroy did not accept this version, and replied outlining the facts and arguments as he saw them. Some days later, SheikMaina Sultan Corrama, the Mughal emperor's ambassador, sent a new letter to the viceroy reaffirming his desire to continue 'a good friendship and love' but demanding the surrender 'without delay' of the rwo ships, as well as their prisoners, who were seemingly treated very 'roughly' .23 In his answer the Portuguese viceroy, while reiterating his desire for peace and friendship, questioned the attitude displayed by the Mughal authorities, who had permitted the capture of the cafila. he had sent to Cambay, as well as detaining an ambassador and three priests of the Society of Jesus whom the captain of Surat had kept in 'a small prison without any food'. 24 While this exchange of letters~ ambassadors and accusations went on, the cargo of the two ships, Mamtdi and jafora, was unloaded and sent to a store especially prepared to receive it. An inventory was undertaken by order of the viceroy, and all merchandise was then auctioned. Miguel de Noronha followed these proceedings as he intended that the soldiers receive their 'well deserved' share of the loot.25 He had been forced to intervene, as it seemed the proceedings 'will never end as they are so slow'.26 The registers of the complete inventory, and the auction that took place in Goa, allow us to follow the pattern of these operations, the quantities and type of goods unloaded, their prices, and the details of the bids and their bidders. 27 On I O April the unloading and inventory of the goods began. Each day, morning and night, the holds and decks of each vessel were progressively emptied and the merchandise taken ashore in boats . . On 23 April, the inventory \Vas completed, and the

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auction took place on the next day near the royal chapel, opposite the warehouse. On the first bid Maya Banda, a white Muslim girl about twenty years old, was bought by Joao Rodrigues for 202xerafins(60$,600 reis) 28 This girl, as she was good-looking and young, was first offered to the viceroy, 29 who refused such a gift. Count Linhares' 'servant' was then able to acquire her. Luis de Noronha knew that a Muslim merchant wanted her too, bur did not allow him to bid because he was a Muslim. The viceroy, however, recommended that everyone, Christian or nonChristian, should have the same opportunity to bid in the auction.30 For three days, the judge dos feitos, the Crown procurator, the guarda.mor and the captain of the Northern Fleet searched the ship Mamedi looking for money. According to Francisco Coutinho, everyone suspected that there was money as well as gold and silver in the ballast. They searched everywhere but could not find anything. 31 Meanwhile, the auction continued. It lasted the whole month, finally concluding on l June. On 19 June, forty Muslim captives who were already in the galleys, as well as four who had remained in Daman under the custody of the Jesuits, were evaluated as worth the same amount as the ransom demanded from Mir-Muza for the release of the Banians who were prisoners in Goa. 32 On 26 June, some semi-precious stones, wet vermilion,33 and the two ships were auctioned. Francisco Coutinho had acquired a 'white negro girl' taken from one of the ships. Although she was already in his possession, she had to be formally auctioned. The captain-general did not want to lose her, but only paid 95 xerafins (28$,500 reis) for her because she was cross-eyed. 34 In order to understand all the hurly-burly that went on, we must remember that in eight days, thirty ships had unloaded at the pier 127 categories of merchandise, amounting to 1288 listed items. The auction went on for twenty-seven days. Only 796 items were auctioned separately, as several products were grouped. The auction fetched 37,347 xerafins, 3 tangasand 41 reis, or 11,204$,321 reis. This was equivalent to the entire revenue of Malacca fortress in 1634, and was a little more than all ·the expenditure of Daman in the same year.35 We have selected thirty-eight items (about 30 per cent of all the products) representing 95.6 per cent of all the money expended at the auction. The more valuable items were as follows: Product

Horses Silk Muslim Ships

In xtrafi,u

o/o

4,708.7 4,587.5 3,270

12.54 12.22 8.71

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In xerafins

Product

Madderwort Almonds Carpets Muslims Rose water Dried grapes

TOTAL

3,217.2 2,799 2,566.8 2,002 1,685.7 1,603.6

8.57 7.46 6.84 5.33 4.49 4.27

26,440.5

70.43

These were in fact the kinds of merchandise usually traded in Surat. Together they represent more than half of the total value of goods purchased at the auction. Horses, and plants used for dyeing cloth were the most valuable items, followed by madderwort,36 almonds, carpets, dried fruits and oils. There were around three hundred buyers37-forty-nine per cent being Hindus, twenty-four per cent Christians and twentyseven per cent officers of the Public Revenue. Thus the dominance of Hindus in the trade ofGoa, where che auction took place, is again demonstrated. Virula Naique, one of the more important bidders, bought mainly silk and almonds, as well as dried dates and small quantities of several goods such as cloths, oils, vinegar and nuts. Vicupay acquired all the dried madderwort, while other Hindu buyers-Sanru Naique, Darmassa Parbu, Lacumudar Sinai and Rama Keni-also made significant purchases. It should be remembered that Rama Keni and his brother Baba Keni were considerable traders in Goa, as shown by Anthony Disney. 38 They were accused of trading with the Dutch and convicted under Portuguese law in 1638. 39 We do not know the occupations of these Hindu men, but it is likely that many of them were traders-such as Santu Naique who was an apothecary in St Lazarus. 40 As for the Portuguese merchants who participated in the auction, Pero de Almeida and Joao Rodrigues de Lisboa were the more important, the two of them purchasing almost half the merchandise bought by Christian traders. Pero de Almeida acquired carpets, tinted textiles, oils, cloths, white grapes, one Russian horse and a tent. Besides the already mentioned white Muslim girl, Joao Rodrigues bought two horses, several textiles, carpets, oil~, dried fruits and so on. It should be remembered that Joao Rodrigues participated in the India-Portugal trade. In face, in early 1630 he had sent to Lisbon great quantities of cloths, China root (pau da China), sealing-wax, taftciras and lac (alaquecaf 1 in the ki~g's vessels.

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Francisco Coutinho, who sailed north again with the fleet towards the end of May taking with him Fernando Noronha, the viceroy's son, had bought, besides the little white negro girl, a horse, dried grapes and oils. The Secretary of India, Francisco de Sousa Falcio, acquired all the totia, 42 silk carpets and mekque. 43 Francisco Cordeiro bought a great number of cotton and velvet cloths and dried white grapes. TheFaunda Real (Royal Treasury) had acquired, besides the two ships, all the pedrume, forty seamen, other Muslims, sulphur, leather, powder, tar, the horses which had remained in Daman, and vermilion. The average age of the Muslims was 38.6 years, the youngest being twenty-five and the eldest • sixty. If we try to evaluate rhe financial capacity of these buyers through the size of purchases made, Virula Naique would undoubtedly be the most important. In fact, he disbursed a greater amount of money than all the Christian buyers combined, a sum almost identical to the one spent by the Fazenda Real The amount he spent was four times that of Pero de Almeida, the biggest Christian purchaser. It should be noticed that generally speaking, both Hindus and Christians bought a great variet}' of goods, although in small quantities. However, some of them acquired entire lots. Aleixo Godinho, for instance, bought all rhe gall nuts. 44 Babugi Naique acquired all the dates from Muscat and Basra, Mabola Sinai purchased all the bitter almonds, Santopa N aique the salt from Ormuz, Virula Naique all rhe silk and almonds and Vitupai all the dried madderwort. 45 Other aspects of rhis affair worth analysing, are the variety and nature of the merchandise seized, the prices bid, and rhe identities of many of the minor Hindu or Christian bidders, and their participation in other commercial circuits. The fact is, char about two dozen Christian buyers at the auction were also merchants profiting from the trade of the Cape route. However, these are subjects char lie outside the scope of this paper.

Notes 1

A. Ray, 'The gro,vth of the city of Surat, 1610-1671 ', journal ofthe Asiatic Society ofBangladesh (Humanities) vols 24-6, 1979- 81; L. Varadarajan, 'Surat: Portrait of the city based on the seventeenth century European travel accounts' ,Journal ofthe Oriental Institute, Baroda, vol. 25, no. 3, 1977; W.H. Moreland, India at the Death ofAkbar, London, 1920, pp. 160-70. Regarding Surat see also Maria M.S. Blanco, 0 Esta@ Portugues da India. Da rendirao de Omzuz a perda de Cochim (1622-1663), vol. 1, Lisbon , 1992, pp. 423-4, PhD dissertation. 2 S. Gopal, 'Gujarat shipping in the seventeenth-century', The Indian Economic and

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SodAl History Review, vol. 8, no. 1, 1971; S. Arasaratnam, 'India and the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century', in A. Gupta and M.N. Pearson (eds), India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800, Calcutta, 1987, pp. 99-100; l. Varadarajan, 'Foreign Trade of Surat (1650-1709)', in Studies in the Foreign Relations of India: Prof H.K Sherwani Felicitation Volume; n.d. and J.M.A. Teles e Cunha, Economia de um impmo. Economia polltica do Estatio da India em torno do Mer Ardbico e Goifo Pmico. Elnnmtos Conjuncturais: 1595-1635, Lisbon, 1995, pp. 371-428. 3

Viagem de Francisco Pyrard de Laval ... , Portuguese transl. ofJoaquim Heliodoro da

Cunha Rivara, revised by A. de Magalhaes Basto, vol. 2, Porto, n.d., p. 183. • Vuzgem de Francisco Pyrard de Lava/, pp. 184-5. 5 In 1604, the English asked the nabob of Surat harbour, Muhamad Qulij Can to let them establish a factory there. Sec Docummtos Remetidos da India, vol. 3, p. 70, letter of the King, 24 February 1614. 6 Sec Sir Thomas Roe, Foster (ed.), The embassy ofSir Thomas Roe to the court ofthe Great Mogul 1615-1619... , London, 1899. 7 Historical Archives of Goa Livro das Consultas, 1614-1634, f. 2. Sec A.F. ~{oniz, 'A feitoria portuguesa de Surrate. Sua importancia politica e comercial', 0 Orimtt Portuguis, vol. 15, nos 1-2, 1918, pp. 5-27. 8 See W. Foster, The English Factories in India, 1618-1621, Oxford, 1906, p. 36; letter from Afzal Khan to the governor of Surat, 13 July 1618, mentioned by Blanco, 0 Estado Portugues, vol. 1, p. 445. Sec also the recent study by Ruby Maloni European

Merchant Capital and the Indian Economy: A Historical Reconstruction Based on Surat Factory Records 1630-1668, Delhi, 1992, pp. 12-18. ? Blanco, 0 Estado Portugues, p. 425 and The Cambridge History ofthe British Empire, vol. 4, Cambridge, 1929, p. 40. 10 Historical Archives of Goa, livros das Mon roes, 138, f. 444, Report of 27 October 1626. 11 Small war and trade vessel. 12 A. Bocarro, 'livro das plantas e de codas as fortalezas, cidades e povoa-Btijing

Songgoru confronts the President of the Board of Rites, Gubadai, who, though an old enemy of Songgotu, attempts to vvin him over by flattery; but Songgotu stays firm and insists that the Emperor's will is an edict favourable to the Jesuits. Gubadai duly produces the draft decree and the Emperor issues it. Joao Mourao's politicking at the court was less successful and led to his death through involvement in the succession struggle at the death of Kang Xi. In Jansenist historiography he became the very model of the conniving Portuguese Jesuit. D'Elia's defence of his reputation is judiciow and fully documented. He certainly was guilty of imprudent involvement in cowt affairs especially his close friendship with Kang Xi's ninth son, Yin Tang. 48 If, however, Yin Tang had succeeded to the throne, the judgement of history on Mourao may have been different. And Mowao's long and very active career in China (1700-26) found him in many different roles in Macao and later in North China. One of these roles was that of entrepreneur. The question of the financing of the mission is a vexed one, vexed both because of the charges of financial speculation, usury, and other practices contrary to canon law, and because of the subsequent destruction of sensitive financial documents. Dauril Alden, in The Making ofan Enterprise, has gone far towards sorting out the combination of uncertain royal subventions, generous benefactors and trading ventures with Japan and Goa merchants that supported the Jesuit enterprise in the East. Again some light is shed on this by documents in the Jesuit Roman Archives. For example Jose Monteiro, 49 the Vice-Provin-cial reported in 16.9 950 on the revenues of the various Jesuit colleges and residences in China. He does not indicate the source of the money51 but the document shows very large investments in land and buildings. The Beijing College, for example, is shown as having an annual revenue of 3000 'Chinese gold [coins? Chinese ounces?]' from property and land, and expenses of 1500. 'The rest', it says, 'is spent these years partly on the sustenance of the Fathers who are scattered throughout the provinces doing Christian works, part on the building or maintenance of churches, and in this way providing a subvention for the poverty of the Vice-province'. · Father Antao Dantas, a somewhat restless character judging by his record, 52 was also very conscious of his office of Consultor to the Provincial of Japan. In a letter to the General from Macao, dated 20 August 1706, he complains of the commercial activities of Joao Mourao and another Portuguese Jesuit, Ant6nio de Magalhaes. Dantas, rightly, th9ught this very dangerous at a time when the Patriarch [de Tournonl was on the scene. His words are strong and censorious:

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It cannot be denied that Fathers Antonio de Magalhacs, and Joio Mowio very frequently go out of the house to visit cxterns, and especially the General who is chief of the garrison, who treats them as close friends. From this it happens that they undertake business on behalf of cxterns, and promise their help in such matters, and show themselves inclined to such affairs. 53

This involvement in the affairs of the world was to prove fatal for Mourao twenty years later. Ant6nio de Magalhaes, however, was to use his talents with more success as Kang Xi's ambassador to Portugal in 1721, and as adviser to the Portuguese ambassador to China, Alexandre Metello de S011za y Menezes, in 1726.S-4 Let us return in conclusion to the Padroado question. Many of the Portuguese Jesuits in China found themselves in severe conflict between their obedience to the pope and his legates and their loyalty to Portugal. There is a moving letter of Jose Monteiro, the Vice-Provincial, on the visitation of Maillard de Tournon, the papal legate, to Nanjing in November 1705.ss De Tournon was too ill to leave his boat but summoned the Nanjing Jesuits to an audience. Monteiro promised acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Vicars Apostolic appointed by Rome, but later was rebuked by the Jesuit Visitor who also intercepted his letters to the Beijing Jesuits urging tl1em to act similarly. The Visitor, incidentally was not Portuguese but an Italian, Filippo Grimaldi, who was removed from office by de Tournon, and rewarded by Joao V with an intervention, unsuccessful as it turned out, to have him appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Beijing.s6 Monteiro says that he then attempted to defend the Padroado, citing against the Council ofTrent on the rights of the Metropolitan, in this case the Bishop· of Beijing, the rights and inveterate custom by which the Archbishop of Goa has always appointed the governors and vicars in those bishoprics which arc vacant. But realising that he was listening with growing indignation, I said that it was not my responsibility to defend the rights of the king and archbishop. s7

De T ournon then asks for suggestions of a suita~le administrator of the diocese of Nanjing, well liked and acceptable to the Jesuits. Monteiro suggests Father Ant6nio da Silva,ss 'not believing that he would confer such a dignity' on a Jesuit, but de Tournon accepts the suggestion. Monteiro then has to persuade da Silva to accept, which he is reluctant to do, caught between his wish not to offend the King and the Archbishop of Goa and not to harm the mission. Da Silva attempts to refuse the office but is commanded by de T ournon on his authority as papal legate to accept. His fellow Jesuits then ostracizc him.

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The dilemma of the Ponuguese Jesuits at the beginning of the eighteenth century is curiously reminiscent of the dilemmas of their successors at the end of the twentieth century. The Jesuit Bishop Jin Luxian of Shanghai has been caught between the pastoral needs of the largest · Catholic diocese in China and loyalty to the Pope. Similar problems arc likely to arise in Hong Kong and Macao in the near future. UndoubtcdJy what is needed in such circumstances is considerable gifts of diplomacy, subtlety, flexibility and cultural awareness such as were displayed by their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit predecessors both in dealings between the Church and the Chinese state, and within the divided Catholic Church. One is tempted to say that the times demand Jesuitical practices.

Notes 1

See J.M. Braga, ChiNI LzndfaJ/ 1513, Macau, 1955, for an account of that slow step-by-step process. 2 F. Schurhammer, Francis XAvin: His Lift 11nd Timts, vol. 1, Rome, 1973, pp. 53656. 3 D. Alden, T~ Making ofan Entnprisr: Thr Somty ofJrsus in Pom11al. its Empirr, and bryond, 154-l750, Stanford, 1996. Earlier, Alden described it equally justly, as an •elite enterprise' (Thr Ma/tint ofan Elitr Entnprisr: Thr]tsuits in t~ Portuguar AssistJtncy, 16th to 18th Cmturus, James Ford Bell Lectures, University of Minnesota, 1992). 4 The only exception I have found to this route for a Portuguese ship (the French and other Jesuits of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries frequently took French or British East India Company ships out of Canton by other routes) was the voyage of the Bom ]tsus de MUAtao r N.S us Brollls in 1708 from Macao via Batavia and Bahia to Lisbon. P. Rule, 'Louis Fan Shou-i: A Missing Link in the Chinese Rites Controversy', in Echanirs culturrls rt rrlifina rntrr IA Chinr rt /'Occident (Actrs du V//r Collo1Jur lntunatioMI de Sinolop de Ch4nti/Jy, 8-10 September, 1992, San Francisco, 1995, esp. p. 280: and 'Louis Fan Shouyi and Macao', in Rrvw ofCulturr, Second Series, no. 21, 1994, pp. 249-58. .5 L Pfister, Noticts Biogr11phiqua rt BibliOfl'aphilfws sur la jlsuitn de l'Ancimnr Missu,n de Chw, 1552-1573, Shanghai, 1932, Nendeln/Licchenstein, 1971 . 6 Table C in J. Dchergne, Rlpmoirr da jlsuitts de Chinr de 1552 a /800, Rome 1973. 7 G. Dunne, Gmrr11tion ofGi4nts, London 1962. • uttrts ldifo,nta n curinuts kritts des missions ltranin-rs, 34 vols, Paris, 1703-76, frequently reprinted. 'Mlmoira con,mumt l'histoirt, la scim,a, In ans. In mo,un, In usaps, rte. des chinois, JNI" la misswnairts de PI/tin, 16 vols, Paris, 1n6-9 l, 1814. 10 D'Elia's writings mostly concerned the Italian Jesuits in China, panicularly Matteo Ricci, but he did write a major work on one of the most important of the Ponuguese Jesuits in China, // lontino confino ~ u, tr11fk11 mortr de/ P. joltJ Mourb S.J, Lisbon, 1963.

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'Towards a History of the Chinese Rites Controversy', in D.E. Mungdlo (ed.), The Chinnr Rita Controwrsy: Its History and Mr11nint, Ncttctal, 1994, pp. 249-66, esp. pp. 255-6. ii An example is a letter from six members of the Senate of Macao to de T ournon begging him to order five loyalist priests to leave voluntarily for Goa because they had received a chapa from Chinese mandarins to that effect and Macao .would be greatly harmed if this did not happen. Ms., lot 20, fasc. (56) in the Ricci lnsitututc for ChineseWestern Cultural History, University of San Francisco. 13 'O primciro Missionario, quc dcpois do nosso dcscobrimcnto cntrou, prcgou c bautizou na tcrra firma da China', Francisco da Sousa, Orin,~ Conquutado a]mu Cristo, Porto, 1978, p. 863. He visited Guangzhou three times in 1555-56 in an attempt to secure the release of some Portuguese prisoners. Dchcrgnc, Rlpmoi"• pp. 187-8. Unless otherwise stated all biographical details here and below arc taken from Pfister and Dchcrgnc. 14 Sec his letter to the Jesuit General, Francisco Borgia, Cochin, 20 January 1567, in J. Wicki (ed.), Docu111rnta l11dica, vol. 7, Monumtnta Hiltorica S.J, vol. 89, 1962, pp. 208-12. He also discusses an embassy and the means he appears to favour, patient application to the Chinese mandarins. Ii Letter to the Jesuit General, 13 January 1558, Cochin, Jesuit Archives, Rome (henceforth ARSJ], Jap. Sin. 4, f. 90v. 16 Longobardo to Joao Alvares S.J., Portuguese Assistant to the Jesuit General, Shaozhou, 4 November 1598, in P. Tacchi Venturi (ed.), Oprrt storicht de/ P. Matuo Ricci, S.l., vol. 2, Maccrata, 1913, p. 473. All translations in this paper, unless otherwise noted, arc my own. 17 On this, sec M.S.J . Cooper, Rodrigues tht lntrrprttrr, New York, 1974. IR P. Ruic, K'uni-tzu or Confucius! Tht]tsuit ln~rprttation of Confucianism, Sydney, 1986, pp. 74-7, 87. 19 Pfister, Notices, pp. 245-6, cf. Dchergnc, Rlprrtoirt, p. 179. 10 Tianxut Lueyi in Tianzhujiao dongchuan iwnxian xubian, Taipei, 1965, vol. 2, p. 899. 21 'Annuac Sinac, 1637', ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 115, vol. 1, ff. 371-435. 22 ARSJ : Jap. Sin. 118, ff. 1-34. 2.\ Ibid., f. 7r. 24 Pfister, Noticn, pp. 251-5. cf. Dchergnc, Rlprrtoirt, pp. 161-2. 2s The manuscript Dou Exctllmcias da China was published in French as Nouvttk Relation de la CJ,int, Paris (Claude Barbin) 1688; and in English as A Ntw History of Chin4, London 1688. He was anticipated as historian of China by another Ponugucsc Jesuit, Alavaro Scmcdo (in China 1613-37), whose Rtlafao da Propagllfao daft no repo da China t outros adjactntrs (Madrid, 1641 ), better known in its revision by Manud de Faria y Souza as Tht History of tht Great and Rtnowntd Monarchy of China (Madrid, 1642, English translation 1655) was a source for many later writers on China. u, I. Pih, Lt Pert Gabriel de Magtlhats, Paris, 1979. 27 Charles Boxer has written frequently on the causes of this decline. Sec, for example, the first chapt~r of his Portugunt India in tht Mid-Stvtnttmth Century, Delhi, 1980. 28 E.g. by J. Witek, in Controversial Ideas in China and E"ropt: A Biography of]tanFranfois Foucqwt, S.J. (1655-1741), Rome, 1982; and D. Alden, in a somewhat broader geographical context in Tht Malting ofan Elitt Enurprist, pp. 16-21. 29 According to Pfister and Dchergnc, Acosta, a native of the Azores, had worked in Shaanxi provicc, in the 1640s, bur went south to Fujian in the 50s and never returned co chc north. 11

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Letter, 'ex Sinensi Rcgno', 1 August 1664, ARSJ: Fondo Gcsuitico (henceforth FG] 730, f. 53. Other letters in the same file illuminate the background to the dispute with Le Faure. His nominated successor had died before the General's letter of appointment reached China and the issue was whether Le Faure remained in office or the Provincial of Japan in Macao had right of nomination (e.g. Da Maia to the General, 26 March 1665, ibid., f. 66). 31 The standard work on the scholarship and education of the Portuguese Jesuits, Francisco Rodrigues, A FomtltfllO lntell«tw,I do ]ts1'illl, Porto 1917, despite its vigorous defence of the Jesuits against the charge of their responsibility for decline of Portugal, seems to me to demonstrate that the intellectual vigour of the Portuguese province in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was not maintained afterwards. The Jesuit writings listed for the period after the beginning of the century concentrate on the old areas of scholastic philosophy and theology rather than the new philosophy, and on mathematics rather than the new physical sciences. ~1 Jap. Sin. 132, ff. 48-51. 3 ·' This ignored the extent to which Manchu was at this period the language of the inner court. Soares, not being a member of this inner circle ofJesuit court advisers, may have been ignorant of this. J4 Jap. Sin. 132, f. 50 r. 3 ~ C. Guill~n-Nuficz, 'Thomas Pereira, S.J., and the Eclipse of the Portuguese Padroado', in R. Ptak (ed.), Porn,grme.Asia, Stuttgart, 1987, pp. 157-75. 36 Sec note l O above. 7 J J. Sebes, Tht Jesuits 11nd tht Sino-Russian T""'Y ofNerchinslt 1689: Tht Diary of Thomas Pereira, Rome, 1961. 311 This issue lies beyond the scope of this paper. I will simply note the moving letter of Pereira to de Tournon, Beijing, 2 January 1706, in which he swears 'by the faith and word of a Priest' that he has spoken of de Tournon to the Emperor favourably, had not tried to frustrate his attempt to appoint a Superior over all the missionaries, nor to prevent communication between the Emperor and the Pope. (ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 199, I, no. 62, ff. 126-7. A signed copy of this oath is found in ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 169, f. 360) . .¥J Antonio Franco in his Ano Santo "4 Comp11nhia de ]tsus nn Portugal. Porto, 1931, p. 757 quotes a letter of Miguel do Amaral S.J. in which he quotes the Emperor as saying that Pereira alone amongst the Jesuits at the court had penetrated to his bones. -40 ARSJ: Jap. Sin., 128, ff. 1-4. 41 On Zhao Chang v. A.S. Rosso, Apostolic Legations to China oftht Eightttnth Century, Pasadena, 1948, p. 161, n. 32 and passim. See also the account of Zhao's role and of the following negotiations in J.W. Witek, S.J., 'Reporting to Rome: Some Major Events in the Christian Community in Peking, 1686-1687', in E,h11ngn culturtls tt rtligieux tntrt la Chine tt l'Occidmt (Actn du Vilt Colloqw International de SinoUJgit tk Chantilly), 810 September, 1992, San Francisco, 1995, pp. 301-18. 42 Sec especially Percira's letter to the Jesuit General, Beijing, 26 June 1692 (ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 128, ff. 85-92): and his 'Relacion del Permisso, que sc dio a Nuestra Ley en este Imperio de China por Marzo de 1692', Guangzhou, 11 January 1695, ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 128, ff. 71-6. 43 For a fuller account, but from the French point of view, sec J.W. Witek, 'Understanding the Chinese', in C. Ronan and B. Oh (eds), East Metts Wrst, Chicago, 1988, pp. 8993. ""J ap. Sin. 128, f. 88r. 45 Ibid. Pereira requests that this be kept secret since it would harm the Jesuits if it were to get back to Chi~. Digitized by

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Jap. Sin. 128, f. 88r. 47 Songgotu (So-er-tu), or Sosan, the Sos1,,r or 'third son' of Viscount Soni and grandson ofSose, a former Grand Secretary. He himself had been Grand Secretary, 1669-80, had fallen from favour, but was now in the ascendancy again after leading the Chinese side at the Nerchinsk negotiations. v. A.W . Hummel, Eminml Chinn, of tlN Chint Pmod, Washington, 1943, pp. 663-6. The 'Relaci6n' refers to him as 'So san lao ie', Jap. Sin. 128, f. 74v. 41 The verdict of his contemporary, the German Jesuit lgnaz Kogler: 'Although the zeal of this father for the mission was great, as it truly was, as witness to the truth it is necessary to confess; ncverthdcss, he hardly can be said to have always exercised it prudently'. And Kogler goes on to instance his constant frequenting of the court and his 'palace friendships' (Kogler to the Jesuit General, T amburini, 5 November 1725, ARSj:Jap. . Sin. 180, f. 99v, quoted in D'EJia, II Lon111no Confino, p. 58, n. 1, together with many other similar judgements by other Jesuits). ., Another distinguished Portuguese Jesuit who served as Vice-Provincial of China twice, as Vice-Provincial and Provincial of Japan, as Vicar of Fujian for the Bishop of Macao, and as Bishop elect (not confirmed by Rome) of Nanjing. 50 ARSJ: Fondo Gcsuitico 722/16. The date is given in an activist's note. 51 Except for a note that for the Beijing college 500 'aurcac sinae' came from Father Antoine Thomas, possibly from his patroness the Duchess of Avciro. s.1 Born in Pono in 1674, departed for the missions at twenty while still a novice, served in Guangdong, Macao, Manila, Macao again, then Goa. s3 ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 169, ff. 216-7. ~ Sec the documents in Lo Shu-fu, A Docummtllry Chronic~ ofSino-Wtstem Rt'4tions (1644-1820), Tucson, 1966, pp. 147-8 on the role ofZhangAnduo (Magalhics] in the Metcllo embassy. ss Monteiro to Tamburini, the Jesuit General, 28 May 1706, in ARSJ: Jap. Sin. 169, ff. 151-2. S6 Dchergnc, RJptrtqirt, p. 120. 57 Jap. Sin. 169, ff. 15lr-v. 51 Da Silva had been associate (sodus) of the defunct Bishop of Nanjing, the Jesuit Alessandro Cicero. Dehergne, Rlptrloirt, p. 248 .

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Chapter Sixteen

For God, King and Mammon: The Ponuguese Outside of Empire,

1480-1580 A.J.R. Russell-Wood The overseas empires of the Spanish, Dutch, French and British were 'seaborne, in the sense that there was a maritime link between the metropolis and non-European territories over which such European powers exerted domain. Bur only in the eighteenth century did there come into being the concept of empire in which the metropolis and the colonies were forged into a single entity. Prior to that date, and in some cases even during the eighteenth century itself, what have loosely been described as 'seaborne empires' were in reality a series of networks or webs and spaces, in which Europeans were less imperialists than emporialisrs.1 The Portuguese 'empire' constituted archipelagoes, isolated islands, and continental territorial holdings of grossly disproportionate size over which the Portuguese had varying degrees of control and influence. The most evident manifestation of a Portuguese presence rook the form of forrs, trading factories, towns and cities. Although the term Estado da India referred to Ponugucse holdings from the Cape of Good Hope and Persian Gulf eastwards to Japan and Timor, it would have been vinually impossible to define irs geographical boundaries. 2 The terms laid eut in-the Treaty ofTordesillas ( 1494) were later to justify Portuguese claims to what was to be Portuguese America, but the territorial extent of Brazil was only being tentatively explored in the sixteenth century. Imprecision as to what constituted territorial or maritime limits of Portuguese 'empire', compels clarification as to my use of the word 'outside' (the Portuguese fora) . Rather than use a mathematical or geographical line of demarcation for inclusion or exclusion, the term 'outside'

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will here be used in three contexts: first, to refer to regions clearly beyond a Ponugucse sphere of influence; secondly, to refer to regions or siruations outside the radius of effective Portuguese administrative control; thirdly, to refer to social boundaries which denied to certain groups full participation in empire although their presence was often most apparent in the nuclei of Portuguese settlement. The Porruguese who were physically outside of even the broadest interpretation of the parameters of empire fall into seven general categories: those in the service of king and country; men of the cloth, both secular and regular; those motivated by self-interest; those engaged in actions considered illegal by the Portuguese authorities; those who committed apostasy or who betrayed Portuguese national interests by entering the service of non-Portuguese rulers; those persecuted to the point of moving out of the area of effective Portuguese administrative capabilities; and a human flotsam and jetsam whom fate or misfortune placed outside of the empire. . As Portuguese monarchs extended their interests beyond Europe, there . was a constant search for information which could be of strategic importance: on polities, governance, mineral resources, commercial practices, and agriculture. Portuguese sought out information on peoples, their physical appearance and dress, religious practices, mores, and dietary habits. Western Europe of the fifteenth century was a rich storehouse of myths and fantasies about peoples, islands, geographical phenomena, and marvels: mountains of silver, gold deposits, and pockets of Christians. 3 The force of myth and the fantastic as powerful incentives to Portuguese kings to dispatch persons on reconnaissance missions should not be underestimated. In 1486 Joao II sent Joao Afonso de Aveiro to penetrate the hinterland of the 'slave rivers' and he was well received by the Oba in ·Benin City.4 Emissaries sometimes heavily disguised-were sent far beyond even the Portuguese sphere of influence. Such was the intelligence-gathering mission dispatched by Joao II in 1487 of Pero de Covilha and Afonso de Paiva charged with making contact with Prester John. Paiva reached Ethiopia where he died. Covilha, who had an excellent knowledge of Arabic, spent five years travelling to the west coast of India, south to Sofala and in the region of the Red Sea before heading to Ethiopia. 5 By the end of the fifteenth century, Portuguese were regularly using river systems to penetrate beyond the coastal regions of West Africa. In the early sixteenth century Ponuguese in Southeast Africa moved inland from Mo~ambique up the Zambezi as far as the pltznalto. Antonio Fernandes, a ekgrtdado, carpenter, and interpreter journeyed from Sofala

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in 1514 and 1515 as far as the kingdom of Monomotapa and reported on gold deposits and river systems as routes to the interior.6 The 'desert routes' from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, in combination with river and maritime components, enabled the Portuguese sometimes carrying coded messages to ttavel from Lisbon to Goa and return by land and water routes often under Muslim control and travel in Muslim caravans and vessels. Antonio T enreiro was the first European to record his crossing of the desert from Aleppo to Basra in 1523 and the first to make the return journey in 1528.7 The sixteenth century was an age ofembassies dispatched by Portuguese kings to leaders in West, Central and East Africa, and later in India, Persia and East Asia. The embassy of Rodrigo de Lima ( 1520-26) to Ethiopia was followed by an expeditionary force under Crist6vao da Gama in 1541.8 Further east, in 1514 Jorge Alvares headed the first European sea-based mission to Canton. In 1516 Tome Pires left India for China as the first Portuguese ambassador to the imperial court. After innumerable delays he reached Beijing but was denied an audience with the Emperor and sent back to Canton where he died after torture and imprisonment. 9 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries-Portuguese travelled far and wide to sign treaties de paz e amizade or of paz e comercio with African rulers, with rulers of che Deccan sultanates and of the southern Hindu kingdoms and wich the Mughal emperor. 10 Such Portuguese overtures and a Portuguese presence could transcend the merely diplomatic and commercial and have a profound· impact on local mores and institutions as in Kongo or on local politics as in Burma. 11 Servants of Christ travelled and resided beyond the Portuguese empire or sphere of influence: Guinea, Kongo, Ethiopia in Africa, in Brazil, but nowhere more than in Asia where Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinians and members of other religious orders travelled widely. In some cases, Portuguese missionaries followed in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors. In China, for example, there had been Nestorians as early as the seventh century A.O. and Franciscans· in the thirteenth century. Pride of place for travelling and residing beyond the Portuguese empire must go to the fathers of the Society of Jesus. The year 1555 found five padres de missa in Lampacau according to Lufs Froes S.J. and the Dominican Fr. Gaspar da Cruz in Canton. 12 Before 1600 Portuguese men of the cloth resided in the court of Akbar 'The Great' and had uavelled to Cochin-China, Tonkin, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan but the age of missionary travels to the remoter parts of Central and East Asia and Brazil still lay ahead in the seventeenth century.

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The sixteenth century saw entrepreneurial Portuguese taking full advantage of commercial opportunities whose pursuit led them to move temporarily or take up residence outside ofthe empire. There were reports of groups of Portuguese merchants in Africa, be it in the sert4o of Angola or of Southcast Africa, or in the city states of Pate, Ampaza and Lamu, in Ethiopia, and throughout Asia eastwards from Baghdad and Basra in ' Persia to Surat, around the Bay of Bengal, in Arakan, Pcgu and Patani and Pahang in the Malay peninsula, and as &r as China. By 1550 there may have been as many as 1,000 in ports of Coromandcl: Nagapattinam, Kunjimedu, Sao Tome de Mcliapor, Armagon, Masulipamam. By 1520 there were some 200 to 300 Portuguese in Pulicat on the Coromandcl coast. 13 Fcrnao Mendes Pinto found some 300 Portuguese entrenched in Patani in about 1540. In 1545 some 200 Portuguese resided in ports of China and in 1556 Pc. Luis Frocs S.J. reported that in 1555, 400 Portuguese and five padres had joined to build a church in Larnpacau. There were Portuguese scattered throughout Southcast Asia as in Java and Sunda. Such communities were made up of Portuguese who had not taken a conscious decision to renounce God, king, and country but had drifted beyond the Portuguese world to pursue opportunities. Sanjay Subrahmanyam has issued an important corrective to the notions that such commu11ities were composed of vagrants, renegades and deserters, noting the presence in such communities of wealthy and influential Portuguese who had not only the ear of local rulers but of the viceroy in Goa and knew how to make their views known in Lisbon. 14 Asia also provided heady inducements for Portuguese to operate outside of empire. The Bay of Bengal was highly attractive to Portuguese private uaders who operated virtually without regulation and amassed considerable profits from the country uade. 15 Well enucnched Portuguese settlements on the Coromandel coast numbered deserters and fugitives from justice, and also wealthy entrepreneurs with influence and contacts not merely among casados of Goa and Cochin but also at court. One such was Miguel Ferreira. Misguided efforts to reduce this presence, notably the · 1539 expedition of Manuel da Gama to dismantle the settlement of Sao Tome de Meliapor, failed. The presence of a captain at Malacca was little deterrent to freedom of trade in the region (Sri Lanka, Coromandel, Bengal, Burma and Malay Peninsula) from Ceylon to Macao. Indeed, while Estevao da Gama was captain of Malacca he amassed considerable wealth from private uade. Charges of self-enrichment and nepotism were also laid against governor Martim Afonso de Sousa who profited from the trade to Bengal and Southcast Asia. 16

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In the case of mercantile communities of Ponuguesc, cast of the Cape of Good Hope and outside of the Estado da India several factors were at work. There was the opporrunity to trade freely on routes (ca"eiras) and in commodities on which there was no royal monopoly. Also, there were ports in the Estado da India well known for laxity in enforcing royal regulations and controls. Despite limits on the effective regulation of Portuguese trade, the presence of a ftitor and a customs house, and liability for duties, were enough to lead Portuguese entrepreneurs to move beyond such controls. The existence of such communities was conditional on acquiescence by local rulers. For example, there were reports in the early seventeenth century of Ponuguese merchants trading and residing for various lengths of time in Makassar, who were tolerated by the Muslim Sultan.17 Opportunities for gain and commerce also encourage4 Ponuguese to venture into areas of Spanish America. As early as 1524 the Ponugucsc Alcixo Garcia and eighteen colleagues, members of the ill-fated expedition of de Solis, sailed for Spain. Their vessel foundered off the coast of Santa Catarina. Garcia and his group crossed the Chaco and Andes to reach the lncan empire in what is now Bolivia. They returned to Brazil with silver samples eight years before the arrival of Francisco Pizarro and his one hundred and sixty-eight men in the valley of Cajamarca. They were the precursors to other adventurers who would be known as peruleiros. Expeditions were sent out from Portugal in 1536 and 1537 and travelled up the river Maranhao in search of gold but without result. Hcnrique Garces is credited with discovering mercury in 1558 in what was then Spanish Peru. Later expeditions took advantage of flurial networks and penetrated to the west of the demarcation imposed by the Treaty of T ordcsillas. Portuguese also used rivers leading to the main stream of the Amazon to flee with contraband silver from Potosf or· escape the attentions of Spanish civilian and ecclesiastical authorities. Already in the mid-sixteenth century, there are reports of Ponuguese traders in Lima and later in the century the presence of Portuguese engaged in commerce, agriculture and business was noted not only in the coastal regions but also in the high Andes. 18 There was often a fine line between aggressive entrepreneuriali!m and piracy, and between what was legal or illegal, condoned or condemned. This could depend as much on prevailing commercial practices, time and place, as on value systems, ethics, and social or religious constraints. Non-Europeans might not have been conscious of . the distinction between corsair activity and taking of prizes which were much pursued by Ponuguesc fidtzlgos and condoned by the Portuguese

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crown, and piracy engaged in by Portuguese beyond the sphere of Portuguese influence. Piracy was rampant in the waters of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and South China Sea. Notorious were the exploits of Ali Ibrahim and Kuti Ali. Indeed, one version of how the Portuguese came to ingratiate themselves with customs officers of Canton, leading to the extraterritorial concession ( 155 7) of the Macao peninsula, was that the Portuguese had ousted pirates from that region. Once they secwed this foothold on the Chinese mainland, Portuguese smuggling activities declined along the coast. But Portuguese achieved notoriety as pirates in the Red Sea, Straits of Malacca, Bay of Bengal and along the China coast in the first half of the sixteenth century. The Bay of Bengal was notorious for Portuguese who engaged not merely in piracy but who dabbled in Burmese and Thai politics, earning the reprimand of the Dutch traveller J.H. van Linschoten. 19 Tome Pires, mission to China was undermined in part by news reaching the emperor, from a former sultan of Malacca, characterizing the Portuguese as 'sea-robbers: Despite imperial prohibitions, during the first half of the sixteenth century Portuguese alternatively rivalled and collaborated with Japanese pirates in coastal trade, which was tantamount to smuggling, in the coastal provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. That such enterprises were fraught with danger was illustr~ted by the case of Galeote Pereira. A native of the Beira, he sailed for India in 1534 and saw service as a soldier. He also made two trading voyages to China between 1539 and 1547 and, in 1548, accompanied one Diogo Pereira on a further voyage to China. Diogo Pereira returned to Malacca leaving some thirty Portuguese, including Galeote Pereira, and two junks with unsold merchandise off the Fukien coast. In March 1549, they were captured by a Chinese coastguard patrol and taken to the provincial capital. Some of the Portuguese and their Chinese accomplices were executed, whereas others were exiled to Guilin. Galeote Pereira was one of the lucky ones to be smuggled out to the coast and freedom and went on to pen a superb first-hand account of his travels and impressions of sixteenth century China. An area. far removed from the South China Sea was the Caribbean where, in the sixteenth century, there were reports of Portuguese engaged in smuggling and in the slave trade. 20 Individuals in the fow categories listed so far either had _the decision to move outside of empire taken for them as in the case of persons in the royal service or in the service of their religious orders or the Society of Jesus, or were acting in their own self-interest. Even those engaged in what might be considered flagrant acts of piracy were not acting to undermine the national interest, betray_their king, or reject their faith.

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But there were other Portuguese who renounced God, king and country. One such group were soldiers and sailors. Sporadically paid, paid in arrears, or sometimes not paid at all, some deserted no sooner than had their vessels put into port while others fled from garrison duties. The accepted practice in the Estado dtz India of engaging in private trade while remaining in the royal .service, provided business contacts and some understanding of trading practices which were preconditions to the subsequent uansition from royal service to private entrepreneurship. Commanders of garrisons from Para to Malacca faced the problem of desertion. Subrahmanyam has noted that, even during the decade following the capture ( 1511) of Malacca by the Portuguese, there was widespread desrtion to port towns in Coromandel and the Bay of Bengal. Most of the 200/300 Portuguese in Pulicat in 1520 were probably deserters. 21 Portuguese soldiers were sought after by sultans and leaders with interests inimical to Portugal. Those with specific skills were highly in demand. These included: understanding of European strategies for warfare, knowledge of military architecture and, the most prized, knowledge of weaponry; also foundrymen with technical skills in casting of cannons and other heavy weapons. Bombardiers were in high demand. The inadequate and unpredictable wage conditions made such soldiers susceptible to offers of employment. In many cases this resulted not only in renunciation of loyalty to king and country, turning their backs on their Portuguese cultural heritage, but also apostasy-for the most part renouncing Christianity for Islam. 22 Albuquerque was particularly distressed when Portuguese tranferred their allegiances to native rulers, seeing himself in the role of the shepherd of his flock: 'ovelhas do meu cu"al de que eu som pastor: On several occasions in Hormuz, Goa, and Cochin-he engaged in hostilities until such renegades were returned, even when less than a dozen were involved. On one occasion, punishments for such renegades included severing of the right hand, amputation of the index finger of their left hand, and of ears and nose. 23 Desertion was not limited to soldiers. Indiamen were chronically undermanned because sailors jumped ship. In Asia there was a demand for Portuguese sailors who sold their services to the highest bidder, and commanded or crewed a variety of vessels sailing under different flags, with almost 1000 Portuguese serving on the Mughal fleet alone. Others jumped ship and desened the sea for land-based activities, probably in small trade. Some were survivors of shipwrecks. Some returned to the Portuguese fold but others remained in regions or ports to which they had been carried. Rarely can one point to an individual sailor from the

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lower deck. One exception was the Portuguese seaman Francisco de Vit6ria who, still a young man, arrived in Lima, dealt in horses in Trujillo, was an assistant in a shop in Lima and became wealthy by business dealings in Potosl. He then renounced worldly wealth for the spiritual life, entered a monastery, and ascended through the ecclesiastical hierarchy to become ( 1580-87) bishop of T ucuman. There has always been an international component to maritime service and Portuguese $ailors and navigators sailed in the service of other European powers, notably Spain. Fernio de Magalhics sailed in the service of Castile, as too did Joio de Solis who was killed in 1513 after reconnoitring the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. Portuguese pilots achieved immortality, but not in the service of Portugal. EstMo Gomes was commissioned (1523) by Charles I of Spain to find a north-west passage, in which he failed but did sail the coast of North America &om Newfoundland to the Chesapeake. J oio Rodrigues Cabrilho piloted Castilian vessels to California and explored San Francisco Bay (1542-43). The Azorcans Joio Gon~ves and Francisco Fernandes were contracted by Henry VII of England ( 1501) for westerly Adantic voyages.24 The practice of sailing under the flag of another nation would not have singled out such outstanding navigators &om many of their contemporaries, but they were operating fora do impmo in the sense that they were not in the service of the king of their country of birth and their activities occurred for the most part outside the Portuguese empire or Portuguese sphere of influence. In Portuguese Asia, but also to a lesser degree in Portuguese Africa and Portuguese America, there was a constant flow of Portuguese who had,· to varying degrees such as on legal or religious grounds-been made outcasts, and others who, of their own &cc will, had turned their back on Portuguese society. These included convicts, ianfados, and deserters &om royal service on land and sea, or renegade or defrocked clerics. Although members of religious orders were not immune to temptations of the flesh, the secular clergy were notorious in the Estado Ja India for engaging in commerce and taking concubines. Many voluntarily moved to places beyond the control of their superiors and of civil judicial authorities. There were also those Portuguese who simply tired of being part of an enclave community in the shadow of a Portuguese fort and chose to distance themselves &om the Portuguese authorities. While mercenary service and piracy were unpredictable occupations which could result in death or imprisonment, fortune or destitution, there arc enough documented cases to suggest that for many such outcasts-be, they for religious or other reasons, and be their exile from the Portuguese empire forced or self-imposed-opportunities presented

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themselves to achieve fune, fortune, prestige, and social eminence such as would have been denied to them in Ponugal. If some males were accepted by indigenous communities-and achieved power and authority through marriage or by their own initiative, others commanded landbased forces or naval squadrons, and were advisers or confidants to rulers in Asia. If the above individuals or groups had their prime area of activity in regions clearly beyond the Portuguese empire, there were others who operated beyond the bounds of effective Portuguese adminisuative authority. The parameters of such authority were set by four sets of circumstan-' · ces: by distance and/or topography; by lack of adequate human resources; by financial resources insufficient to enable viceroys or governors to take the appropriate measures; and by human failings on the part of those in authority. If the first three are self-explanatory, the fourth deserves further comment because it has ramifications for our understanding of the operational side of the Portuguese empire. The brief discussion of piracy dwelt on acts of piracy by Portuguese 'outside of empire' and beyond the boundaries of effective administrative measures. But there were Portuguese who engaged in piracy not only within a Portuguese sphere of influence but even within the area of effective Portuguese adminisuative capability. One such was Diogo de Mesquita who operated with impunity in Asian waters, confident in the knowledge that his actions would be condoned by viceroys, governors, or captains of fortresses. This condoning of blatantly illegal acts by Portuguese vassalos reflects the blurring of the line beween what was considered legal and illegal. The Estado da India was far:-flung, and some captains-general were so unaccountable to the governor or viceroy in Goa that they colluded, and engaged in their own names, in smuggling and illicit trade in spices. Captains-general in T ernate and the Moluccas were infamous for lining their pockets and those of their relatives by illegal trade. In short, there were those who had been selected by the crown or viceroy to uphold the royal and national interests and were quintessential 'insiders' in the administration of the Estado da India, but who chose to operate outside of the. letter of the law.25 Exceptional was the case of Macau, where the Portuguese enjoyed extraterritorial rights but whose Chinese citizenry was governed by Chinese laws and subject to Chinese legal authorities. In a city where the Senado da Camara was the prime decision-making body rather than the governor and where the composition of the Senado reflected the commercial orientation of the Ponuguese population, Macau was a safe haven for Portuguese who wished to operate beyond the radius ofeffective

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Ponuguese authority. There was a population of mariners-sailors, pilots and officers who had become rich through trade but would not have dreamed of travelling to Goa for fear of being placed under arrest. New Christians could live safely in the knowledge that not only were they beyond the reach of the Inquisition in Goa but that the Chinese authorities would not have countenanced an auto daft on Chinese soil. 26 This problem was not limited to the Estado da India. Prior to the establishment ( 1549) of crown government in Brazil, a floating population of exiles (~dados) was described by Duane Coelho, donatory of the captaincy of Pemambuco, as 'criminosos foragidos 'and 'peiores cd na tn-ra que peste: In 1546 he asked the king to free him of 'till pefonha: He characterized as bandits (salteaebJres) some of the settlers. notably to the south of Pernambuco, to whom the king had granted land but who were physically beyond the control of authority. The situation did not improve with the appointment of a governor-general. In 1560, Mem de Sa told the queen that he needed more power to deal with this 'terra de degred4dos. malfoitores: In letters to the king and his fellow Jesuits in Lisbon and Coimbra, Manuel da N6brega was appalled by Portuguese immorality in Brazil. He noted that children, offspring of Christian Ponuguese fathers, were scattered throughout the sertao and had adopted 'bestiais costumes gmtilicos: including cannibalism. Young women of inter-racial sexual liaisons lived in sin. The Jesuit made effons to bring such children back under the mantle of Portuguese civilization an4placc them in the homes of upright Portuguese couples. 27 But the vastness of os sertoes and lack of adequate instruments to remedy this situation doomed to failure remedial measures by civilian and religious authorities. What constituted the boundaries of'effective' Portuguese administrative authority was fluid and subject to vicissitudes of time, place. and local circumstances. In the same way as there was an ebb and flow of Portuguese moving in and out of empire, so too was there a flow between administrative cores (at this time Lisbon, Goa and Salvador) and their respective peripheries. This fluidity also applied to individuals who might be regarded as being 'outside of empire' but who, at different times and in different places might make serendipitous contributions to the creation of a Ponuguese presence or further the aspirations of a king, viceroy, or governor. Prior to the institution of the Estado da India or Estado do Brasil, there were small groups of Portuguese ensconced in coastal communities for the most pan made up of a hotchpotch of European nationals who had been shipwrecked or jumped ship and whose presence was tolerated by local communities and unknown to the Portuguese crown. One such community was in the Bay of All Saints in Brazil. The •

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Portuguese Diogo Alvares Correia had been shipwrecked on the reefs of Rio Vermelho in about 1510. He had been adopted by the local Tupf who named him Caramuru. He took as his wife an Amerindian woman, known by her Christian name of Catarina, and lived in a small settlement of Europeans ofvarious nationalities and Indians, which was later known as the vila velha.28 While Correia had little in common with those soldiers in Africa and India who left the royal service to get married and comprised the group known as casados, there was one feature which they shared: namely, potential for assimilation and integration into local societies. As such, · they illustrate the Indianization or Africanization of some Portuguese males. Whereas some casados did remain in Portuguese cities and towns in the Estado da India, others took full advantage of opportunities such as contact with indigenous trading networks might provide to move outside the Portuguese sphere of influence. With an indigenous wife, these Portuguese acquired knowledge of Asian or African languages, and putting down emotional, physical, and financial roots, such Por.tuguese moved beyond the pale of a Portuguese, Catholic and European community overseas and became assimilated into the indigenous communities. Already in the sixteenth century, by the time the Portuguese entered Asian trading systems, participation by 'foreigners' raised few eyebrows, and the Portuguese were merely regarded as yet another 'foreign' group. This potential for assimilation also applied to lanfados, Of tangomaus, who had lost their status as free citizens because of convictions for criminal activities, and who could redeem themselves by service to the crown. Put ashore, or dispatched to regions peripheral to Portuguese interests, their mission was ideally to either report back to a Portuguese authority, or provide a cultural bridgehead or become an intermediary, should the Portuguese ever evince serious interest in a region. Many became totally assimilated-religiously, culturally, behaviourally and linguisticallyand had progeny by local women. To use Allan Isaacman's phrase applied to prazeiros of the Zambezi valley, such Portuguese became 'transfrontiersmen'. Their allegiance was no longer to the king of Portugal, nor to Christianity, nor indeed did they identify themselves primarily with Portugal, nor did they seek out opportunities to return to the Portuguese fold. Such transfrontiersmen were the only Portuguese who became fully integrated into Asia, Africa and America. If there was any individual who by his actions, be they factual or fictitious, epitomized the Portuguese living outside of empire it was the alter ego created by Fernao Mendes Pinto ( c. 1510--83) and immortalized in his Peregrinafam (Lisbon, 1614).29 The protagonist of the I'e1~naram

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had been, we arc told, a slave, soldier, merchant, pirate, ambassador, doctor and Jesuit novice. While Pinto blended the experienced, the imagined and hearsay into a highly colourful narrative, a reconstruction of his travels and wanderings suggests that, after his arrival in Diu in 1537 he saw service as a soldier, including an expedition to the Red Sea, but that after his return to India he forsook the occupation of a soldier and adopted Malacca as his base. He claimed to have been a roving emissary to the kingdoms of Sumatra and Patani and to Martaban in Burma. Commercial ventures verging on piracy took him to the Gulf ofTonkin, Indochina and the South Coast of China. He recounts a pepper,-buying expedition to Java and voyages as far west as Goa, through the South China Sea, and as far as the Moluccas and Japan. In 1558, after twentyone years in Asia, he returned to Portugal. The more elaborate fictions such as a raid on the tombs of the Chinese emperors, capture and sentencing to hard labour on the Great Wall, have been discounted as figments of his imagination. Pinto was representative of a broader group of persons beyond empire, trading, engaging in full- or part-time piracy, and serving as mercenaries. One .estimate of such Portuguese fora do imperio in the sixteenth century and in Indochina, Pcgu and _Bengal alone was one to two thousand, secure from any likelihood of intervention or control by authorities in Goa. The self-ascribed importance of Pinto draws attention to the role played by persons who were 'outside of empire' as intermediaries and even mediators between the Portuguese crown or its representatives and non-European peoples, local rulers, or heads of established states. This occurred in Africa and, more notably, in Asia. Subrahmanyam and Boxer have examined the relationships between such 'outsiders' and 'adventurers', and rulers in Southeast Asia in the late sixteenth century. Despite official rejection by Portuguese authorities it is interesting to note that kings, viceroys, governors and captains of fortresses were willing to turn a blind eye to circumstances of birth or criminal activities and availed themselves of linguistic skills, political and diplomatic contacts, information and entrepreneurial skills possessed by such persons. NonChristians were often used as couriers, as too were New Christians. The presence of the:: Inquisition notwithstanding, one Jew-known as 'Coge Abrahao the Jew'-was active in Portuguese service from the 1570s to 1590s: his service included accompanying the emissary of the sultan of Bijapur to Lisbon, drafting a peace treaty between Portugal and Bijapur, and diplomatic missions. 30 The potential for self-empowerment by individuals within and without the regions of Portuguese control, and under the aegis of the king or his representatives, underlines the apparent

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paradox of the coexistence of a highly centralized metropolitan administration with an overseas administration which manifested both centralized and decentralized characteristics and which was open to co-opting, in the royal interest, persons wliose circumstance of birth, activities or residence denied them participation in empire. As such, they furthered imperial objectives while remaining shadowy figures. There were also those who might live within or without the empire but who, in the former case, were considered pmonae non gratae and denied full participation becawe of ethnic, religiow and racial circumstances: these included gypsies, New Christians, and persons of African descent regardless of whether they·were slaves or free. There were also fugitives from jwtice (homiziadJ,s). A report of 1528 referred to hundreds of Portuguese homiziadoswho had left the Portuguese fon and settlement at Sofala and were scattered through the smao and to other parts of the southern Swahili coast, the better to be able to engage in contraband. Under the umbrella name of smanejos, they penetrated the interior of Southeast Afric.a, trading, discovering minerals or engaging in warfare.31 There had been a community of Portuguese in Mombasa before its capture by the Portuguese and reports of Portuguese communities in Pate, Ampaza and the Lamu archipelago. One group of Portuguese who were 'outside of empire' in both senses, namely operating beyond the administrative and physical boundaries of empire, as well as being denied full participation as Portuguese within the empire, were the New Christians. Many of these had fled continental Portugal to settle in Portuguese entrepots in Asia and in Brazil, whereas others operated outside the Portuguese empire in Lima, Cartagena, Mexico, and later in Manila. 32 By their prominence as entrepots, Goa and Cochin were attractive to New Christians engaged in commerce. The establishment of a tribunal of the Holy Office in Goa led to interrogations, arrests, imprisonments and condemnations of New Christians. Such persecutions were especially intense in the 1560s and 1570s. Despite inquisitorial zeal, the tribunal was too undermanned to investigate New Christians other than in Goa and the immediate west coast area and depended on denunciations and local officials elsewhere to make enquiries and send swpects to Goa for trial. But threat of persecution was enough to lead some New Christians to leave Goa and other Portuguese enclaves for cities not under Portuguese control. One such was Surat. James Boyajian emphasizes that New Christians were the only Portuguese merchant families _to be operating concurrently in America and Asia and that, in Asia, they were represented in all major areas at the same time.

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The multicontinental nature of such New Christian funily and commercial networks can be illustrated by two examples from the sixteenth century of Portuguese New Christians who operated within and without the empire. The first is Diogo Fernandes Vir6ria. Born in Oporto about 1530, Diogo, his brother, and their father developed sugar plantations in Pernambuco and in Sao Vicente. From Brazil, Diogo moved to Mexico and then to Manila, where he established a commercial base in the 1580s. He counted relatives in Brazil, Opono, Lisbon and Goa and his commercial empire focussed on the supply of Chinese silks and porcelain and Indian diamonds, spices and cottons, to markets in Mexico, Peru and the Spanish Caribbean. The second is Manuel Serrao (1521-1600). Born in Elvas, he embarked for India and arrived in Goa in 1554. He probably travelled and traded along the west coast of India as well as inland. In 1561, fearful of the Inquisition, he left not only the city of Goa bur moved totally outside the areas of Portuguese control. He travelled overland to Vijayanagara where he met up with other New Christian exiles. Prior to his death sometime before 1600, Serrao was on the move in Muslim India trading throughout the Deccan and Gujarat. 33 The attractions to Portuguese of moving outside of empire presented a challenge to the Portuguese crown, and had practical repercussions on military preparedness. A 'call to arms' to Portuguese in the Bay of~engal and on the Coromandel coast to provide manpower and their private vessels to oppose Ottoman forces at Diu met with a totally inadequate response which led viceroy Dom Joao de Castro to comment that most Portuguese in Asia did not feel that they bore any responsibility--for supporting such official operations. 34 More generally, to be outside of empire must be seen in the context of governance and institutions, and also of physical circumstances over which the crown had no control. As already pointed out, even among soldiery of the Estado da India, the fact that they did not constitute a standing army eliminated an esprit de corps and corporate identity which is so often associated with marine or territorial forces. Nor was there a system of trade or economy monolithic enough to constitute an incorporating collective endeavour associated with being Portuguese. The juxtaposition of centralization and decentralization in administration, limitations to effective administration, and devolution of responsibilites as by monopolistic contractual arrangements and tax farming, also undermined a sense of cohesiveness. This sense was further attenuated by the concurrent multi-continental and multioceanic nature of the Portuguese overseas enterprise. There was also a lack of territorial demarcation of the Portuguese empire. The designation

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Estado da India, which came into use in the second half of the sixteenth century, was more conceptual than physical in nature, and its very amorphous quality could not delineate a physical context identifiable as Portuguese space. Furthermore, the fact that the Portuguese presence, in commercial, administrative and even social dimensions, was determined in large part by natural forces-wind systems and ocean currentsimposed on overseas communities a rhythm beyond human control, even of kings. How could the crown ensure that Portuguese vassalos retained their Portuguese identity, their Christian religious affiliations, and their loyalty to king and country, when placed in circumstances in which they were · demographic and cultural minorities, constantly exposed to powerful assimilative and centripetal forces of non-European cultures, religions, and persons? Above all, could a monarch find a way to counterbalance the Lusitanian libido on the loose which, in the absence of European women would be fulfilled by indigenous women-who might influence their partner to move beyond the Portuguese world and integrate into a non-European community? The crown met this challenge in three ways: first, by providing an institutional context and physical space which powerfully reflected Portuguese antecedents and with which Portuguese overseas would be well versed; secondly, by using mechanisms which were forceful reminders to Portuguese far from the mother country of their allegiance to God, king and country; thirdly, by deploying a gamut of benefices, merces, and other forms of royal recognitio.n for services and loyalty, while denying eligibility for such rewards to those who moved fora do implrio. This royal effort did not extend to persons-gypsies providing the most extreme example of personae non gratae who were regarded as being outside Portuguese society. The crown created a conciliar structure in the metropolis for administration of overseas affairs, and codes of law applicabl~ in the mother country and overseas. The viceroyalty of the Estado da India, governorship of Brazil, and donatory captaincies were prime instruments of overseas administration. Overseas judicial and fiscal institutions closely matched their metropolitan counterparts, as too did their personnel. Of such administrative entities, those with which most Portuguese-be they in Goa, Olinda, Sao Jorge da Mina, or Macao-were most familiar were the Senado da Camara and the centrally located pilourinho. These epitomized local government, and recalled the role of the crown in granting municipal status and accompanying privileges. They were modelled on those of Lisbon, Oporto or l!vora, and their officers held

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tides and performed functions vinually identical to their counterparts in Ponugucsc towns and cities. ,s The Ponugucsc crown also tried to create a physical context for vllSSlllos overseas which provided a secular and religious space such as they would have in the mother country. The physical layout of many overseas towns and cities wo~d have been reminiscent of those of Portugal. Where topographically feasible, these followed a predictable pattern with governor's palace, town council chambers, cathedral, Jesuit College and houses of other religious orders in a central location, on or contiguous to a central square or largo. In addition to creation of secular space, sacred spaces were constructed in the form of churches, chapels and altars, and cemeteries. The non-Portuguese commented on the large numbers of churches in Portuguese overseas cities, towns and villages. Not only did such buildings provide the opportunity for individual prayer but also for collective •worship, together with other Portuguese, in a corporate assertion of Catholic devotion and affirmation of the importance ofCatholicism in Portuguese identity. Because of the close association between church and state, sacred space was irrevocably linked to kingship and to the mother counuy. Cemeteries also constituted sacred space, as collective manifestations of Catholic devotion. They were also forceful reminders of the continuity, over decades and even centuries, of the importance of Catholicism as an integral part of the Portuguese individual and collective identity, and the responsibility of the present generation of Portuguese overseas as guardians of this legacy. In short, secular anq religious institutions, urban planning, and individual buildings provided psychological, physical and spiritual environments which instilled and reinforced, among the Portuguese overseas, their links to the mother counuy. The classic example of an institution which reinforced the notion of a nexus between mother country and overseas, and buttressed a sense of identification in individual Portuguese, was the Santa Casa da Miscric6rdia. Established in 1498 in Lisbon as a lay brotherhood, it had by 1570 branches in Africa, Asia and Brazil. Creation of branches required royal approval, as likewise their statutes had to receive the royal imprimlltur, but otherwise they acted autonomously. These branches were governed initially by the Compromisso of the parent house in Lisbon, and there was little variance between requirements of membership, functions, and benefits between overseas branches and their Portuguese counterpans. The Miseric6rdia, Third Orders, and numerous other brotherhoods of lay men and women upheld Christian values and mores, were anchors of stapility, and practised social philanthropy. Admission to a branch in

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277 Ponugal was tantamount to membership of a branch overseas, with accompanying benefits such as financial and medical assistance in some cases, and guaranteeing to the member a Christian burial, masses for the soul of the deceased, and (where appropriate) the Miscricordia acting as executor of last testaments, settling estates and ensuring that heirs in Portugal received bequests due to them. The knowledge that, after their death and despite the fact that they had taken the decision to spend their lives overseas, there would be forged a posthumous link connecting them to heirs and kith and kin in the metropolis must have been comforting to those Portuguese whose place of death would be far removed from their place of birth.36 On the collective level, there were various public mechanisms available to the aown to remind Portuguese far from home of their cultural and national heritage. These took many forms: public celebrations at the installation of a viceroy, governor, bishop, or aown judge; celebration of a royal birth or marriage, or public grieving at a royal death; public exemplary punishments which fulfilled a judicial function but also, ceremonially, brought together the king's personal representative, dignitaries of church and state, and members of the magistracy. Such events were corporate and very public manifestations of the power and authority of the monarchy, and forceful reminders of the importance attached by the monarch to enforcement of Portuguese legal codes, and the heavy sanctions imposed on vas.sals whose conduct uansgrcssed moral, ethical, physical and spiritual standards expected of those who called themselves Portuguese. Royal coats of arms, circulation of coins bearing the royal image and even taxes and 'voluntary' donations reinforced an awareness of authority embodied in the person of the king. The monarch also had at his disposal a wide gamut of forms of royal recognition: knighthoods in the orders of Santiago, Sao Bento or Christ; concessions of privileges, and of merch. All were tokens of royal esteem for services undertaken or anticipated by the honoree. While enhancing the status of the recipient; such favours forged a personal bond between sovereign and subject. In short, institutional and physical matrices reinforced a sense of being Portuguese, and mechanisms could be deployed to integrate into empire those who might otherwise have been tempted to suay beyond the pale. A measure of the power of such cenuipctal forces can be gauged by the multicontinental Portuguese presence and formation of empire in two hemispheres by 1570.

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Notes 1

D. Lombard, 'Le concept d'empire en Asic du Sud-Est', in M. Ouvcrgcr (ed.), Concept d'E,npi", Paris, 1980. 2 C.R. Boxer, ThtPortug11tstStaborntEmpirt, 1415-1825, London, 1969, p. 40. 'M.B. Campbell, Tht Witntss and 1hr Othtr Wor/4: Exotic Europta11 Travtl Writint, 400-1600, Ithaca, 1988, chs. 5- 6; J.S. Romm, Tht Edgts oftht Earth in Ancient Tho11ght, Gtography, Exploration, 11nd Fi,·1io11, Princeton, 1992. 4 A.F.C. Ryder, Btnin and tht Europtans, 1485-1897. New York, 1969, pp. 29-32, 4~52; J.W. Blake (transl. and ed.), Europtans in WtstAfrica, 1450-1560, 2 vols, London, 1942,vol l,pp.114-15. ~ Ponuguese sources include: F. Alvares, Do Prntt]oam"4s lndias. Vtrdadn-a informafam "4s ttrras do Prtstt foam, Lisbon, 1540; H. Cidadc (ed.) , Asia dt foao dt Barros. 4 vols 6th cdn, Lisbon, 1945-46, Dccada 1, bk. 3, eh. 5; G. Correia, Ltndas da India, 4 vols, Lisbon, 1858-64, vol. 3, pp. 28- 30. Sec also F.M. Rogers, Tht Qutst for Eastern Christians: Tr11vtls and Rumor in tht Age ofDiscovery, Minneapolis, 1962. 6 The most detailed reconstruction is by W.A.Godlonton, 'The Journeys of Antonio Fernandes-The First Known European to Find the Monomotapa and to Enter Southern Rhodesia', Transactions ofthe Rhodtsia Scientific Association. vol. 40, 1945, pp. 71-103. 7 A.R. Disney, 'The Portuguese Overland Courier Service between Europe and India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', in E.C.T. Candappa and M.S.S. Fernand~ pulle (eds), Don Peur Felicitation Volume, Colombo, 1983, pp. 51-63; Neves Aguas, (Introduction and notes) . Viagms po, Ttrra da India a Portugal. Antonio Ttnrtiro e Mntrt Afonso, Mem Martins, 1991. k R.S. Whitcway (transl. and ed.), Tht Portuguese Expedition IO Abyssinia in 15411543 ...• London, 1902. 9 A. Cortcsao, (transl. and ed.) , Tht Surr,a Oriental of Tomi Pirts ... and tht Book of Francisco Rodriguts, 2 vols, London, 1944. 10 V.M. Godinho, Os dtscobrimmtos t a economia mundial 2 vols, Lisbon, 1963, 1965, vol. 2, p. 526; V.T. Gune, 'Source Material from the Goa Archive', in J. CorreiaAfonso (ed.), lndo-Portugutst History: Sourcn and Probkms, Bombay, 1981, pp. 19-33. 11 Ana Marques Guedes, lnte,ftrinci11 t inttgrafio dos portugueses na Birmania, ea 1580/630, Lisbon, 1994. 12 Encontro dt cuituras. Oito Stcu/os dt Missioniuflo Portuguna, Lisbon, 1994, p. 300; C.R. Boxer, (ed. and trans.), South China in tht Sixtttnth Century. Bting tht NarrativtS of Galeott Ptreira, Fr. Gaspar da C~ O.P., Fr. Martin dt Rat/4, O.E.S.A., London, 1953. 13 A.O. Farinha, '0s Portuguescs no golfo Persico ( 1507-1538)', Ma" LibtrUm, vol. 3, 1991 , pp. 1-159; S. Subrahmanyam, The Portugutse Empirt in A1ia, 1500-1700. A Political and Economic History, London and New York, 1993, pp. 71, 74. 14 Encontro dt Culturas, p. 300; Dr. Kai Cheung Fok informs me that this has not been confirmed by Chinese sources (personal communication, 27 June 1997); L.F.F.R. Thomaz, Dt Malaca a Ptgu-Viagms dt um ftitor portuguh (1512-1515), Lisbon, 1996, pp. 18-19; Subrahmanyam, Portugutst Err,pire in Asia; p. 89. •~M.N. Pearson, Tht Portugutse in India, Ca1nbridge, 1987, p. 84. 16 Subrahmanram, Tht Porrugutst Empirt, pp. 89-90. 17 C.R. Boxer, Francisco Vitira dt Figueiredo: A Portugutst Mtrchant-Advmturtr in South East Asia, 1624-/667, The Hague, 1967, p. 3. 11 Godinho, Os dtscobrimmtoi ta tconomia mundial vol. 1, pp. 425-6; C.E. Nowell, 'Aleixo Garcia and the White King', Tht Hispanic American Historic11l Rtvinu, vol. 26, no. 4, Nov. 1946, pp. 450-66; H .H. Keith, 'NC\v World Interlopers: The Portuguese in

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the Spanish West Indies, from the Discovery to 1640', Tht Ammcas, vol. 25, no. 4, Apr. 1969, pp. 360-71; L Hanke, 'The Portuguese in Spanish America, With Special Reference to the Villa Imperial de Potos!', Rtvista tk Historia tk Ammca, vol. 51, June 1961, pp. 1-48; H.E. Cross, 'Commerce and Orthodoxy: A Spanish Response to Portuguese Commercial Penetration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1580-1640'. Tht Amrricm, vol. 35, no. 2, Oct. 1978, pp. 151-67. 1 -> B.W. Diffie and G.D. Winius, Foundations oftht Portugutst Empirt, 1415-1580, Minneapolis, 1977, pp. 296-97; Pearson, Portugutst in Indut, pp. 85-6. 20 Boxer, South China in tht Sixtttnth Ctntury, pp. 3-43. 21 Subrahmanyam, Portugunt Empirt in Asia, p. 71. 22 M.A. Lima Cruz, 'Exiles and Renegades in Early Sixteenth Century Portuguese Asia', Indian Economic and Social History Rtvitw, vol. 33, no. 3, 1986, pp. 249-62. 23 Comtntarios tk Afonso dt Albuqutrqut, 5th cdn, Preface by J. Vcrfssimo Serrao, 2 vols, Lisbon, 1973, vol. 1. Part 1, chs. 44-9; vol. 2. Part 3, eh. 51; R.A. de Bulhao Pato and H.L. de Mcndon~ (eds), Car111s tk Afonso tk Albuqutrqut stguidAs tk documentos qut as elucidam, 7 vols, 1884-1935, Lisbon, vol. 1, cartas 4, 18, 88. 24 A. Baiao, H. Cidadc, M. Murias (eds), HisttJria da Expanslo Portuguna no Mundo, 3 vols, Lisbon, 1937-40, vol. 2, p. 327; S.E. Morison, Tht Europtan DiscoveryofAmmca. ThtNorthm, Voyaxes, New York, 1971: pp. 218-20, 326-31, 336-7. 2 ~ Diffic and Winius, Foundations oftht Portuguese Ernpirt, pp. 296, 374-9. 26 P .S.S. Pissurlcncar (ed.), Asstntos do Const/ho da India 1618-1750, Bastora, Goa, 1953-57, vol. 1, p. 205. l 7 F.A. Pereira da Costa, Anais Ptrnambucanas, 1493-1590, vol. 1, RecifcPcrnambuco, 1951, pp. 39-41, 177-9, 232-41, 255-63; on immorality, sec Costa, vol. 1, pp. 288-94; M. da N6brcga, Cartas do Brasil, 1549-1560, Rio de Janeiro, 1931, pp. 77-8, 79-87, 103-27, 133-6, 156-62. lM T. de Azevedo, Povoamtnto da Cidatk do Salvador, (2nd cdn), Sao Paulo, 1955, pp. 79-105. 29 Recent translation into English: R.D. Catz, Tht Travels of Ftrnlio Mmtks Pinto, Chicago and London, 1989; and Tht Ptrtgrinatibn ofFmiao Mmtks Pinto. M. Lowery (transl. and abridg.), Manchester, 1992. 30 W.J. Fischd, 'Leading Jews in the Service of Portuguese India', The Jewish Quartnly &vitw, vol. 47, 1956-57, pp. 37-57. 31 A. Lobato, A Expans.io Portuguna tm Mofambiqut tk 1498-1530, 3 vols, Lisbon, 1954; 1960, vol. 3, p. 386; M .0.0. Newitt, Portugune Stttlemmt on tht Zambtsi, New York, 1973, pp. 34-8. 32 Hanke, 'Portuguese in Spanish America'; Keith, 'New World Interlopers'. For discussion of seventy-one inquisitorial processes involving Portuguese, sec G. de Reparaz, Os Portupests no Vict-&inado do Peru (Slcu/os XVI e XVI/), Lisbon, 1976. 33 J.C. Boyajian, Portugutst Trw in Asia undtr tht Habsburg1, 1580-1640, Baltimore and London, 1993, esp. pp. 75-7. 34 Subrahmanyarn, Portugutst Empire in Asia, p. 89. 35 C.R. Boxer, Portuguese Society in the Tropics, The Municipal Councils ofGoa, Macao, B11hia, and Luanda, 1510-1800, Madison and Milwaukee, 1965. 36 A.J.R. Russell-Wood, ThtSan111 Casa daMistrictJrdut ofBahia, 1550-1755, Berkeley and Los Angdes, 1968. .

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Chapter Seventeen

Islands and Beaches: Indigenous Relations with the Portuguese in Sri ~.~~ after Vasco cla Gama Chandra R de Silva In his book on the Marquesas, Greg Dening, the well-known Australian anthropologist-historian, used the metaphor of islands and beaches to explain .the need to cross a cultural divide when one group encounters another: Beaches are beginnings and endings. They are frontiers and boundaries of islands. For some life forms the division between land and sea is not abrupt but for human beings beaches divide the \vorld between here and there, us and them, good and bad, familiar and strange ... 1

This study is also about crossing boundaries and looking at the Other, but unlike many previous accounts of the interactions of the Portuguese with the peoples of Asia, it will concentrate on views &om the land towards the sea. It will analyse the preconceptions of one group of indigenous peoples-the Sinhalas of southern Sri Lanka-their early perceptions about the Portuguese newcomers, and how continuing interaction through a century and more, modified such perceptions and helped to sharpen indigenous self-perception and boundary consciousness. It will also argue that the evidence indicates the workings of multiple processes: not just the interaction between the Sinhalas and the Portuguese 'Other', but resistance by oppressed groups against an interpenetration of both colonial and indigenous hierarchies.2 There were 'islands and beaches' within the Sinhala community, and beaches which needed to be crossed between them and the Saivaite Tamils, and the Muslims, who lived in Sri Lanka.

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A word ofcaution is appropriate. The destruction of the court archives of all of the coastal states of South Asia and the disappearance of many local uaditions have made it difficult for us to make detailed evaluations of the indigenous reactions to the Portuguese. In Sri Lanka, some sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Sinhala chronicles and poems which have swvived give us glimpses of local attitudes and perceptions. But in terms of their quantity and richness they do not compare with the resources available in Portuguese archives and chronicles. Within eight years of the arrival of V asco da Gama in India, a Portuguese fleet reached the coasts of Sri Lanka, and the connections they established with the people of the island lasted for a century and a half, until Portuguese power in Sri Lanka was eliminated by an alliance between the local ruler of Kandy and the Dutch.3 Although communications between Sri Lankan Catholics and the Church at Goa continued in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,4 the closest relationships between the Portuguese and the island they called Ceilao5 extended from the early sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries. That period will provide the time frame for this study. In any study of Sinhala attidudes towards the Portuguese, due to the nature of the evidence available, it is sometimes necessary to regard the Portuguese as a single group. Yet they were, in some respects, very diverse. While virtually all Portuguese shared the strong religious bond of Christianity there was amongst them a minority of 'New Christians', re~ent and often reluctant converts from Judaism. 6 Indeed, they were not all Portuguese. 7 The early expeditions brought in a number of other Europeans as soldiers, traders, gunners and sailors. 8 For instance, as his name might indicate, Francisco da Silva Castelhano, a captain who fought in the siege of Colombo in 1579-81, was probably Castilian.9 Background information on the basic political units in Sri Lanka is essential for an analysis of the evidence. The earliest Sinhala- Portuguese contacts came through the kingdom of Kotte.10 At the end of the fifteenth century, this kingdom was not only the largest in size but the richest and most powerful of Sri Lanka's political units. The area under its direct rule, however, was confined to the southwest of the country. Even within this region, provincial rulers appointed by, or legitimized by, the centre enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy. By the 1520s one of these sub-rulers, the king of Sitawaka, had become more powerful than his suzerain. Beyond the southwest of Sri Lanka, the highland kingdom of Kandy paid annual tribute to Kotte, The northern Tamil kingdom of Jaffna was a separate state. A number of petty principalities extended from the borders of the Jaffna kingdom along the eastern coast to Yala

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and Panama in the south. These were the vanni chieftaincics ruled by the vanniyars. The term vanniyar appears to have embraced a wide category of persons ranging from direct appointees of the kings of Kotte, who ruled outlying districts of the kingdom, and tributaries of the rulers ofJaffna, to autonomous rulers of large, though somewhat undeveloped and sparsely populated areas. Each of these kingdoms and chieftaincies had administrative organizations of varying complexity and each was dominated by a caste-based elite group. In the Sinhala areas, the dominant caste was the goyigama (or farmer) caste with a sub-group within it ( termed muda/i or radala) but particularly in the southwestern region where the Portuguese presence was strong, there also existed a few caste groups, notably the karava (or fisher) and sala.gama (or cinnamon peeler) castes. 11 whose relations with the dominant goyigama were not yet fully articulated. A basic argument presented in this study is that the dominant political elements within the Sinhalas constantly reinterpreted developments in the encounter with the Portuguese in an effort to retain tl1eir position. However, as will be discussed later, within the larger frameworks, beaches were crossed or barriers erected on them to accommodate individual and sub-group ambitions. lnterprecacions were, of course, modified to suit individual needs as well. Lee us turn to a near contemporary account of the first encounter between the Sinhalese and the Portuguese in the Sinhalese chronicle, the Rajavaliya (Roll of Kings). i; It seems clear from internal evidence that the Rajavaliya is not the work of any one person. The chronicle was updated from time to time apparently without much effort to provide a stylistc or philosophical consistency to the whole work. We know now that the portions of the Rajavaliya relating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have been taken almost in toto from another chronicle called the Alaktshvara Yuddhaya (The war of the Alakeshvaras) .13 The latter was completed around 1581. 14 The main events of this 'first encounter' in Sri Lanka have been carefully examined by many generations of historians, and seem fairly clear. In the year 1506, Dom Louren~o de Almeida, son of the then Portuguese Viceroy, Dom Fr;incisco de Almeida, was patrolling the area of the Maldive Islands to the south of Sri Lanka when his ships were. driven by storms to the coast of Sri Lanka and made their way M Colombo. Colombo was the port located nearest to Kone, the capital city of the major kingdom of Sri Lanka. The Rajavaliya recounts the arrival of the Portuguese as follows:

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•.. the people who were at the port reported thus to King Parakramabahu; there is in our pon of Colombo a race [jati, alternative readings-a kind, a caste] of people very white in colour and of great beauty; they wear jackets and hats of iron and pace up and down without resting for a moment. Seeing them eat bread and grapes and drink arrack, they reported that these people devour stone [kudugal-alcernative reading-meat] and drink blood.•~ They said chat these people give two or three pieces of gold or silver for one fish or one lime. The sound of their cannon is louder than thunder at the end of the world. Their cannon balls fly many leagues and shatter forts of stone and iron. These and countless other details were related to the King. 16

Historians have uaclitionally interpreted this account as a depiction of the arrival of the Portuguese reflecting a sense ofwonder. This interpretation is partly based on some internal evidence that this portion of the chronicle was written by a Christian convert. 17 The description certainly has elements of drama and the story, in time, entered the folk memory of the Sinhala. The newcomers are described in graphic terms and the main spheres in which they were different-appearance, dress, food, wealth and power-are all carefully noted. At first glance, it is a picture of an attractive and active people of great wealth and power confronting a group of locals ,vho were struck with amazement at the physical beauty, srra11ge food and carefree liberality of the strangers, and were a,ved b}' their armour and cannon. Historian Michael W. Roberts has contended that within this very description is a vision of the 'Other' that is much less complimentary 18 and that this very story might well have been used to denigrate the Porruguese'among those who knew the local idiom and had indigenous values. As the Portuguese soon found out, wearing full armour in tropical heat was counterproductive. The picture of a soldier clad in iron in uopical Asif1 is thus also a pic;ture of ridicule. Restless pacing is the opposite oflthe Buddhist ideals of serenity and of calm detachment. The story of the Portuguese seeming to drink blood might have been intended to hint that they were a people 'polluted' in the Hindu sense of the term. It could also have been a mocking of the Eucharist. · Even if one disagrees with this interpretation, the subsequent paragraphs of the Rlljavaliya, certainly create the impression of Sinhala royal authority actively and successfully dealing with the newcomers: On hearing this news, the King Dharma Parakramabahu summoned his four brothers to his city and having informed them and other chiefs and wise ministers, inquired 'Should we make peace with them or fight them?' Thereupon, Prince Chakrayudha said 'I will go myself and after observing what kind of people they are, will inform as to which of these two courses of action

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should be adopted'. He went to the pon of Colombo in disguise and having observed and understood the ways of the Ponuguese, he returned to the city and reponed back that it was not worth [kam nath4>-alternative reading-it was useless] fighting them and that ~t was better to grant them an audience (dakva ganima]. [Thereupon] one or two Porruguese were granted audience by the King \Vho gave them presents and made them bring presencs and curiosities to him. The King also granted innumerable honors [nathak sammana IUV4>alternative reading-granted innumerable tokens of esteem] to the King of Portugal and became his true friend. Let it be known that from that day the Porruguese lived in the port of Colombo. 19 '

There is much in this account which reflects the South Asian conception of the state and of the role of the king. The ideal of the Indian king was to be chakravarthi or world conqueror, and the world in this context was the subcontinent of South Asia. Land revenue was the basis of royal power ofall major South Asian states. The sea was the arena of merchants and of lowly fishermen, and as long as the merchants paid their dues, the king did not interfere in overseas trade. 20 According to the Rajava/iya a royal prince is sent to observe the conduct of the Ponuguese. On the report of this prince that it was not worth fighting these lowly traders, the king grants them an audience (daltum). The word dakum implies the grant to a subordinate, of the right to appear before the royal presence. The vassal then offers gifts to the ruler who could, if he wishes, grant favours and material benefits in return. Whatever the truth of the matter, the local chronicler was making an effort to view the Portuguese as supplicant merchants. It is the Sinhala ruler21 who is seen as taking the initiative in the encounter, and the account clearly conveys the impression of the ritual subjugation of the newcomers. The story of the second visit of a Portuguese squadron to Colombo illustrates the same tendency to filter knowledge through existing preconceptions, and to interpret events in a way that indicated that the local power still commanded access across beaches. Once again, Portuguese documents provide an outline of the events. In 1517, a Portuguese fleet of seventeen sail arrived in Colombo under Governor Lopo Soares and demanded permission to build a fort. The king of Kotte agreed. As soon as the walls of the fort were up to a defensible height, the governor wanted all the cinnamon available in the royal storehouses of Kotte to be handed over to the Portuguese at a fixed price. The king refused. War resulted and the Portuguese, having defeated the Sinhala forces, imposed tribute. 22 The R.ajar,a/iya treats this episode with selective amnesia:

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During the reign ofVijayabahu another ship arrived from Ponugal and, seeing forces with arms, they fired their cannon. On seeing a cannon ball strike the branch of a jak tree, the forces fled and reported this to King Vijayabahu at Jayawardhanapura [Kotte]. King Vijayabahu called four or five Portuguese to his presence in the city and gave them permission to leave after giving rhem presents. It should be known that in the reign of Vijayabahu the Portuguese were trading and resident at the pon of Colombo.23

Loss at war is glossed over to maintain the fiction of the continued dominance of the Kotte ruler. Victories gained were also exaggerated. A good illustration is provided in a verse from the Matale Maha Disave

Kadaim Pota: Maley maley Tambi/iya vanna po/ ma/ey R.aky ra/ey muhudin hamana diya raky Baley baley rahasin deviyanne baley Galey ltotuwa bandayi Tiriln,namakj4 The translation would read as follows: Is there a flower which compares with the coconut flower?; is there a wave cQmparable to the waves of the sea?; is there a power comparable with the power of King Rajasinha who built a fort on the rock of Trincomalee? Portuguese and Dutch accounts indicate that the Portuguese fort at Trincomalee was taken in 1638 by the forces of the Dutch assisted by the army of King Rajasinha and that, in accordance with the treaty between the allies, Trincomalee was handed over to Rajasinha after the Dutch demolished the fort. The Sinhala account in the Matale Maha Disave Ivzdaim Pota makes no reference to the Dutch and interprets the victory purely as an achievement of Rajasinha.25 Finally, there is some evidence that the Sinhala elites adapted stories taken from the Portuguese themselyes to assert their cultural and ethical superiority. The Maha Hatana, a Sinhala war poem composed in the late seventeenth century, relates how the Portuguese first arrived from Goa with presents for the king of Kotte and worshipping his feet, asked for permission to lay down a cowhide to sell their goods. The king is said to have agreed to this request because it was customary to allow all uaders who came to Colombo to sell their goods. The Portuguese tore the cowhide to hair-thin strips and enclosing an area, built a fort after promising to pay tribute to the King of Kotte, and began to think of conquering the counuy.26 It is likely that this was an adapted version of the founding of Carthage, heard by the Sinhalas and used in the creation of a new myth.

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In spite of these efforts to keep an impression of conrol by the indigenous elite, there is abundant evidence that local rulers tried to use the Portuguese for their own purposes, and were willing themselves to freely cross the beach for personal benefit. Portuguese naval power made them useful allies. As early as 1518, a brother of the king of Korte sought Portuguese help to gain the throne ..!7 In the 1530s, the next king of Kotte sought to gain Portuguese aid to ensure that his grandson rather than his brother succeeded to the throne. In this instance, the Portuguese authorities were convinced that this arrangement would be in their selfinterest, and agreed to it. 28 Other examples abound. From the 1540s to the 1560s princes in both Kotte and Kandy promised to convert to Christianity in return for Portuguese aid. In this sense, religion was seen as a means of crossing the beach from land to sea. However, the Portuguese attitude towards religion was also a major barrier on the 'beach'. The newcomers brought with them the idea that political allegiance went hand in hand with at least nominal adherence to the religion of the ruler. For rulers in Sri Lanka, on the other hand, what mattered was the allegiance to the ruler, irrespective of the personal religion of the subject. Sri Lankan rulers traditionally endowed places ofworship belonging to diverse religions. King Bhuvanekabahu of Kotte saw no contradiction between giving financial assistance to Franciscan missionaries and remaining a Buddhist. 29 The idea that the acceptance of conversion to Christianity was primafacieevidence ofa shift of allegiance from the local ruler to the Portuguese king was totally alien to them. . The zeal for missionary work and the greater intolerance which came in the 1540s with the Counter-Reformation aggravated the problem. In the 1550s, for instance, the newly converted Christian ruler of Kotte took the Temple of the Tooth and the historic temple at Kelaniya and all the lands and revenues attached to them from the Buddhists, and gave them to the Franciscans. 30 Buddhists considered such confiscations of temple property both sacrilegious and an abuse of royal power. This attitude is reflected in the Rajavaliya, which blames the convened ruler's father for this turn of events: Bhuvanekabahu who lived in intimacy with the Portuguese committing foolish acts, was killed by them as a consequence [due to the karma] of his foolish act in entrusting the prince he had brought up (his grandson] to the Portuguese. It should be known that Bhuvanekabahu brought misfortune on future generations in Sri Lanka and . that, due to him, harm befdl the Buddha Sasana in later times. 31

In the first part of the Mandarampurapuwatha, a local history of a small portion of the central highlands of Sri Lanka, a region that never

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came under Portuguese rule, composed much later, the problems cawed by aggressive Portuguese proselytizing arc vividly described: ... [The Portuguese] having seized and destroyed temple lands, temples, libraries and sacred Bo-trees in Lanka, established false doctrines by imposing heavy punishments and created unrest by oppressing many people in a number of areas. The many lov.- country folk who refused to accept Christianity were imprisoned with their wives and children and burnt to death. Punishing the people with penalties derived from unjust laws [they] caused them to lose their worldly goods ...3i

The Mandarampurapuwatha is unabashedly partisan. The action of the king of Kandy (Vimaladharmasuriya, 1591-1604) in suddenly turning his arms against his Portuguese allies is justified on the grounds that the Portuguese had broken faith with him earlier. Those holding office under the Portuguese are described as 'wicked people committing evil deeds'. 33 The poem is clearly written from a Sinhala Buddhist viewpoint, and it might indicate a widening gulf between the Sinhala Buddhists and the Portuguese Christians. The argument that the attitude of the Sinhala Buddhists towards the Portuguese grew increasingly bitter with the continued oppression and warfare in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is borne out by other Sinhala documents such as che Parangi Hatana, also called Rajasiha Hatana. This work was probably composed soon after 1638. Paul Pieris' free translation has preserved (and indeed, heightened) the spirit of the poem: And many a sacred shrine and palace proud and the very temple of the Sacred Tooth were consumed in the devouring flames, while many a fertile land of fruit and flowers, mango and plantain, jak and arecanut, betal and coconut were ravaged by this devouring host and our gentle herds of kine were slain to fill the maw of these devouring ogres and many a wanton deed they wrought •••

-~

Sinhala accounts also indicate the development of new 'islands and beaches' within their own community. Varying perspectives are a funr.tion of differential integration. 35 From at least the mid-sixteenth century we begin to see differences in perspectives on the Portuguese, between Catholic converts on the one hand and Saivites and Buddhists on the other. This difference in perspective of Catholic converts and Sinhalese Buddhists is documented in the Kusthanthinu Hatana, a war poem composed by Alagiyawanna (b. 1552), a famous Sinhala poet.36 The hero of

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Kusthanthinu Hatana was not a Sinhalese king or a rebel leader fighting against the Portuguese but Constantino de Sa de Noronha, the Portuguese Captain-General of Sri Lanka (1618-21 and 1623-30) who expelled the Mwlims from Portuguese territory. Other heroes praised in the poem include Felipe de Oliveira, who is said to have wed two Buddhist monks as slaves and whose later repute was based on the conquest of Jaffna and the destruction of Saivite temples in that kingdom. 37 This poem of one hundred seventy-five stanu.s transforms into a great victory, what was merely a successful ambush of the Sinhala advance guard by a retreating Portuguese army.38 There is some evidence of increasing hostility towards converts as well, but this is difficult to assess, because the frequent rebellions and attacks on churches in Kotte, and the uprising in Jaffna in 1627, indicate that many of those 'convened' moved across religiow boundaries more than once. Seventeenth-century Sinhala writings, however, specifically condemn converts who harmed Buddhism: Simankurc Raia [Simao Correa], paying no respect to the Four Temples nor to the Budaha Sasana which is the most revered in the world, was committing sins by making [children] orphans and by killing innumerable animals, when by the power of the deities who protect Sri Lanka his body became inflamed and he died ... 39

However, resenanent against the creation of a new privileged community of Christian converts who had rights that were denied to those who remained faithful to Buddhism might have been of much earlier origin. A lener written in 1545 by the Icing of Kotte to the Ponuguese Governor of India seems to indicate this: ... they become Christians out of feat when they have killed someone or have robbed a person of his property or have committed some similar offcnscs which &ll under my royal authority. Once they have become Christians they arc not ready to recognize my right over them and to pay what they owe according to our laws. I cannot approve that such people become Christjans, but I have no objections when people become Christians out of conviction and still recognize my rights over them and pay what they owe me according to the laws of the country."°

Ther~ are some interesting lines of inquiry which might arise from the creation of such new boundaries. It has been often argued that the modern self-definition of Buddhists arose largely from a nineteenth.:. century interaction with the Christian missionary movement.• 1 It is possible to speculate that the formation of this distinct Buddhist cons-

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ciousncss came earlier, in the seventeenth cenrury, with the perception of imminent danger to the faith. This perceived danger to the Buddhist faith from crusading Christianity might have been a factor which also instigated mistrust of Saivite Hinduism. The Mandizrampurapuwatha. for instance, reports that in the late sixteenth century, a Saivite named Giri came to the highlands on the command of Rajasinha of Sitawaka wid-~ a force of 6000 men, killed Buddhist monks and those who did not embrace Saivism, seized property and oppressed the pcople:'2 This poem also gives a graphic account of how King Vimaladharmasuriya fought and destroyed the forces:'3 Since the poem specifically states that Giri was supported by some Sinhalas as well as by 'foreign' [Tamil?) troops, the conflict is not depicted as ethnic but as one which involved religion. 44 Some of the hostility towards Christian converts might well have arisen from alarm at the disruption of the existing social hierarchy and the introduction of new social norms. Polyandry and polygamy had both been accepted social arrangements in sixteenth-century Sinhala society. Fernao de Queyroz states that 'it is common practice for four or five brothers or more to marry one single woman and on the contrary, a single man may marry m~ny sisters.'45 Joao Ribeiro, who lived for many years in southwest Sri Lanka, held that polyandry was the rule: 'A woman who is married to a husband with a large number of brothers is considered very fortunate, for ail toil and cultivate for her and bring whatever they earn to the house and she lives much honoured and well supported.'46 Portuguese insistence on monogamy does not seem to have been easy to understand or indeed, enforce. De Queyroz, for instance, relates a case that once came before a Portuguese judge: ... there appeared before him a woman married to seven brothers to complain of the ill-treatment she received from so many and begged in good earnest to be relieved of some of them. And as they were still subject to their laws and customs, the ouvidor asked her whether two would be enough for her and she replied that she would take four and choosing those she liked the case was settled; such arc the fruits of paganism. 47

On the other hand, for those who were not on the top of the social ladder and were resentful of existing social hierarchies, the coming of the Porruguese and of Christianity presented new opportunities.48 Many of the early converts were those at the lower end of the social ladder, or those who had not been fully integrated into the local social hierarchy. In Sri Lanka the initial'convens were largely fishermen. 49 Recent scholars have attempted to trace the rise of the social status of this group to their conversion to Christianity in the sixteenth cenrury. 50

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While the Portuguese did not set out to disrupt existing caste relationships, their relative ignorance of caste rules and their search for gain led to a number of changes: For instance, in their search for more and more cinnamon, the Portuguese brought in people of other caste groups to peel cinnamon. Cinnamon peeling had hitherto been the occupation of a part of the sa/agama caste. Portuguese rule eventually proved to be extremely burdensome to the cinnamon peelers 51 and this might explain why a large proportion of that caste group reverted to Buddhism in later times. In contrast the karavas, many of whom converted to Catholicism early, seem to have been relative beneficiaries. 52 Meanwhile, the dominantgoyigama caste grew resentful. The Rajavaliya describes the events of the mid-sixteenth century, from the point of view of the dominant caste: From that day many women of Kotte became subject to the Portuguese and people of low castes, servile castes, the Karava caste, the tailor caste, the Salagama caste, Durawa caste and Goyigama caste and the chief people of Kotte became covetous of the wealth of the Portuguese and became subject to them and became converts and intermarried with them ... 53

For those at the lower end of the social scale, these disruptions brought opportunities to blur 'invidious' distinctions. Joao Ribeiro points out chat 'It is not possible for chem, ,vherever they are, co conceal their caste, as this is always evident from their cloches; for they may not ,vear their cloth below· their knees, while those of high caste have it down to the middle of the leg. ' 54 But now coats, caps and breeches removed some of these obvious distinctions. As Queyroz notes, ... among the Lascarins it is more common to wear very short breeches, and in this garb they think they can walk with dignity through the noblest quarters. Those who are able, wear a sheet wrapped round the waist which at night serves them for a coverlet ...55

For those Sri Lankans who had been at the bottom of the old social order, its dissolution might not have seemed a total disaster. In conclusion, we return to the theme of islands and beaches, of identities and boundaries, of resistance and borrowing. The literature which we have examined was not isolated from the new social and political realities which were being constructed in Sri Lanka. Chronicles and poems formed part of a new discourse which reflected multipl~ voices arising from a diverse community. Obviously these voices varied with location, caste, religion and individuality. Through them we sec the ways in which some groups actively attempted to take the initiative during a time of change. There was traffic across some beaches, and

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sometimes people moved into new islands where they found a larger zone of comfort. More often, however, with the passage of time, the beach widened and began to be seen as a zone across which new dangers lurked.

Notes 1

G. Dening, Islands and Btachts. Discounts on a Siltnt Land: Marqutsas 1774-1880, Chicago, 1988, p. 34. 2 For more on this perspective see, R. Guha, 'On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India', in R. Guha (ed.), Subalttrn Studits, vol. 1, Delhi, 1982, especially p. 4 ff. 3 For details see chapters by C.R. de Silva, S. Pathmanathan and T. Abeyasinghc, in K.M. Silva (ed.), Univtrsity ofPtradeniya: History ofSri Lanka, Peradeniya, 1995, pp. 11-181. Hereafter History ofSri Lanka. 4 See R. Boudens, Tht Catholic Church in Ctylon under Dutch Ruk, Rome, 1957. ~ Contemporary Portuguese documents often distinguish the Sinhala-Buddhist areas which they termed Ceilao (Sri Lanka) from the Saivite Tamil areas ofJaffna, Trincomalee and Mannar which they considered part of the Fishery Coast. However, the term Ceilao is also used to denote the whole island. See D. de Silva, 'A Bibliography of Manuscripts Relating to Ceylon in the Archives and Libraries of Portugal', Bolttim International de Bibliografia Luso-Brasikira, vol. 8, no. 3, 1967, p. 534; T. Abeyasinghe,jaffna undtr the Portugutse, Colombo, 1986, p. 7. '' J.C. 13oyajian, Portugutst Trade in Asia undtr the Habsburgs, 1580-1640, Baltimore, I 993. pp. 30-4. 7 Dauril Alden, in his monumental The Making ofan Enterprist: The Society ofJesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Btyond I 540-1750, Stanford, 1996, p. 268 calculates that 45.1 per cent of the Jesuits who travelled to the East between 1541 and 1580 were nonPonuguese. Between 1581 and 1640 the percentage of non-Portuguese fell to 36.2 per cent but that was still quite a large proportion. ~ See, for instance, J. Everaert, 'Soldiers, Spices and Diamonds: Northerners in Portuguese India {1505-1590)', in this volume. 9 F. Queyroz, Tht Ttmporal and Spiritual Conqutst of Ctylon, S.G. Perera {trans.), Colombo, 1930, pp. 435, 439, ff. 10 The kingdoms in Sri Lanka are usually named after their capital and thus the kingdom with its capital atJayawardhanapura Kotte is called the kingodm of Kotte. The exception is the kingdom ofJaffna with its capital at Nallur. See C.R. de Silva, 'Sri Lanka in the Sixteenth Century-Political Conditions', in History ofSri Lanka, pp. 11-36. 11 It should be kept in mind that the equation of the caste groups with professions was very inexact. For example, not all karavaswere fishermen and there were non-karavas who fished. There were salagamas,vhose traditional occupation was not cinnamon peeling. Non-goyiga,na castes also farmed land and the distinction was chat, unlike them, the goyigamas did not have a specific 'professional' service task outside farming. See C.R. de Silva, 'Sri Lanka in the Early Sixteenth Century: Economic and Social Conditions', in History ofSri Lanka, vol. 2, pp. 46-7. 12 A.V. Suraweera (ed.), R.ajavaliya, Colombo, 1976. Text and notes on variant readings, sec pages 146-265. All funhcr references for Rajavaliya are to this edition.

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Suraweera (ed.), A/unw,r11 y.,JJJ,.,,,, Colombo, 1965, p. 28. For the rca.soning on this dating see C.R. de Silva, 'Beyond the Cape: The Portuguese Encounter with the Peoples of South Asia', in S.B. Schwartz (ed.), lmpucit Urulnslllndings:

Obsm,ing, Reporting. and Reflecting on tht Encountm bttwtm Europeans and Other Peoples in tht Early Modrm Era, Cambridge, 1994, p. 310. 15

The possibility of translating this phrase as 'devour meat' instead of eat stone was first suggested by M. Roberts, 'A Tale of Resistance: The Story of the Arrival of the Portuguese in Sri Lanka', Ethnos, vol. 54, nos 1-2, 1989, pp. 70-4. 16 RAjavaliya, p . 213. (My translation) 17 For a discussion of the evidence showing that the section of the Ritjavaliya covering the period 1506-43 was written by a Christian convert see de Silva, 'Beyond the Cape', pp. 309-10. 18 Roberts, 'A Talc of Resistance', pp. 69-82. While I agree with Michael Roberts that the RAjavaliya story is capable of multiple interpretations. Some of his reinterpretations arc somewhat far-fetched. For example, he attempts to link the Portuguese offer of high prices for limes with the fact that limes were used by the Sinhala in exorcism, thereby concluding that the Sinhala equated the Portuguese (foreigners) with demons. However, 'demons' arc unlikely to have been visualized as purchasing the 'cleansing' limes. What recent rcexmiination of the text has done is to open up the possibility that the text might have been reinterpreted (and even subdy altered in the process of copying) in later times. Thus the fact that the original account might have been intended to paint a favourable picture would not have prevented it from later reinterpretations. What is certain is that the account exaggerates the element of surprise. While it is possible that some of the locals were impressed with cannon mounted on ships, the cosmopolitan trading class in Colombo must have known bread, wine and cannon, all of which were in use in the region prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Also, there is no reason to believe that the Portuguese, after almost a decade ofexperience in Asia, continued to pay exorbitant prices for fresh fruits (limes) and fish. 19 RAjavaliya, pp. 213-14. (My translation). lO M . Pearson, Merchants and Ruln-s in Gujarat: Tht Repsonst to tht Portupest in tM Sixttmth Century, Berkeley, 1976. Of course, this attitude was sometimes modified by royal concern for revenue from trade but in Kotte in the sixteenth century, land revenue was still the major source of royal income. See C.R. de Silva, 'The First Portuguese Revenue Register of the Kingdom ofKottc-1599', Tht Ceylon]ou17141 ofHistorical and Social Studies, vol. 5, nos 1 and 2, 1975, pp. 103-4. 21 I use the term 'Sinhala ruler', in the sense of ruler of the largely Sinhala kingdom of Kotte. The ruling family was clearly partly T arnil in ethnic origin. 22 For dcatils see, C.R. de Silva, 'The kingdom of Kotte and iu relations with the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century', in E.C.T. Candappa and M .S.S. Fcrnandopullc (eds), Don Pner Ftlicillltion Volume, Colombo, 1983, pp. 35-50. "Ritjavaliya, p . 215. 24 Sec H.A.P. Abeyawardane, /Gu/aim Pot VimarshaMya (A Critical Study of&daim Pot), Colombo, 1978, p. 233. · is Dutch accounts, on the other hand, seem to minimize Rajasinha's role and cxtoll the victory as one almost solely by them. Sec K. W. Gooncwardane, Tht Foun"4tions of Dutch P0r«r in Ctylon, 1638-1658, Amsterdam, 1958. 26 T.S. Hemakumar (ed.), Kirimatiyawt MatiwarltJagr Maha Hatarut, Samayawardhana Mudranalaya, Colombo, 1964, stanzas 3-12. The words pura11 n4rulthi mean 'very wise' but arc not used in a laudatory sense here.

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de Silva, 'Sri Lanka iQ the Early Sixteenth Century: Political Conditions', History ofSri unlu,, p. 14. 21 C.R. de Silva, 'The Rise and Fall of Sitawaka', in History ofSri lAnlu,, pp. 71-2, r, C.R.

75-6. M. Quere, 'Beginnings of the Portuguese Mission in the Kingdom ofKotte', Atp,iNU, vol. 5, no. 1, 1988, p. 79. 30 P. Trindade, Co"'l"ist4 Espirit,uJ dD Orimtt, 3 vols, Lisbon, 1967 vol. 3, p. 48; English translations ar~ available in P. Trindade, Chapttrs on the Introduction of 29

ChristianilJ to Ctylon.from tht Conquist4 £spiritual dD Orimtt ofFriar Paulo "4 Trindade, trans. E. Picris and A. Mecrsman, Colombo, 1972, pp. 57-9, and V. Perniola (ed.), The Qztho~ Church in Sri lAw: Tht Portuptst Ptriod, Vol. 1, 1505-1565, Colombo, 1989, pp. 352-5. A variant version is found in F. Queyroz, Tnnporal and SpiritwJ CoNJwstofuylon, pp. 330-1. King Dharmapala actually donated all land belonging to Buddhist temples but specifically named these two, over which he had actual power at the time. 31 &tjawdiya. p. 219. (My translation). Sec also pp. 218,221. "L Lanlcananda (ed.), Man"4rampurapuwatha. Colombo, 1958, stanzas 316-17. The Ponugucsc are also described as crud and 'infidel', stanzas 318-19. 33 Man"4r11mpurapu""""4. stanzas 72-8, 340. 34 From P.E. Picris, Ribeiro 's History ofCtillu,, 2nd cdn, Colombo, 1909, stanzas 2831 . A slightly different Sinhala version has been published in. H.M. Somaratne (ed.), &tjasiha Hat4na, Kandy, 1968. A literal translation of the same verses is given below to indicate libenies that Pieris has taken with the content to give (and perhaps enhance) the flavor of the original: •... Having put to flames and destroyed many temples of Gancsha, residences of monks, palaces and the treasured T cmplc ofTooth, displaying their prowess, throughout the land by swiftly cutting down all mango, plantain, jak, arccanut, and coconut trees, having killed and devoured cows, catclc and buffaloes and devastating the land as if devils had been there.. .' Rajasiha Hatana, stanzas 24~. For evidence of Ponugucsc excesses in mid-sixteenth century Sri Lanka, sec C.R. de Silva, 'The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Sitawalca (1521-1593)', The Ctylon Journal of Historical and S«uzl Studia, vol. 7, no. 1, 1977, pp. 13-14. . 35 M. Sahlins, Historica/Mtt4phors and Mythical Rtalitin: Structure in tht Early History oftht Sandwich ls'4nds KingdDm, Ann Arbor, 1981, pp. 67-72. 36 Sec M.E. Fernando and S.G. Perera (ed), Kustantinu Hat4na, Colombo, 1932. Y1 Kust4ntinu H11t11na. stanzas 153, 168. 31 For an analysis of this campaign, sec C.R. de Silva, Tht Portuptst in uylon 16171638, Colombo, 1972, pp. 39-41 . » &tj11wdiya.p. 239. (My translation). •v. Perniola, Tht Catholic Church in Sri lAnluz, pp. 94-5. Bhuvanckabahu to Joao de Castro, 12 November 1545. 41 G. Obeysekere, 'Rdigious Symbolism and Politcal Change in Ceylon', Modnn Cty/1,n Studia, vol. 1, no. 1, 1970, pp. 48-63; K. Malalgoda, Buddhism in Sinhalnt SotklJ, 1750-1900: A Study ofReligious Rtviv11I 11nd Change, Berkeley, 1976. 42 Man"4rampurapuw11th11, stanzas 62-5. 43 Ibid., 97-120. 44 A recent unpublishedd essay by K. Malalgoda written after this chapter went into press convincingly argues that the M11ndAr111npurapuw11th11 might have been a nineteenth century forgery. This weakens the argument about the hardening of boundaries between Buddhists and Saivite Hindus but there is considerable material in the Rajln,aJjya (quoted

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above) that suppons the idea of a devdoping Buddhist consciousness in the seventeenth century. 45 F. Queyroz, TnnporaJ and Spiritrutl Conqwst, p. 16. . 46 J. Riberio, Historyo/Ctilao, P.E. Peiris (trans.), 4th edn, Colombo, 1948, p. 50. 47 F. Queyroz, TnnporaJ 11nd Spiritrutl Conqwst, p. 91. 48 Of course, they still had to deal with some racial discrimination. Sec C .R. Boxer, Ritct lhlations in tht Portuptst Cou,nial Empirt 1415-1825, London, 1963. 49 M. Qucrc, 'Christianity in the Kingdom of Kone During Dharmapala's Reign (1558-1597)', Aquinas, vol. 5, 1988, pp. 61-82. so Sec M. Roberts, Gutt Conflict and Elitt Formation: Tht Rist ofa Kar11va Elite in Sri unka 1500-1950, Cambridge, 1982. In course of time, in the areas controlled by the Portuguese, Christianity was accepted by some members of higher castes as well. 51 T.B.H. Abcyasinghe, Portugunt Rulrin Cryu,n, Colombo, 1966, pp. 136--42; C.R. de Silva, 'The Portuguese Impact on the Production and Trade in Sri Lanka Cinnamon in Asia', lndica, vol. 26, no. 1, 1989, pp. 25-38. 52 Sec M. Roberts, Gutt Conflict and Elitt Formatitm. 5-' Ritjavaliya, p. 220. (My translation). ~ Ribeiro, History ofCtilao, p. 51 . 55 F. Qucyroz, Tnnporal and Spiritrutl Conqwst, p. 82.

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IV. SOURCES, TEXTS AND REPRESENTATIONS Chapter Eighteen

From the West to the East: The Return of the Printed Word Joao Jose Alves Dias

Books have been printed in China at least since the ninth century. However, printing methods have changed considerably. Chinese printed books were originally made using the xylographic process, with plates that correspond to a full page, as if they were an engraving or a seal, allowing rapid duplication. The most ancient, definite and documented reference is in the Old Book Tang vol. XVII, in the records concerning Emperor Wenzong, which states: 'In December 839 an imperial order forbidding the manual printing of calendars was sent to the local governments'~ That memorial came following a request Feng Su made to the Emperor, when he realized that 'before the Meteorological and Astronomical services asked His Majesty for authorization to publish the new calendars, these were being already sold everywhere, disrespecting the divine power'. The first xylographed book of which we have an actual copy is the Jin GangJing, printed as a roll in 869. 2 It has six pages of engraved text, sometimes followed by images. However, this was still far from actual typography. Closer to what is usually called printing was the method used by Pi Sheng who, between 1041 and 1049, was already making prints using juxtaposed blocks of words. 3 This process may have subsequently reached Europe, and if so would have been the first printing process to pass from the East to the West. In the fifteenth century, Gutenberg, developing a method of xylo-engraving or xylography, invented or reinvented printing using moveable characters. This was a big step forward. Each character, or sometimes syllable, was engraved on different but uniform pieces, which made it possible to juxtapose

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them to compose words. Typography was thus invented. From Germany (Mainz), it gradually spread all over Europe. We don't know for sure when printing began in Portugal, or even which was the first printed book in the country. But the study of the texts suggests it occurred at least in the 1480s. There is a single specimen of the Torah, printed in Hebrew in Faro, allegedly in 1487; but this date can be questioned, since Jewish printing only appeared again in Faro on 16 December 1496, after the edict of expulsion of the Jewish people. In Latin our research proved that in 1488 one work, An Eloquentiae, attibuted to Cataldus Siculus, had already been printed.4 This predates by six years the other Latin work known, previously considered the earliest, printed in Braga in 1494. We have also identified the first printed text in Portuguese. It is the Sumario das Grafas, printed before 10 April 1488. Since this identification is new and the theme of the work concerns directly the travels of the Portuguese in their discoveries, especially in the East, it is important to develop the topic here. • When Bartolomeu Dias left Portugal in 1487, Joao II presumed he would come back with news that the way around Africa had been found. Already in 1485, in the Orafao de Obedimcia to Pope Innocent VIII, delivered by Vasco Fernandes de Lucena, the Portuguese king referred to: the sure hope of exploring the Arabian Gulf, where the kingdoms and nations of those who inhabit Asia, only known by us from obscure fame, cultivate with extreme devotion the holy faith in the Saviour, and in relation to which, if what the most authorized geographers teach us is true, the navigation of the Portuguese is only a few days distant. 5

The Portuguese king had only to remind the Christian world that the discovery and its consequences belonged exclusively to him. Indeed, since 1481 he had possessed, in addition to many earlier pontifical documents starting at least with Joao I, the bull Aeterni Regis Cltmentia of Sixtus IV, which recognized not only his rights, but also the treaty of Alci~ovas between Portugal and Castile in 1479, ratified by Isabel and Fernando on 6 March 1480 in Toledo. The bull of Sixrus IV confirmed those of Nicolas V (Romanus Ponti/ex. 1454), 6 and Calixtus III (Inter coetera, 1456). 7 Nicolas V confirmed the bulls granted to kingJoao I by Marcin V, and to king Duarte by Eugenius IV. 8 These gave leave to deal with all Saracens or unbelievers in specified places, and to buy and sell, as suitable, any goods, utilities or vicruals, to make any contracts, deal, negotiate or take any goods to the lands of the Saracens and unbelievers, except tools, wood, ropes or any kind of

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armour, and to practise all acts necessary and convenient to the carrying out of business.9 The bull of Sixtus IV was made public in different dioceses in 1482. In Evora this happened on 12 July, as we can prove by the copy and confirmation of its publication made on that date and place. 10 However, even if it was known at that time, it had probably already been forgotten by 1487-88, whenjoao II, afraid that the other European states, as well as some Portuguese, might uy to take advantage of his discoveries by unauthorized trading, decided to remind them of its content. Since he needed to reach everyone, it was not enough to read the bull again in the churches in Latin. It was necessary that the text be easily learned and understood. He began by summarizing the powers he had over Guinea and its rivers. 11 He used the new invention of printing, which made possible rapid and extensive distribution, as the text could be easily fixed to the doors of the city walls and in the churches. But immediately the question of the validity of the new document arose. The pontifical bulls had to be recognized as authentic documents. Not being the original, copies would only have validity if verified by the apostolic notary-and the apostolic notary was not authorized to validate short abstracts of larger documents. The new documents would be useless if they were not permanent reminders, and at the same time properly validated co eliminate any doubt. The problem was cleverly solved. To the abstract or sumdrio of the bull was added a paragarph saying: And in the treasuries and sacristies of each one of the cathedrals of the dioceses of these kingdoms, and also in the church of the city of S. Jorge da Mina and in the main churches of the islands of Madeira and Santiago, and S. Miguel and Terceira, can be found cop~es of this bull, in public form. 12

The king ordered the copies to be made not only in Latin, which was hardly understood, but also translated into Portuguese. Together with an undetermined number of printings of the abstract of the bull, twelve authenticated copies were also made, on 10 April 1488, with their uanslation in twelve to eighteen pages, to validate the printed abstract. Let us now examine closely the printed text. It was printed on only one side of an open sheet of paper, in order to occupy the case of two halfsheets, making it possible to fix it in public places. The text contained the following points. 1. An indication of who had given the above powers to the kings of Portugal.

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2. Declaration that the ownership and conquest of Guinea, with all the islands, ports, seas, trade, goods and lands, discovered or to be discovered, would be possessed forever by the kings of Portugal and their successors. 3. Declaration that in all relevant matters the kings of Portugal were authorized to legislate. 4. Declaration that the Portuguese could trade with the inhabitants of these regions, except in tools, wood, ropes, ships and any kinds of weapons. 5. Declaration that the kings concerned could build churches, monasteries and any other places of faith, and also to ordain the necessary people to officiate. 6. Interdiction of any business activities in those areas unauthorized by the kings of Portugal, including fishing, and of all that could damage their good government by the Portuguese. 7. Reiteration that the Popes invoked in the first point had determined that, b.esides corporal and terrestrial penalties, excommunication would be imposed upon anyone who contravened these provisions, and their punishment could only be suspended with the king's agreement. This excommunication would be extended also to any community or nation participating in ordering such acts. 8. Determination of the apostolic judges to act as executors of the excommunication (the bishops of Lisbon, Silves, Ceuta, Evora and Porto). 9. Indication of the places where the full copies of the bull, in Latin and Portuguese, which supported the resume, would be kept. We do not know the printer's name, nor the place where the text was printed. We think it was in Lisbon; but unfortunately we are unsure of any other examples of the same date and typographic characteristics. Attributed almost to the san1e date was the Sacramental, considered until now the oldest known text printed in the Portuguese language. Concerning the design and construction of the characters, we have some more ideas. The design is unusual. The type is similar to that used by Antonio Martinez in Seville (1486), for Domenico Cavalca's Espejo de la Cruz (translated by Alfonso de Palencia), which Vindel classifies as the typography of the first Spanish period. Produced and finished in Seville, it originated several other designs, all with similar features, used later in Zamora, Huete, Salamanca, Toledo, Valladolid and elscwhere. 13 Another similar type was also used in 1494 by Antonio Tellez, in Toledo, classified by Vindel as belonging to a printer 'coming from the typographical school of Seville' of 1484. 1 ◄

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The material used is also characteristic of a printer who had recently been a calligrapher. ti Some of the types do not correspond to a single letter. Several are double letters, others represent syllable abbreviations, but most are complete syllables. The use of such material is characteristic of the earliest printing before each letter gradually began to correspond to a unique type. The designs of che types correspond co two sets of small letters, and two sets of capital letters (even when these are of che same size). The most common type corresponds to what is usually called gothic 180 (meaning that twenty printed lines measure 180 mm). There are examples of almost every letter, except 'c', 'k' and 'w'. In the group of types representing more than one letter, we have the following: 'a', ' co' , 'de,' 'do,' 'f,' ,er, _, ,,, ., ' pro,' ' qua.' ' que,' ' re, ' ' ser,' rr, ,-, 1 , , n, o , ' per,' ' prt, 'ss', 'st', 'tri: 'u', and 'us'. The capital designs, with the same size, have two different origins; of the same design we find letters 'D', 'E', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', and 'S'; of another, the letter 'N'. In larger dimensions, we find only the words '[s] umario das grafas: which do not allow a correct measure, but we would not be far from the truth if we classified them as gothic 210. Examples of these letters are few, corresponding only to the fi rst th ree word s o f t h e text: ' a' , ~ , 'd' , ' g ,, ,.,1 , m , o , r , s , and ' u '. The group of types used is completed with a capital 'S', probably made in Portugal, measuring 410 mm by 390 mm. It figures, in the curves of the letter, the arms of Portugal and a pelican, both belonging to Joao II. The design might have been done between 1483 and 1485, for the lateral escutcheons are not turned to the centre, but to the bottom. They still represent the characteristic lilies (one on the left, clearly defined, but the others absent, perhaps because of lack of space in the picture). The text was printed in two colours. The illuminated capirular and the first three words are printed in black, but inserted in nine lines printed ii) red. The last fifty-seven lines are also in black, which therefore dominates the printed page. The red ink is used again on a marginal note, where reference to a temporary absolution is made. The typographic text is distributed on the two faces of the sheet~ occupying respectively 193 mm by 141 mm and 198 mm by 173 mm. The sheet of paper \ shows one of the typical watermarks of the epoch, present in the incunabulum of the 1480s: an open hand overlaid by a flower with petals. Even though the text is a sumdrio of another of 148 l, so reflecting the reality of that year, it contains elements which make. it possible to establish its chronological limits. The royal arms represented can only be later than 1483, and possibly, as there is only one lily used to fill the space, after 148 5. 16 C

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The only part of the text that docs not belong to the bull is the last paragraph, and this is what makes it datable. The reference to the city of Sao Jorge da Mina, which was elevated to that status in March(?) 1486, indicates a later date. However, the reference to the copies of the bull resting in each of the main churches, conferring authenticity on the printed document, points to 10 April 1488. We do not know of other later copies, and it would not have made sense to order, at some other time, twelve identical instruments, together with their respective translations, with twelve to eighteen pages of parchment. 17 The copies of the bull seem to have been made with some urgency. From the specimens known, we can identify different copyists, and the apostolic notary validated all of them, in order to have the twelve copies ready on the same day. For what reason would the king want twelve validated copies of the bull and its translation, if not to justify the printing of the edict? And the simple printing of this would be useless without the validated copies. W c believe that other examples of Porrugucsc printing of the fifteenth century will continue to appear in the future, as bibliographic spccim,:ns constituted by miscellanies, or collections of isolated documents,,. arc classified and studied. Book covers from the fifteenth to the sixt~nth centuries can also bring some surprises. A single printed sheet of paper can more easily go unnoticed by an investigator than a volume but, to the history of printing, it can be more relevant and despite its small dimensions, is still an incunabulum. The six lines of the Ce1tificado de Inaulgmciasoflnnocent VIII (datable as 1489?-92), constitute one such rare incunabulum of early typography in Portugal. 18 But, if typography began in the decade of the 1480s in Ponugal on Europe's southern edge, only in the second half of the sixteenth century would it arrive in the territories of the East-that is, in Asian territories which were in direct contact with, and under the administration of, the same Portuguese. Today, eighty works arc known to have been printed during the sixteenth century in the Portuguese East. 19 We do not wish to discuss the characteristics of all of them in this paper. Instead, we will analyse common and divergent aspects existent in that press. The Society of Jesus, once installed in the East, felt the need for that powerful insuument, the press, to aid Christianization and evangclization. This was soon illustrated by the printing of the work Cani/ha que

contem breuemmte ho que todo christao deue aprmder pera sua saluafam. A qua[ el rey dom Joham terceiro ... mandou em lingoa Tamul t Portugues com ha decrarafam do Tamul por cima de vermelho. which was printed in Lisbon by Germao Galhardo in 1554'.

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Motivated perhaps by the royal suppon shown in that printing, the Jesuits asked Joao III to grant authorization to install a printing press in the East. The king agreed and ordered 'an Indian' to be trained to serve· the priests in that mission. . It was 1556 when the first typographic press arrived in India. In a letter sent to the General of the Society in Rome, Father Gaspar Cala~ gave notice that the Patriarch Joao Nunes Barreto had departed from Portugal for the East, in the company of other brothers, one of whom, Joao de Bustamante, had learned the typographical ans. He also described how, before departure, they had all met with the king, who gave them 'an Indian, a very skilful printer, to help in the press, a brother taken from here'. The new press was installed in St Paul's college, in the city of Goa. The ship arrived presumably on 3 September 15 56 and soon afterwards, in October, the first book printed in the Portuguese East, for which there is clear evidence, was published. It was the Conc/usoes on Logic and Philosophy, defended in the Jesuits' College of Goa on 19 October. Joao Nunes Barreto worte on 6 November 1556: 'Joao has already printed this "conclusions" and other things which are already well made... Now they want to print the Christian doctrine that master Francisco made ... ' 20 But of these first works no copies have survived. The earliest book from the press that still exists today, was made known by Armando de Gusmao in 1953.21 It is the ObraofSt Bonaventure, in Latin, whose tide page, totally engraved, bears the stamp of the Society of Jesus surrounded by the inscription 'NOMEN HOM/NII/BUS DATUM: It was printed in Goa in 1559. The only remaining copy is kept in Evora. 22 Cochin might have been the second place where the press was introduced in Asia. This claim is based on a report in Barbosa that the first edition of Marcos Jorge's work, Carti/ha da Doutrina Christa, translated into Tamil by Henrique Henriques under the title of Doctrina Christiana in Ma/a.bar, was printed there in 1559.23 However, no copy has ever been located and all the available information indicates the first edition of this work was printed in Lisbon at Francisco Correia's workshop in 1561. But, even in the absence of this work, at least the third place in the history of the press in Asia belongs by right to Cochin, through the printing there in 1579 of an edition of the same work of Marcos Jorge. Ambalacate, also in India, is a rival for second place. However, until today no one has located any of the three works that Deschamps claims to have been printed there between 1577 and 1579.2-4 The Domina Christam m Lingua Ma/avar Tamu/, by Francis Xavier (of which there is a copy in Harvard), was printed at Quilon (Coulao) MM Digitized by

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Utt1atio Oa8 ar~a8tult0ie hbcn,me

trlfs oicrou pJpJs robnlTc> .i.i11crn:rJ111 r,· ,l,mlmn ~rimcirJmcnte quc bo liiorio '? conquiftJ n: guinee com roo.10 fu.10 J'lbJo poz100 nurco trJtOll refgJWl 7 1crr.1ti n:f,ubcr1.1t1 7 po: n:fTco briz pcrrcnci pcl'J femp1c JOll rem n: purtugJI-. .1fcue lcgi11111oe foe, !Tom, -i: J.1ls~uo ourroo nJm ©.uc fob:c as oic1.10 rou':10-r c.mJ biil n:11.,o oo oicros~cio -r frno fo cc!Tore,, fcgii:u Um, bcm p.1rdi:cr porn fJ5c: qu .,.,cti quc: oztrnJiDico leis fbrut.>O 'f mi::>.lOOtl ll'. n:f,r., .11m-1.1quc CIIJ n, (DIIICllbJnJ qJCO qz pcn.w ,: impoficJm n: qual quc: iburo ©.uc pollJ !euJ! aJo mJuroe 7 iuffim, NS oict.10 pJrteo n: guincc q ACS quc: mcrcn.,riw bees bit11JlbJ,n mJnlijmentoo !Ecom dleo a,, mpz.u '? \'cn:rr:, fJ_;c: qcrnij1 romtrJIOB fob1c quJcs qucr couf.ae. co tanroque nom fqJm fcrrJmi:1.10 mJn:irao .:010.10 nJuioo ou quJco qz ou1roo gencroo,: qu.,lhoJll'.8 oJnnJourao ©.uc o!l oictoo :;Reio 7 feuo focc!To:co afi, 11.lO tcrrJ07 plbJo j.1n:f.-u bcruo ro:no IIJt) po: n:frob:izpofTi fiio:u -r ro11ficJ1 q11.1Jet) quc: cgrc jas '? modkiros JE0111roo qu.m, qucz lu~reo picooroo• .100 quJ.1eo p,,fT.1111 111.1110.u quJcu qz peffo.10 ccclcfioft1CJ8 fecu!Jreo, 1Jmbcm re, gul.1reo poflo qfq.1 oJu o:n:co n," mcoig.i1es '? eflo com licccJ n: fc,, m;!)'o:eo. ©mr boo fob:c oicroo pofTJm dl.u rotDloe oi.10 n: fu.10 ,..,, 0.10 -r ouuir bij n: ronlf1fTJm .10 pcfToJo que lJ flcucrcm ou lJ fore n: q §CS quez plrtco -r afolucl.10 n: 1olll8 fcuo pccAtDo faluo t>Jquclleo qu, ,u!Tcc apoftolicJ foomcn1c fom rd'uJtoe!EJlij pofTJm cclcbm'? mi111 Or~ biJ roroloe outroo f11CT11mcntoe:

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LITERATURE: Letter of. Lu.is Frois, S. J., Goa, 4.XIl.1561, in Silva Rego, Docum,mta,;ao, VIlI (1952), p. 415; M. Saldanha, Dou• tri,ui Crista (1945), pp. 6-9, where the date of Frois' letter is misprinted (p. 7) as 1 December.

5.

Tratado em que [o padre Gon~alo Rodrigues, S. J.] mcstra pe/.a

demsdo dos Concilios~ e authoridade dos Santos Padres a Primazia da lgreja Romana contra os erros scismaticos dos Abexins. Goa,

1560. COLLATION: 4to. LOCATION: no surviving recorded copy.

LITERATURE: although the existence of this work is attested by Barbosa Machado, Blblwtheca Lubitana, in voce Gon~alo Rodrigues, and a number of 17thpcentury bibliographers whom he quotes, none of them appear to have seen a copy, and I doubt that it was ever

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in 1578. It was done almost totally in a local script in Tamil, ending with the following colophon, in Western characters: Doctrina Cristaa trejladada nn lingua Tarnui pello padre Anriqur Anriquez da Copanhia de IESV, & peio padre Manoef de Sao Pedro. Com approuafiio do ordinurio, & lnquisidor: & co licera do _ Huang Mingjingshi wmbian, pp. 205-21. 30 Zhu Wan, Biyu r.ayi. 2.49a. 31 Boxer, South China, p. 192. 32 Huo Yuxia, in Huang Mingjinphi wmbian, 368.5. 33 Huang Mingjinphi ~nbian, 283.21. 3-4 R. Krahl and J. Ayers, Chinese Cera,nics in the Topkapi Saray Museu,n, A Complete Catalogue, London, 1986, vol. 2, p. 535. 35 Zhu Wan, Biyu uzhi, 5.34a. 36 Ibid., 5.34b. 37 Chouhai tubian, 4.32b, (author's translation). 38 Sec H.J. Lamlcy, 'Hsieh-tou: Thc Pathology of Violence in South Eastern China', Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i, vol. 3, no. 7, 1977, especially pp. 27-8. 39 Chouhai tubian, 4.31 b. 40 Lin Xiyuan, 'Yu wcng jian yu bicjia shu', Huang Mingjingshi wrnbian, 165.5b. 41 Boxer, South China, p. 192. 42 Zhu Wan, Biyu u~hi, 2.20b. 43 Sec Ng Chin-kcong, 'A Study on the Peasant Society of South Fukicn 1506-1644', Nanyang University journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 1972, p. 194, n. 33. 44 Yan Song, 'Liuqu guo jic song tong fanrcn fanshu', Huang Mingjingshi wmbian, 219.35.

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Chapter Twenty

South Sulawesi Chronicles and Their Possible Models Campbell C. Macknight This paper is concerned with a problem in intellectual history. 1 How arc we to explain the appearance of a true historical consciousness in the indigenous historiography of South Sulawesi in Indonesia? In particular, can this phenomenon be attributed to European influence, which in this case would most probably mean Portuguese influei;ice? Before proceeding with the detail of this question, however, it is worth reflecting for a moment on the more general issue. For more than a century, writing about the past of the Indonesian archipelago has been more than usually taken up with the general question of external stimulus and indigenous initiative. At the apogee of European colonial power in the first half of this century, the active principle and organizing logic in the archipelago's immediate past seemed to derive from the European presence, just as for an earlier period, Indian inspiration appeared to have been essential to the main lines of social and cultural development. The swing of the pendulum away from an emphasis on external stimulus begins with the work of van Leur in the very late colonial period and it is no accident that his ideas found such ready acceptance among scholars, both local and from elsewhere, working in a post-colonial world. There is more to this, however, than merely reading the past in the light of the present. Now, more than half a century after van Leur,s death, the historian of early Southeast Asia can access not only a greater bulk of source material, but also new kinds of evidence. To take examples of the first, I need hardly remind the reader of the value of Tome Pires, Suma Oriental published the year after van Leur,s death, or of the many new sources made available by Father Jacobs; but such sources fall into the same categories as those well-known to

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earlier historians. My concern in this paper is with a kind of evidence not readily available earlier, or insofar as it was, not incorporated into analytical histories, and with a question which seems not to have been considered until recently. The question is but one small example of the new paradigm of Southeast Asian history in which the social or cultural reality of the past is the first issue, irrespective of the claim and counterclaim of external stimulus and indigenous initiative. The nature of writing, and especially writing of an historical nature, in South Sulawesi needs some introduction. The two major languages of the province are Bugis and Makasar, both clearly members of the Ausuonesian linguistic family, and related in much the same way as Spanish and Porruguese in the Iberian peninsula. Each is found in several dialects, but each is itself a distinct language. Three systems of writing have been applied to these languages: our Latin alphabet since the nineteenth century, though there is still no agreed orthography; the Arabic-Malay script, though it is significant that this is only used to a very minor extent; and most importantly here, several versions of scripts based on the Indic model. There is considerable debate concerning the relationship of the several variants of these rather inefficient scripts and no certainty at all on the precise derivation of the earliest, but these difficulties need not concern us here. What is helpful is the recent demonstration by Ian Caldwell that the introduction of effective writing must date to, roughly, the fourteenth century and we will return co the reasons for this below. Originally, the medium of writing was the leaf of the lontar palm, thin strips of which were sewn end-to-end to make a very long ribbon which was then rolled up and stored on a device remarkably like a modern cassette tape. No early examples of these survive and there has been no thorough investigation to .test the presumption that it was the European presence from the early seventeenth century which led to the use not only ofpaper as the medium ofwriting, but also to succcessive lines on a page in place of the single continuous line on a palm-leaf ribbon. For present purposes, we need only consider manuscript materials; and indeed printed books using a local script, other than scholarly editions of manuscript sources, are relatively few and almost all associated with the European colonial power or Christian mission. The content of a manuscript codex can be various though there is often a general character, such as customary law and maxims for proper behaviour, literary works of various kinds, including translations from Malay or Persian orginals, Muslim religious and theological items, and so on. One special category consists of ttanscriptions of episodes from the great epic saga of La Galigo,

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quite clearly the product of oral composition though much more work needs to be done to establish the circumstances of committing the texts to writing. The chief interest for our purposes here, however, is the materials relating in one way or another to the record of the past; genealogies, diaries, shon episodes, ueaty texts which needed preservation and, finally, the so-called chronicles. It is important to note here that, although this material is in manuscript, there arc often a dozen or more versions of particular items available in various collections. This strongly suggests that it is possible to speak of a particular 'work' in the sense that all the versions go back to a text held in the mind of its author as a creative unit. (It is another matter to assume that an editor can reconstruct that archetype, but we need not linger over editorial policies). Frustratingly, there is no convention of identifying authorial responsibility, giving the date of composition, or even assigning any panicular name to most works. The works that are central to this discussion are, firstly the Makasar chronicle of Gowa2 and the closely related chronicle ofTallo', and secondly the Bugis chronicle of Bone. There are many manuscript copies of these-and now some printed editions-and each of the works is distinguished further by signs of internal coherence and consistency. Though we will return to the question of their dating below, they all" seem to date to the seventeenth century. There are also stylistic grounds for believing that they predate the comparable, but rather different, works dealing with other states, particularly the rich variety of historiography associated with Waj6. Taken as a whole, this historiographical tradition is remarkable in itself and quite distinctive within the archipelago. Its sober, restrained tone and straightforward prose are in marked contrast with the more elaborate narratives of many Javanese or Malay works dealing ostensibly with the past and, it must be said, other Makasar and Bugis genres in verse and apparently having a more literary intent. In my view, the best evidence for dating these works arises from their structure. While demonsuably coherent as unified works overall, in a formal sense, they comprise a series of narratives dealing with the successive reigns of rulers. They end abruptly with the completed narrative of a particular ruler. The simplest solution to the question of dating is that each dates from the following reign. (I have an old school textbook which sets out English history in exactly the same way. It closes with the death of Queen Victoria and the proclamation of Edward VII as king. Above his portrait as frontispiece, a loyal pupil has written 'God Save the King' and the title page bears the date of 1903.)

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The Gowa chronicle closes with the reign of Sultan Hasanuddin whose abdication in 1669 and death in the following year is recorded, along with the succession of his son, Sultan Amir Hamzah. By far the simplest conclusion on the dating of the chronicle is that it was composed within that next reign, that is, before Amir Hamzah's death at the age of only eighteen in 1674. Admittedly, the circumstances of the time were unsettled and difficult, to put it mildly. The Bugis leader, Arung Palakka, together with the considerable power of the Dutch East India Company, had just defeated the previously powerful state of Gowa and forcibly imposed the Treaty of Bungaya in November 1667. Further fighting led to the dramatic storming of the Somba Opu fortress in June 1669, though there is none of this in the chronicle! Desperate and gloomy times, however, do not prevent innovation and we might speculate that a time of defeat was just the occasion to assen the power of the past. 3 The chronicle of T allo' can be regarded as a kind of branch of the Gowa chronicle. It starts abruptly with the story of the quarrel between two sons of the sixth ruler of Gowa which led one, after various moves, to establish himself at Tallo', near the mouth of the next river to the north. This narrative has been quite remarkably borne out by David Bulbeck's archaeological survey of the area which shows significant shifts between sites in the late fifteenth century. Much of the chronicle is given over to the reigns of a succession of remarkable Tallo' rulers in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It concludes with the death of the eighth ruler in 1641. In this case, it seems unlikely that the chronicle can be easily assigned to the reign of the succeeding ninth ruler, Sultan Mahmud, or as he is more commonly known, Karaeng Pattingalloang, from 1641 to 1654, if only on the ground of the close association of the T allo' chronicle with the chronicle of Gowa, . which seems to postdate 1669. It is also possible to suggest reasons for not proceeding to detail the ninth reign; thus it is noticeable that Karaeng Pattingngaloang, referred to by his death name, plays a major role in the Gowa chronicle since he was the highly influential adviser or chancellor to the fifteenth Gowa ruler, Sultan Mohammad Said (or Malikussaid). Perhaps it was thought that his career had been sufficiently covered for the joint work. That then brings us to the reign of the tenth ruler in Tallo', Sultan Harrunarasyid, from 1654 to about 1673, which overlaps the reign of Sultan Amir Hamzah of Gowa." The chronicle of Bone is clearly a distinct work, but there are echoes and reflections of the Gowa chronicle in particular. For example, the accounts of the sixteenth century wars between Bone and Gowa in the two chronicles read as almost mirror images of each other. Although ·

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almost exactly the same length as the Gowa chronicle, the Bone work is more developed in its narrative and somewhat less concerned with genealogical materials. If one chronicle is to be put before the other, then I have no doubt that the work from Gowa is the earlier. The end of the Bone chronicle concerns the events at the.beginning of 1667 which led eventually to the victory of Arung Palakka, with Dutch help, in his quarrel with Gowa, and this chronicle too avoids any treatment of the tumultuous next two and a half years. The suggestion that the Bone chronicle dates from the reign ofArung Palakka as ruler of Bone between 1672 and 1696 is confirmed by the special care the chronicler gives to prepare the reader for the accession of this ruler and by the selection, or omission, of data to suit one particular line of interpretation of the politics of the period. In considering this suggestion of a close relationship between the various works, there is no difficulty in seeing how, at the relevant period, there was the closest possible contact between the two courts. For example, in early 1674 the Dutch were seriously concerned at the growing friendship between Gowa' s young Sultan Amir Hamzah and Arung Palakka. By now the ruler of Bone, Arung Palakka, was based at Bontoala', only a kilometre or so inland from the Dutch fort on the coast and within easy reach of the Gowa court a little further to the south. The Gowa sultan visited Arung Palak.ka frequently. 5 My hunch is that the creation of the Bone chronicle may have been stimulated by, or some sort of riposte to, the Gowa chronicle. The really striking feature of these chronicles and the matter which I am primarily concerned to explain is the sense of historical consciousness. By this I mean explicit acknowledgement by an author that a process of selection between available data is being made in order to meet a particular purpose. There is also a good deal of selection which is not explicit, but nevertheless obviously made with a very definite end in mind. Moreover, in the Bone work, the chronicler takes great care to distance himself from certain legendary materials which he felt bound to include. The great purpose of the chroniclers was to set down a statement of the status of the rulers and the ruling group· more generally. There is more to these works than indicated in the name, pattorioloangin Makasar or attoriolong in Bugis, which is applied to them. This means merely 'something about former people' with no indication ofwhat it was about the past that was important. At the outset of the Gowa chronicle, however, there is -a justification for the work in the danger that posterity might either esteem 'us', that is the people of the present, too highly or

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too little; above all it is proper ran.king in relation to others that matters. The chronicle of Bone is even more direct in what amounts to a title; the work concerns 'the land of Bone and the ruling of Bone'. This theme of the importance of ascriptive status lies at the heart of the cultural complex shared by people speaking Austronesian languages and appears in many other works across the archipelago. Teeuw, in a paper specifically concerned with the concept of 'Indonesia as a field of study', distinguishes a genre which he calls 'genealogical narrative texts'. 6 His South Sulawesi example is the Wajo' tradition, but he could equally well have used the works with which we are concerned here. This demonstration of the broad similarities between attempts by groups with related cultures to deal with accounting for the past is most instructive and, I am sure, reflects an underlying cultural link. What it does not do, however, is account for each particular case and T eeuw does not assume any common awareness among the authors of works in his genre of each other's creations. Furthermore, as Postel points out in her comments on Teeuw's paper, there is value too, in identifying the differences between related traditions.7 Our concern here is with a specific case within the general cultural pattern described by Teeuw. How did it happen in South Sulawesi in the seventeenth century that this purpose of asserting status was to be served by such sophisticated and, in some respects, modern works? There are two approaches to this problem: the first and simpler is to look at the materials available to the chronicler; the second is to consider possible models. By far the most important source of material for these works was genealogy. The most convincing explanation of the adoption of writing itself in these societies is the benefit conferred by having a more definite and detailed record of genealogical relationships, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, there was something over two centuries of such record. There is therefore already in the society a record, of a certain kind, of the past. It is worth noting, moreover, that genealogies are necessarily concerned ~ith a certain kind of progression and never without focus, either by laying out the descendants of a particular person or couple, or by tracing back the ancestors of an individual. Within the manuscript tradition, there are many examples of unelaborated genealogies, and Caldwell in his thesis has edited several. Large sections of the three works under consideration here consist of genealogical information, though especially in the case of the Bone c_h ronicle, this is carefully selected with an eye to its significance in the overall story. We arc only

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told of the relationships ofwhich we need to know in order to understand what is yet to come. The second source of content for the chronicles lies in stories which explain a name or phrase. Frequently these arc the death names of individuals which arc commonly used in the chronicles as the most convenient and least dangerous forms by which to refer to powerful people. Thus the sixth ruler of Bone in the middle of the sixteenth century was La Ulio, but more commonly known as Bote'e, 'the Fat', who, as the chronicle explains, required more than seven interchanging bearers. His death name, Matinroe rltterung, 'he who sleeps at ltterung', derives from his murder by a nephew run amuck at this village. The complex story of his abdication, and the circumstances which led to the nephew's action, are set out in detail. Such material might be seen in the simpler cases as no more than the elaboration of names on a list. Similarly, the enumeration of villages conquered or brought into association by a particular ruler may reflect lists of vassals of which we have many later examples. Especially in the Bone chronicle, however, much of the information recorded goes far beyond such relatively straightforward derivation. There are short passages of narrative which may come from written versions of particular episodes or might be explained as fragments of orally transmitted tradition. In the latter parts of the chronicles particularly, there is considerable material ostensibly in direct speech. In both the Gowa and Tallo' chronicles, several dates are given in full detail which would seem to indicate access to the court diary which records much detail from about 1630. In general, then, there is no great difficulty in seeing the kinds of source material which a chronicler had available for the construction of his work, even if we cannot identify the origin of every element in the final result. The availability of materials is, however, onl}'\half the story; it is also important to consider possible models of historical consciousness,· that is the concept of a selective or even analytical account of the past. The idea of there being more than one such model is particularly important and we should try to look as widely as possible at the intellectual world of the time. I should say at this point that what follows is _somewhat speculative and preliminary. Despite the efforts of a good many scholars, there is still much more to be said about the political and intellectual world of Makasar in the seventeenth century. The most obvious models, at least to our eyes, are European. Significant European contact with South Sulawesi was comparatively late. There had been several Portuguese visits to the coast north of Gowa in

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the middle of the sixteenth· cenn1ry, but no permanent or at least regular presence was established in Makasar until the early seventeenth century. This seems to be associated with the trade by Malays from Malacca which goes well back into the sixteenth century, but the origins of this chapter of Ponuguese contact are obscure. As the Tallo' chronicle notes, the Portuguese were already there when the English established themselves in 1613, to be followed by the Danes, French and, in a troubled relationship, the Dutch. By the mid- l 620s, there were up to 500 Portuguese ashore8 and over the next forty years court circles became intimately familiar with Portuguese and other European materials of all kinds. The degree of this familiarity can be judged by the fact that by 1646 when he met with the missionary, Alexander of Rhodes, Karaeng Pattingngaloang spoke Portuguese like a native speaker and could read with ease both Portuguese and Spanish.9 His son Karaeng Karunrung, who played a major role in the affairs of Gowa after the death of his father in 1654, seems to have been equally gifted linguistically, and in 1667 negotiations between the Dutch and the Makasar court were carried on in Ponuguese because 'Malay was understood by the whole government and Ponuguese by the greater part.' 10 An important point in considering possible cultural exchange, as opposed to trade and diplomatic bargaining, is to ask what kind of European sources miwit have been available. Alexander of Rhodes says that Karaeng Pattingngaloang 'had read with curiosity all the chronicles of our European kings', 11 in addition to the abundant evidence of his interest in mathematics, cartography and scientific knowledge. By far the most obvious model of historical narrative, however, lies in the Bible. Most of the descriptions of a't tempted conversions concentrate on discussion and argument, but it is hard to conceive of any extended experience or observation of Christianity which would not involve some attention to gospel narrative, to say nothing of other books. There is no shortage of cases where the attempt at Christian mission has involved far more than the missionaries themselves intended or realized. While I cannot point to any internal evidence of actual influence, it is worth noting the important role of descent in some Biblical narratives, such as the opening chapters of both Matthew and Luke. There are many examples too in the Bible, of narrative focussed on demonstrating some particular point; again the Gospels are the clearest, but by no means the only cases. The European model was not necessarily confined to books or other imported reading material. A major activity of all the more important Europeans in South Sulawesi in the seventeenth century was writing letters, repons, journals and occasionally more extended pieces, all of

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which involved to some extent a narrative account of events. Two examples arc worth mentioning. In June 1664, Francisco Vieira, the Portuguese merchant adventurer, composed in Makasar a report on recent events on the China coast and in Timor. Although the content is of no special significance to South Sulawcsi, it docs show that such materials were being produced by a European with excellent contacts in the court of Sultan Hasanuddin. 12 The second example is the very extensive repon on all aspects of South Sulawcsi put together by Cornelis Speelman, the commander of the Dutch forces in the Makasar War, which he had ready to present to the authorities in Batavia by 17 February 1670. 13 This rcpon certainly involved a very great deal of consultation with senior Makasar arid Bugis figures on both the past and the present circumstances of South Sulawesi as a whole. It would be far too simple, however, to restrict the rarige o( possible influence to European sources. The official conversion of Gowa to Islam dates from 1605 and there had been Malay Muslirns there well before that. Islam is hardly less dependant on narrative thari Christiariity is, and whatever the state of religious knowledge may have been at the beginning, as time went by, senior court figures were clearly familiar with Muslim literature in the widest sense. The Tallo' chronicle records that Karaeng Matoaya, Sultan Abdullah, the first Muslim ruler ofTallo' who died in 1636, was not only devout, but expert in reading kitab or religious literature. The Gowa chronicle likewise notes that Sultan Mohammad Said, slightly later, was expen in Arabic texts as well as Makasar writing. · The clearest demonstration of the level of familiarity with materials · in an essentially Muslim tradition is the well-known Sya'ir Perang Mm gltasar or Rhymed Chroni~le of the Makasar War, composed by Enci' Amin, the Malay secretary to Sultari Hasanuddin, between July 1669 and June 1670. Admittedly, the sya'ir is in Malay verse, rather than Makasar prose, but it docs provide an excellent example of stirring narrative designed to show the merit of the Gowa ruler and his counicrs. Enci' Amin was also, as his editor argues, well-versed in Islamic, specifically Sufi, literature'• and this serves as another reminder of the wider intellectual contacts of Makasar at this time. These contacts were not just to the Muslim world. Enci Amin was also at home with the secular literature deriving from the Indic world and there is even the suggestion that he may have seen some Javanesc wayang purwa thcatrc. 15 It is not entirely fanciful to sec something of the same connection in the account in the Bone chronicle of the thunder and lightning associated with the appearance of the legendary figures

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who initiate the status of the ruling line. In the first case, the storm lasts for the conventional seven days. An immediate comparison is with the account of the natural signs marking the birth of Hayam Wuruk in the Desawarnana, but there is no need to suppose that that chronicler had read the Javanesrivileges. They were required to keep a register which contained details of all 'sentences, resolutions, executions and judgements ... •. Each locality had a constable who was to assist the justices in maintaining law and order in the island. They were authorized to appoint their own prabhus or clerks to assist them in their work. As many of the justices possessed but a limited knowledge of the legal system, Governor Aungier set up a court of appeal which consisted of the deputy governor and his council. This superior court, writes Malabari, besides hearing appeals from the inferior court, was empowered to try 'all suits and actions whatsoever between man and man for lands, goods, and sums of money above the value of 200 xeraphins' as well as to try criminal cases. Tri.al was by jury in this court, and here too a detailed register of the courts proceedings was to be maintained, in order 'that the equity thereof may appear to all whom it may concern'. Justice had to be administered in accordance with the laws of England. 13 In 1670, a special procedural code was published for the use of the law officers. This first procedure code provided guidelines pertaining to 'the adminisuation of justice and common right, the form of judicature, and the penalties appointed against performances, breaches of morality and civil government .. .'. The code was to be translated into Portuguese

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and Konltani the language of the old ruling class and that of the common people. · The code of 1670 was found to be inadequate and was substituted in 1672 by another code of procedure drawn up by George Wilcox, who lacer became the first judge of the Bombay Court of Judicature. He styled himself as 'the Loyal! Merchant' and entitled his suggestions as a 'Narrative concerning the establishing· the English laws on Bombay'. Wilcox was keen to point out that the change from the Portuguese to the British system of laws was in response to the large number of petitions from Bombay's inhabitants, 'praying for the establishment of the English law in the town and island of Bombay'. The British were doing no more than meeting the wishes of the people. Wilcox's proposals were accepted and he was appointed judge of the town and island of Bombay. He was also placed in charge of the office of wills and to serve as registrar of mortgages and deeds. The judge was directed to study the law and give an undertaking not to engage in any trade or commerce, and be paid a salary of £25 per annum. 1-4 Announcements were made by the beating of the battakee (drum) that 8 August 1672 (initially 1 August) was co be the day when Portuguese laws were to be formally replaced by English laws. The importance of ritual and ceremony in creating consensus among the people and legitimizing British rule was well understood. le was important that all who would be out on the street chat day co witness the day's events, or w~o would hear about the occasion from their friends and neighbours, were impressed by what they saw and heard. On chat day, writes Malabari, 'a solemn procession was formed and the whole assembly met at the Guild Hall of Bombay where the Company's patent and the commission to the Governor were read and Wilcox was sworn in as Judge, followed by other judicial officers in their respective appointmencs'. 15 Governor Aungier was aware chat a number of Bombay's inhabitants still resisted the British presence on the island, and wished for a return co Portuguese rule. Wishing to isolate the most loyal of Portuguese supporters from the rest, Aungier in his speech that day labelled them as self-seekers, persons anxious to promote their own selfish interests. For the rest, and hoping to win over the majority, he referred to chem as public-spirited men who were well pleased with the establishment of English laws and the promise of happiness and security that they would ensure. It would be difficult co construct a more celling image than the one put forward by Aungier on that historic day. Aungier likened Portuguese rule to 'forreigne milke' given to a 'hopeful child' (the inhabitants of

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Bombay) 'which nor agreeing with irrs natural! constitution harh hindered its growth and increased evill humours. Bur now being restored to the breasts of its own mother, there is no question that through the Providence of God it will in time grow in stature, good fortune and in favour with God and man.' It did require some stretch of the imagination to accept that for Bombay's inhabitants to be ruled by the British was like being 'restored to the breasts of its own mother .. .' . 16 Aungier praised English law as having been compiled from the very best of laws, especially Romari laws. The Company's laws were seen to be an abridgment of English laws, i.e. a practical code which would serve the Company in its business of running the government in Bombay. In his speech, Governor Aungier was concerned to impress upon Judge Wilcox and all others present, about the impartial justice which would be delivered by the British in Bombay. Justice, he emphasized, would be available to all, 'without fear, [or] favour, in respect of persons'. As he explained to Judge Wilcox before all the gathering: The Inhabitants of this Island consist of severall nations and Religions to witEnglish, Portuguese and other Christians, Moores, and Jentue, but you, when you sit in this seat of Justice and Judgement, must looke upon them with one single eye as I doe, without distinction of Nation or Religion, for they are all his Majesties and the Honble. Company's subjects as the English are, and have all an equal) title and right to Justice and you must doe them all Justice, even the meanest person of the Island, and in particular the Poore, the _Orphan, the Widdow and the stranger, in all matters of controversy, of Common right, and Meum and Tuum; And this not only one against the other, but even against myself and those who are in office under me, nay against the Honble Company themselves when Law, Reason and Equity shall require you soe to doe, for this is your Duty and therein will you be justified, and in soe doing God will be with you to strengthen you, his Majestic and the Company will commend you and reqard you, and I in my place shall be ready to assist, Countenance, honour and protect you to the utmost of the power and Authority entrusted to me; and soe I pray God give his blessing to you. 17

Having ended his speech, Aungier was presented by Judge Wilcox with a petition for the release of prisoners. This, it is said,-was 'graciously granted'. The governor then vacated the chair in favour of the judge, who represented the majesty of the law. This practically completed the whole ceremony, whereupon the governor marched on foot to the fort, and on the way medals were again flung to the crowd, canon salutes were fired and bonfires lighted. To mark the importance of the occasion, a hospital was founded.

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In spite of the efforts of the East India Company's officials, Portuguese laws and customary laws continued to coexist with English laws for many years to come on Bombay island. Numerous petitions forwarded to the British authorities referred to the earlier systems of justice, indicative of the fact that they were still seen as applicable in the lives of the people and constituted the paradigm of their relations with the new government. The Portuguese language continued to be widely used in both official and commercial circles. Holden Furber cites Scottish country captain, Alexander Hamilton, who referred to Portuguese as the 'lingua franca' of commerce from the Red Sea to Canton in the early eighteenth century. Diplomatic negotiations between Europeans and Asians were often carried on in Portuguese, and company officials were expected to qualify in it before being sent out from their homeland. A 'Creole' form of Portuguese developed which was commonly used; and nearly every European trading factory based in Asian seas found it necessary to employ at least one Luso-Indian Christian professional interpreter and 'writer' of Portuguese. Portuguese thus remained the dominant European language in Asia till the end of the eighteenth century. It began to be superseded by English only from the mid-eighteenth century with English becoming the dominant language in the nineteenth century. 18 In Bombay too, while English was clearly the language used in official discourse, translating of notices and ordinances into the local languages, and Portuguese, remained a common practice well into the nineteenth century.

Land Use and Land Titles in Bombay ~fhe establishment of political hegemony could only be possible if the colonial state generated adequate resources to make the enterprise economically viable. State revenues were obtained primarily from land taxes and customs collections. In this important arena too, the British inherited a developed system of land and customs administration from their Portuguese predecessors which they continued to work for many years. Large tracts of land continued to be controlled by Bombay's fazendars and forasdars, men of Portuguese and mixed descent whose families had been given lands in return for military service performed at Bassein. Given under pensao (pension) and foras (tenures), these lands came with the stipulation that the forasdars in particular, would not have to pay the state more by way of taxes or rents, for l~ds that they developed and made more productive. These privileges enjoyed by the landed proprietors of Bombay, along with so"otor and bandrastlll (rights to

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the prod4ce of the land, such as toddy and rice) the British felt compelled to continue. At a more long-term level, the Portuguese system remained operative in the way oarts1 9 were developed, various kinds of fruits and vegetables were grown, and in public projects such as land reclamation, and the construction of forts and embankments to protect the island from being flooded at high tide, using techniques and methods developed under the earlier system. Important among the public works projects was the building of the va//ado (wall) in 1714. Made more permanent in 1784, it came to be known as Hornby Vellard, after the Governor in whose tenure it was completed. By closing the Great Breach in the centre of the island, it made possible the cultivation of large tracts of previously 'drowned lands' in central Bombay. For the collection of customs dues, chowkies, or collection posts established by the Portuguese, also remained operative in various parts of the island, such as at Mahim and Sion. Customs personnel trained under the Portuguese were retained, although the fact that this often led to smuggling and close collaboration with the Portuguese officials in neighbouring Salsette, was a negative factor which was also recognized. Given the precarious political situation of the British through much of the eighteenth century, there was little that the Bombay government could do about it. Donna Ignez de Miranda was sole proprietress of the cacabeof Bombay with its coconut gardens and rice fields and possessed the right to bandrastal or spirits distilled from palm juice. At her estate the actual handing over of the island to the British had taken place, and she was one among an influential group of Portuguese faundars or landed proprietors whom the British had to deal with in Bombay. The fazendars had substantial estates in Sion, Dharavi, Wadala, Mazagon, Parel and Worli. The royal charter of the manor of Mazagon and the separate leases or aforamentos of the villages of Pare! and W orli in the Tombo of Simao Botelho described them as independent and powerful. 20 Through the eighteenth century the Bombay government continued to treat them circumspectly, avoiding raising rents and other dues. It did not undertake a survey of all lands in Bombay, though the need was often expressed by revenue officials, as Bombay began to urbanize and land-use patterns changed considerably with open fields giving way to built-up propenies. Lower down the agrarian hierarchy, the cultivators or ltunbis were deemed to be tenants-at-will. They continued to pay a tax known as dhep, a revenue assessment which had been levied in the coastal areas for many years, with the state's share amounting to half of the annual

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produce. Other cesscs which the British found operative were also conti. nucd, such as the plough cess, sickle cess, and pick-axe c~ to assess hill and forest tracts on territories acquired during the three Anglo-Maratha Wars. These older levies continued till the time that revenue surveys were undertaken in the early nineteenth century in western India and a more updated and rationalized system of land revenue collection attempted. 21 The power of the rich landed proprietors of Bombay remained considerable through the first century of British rule. The agreement signed between Governor Gerald .Aungier and the fozmdltrs on 12 November 1672 was not one that could be discarded even in the decades that followed. The support of the fozmdars was required for the continued rule and legitimization of British power. Faundars, together with the leaders of the caste panchayats, were consulted on imponant matters and their interests kept in view, sometimes even at the cost of the company, sown dire need for increased revenues. This was evident in matters such as the government's decision to forgo surveys of Bombay town and island. It withheld its rights to inquire into the actual produce of individual oarts, rice fields and salt batty grounds, and continued to accept an annual payment of20,000 xeraphinsas the combined payment of all the revenue due from the foundars, instead of an individual and higher assessment. The amount had been agreed upon in 1672, and though the value of Bombay's land had increased many times since then, with the island towns growing in commercial and political significance, there was little that the British authorities in Bombay felt they could or should do to alter the political equation. The agreement did not, however, put an end to conflict over land. The issue of land rights was strongly debated, and revolved around the central question of what belonged to the state and what to the people. 22 Strong differences arose in the middle years of the nineteenth century over the state's right to ta.kc back land from forasdars. Lands in central Bombay had been leased to forasdarsafter the construction of the Homby V ellard, and the area drained had made land suitable for cultivation. Given out under foJas tenure, its holders claimed the same privileges to uni.nterrupted usfi'and unchanged rates that similar lands in other parts of the island enjoyed. 23 Other foras land around Grant Road and Bellasis Road, also in central Bombay, had been converted in the course of Bombay's urbanization from agricultural fields to substantial properties owned by wealthy Indian merchants. The Bombay government in the 1840s proposed to acquire •

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these faras lands as well, stating that they were needed for public purposes. The proposals met with strong resistance from the farasdars who argued that they had been given the land many generations ago on the understanding that the rents would remain fixed, provided they brought th~ newly-reclaimed land under cultivation. While the right of the government to acquire the land for public purpo~es was not disputed by the farasdars, they did not recognize the need or urgency to do so in their part of the island. · In 1842 a memorial signed by 700 farasdars was submitted to the Bombay government. In the memorial, the farasdars claimed that no land, occupied whether directly or derivatively through a succession of generations, be resumed at the pleasure of Government. That the lands already resumed or under process of resumption be restored [and] that no foras lands, or salt batty land under foras tenure, be ever subjected to any other than the ancient race of taxation. 2"

It was evident to all that much had changed in Bombay, whose population had doubled in the years between 1825 and 1850 from 227,000 to over half a million, and that the town had become the foremost urban centre on the west coast of India. Yet Bombay's farasdars sought refuge behind land rights operative during Portuguese rule, a time when the island was overwhelmingly rural. They asserted their ancient rights as the reason for refusing to hand over land to the authorities. They claimed the land in question 'as their own fee simple and inheritance, subject only to the payment of the small nominal quit-rent charged upon it'. They were particularly incensed at the land being taken not for any particular public purpose, such ~ a public road, but to accommodate vast quantities of hay, which was owned and traded in by private individuals without any payment of rent. 25 The conflict with the .farasdars was only one in a series of strongly contested issues where the colonial state from the late eighteenth century onwards felt strong enough to shed its earlier compromising attitude, and lay claim to all land in Bombay. Attempts to discard Aungier'.r; agreement and dependence on the earlier Portuguese system of rule were made from the 1780s. It was time to get control of all the nine diffe:·ent tenurial systems, of which faundari and faras were only two, which continued to prevail on Bombay island. The time for conciliation was past and a strong stafe had to be assertive, argued senior administrators such as Collector John Richmond Smyth. Smyth maintained that it was high time that the British in Bombay adopt a more assertive position. Though Bombay was a vital political base on the west coast and had

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grown in importance as a trading settlement, the East India Company's rights over Bombay lands still remained precarious. Company lands were encroached upon and state revenues had not increased in spite of large tracts of agricultural land over the years having been converted into valuable urban property. Smyth saw the situation as deteriorating by the day, and one that threatened to seriously jeopardize both the Company's economic interests and political aspirations. He urged the authorities to order a revenue survey to acquire the much needed information _o n land use in Bombay island and follow it up with stern measures to protect the company's interests in the land-before it was too late. For want of trained personnel and financial constraints, the first comprehensive land revenue survey of Bombay could only be initiated in 1811 . Under Captain Thomas Dickinson' s supervision, it evolved into a major scientific project and ended sixteen years later, providing the Bombay government with a vast body of information regarding land use and land titles. Dickinson's survey was, by all accounts, recognized to be one of the most meticulously conducted in nineteenth-century British India. What is significant however is that even Dickinson, and his revenue assistants, could not have carried on their investigations without the personnel trained under the Portuguese system of land administration. Known as the vereadores (verifiers), 26 they had under the Portuguese performed various duties as supervisors of repairs, superintendents of the bazaar, and police duties, and even served as municipal councillors or aldermen in the Estado da India. For the British they functioned primarily as revenue officials, who together with the mattaras (old and wise men) of different castes and localities, proved indispensable in the gathering of information for the revenue survey and in staffing the revenue department. Equipped with knowledge of localities, customary rights and rights dating from Portuguese rimes, they were invaluable to the working of the system of revenue administration, and to the carrying out of the revenue surveys. 27 In all the records pertaining to Dickinson's survey, or in land records dealing with an earlier period, there is no mention of the British authorities proposing the removal of the vereadores from their critical position as informants and intermediaries. They were recognized to be the vital interface between the authorities and the inhabitants, without whom management and control of Britain's main port-town on the west coast of India would have been extremely problematic. Dependence on what the British had inherited from the Portuguese would and did remain for a long time, even though it could not be easily admitted.

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Conclusion Long after the Portuguese had formally handed over the island of Bombay to the British in the 1660s, the impress of the Portuguese continued to be substantial. It remained so right through the eighteenth century and well into the middle years of the nineteenth. Neighbouring Salsette continued to be under Portuguese rule until 1784, and Bassein served as the northern capital for the Portuguese until their defeat at the hands of the Marathas in 1739. Goa, Daman and Diu remained with the Portuguese till 1960 and Chaul and Adjengo retained substantial Por..ruguese influences. The Portuguese themselves had brought much that was new from Europe, as well as adapted practices from the rulers of Gujarat, the Mughals, and from local customs. In regard to law, land use and land rights, architecture, administration, or the everyday lives of people, the colonial encounters at the deepest levels were encounters of cultures. Their interaction, although in the context of political and economic dominance, had long-term consequences.

Notes 1

B. Stein (ed.), Tht Malting ofAgrarian Policy in British India, 1700-1900, Delhi, 1992. Also Ranajit Guba, A Ruk ofProptrty for Btngal Paris, 1963; and Sumit Guha, Tht Agrarian Economy oftht Bombay Deccan, New Delhi, 1985. 2 J.G. da Cunha, The Origin ofBornbay, London, 1900, pp. 231-2. 3 da Cunha, Origin ofBombay, pp. 241-2. "The mission of Father Manuel Godinho, Viceroy Antonio de Mdlo de Castro's emissary, from Goa to the Portuguese court in 1663, was to persuade the Portuguese king to prohibit the transfer of Bombay. J. Correia-Afonso, lntrtpid Itinerant, Manuel Godinho and His journey from India to Portugal in 1663, Bombay, 1990, p. 10. 5 Recriminations between the two were common. See C.R Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825, Great Britain 1991, p. 137. 6 D.A. Washbrook, 'Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India', Modern Asian Studits, vol. 15, no. 3, 1981, p. 649. 7 Cited in C. Fawcett, Tht Fint Cmtury of British justice in India, Oxford, 1934, pp. 3-4. 1 Fawcett, British ]ustict, p. 3. 9 Ibid., pp. 4-5. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., p. 52. 13 P.B.M. Malabari, 'The Foundation of the Bombay High Court', Bombay Pamphlets, No. 9, Asiatic Library of Bombay, Bombay, n.d., p. 210. '" To enable the transition to take place as smoothly as possible, Wilcox was directed to draw up a scheme for the purpose of regulating the administration of justice. This he did in three papers, which arc outlined in Malabari, 'Bombay High Court', p. 208.

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Malabari, 'Bombay High Coun', pp. 215-6. 16 Ibid., pp. 218- 9. In fact, as S.M. Edwardcs notes, jwtice meted out 'was distinctly medieval', as it also was in England at this time. Branding, mutilation, and compulsory labour were common forms of punishment. The Gautten- of Bombay City and Isuznd, Bombay, 1909, vol. 2, p. 209. 17 Fawcett, British fustier, pp. 54-5. 11 H. Furber, Rival Empires of TraM in the Orimt 1600-1800, Delhi, 1990, pp. I\

298- 9. 19

coconut gardens (a corruption of the Portuguese term ort4S meaning orchard). 20 da Cunha, Origin ofBombay, p. 264. 21 J. Campbell, Gauttrn- of Bombay Prrsidmry, (Thane) vol. 13, part 2, Bombay, 1882, p. 552. 22 M. Dossal, 'Knowlcge for Power: Thomas Dickinson and the Bombay Revenue Survey, 1811-1827', in Indu Banga (ed.), Porn and their Hintnlllnds, Delhi, 1992, pp. 230-2. 23 Edwardcs, The Gauttrn-, vol. 1. 24 Memorial of 700 forll.StUlrs, Report on F_oras !Ands, Selections of the Bombay Government, Bombay, no. 3, New Series, 1854, pp. 48-9. 25 Report on Foras !Ands in Bombay, Foras Commissioners' Report, Bombay, 1851, p. oarts •

50. 26

S.M. Edwardes refers to vn-radorrs as 'verifiers or certifiers. They also acted as supervisors of repairs and superintendents of the bazars and had certain police duties.' The term had undergone a change, for Edwardes cites J. Gerson da Cunha whose Origin ofBombay used the term in its original Portuguese sense as procurator or attorney. GIIUll«r ofBombay City and lslllnd, vol. 2, 1909 ( 1978 edn), p. 212. 27 Dossal, 'Knowledge for Powe:', p. 181.

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Chapter Twenty-seven

Ponuguese Timor on the Eve of the Pacific War Robert Lee During 1941, the hitherto neglected and obscure Portuguese colony in Timor became the object of international attention as a possible flashpoint for the coming war in the Pacific and, by consequence, a centre of espionage and intrigue. For the Japanese, Portuguese Timor represented an opportunity, a neutral colony where they could reasonably expect some hospitality in the midst of the Dutch possessions whose resources-above all oil-they so desperately needed. For the Allies, the colony was thus a threat-a potential Japanese base for espionage or, at worst, military action against these same Dutch possessions. These fears were intensified both by Ponugal's status as a neutral power in the European-war and by the q••as•-fascist nature of the Salazar dictatorship. Indeed, among the Allies there was concern that some fascistically-inclined Portuguese colonial officials might be sympathetic to the Japanese.

Japanese and Allied Interest in Timor On the Allied side, it was the British rather than the Dutch who were most active in monitoring developments in Timor. This can be explained by three factors. First, Britain had a long and intimate relationship with Portugal, often referred to as the 'ancient alliance'. In colonial policy, this generally meant that the British upheld Portugal's continued status as a colonial power in return for Portuguese acquiescence in British economic penettation of these colonies. Second, Britain had an extensive diplomatic and colonial network in Southeast and East Asia which had both the motivation (in terms of real interests to defend) and the capability to monitor Japanese activities throughout the region. Third, Australia, no longer quite a British possession but equally not yet quite independent

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in foreign policy, was close to Timor and thw had undeniable longterm strategic interests in the area. The British and Awtralian governments worked closely on Timor, and during 1941 involved their Dutch allies and the US as well. Concrete Awtralian moves to increase the influence of the British Empire in Portuguese Timor dated from as early as September 1937, when W. Hudson Fysh, the managing director of the Awtralian semiofficial airline Qantas, raised the desirability of establishing a British or Awtralian flying boat link to Timor with British officials, first in Batavia, then in London. This was jwt two months after the Japanese launched their initially successful but ultimately ill-starred invasion of China. For both the Anglo-Awtralians and the Japanese, civil air services of negligible commercial importance were one of the two chosen means of political penetration. Both the Awtralians and Japanese, especially the former, were able to we civil aviation as a means of gathering intelligence and establishing interests to be protected. On behalf of the Australians, the British secured Lisbon's permission for a weekly Darwin to Dili service in May 1939, following which the Australian Minister for Civil Aviation, J.V. Faribairn, visited Dili in July of the same year. 1 It was the first time a minister of a foreign government had visited the colony. Japanese objections led to the Portuguese postponing the introduction of this air service for more than a year. Meanwhile, Japanese pressure on the Portuguese was mounting for the establishment of a flying boat service from Palau, the capital of their territories in Micronesia. The Ponuguese were reluctant, in general acting as though they considered the Allies less of a potential threat than the Japanese to their sovereignty in Timor. In December 1940, they eventually approved a regular fonnightly stop in Dili by the Darwin-Batavia Qantas flying boat service, and the n~xt month Dili replaced Kupang as a fortnightly stop for the Qantas flying boats from Darwin to Singapore. A few months later, the visiting British consul, C.H. Archer, observed that, 'It is well known that the Japanese desire to introduce a regular air service between Palau and Dili, and were mortified at the grant of permission to Qantas.' By way of compensation, the Japanese were granted permission for six trial flights from Palau to Dili between December 1940 and June 1941, but for no further flights. Both the Australians and the Japanese wed their airline privileges to spy on each other's activities in Timor. Certainly, the main function of the Qantas office seems to have been spying. D.D. Laurie was the first Qantas agent in Dili where he lived from February to April 1941. 'When Mr Laurie was appointed, he was told by Mr Hudson Fysh, Managing

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Director of Qantas Empire Airways, that he was to make it his special duty to watch and report on Japanese activities in general. Mr Laurie appears to me to have carried out these instructions with zeal, discretion and conspicuous success', observed Archer diplomatically. 2 The appointment of David Ross, a quite senior Australian civil aviation official, as Laurie's successor as Qantas agent in Dili in February 1941 (although he did not arrive until April) also provoked a swift Japanese call for equality of treatment by allowing them a permanent civil aviation representative. 3 Ross had visited Dili in 1940 in preparation for the introduction of the Qantas service, and was on good terms with a number of Portuguese officials, including the governor. Ross's activities as an Allied spy on Japanese activities was fu more significant than any work he did for Qantas, and the same was to be true of his Japanese counterpart, Tatsuo Kawabuchi, a Dai Nippon Airways official, who arrived soon after. Kawabuchi was supported by a staff of five mechanics-an extravagant number considering that there were no regular Japanese air services to support. Ironically enough, Kawabuchi seems to have found Ross's company more congenial than that of his subordinates. The six Japanese trial flights were clearly being used for espionage purposes. For instance, the fifth flight, by the flying boat Enranimi, arrived in Dill on 19 May, leaving two days later. She had taken on 5000 litres of fuel in Palau but arrived in Dili with empty tanks, clear evidence of reconnaissance en route. The flight was preceded by the arrival in Dili of the Nicha Maru, whose putative function was to act as a 'guard ship' for the flying boat. Like the flying boat, the ship's main function was spying, although she carried a little cargo. Her only inward freight was beer, a commodity whose arrival was welcomed by spies of all sides, while she left for Palau with a little kapok, some buffalo horns, 8 tons of rubber and 100 tons of copra." The Japanese did not receive permission to establish a regular service until a few days after their attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Meanwhile the Portuguese authorities in Dili attempted to be as neutral as possible, refusing to allow either an Australian or a Japanese radio operator in Dili. The flurry to develop pseudo-commercial air services to Dili prompted the Portuguese authorities in Dili to start their own airline. During 1940 the Snvifos Abeas da Colonia Portuguesa de Timor began a weekly service from Dili to Kupang. In fact the plane-a British-built de Havilland Dragon Rapidc was a Royal Netherlands Indies Airlines Company (or KNILM) machine. The pilot and mechanic were also Dutch. By April 1941, the Dili authorities were six months behind in paying the lease and salaries, but the Indies Government was absorbing

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the loss, judging the political and espionage advantage of their presence more than compensated the costs involved. s Beside the development of politically-inspired air services, the other chosen means of exercising influence was through investment in the exploitation of Timor's natural resources. These comprised both the existing plantation industries, mostly coffee, and oil concessions whose commercial significance was as negligible as chat of the air routes. Desultory rivalry over oil concessions brought no more political benefits to either side than it did profits to che investors. In November 1939 the Portuguese government in Lisbon granted permission to explore most of Portuguese Timor for oil to a fairly flimsy Australian consorti~ called Oil Concessions. This provoked strong Japanese protests in Lisbon, as the Japanese had developed a·strategy of their own to move in on the search for oil in Timor. This involved working through a Belgian financial adventurer then resident in Dili, Serge Wittouck. However, the Dili. authorities refused to allow the concessions to pass to Wittouck, whom they heartily disliked. 6 Oil Concessions' insecure financial base meant that it was unable co meet its obligations to undertake genuine exploration work under the terms of its concession. The solution was for the Australian consortium to sell out its interests to a genuinely powerful (but, in reality, apathetic) multinational consortium of the Australian branches of Anglo-Iranian Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Standard Vacuum Oil. The sweetener was an advance by the Australian government of £1000 to Oil Concessions, to be paid to the Portuguese in default of actual operations. These complex arrangements may have kept the Japanese out, but accomplished little else. In fact, their success in this prompted the Japanese to put increased pressure on Lisbon to give them transport and mining concessions (excepting oil) in Timor, threatening trouble in Macao, then surrounded by Japanese-occupied territory, if the Portuguese did not comply. Soon after the Australian-Portuguese deal on oil was finalized-in late October 1940-the newly-appointed first Australian Minister co Japan, Sir John Latham, urged the despatch ofAustralian mining engineers to Timor to give some concrete meaning to the concession.7 Commercial imperatives lacking, nothing was done. Investment in Timor's plantation economy proved more useful, for the Japanese at least. On the whole, the Japanese approach to extending their influence in Portuguese Timor was n1ore rational and systematic than that of the British, Australians or Dutch. This was because it was part of a concerted drive to expand Japan's interests in Southeast Asia as a whole. The two organizations which took responsibility for this were

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the Navy General StafFs Policy Study Committee for the South Seas Area (Tai nan yo hosako kenyu iinkai, or Tainanken) and the South Seas Development Company (Nan yo Kohatsu Kabushiki Kaisha or NKKK). The NKKK had been established in 1921 to exploit the resources of Japan's newly-acquired mandated territories in Micronesia. It worked closely with the Japanese colonial ad.ministration based in Palau, and by the early 1930s had created an economic empire based on the intensive culrivarion of sugar in Micronesia by imported Japanese labour. The Tainanken was more recent, only being founded in July 1935. 8 Nan yo Kohatsu interest in Portuguese Timor dated from before the foundation of the Tainanken. It began sending small merchant vessels to Dili from Palau as early as 1934, in a successful attempt to break the Durch monopoly of shipping to the Portuguese possession. Shipping had long been a monopoly of the Dutch Royal Mail Steam Packer Company (KPM). This monopoly was much resented because of the high rates KPM charged. Japanese merchant shipping to Dili peaked with seventeen vessels calling in 1938. However, only seven called in 1939 and five in 1940, because the government had prohibited them from the coastal trade when it bought two old Japanese 120-ron motor vessels ro undertake the trade itself. The first of these, the Di/i, was soon left derelict in the harbour after which she was named, the second, the Oekussi, was still in service in 1941. At that time, Archer reported:

s

·The personnel of the Japanese vessels has been of a very high grade, and has constantly changed between voyages,-a fact which strongly suggests that naval men were being used, and that as large a number as possible were being given experience in these waters. 9

In May 1936, just three months after an abortive coup in Tokyo had confirmed, among other things, chat Japanese expansionist ambitions would be southward rather than directed cowards Siberia, Nan 'yo Kohatsu executive director, Matsui Haruji, called on the Navy General Staff to request support for his plans for economic penetration of Portuguese Timor. 10 The shipping service from Palau had proved popular, and the sequel was the visit to Japan by a major investor in the only significant plantation company in Timor, the Sociedade Agricola Patria e Traba/ho or SAPT. This man was Dr Sales Luiz, who sold his shares in rhe SAPT to Nan yo Kohatsu. As a result, Dr Sales was banned from re-entering Timor on the ground that he was a 'bad patriot'. However, the damage had been done, and by 1941 Nan yo Kohatsu owned forty per cent of SAPT. 11 .

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Nan 'yo Kohatsu s investment was far more than a business deal. On 20 July 1936 the Tainanken responded to Matsui's briefing by issuing a 'Memorandum for the Planned Advance into Portuguese Timor'. Written in the language typical of Japanese policy doc11ments of this era, it alluded to 'using the good offices of the Nan 'yo Kohatsu for concrete advance' to establish a 'foothold', then 'think of the next step'. The strategy was defined: We shall establish power swiftly and advance by putting deeds before words; we shall keep the intention of our pay-offs completely secret and throw our utmost internal support behind the Nan 'yo Kohats1' K.K. 12

The NKKK investment in the SAPT constituted Japan's major economic interest in the colony until 1945. Similarly, the Japanese consistently followed the strategy outlined in this 1936 memorandum until their invasion of the colony in 1942. Timor and the Possibility of General War in the Pacific More overt Allied strategic interest in Timor dates from 1941, as it became clear that the impasse between Japan and the US over the Japanese occupation of French Indochina probably would be resolved by war. As early as April 1941, US-Dutch-British defence discussions at Singapore agreed that 'the movement of Japanese forces into Portuguese Timor ... should be regarded as an act of war'. Subsequently, the Ausualian cabinet, then still headed by Robert Menzies, decided in September 1941 that it would send troops to Timor in the event of a Japanese force being despatched there, whether or not other hostilities broke out in the Pacific. They also decided that a German invasion of Portugal would be sufficient grounds for an Allied occupation of Portuguese Timor. 13 This meant that a Japanese move on Timor would provoke war. The British, Australian and Dutch governments therefore agreed to a joint Netherlands Indies-Australian invasion of Portuguese Timor in the event of any Japanese moves. This view was confirmed and strengthened by the new Australian Labor Government which came to power in October 1941. Early in December, as the crisis in US-Japan relations intensified, its representative in London pressed on Churchill four alternative circumstances under which Australia believed Britain should declare war on Japan. These were Japanese moves into (1) the Kra Isthmus in southern Thailand, (2) Russia, (3) the Netherlands Indies, and (4) Portuguese Timor. The last was undoubteclly the softest of these targets for the Japanese, and, from the point of view of both the Australians and the Dutch, the most dangerous. 14

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As it turned out, the Japanese launched their war against the W estcrn powers in Asia and the Pacific with something far more dramatic than the occupation of a neutral, strategically-located territory like Portuguese Timor. Nevertheless, the fact that Japanese moves over the previow year had been concentrated in the similarly neutral if very much more important colony of French Indochina certainly justified the Allied speculations about Timor. Moreover, when war did break out, one of the first Allied responses was the Netherlands Indies-Awtralian invasion of Portuguese Timor on 17 December 1941. This was a great irony: the Allies provoked Japan into war because they could not countenance Japanese occupation of a neutral colony, Indochina in this case, yet they began their offensive operations with precisely the same kind of move. Both the diplomacy surrounding that invasion, in particular the Portuguese response, and the campaigns which followed it in Timor have great interest, some moments of irony, even humour, and many more of tragedy. They arc not, however, the subject of this article. 15

The Archer Report of May 1941 Anglo-Awtralian spying in Timor during 1941 resulted in the creation of a series of reports which provides a remarkably thorough and detailed description of the colony. Allied spies in Timor were of three types: first there were Awtralian officials who enjoyed some status and recognition from the colonial regime (the Qantas agent who also became the British consular officer in Dili, David Ross, is the most important example); second, there were Dutch technical personnel, notably ship's captains and air pilots, who pawed on intelligence either to the Awtralians in Dili or to British contacts in Batavia; 16 and third was a real professional, C.H. Archer, who spent most of April 1941 in Timor. The time of Archer's arrival was a crucial one. It appeared as though Timorwas becoming the focal point ofJapanese aspirations in the Pacific, and there was the real possibility that events in Timor could provoke war between Japan and the Allied powers. The stakes were big: the Japanese had already tried to buy Portuguese adherence to the AnriComintern Pact and recognition of Manchukuo in 1939 with a guarantee of the sec':1fity of Macao. Once again, Japanese threats to Macao were being linked to demands for concessions on Timor. The situation would need to be handled carefully, as the British were extremely anxiow to maintain Portuguese neutrality in Europe, something which worked very much in their favour in the European war. On the other hand, the Dutch and the Awtralians could not tolerate any Japanese military presence in the Portuguese colony.

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Archer was a Japanese-speaking member of the British consular service who visited Timor between appointments in Shanghai and Mukden. His report gives a succinct snapshot of a sleepy colony on the edge of an abyss. Archer was highly critical of the Portuguese administration, and lost no opportunity to make unfavourable comparisons with Dutch rule in the western part of the island. He described a colony suffering from a bloated and inefficient adminisuation, high taxation and extremely poor services. The report, which includes an account of his travels in the colony, is a fascinating document which deserves a full summary. 17 Arriving on board the regular KPM steamer, Genna/ Verspyck, Archer was in Timor from 26 March to 29 April 1941. At Dili he was met by, among others, D.D. Laurie, Qantas Station Superintendent, and George Bryant, 'an elderly Australian who has resided in Portuguese Timor for over 30 years'. The Governor, Manuel d'Abreu Ferreira de Carvalho, had wanted Archer's visit kept secret and was angcy that everyone knew that he was a British consul. Presumably de Carvalho wished to avoid alarming the Japanese, but secrecy was virtually impossible in a place as • small as Dili. Certainly the Japanese in Dili knew who Archer was, since a few months earlier he had been in Shanghai where he had been in contact with Japanese officials about a visit to Mukden in their puppet state of Manchukuo. 18 As a result, he had only two short interviews with de Carvalho and had to rely on private facilities and hospitality. He especially appreciated Laurie's 'diligence and enterprise' in acquiring information. In short, he found that Qantas agents made good spies. He even asked for an official letter to Qantas chief Hudson Fysh thanking him for Laurie's assistance. Lacking the Governor's hospitality had its compensations, as 'I acquired a personal experience of the bankruptcy of municipal services and the abominable squalor of living conditions, which, had I been the Governor's guest, must in some measure have been decently veiled from my eyes.' He described the rigours of life in Dili in lurid detail: The leading hotel of Dili, the 'Hotel Ponugal' proved to be a very moderate sized bungalow, with an annex in the garden. The two buildings have between them eight bedrooms, each about 12 ft by 15, with a minimum of furniture, and that in an advanced state of decay. Actually, all the rooms in the hotd were

full ... Electricity was available sporadically from late dusk until midnight, but it was very weak and continually failed. The municipal ice-works were inadequate and ice was rationed. Shortly before he arrived there had been no ice supplies at all for some time because the colony had run

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out of ammonia. The water supply had not recovered from the damage done by floods in 1939 and was fearful. It was 'the colour of dark chocolate and three inches in a basin are sufficient to prevent the bottom being seen.' Despite that, he found that dysentery was rare. He met some colonial officials, including Commander A.E. Barbosa, who was Harbour Master, Director of the Portuguese Airline and of the Government Industrial Department, the FOAG, which was responsible for all trade and commerce. Barbosa was generally considered fascist and pro-Japanese. Archer was sure he was a fascist, but less convinced that he was pro-Japanese. Archer's only inland travels took him to Aileu, 31 miles south of Dili. There had been a road to Aileu, but it had been broken by floods in 1939. Two years later, eight of those miles had to be covered on horseback as the road had still not been repaired. The journey took all day. In addition, he went to Kupang in Dutch Timor and back by air, noting en route how unpopulated the country was. He flew there via the south coast and returned via the north, describing Oe-kussi, the Portuguese enclave in West Timor, which he only saw from the air, as 'no more than a small village, and the anchorage has no weather protection at all.' Thus, Archer's impressions of Timor, while astute in many respects, have their limitations. They were based on what he saw and what he was told in Dili. All he saw of the interior was Aileu and the road thither. He had little opportunity to see much of the Timoresethe 'natives' as he would have it-in their traditional society, then still very much intact in the interior. It is doubtful, from the evidence of his report, that he spoke to a single Timorese in any capacity other than as master to servant. All his evidence comes from Portuguese, Australian, Dutch and local Chinese sources. Perhaps this is scarcely surprising in view of the colonial mentality of the day, but times were changing, and Archer was familiar with Japanese pan-Asianist rhetoric. In this context, his lack of any analysis of how the Timorese might respond to the Japanese is surprising. It is difficult not to see both these limitations of the report and Archer's clear bias against the Portur,uese as evidence of a certian English hauteur which verges at times on r~ cism. Despite these failings, the report is, on its own terms, an honest and thorough document and, as such, a valuable source on conditions in 1·imor just before the outbreak of war in the Pacific. Archer's report was partly written as a diary and an account of his travels. He wrote it in Dili and Kupang where he would have had no secretarial support, with the result that its structure is not always transparent. In broad terms, though, Archer addresses the following themes:

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Population Archer reponcd that a census had been taken in 1940. Its preliminary results gave a population of about 450,000 natives, 300 Ponugucse, including slightly under 100 deportados, thincen Japanese, over 2000 Chinese, who he found controlled almost all local business and acted as middlemen, and less than a dozen other Europeans and Indians. The deportadoswere convicts sent to Timor for the duration of their sentences. Most, but not all, had been convicted of political offences. According to a lawyer called Joao Gomes Moreira, who had been involved in an independence movement in Angola, sixty per cent of the deportadoswere democrats, thirty per cent communists and ten per cent ordinary criminals. The majority of the Portuguese, about 1100 Chinese and 1800 natives were in Dili, making it a town of a little over 2000 people. On languages, he noted the linguistic diversity, recognizing that T etum was widely spoken in Portuguese Timor and the eastern parts of Dutch Timor, Dawan was spoken in west Timor, and Malay only in Kupang. He claimed that Malay was useless in Dili. He found that there were far more educational opportunities in Dutch than in Portuguese Timor, especially in Kupang, mostly due to the work of missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, who received government subsidies in the Dutch part of the island. Education in the Portuguese part of Timor was rudimentary: there were no state schools or state subsidies. The church gave some education to its converts, who were not numerous, and the Chinese maintained their own schools. 'This education system, or lack ofit, must be regarded as largely responsible for the extreme docility and inenia of the native population', he judged. This was just one of many patronizing remarks about the Timorese, which recur in every possible context.

Government The report contains an analysis both of the administrative institutions of Portuguese Timor and of the political attitudes he encountered there. Naturally enough, the political issue which most interested Archer was attitudes to the European war and the coming war in Asia. So far as suuctures were concerned, he found that Timor was divided into a Concelho (Dili), administered by a municipal council, and six Circumscriptions Fronteira, Suro, Manututo, Sao Domingos, Lautem and Oekussi. Each circumscription was ruled by a Portuguese administrator and his junta local comprising himself, a Chinese businessman representing commerce, and an approved elected native. Its main aim was to encourage local commerce by organi~ing transport and sale of produce through the Government Industrial Department, POAG. Payment by

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FOAG, however, was always either late or never: 'the consequent delay or even failure to obtain payment tends to damp the enthusiasm of natives for any labour beyond that which accords them the bare necessities of life.' Circumscriptions were divided into units under the chefes de posto, who were also Portuguese. They collected the head tax, supervised work by natives and looked after routine administration and law and order. They were assisted by unpaid native chiefs and by unpaid volunteers called moradores who 'form a sort of primitive boy scout movement which is of greatest value to the government'. Archer compared the extent of the colonial bureaucracy in the Dutch and Portuguese parts of the island. In Dutch Timor there was a total of six Dutch civil servants (four controkurs and two assistants). Elsewhere, though, he mentions a resident responsible for Dutch Timor and the islands westwards to Sumbawa and Sumba. There were also three assistant residents, only one of whom was responsible for Timor. Only the area around Kupang (whose population was then about 7000) was government territory, the rest of the Dutch part was nominally under the control of local rajas. In Portuguese Timor there was an administrator for each of the six circumscriptions, plus ten chefes de posto under each, a total of sixty, plus the officials in Dili. On Archer's analysis, there were eleven times as many European civil servants per native in Portuguese as in Dutch•Timor. The Portuguese were much lower paid and, in his opinion, of a lower calibre than the Dutch. Archer was never very friendly towards the Portuguese administration and missed no opportunity to comment on its alleged 'improvidence and slackness', citing its 'extremely dilatory and wasteful' road maintenance as an example. Perhaps more seriously, he also identified the continuation of practices which, to modern eyes, could only be considered feudal, although Archer refrained from using the word. This included forced labour, as discussed below, restrictions on freedom of movement, and corporal punishment. Native workers in Portuguese Timor, he found, suffered much petty tyranny, including a curfew: Any native found on the streets after 8 pm without a pass from his employer is taken up by the police, and subjected to corporal punishment in the form of beating of the hands to a point which may interfere ·wich the following day's labour. This seems to be the standard punishment for all minor delinquencies. As the natives are entirely docile, enforcement of curfew by such methods seems a bit of cruelty which is difficult to excuse.

Contempt tempered by sympathy seems to have been Archer's general attitude to the Timorese. It is also revealed in his discussions of the

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potential for Allied propaganda in Timor and the colony's defence. He believed that there would be no point in directing propaganda at the Timorcsc: ... material would have co be translated into the 'Tarum' dialect; Malay is virtually useless. Bue I think chis omission would noc be of che slighcesc consequence. The natives are devoid of the most rudimentary political consciousness, and their condition is so primitive that I imagine few would even be capable of grasping the idea thac a world war is going on.

There was to be an irony in Archer's extremely patronizing attitude to the Timorese. For after Timor did become a theatre of war in 1942, it was in the Timorese rather than the Portuguese population that the Allies were to find their most enthusiastic supporters. The Allied soldiers who fought the Japanese in Timor reported almost the exact opposite of Archer's conclusions about the Timorese. 19 Archer considered the defensive capability of the colony derisory. It was, of course, but it could hardly be said that the British in Malaya or the Durch in the Indies were well prepared for invasion by a modem army either. He found that in Portuguese Timor there were 300 soldiers, of whom only fifteen were Europeans. The native troops were illequipped and even paraded barefoot. All but forty soldiers were in Dili. In addition there was a small mounted frontier patrol of forty m?!n based in Bonobaro. This modest force was armed with 500 old rifles (Steyer, 1886), ten machine guns and nine Japanese 20mm guns dating from 1890. There was one Hotchkiss 47mm gun and also seventy Mannlicher rifles. He claimed that ninety per cent of the small arms ammunition was believed to have perished. These meagre forces were supplemented on 25 March 1941 by the arrival of the sloop G1Jnfalo Ve/ho from Macao for an extended visit. It carried 150 well-armed Europeans and was to stay in Dili until relieved by the ]oao Lisboa, then on the seas from Portugal. His contempt for the natives extended to his assessment of their manial qualities: The Timor natives, from whom the levies are drawn, are a race wich no mania! cradicions at all. With obsolete arms, no gas-equipment and bare feet, ic is difficult to believe that even the mildest dose of frightfulness would fail to break their fighting spirit.

In this he could not have been more wrong. The Timorese may not have been well-equipped but their culture was a highly martial one, many of whose rituals revolved around war. Guerrilla war, in particular,

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replicated many of the characterisitcs of their traditional fighting patterns of raid and counter-raid. 'Fighting spirit' was the last thing they lacked. Indeed, it is the one commodity from which the island of Timor has always suffered an abundance. Archer was on surer ground when he discussed the attitudes of the European and Chinese elements of the population. He judged that there was a lot of fascist feeling, but no very active hostility towards the UK or sympathy for Japan, among Portuguese officials. There were no newspapers or radio station, but news from outside was permitted quite freely. Most Portuguese, including those who were pro-fascist, relied on the BBC: 'it is noteworthy that even officials who are suspected of profascist or pro-Japanese leanings betray a familiarity with the BBC bulletins which could only be acquired at first hand.' As for the Chinese, they sold Japanese goods, there being none other, but were pro-Chungking. They also regularly received recent Chinese-language papers from Makassar and Java which were pro-Chungking. The local Chinese association, the Associafiio Comercial Chinesa de Timor, told Archer it would gladly distribute pro-Allied propaganda in Chinese to its men1bers and indeed to all Chinese in the colony. In contrast, Lisbon papers were very old when they arrived and only a few people, notably the governor, subscribed. In addition, the odd Dutch, Singapore and Australian paper arrived by flying boat. Archer felt that copies of the Free French paper published in Australia would be useful, as virtually all Portuguese officials were proficient in French. A smaller number was proficient in English, but none knew Dutch. In short, he believed that, in any future conflict with Japan, the Chinese would strongly support the Allies; the Portuguese would be divided between pro-Allied and neutral, as even those who were sympathetic to fascist ideas were not particularly pro-Japanese; while the Timorese would be apathetic. In two out of three cases he was right. What he ignored in this analysis was the inability of the Timorese to stay out of a fight. Had he been familiar with the difficulties the Portuguese had experienced in controlling the island, he could scarcely have made this mistake.

Finance and Taxation The colonial administration, in Archer's opinion, was neither very wellfunded nor very efficient. The colony's budget for 1941 was 1,556,051 patacas of which 663,000 patacas were from the poll tax. In addition, 380,000 patacas were raised through import and export duties. The only significant items of expenditure were administration (the bulk), repayment of a loan to Portugal (about 109,000 patacas), and the military (about 200,000 patacas). ·

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The currency was the pataca, based on the Hong Kong dollar, exchangeable at 2.20 to the Netherlands Indies guilder, and worth ls. 2½d. sterling. There was a black market, reflecting the pataca, s low esteem among traders, who preferred to use guilders. The Banco Naciona/ U/tramarino was the only bank. Customs duties iq Archer,s opinion were quite high, reaching, for example, over twenty per cent on the export of coffee. The major source of revenue was the poll tax, levied at 6 patacas per adult male per annum. Coolies in private industry had to pay 11 patacas per annum. Higher-paid workers had to pay a professional tax of 16 patacas per annum. These were quite high rates, as coolies only earned 3 to 4 patacas per month plus food. The budget figures suggested that the poll tax was paid by about 100,000 people, which was about half the adult population. Poor Timorese who could not pay the poll tax could work off their debt. Archer observed that, A great deal of the work on the roads is done on this basis. The mild system of servitude thus instituted, however objectionable in theory, arouses no resentment among a lethargic people, who have no experience of any other arrangement.

For comparative purposes, Archer examined the situation in Dutch Timor. There the poll tax was If 50, about 3.30 patacas, or less than half, and wages were at least 4f 50 per month, or three times those in Portuguese Timor. Also the budget of Dutch Timor was about 600,000 fl, or just a little less than Portuguese Timor, despite its considerably smaller population. However, the Dutch budget was subsidised by 250,000 guilders from other parts of the Netherlands Indies, which explained the lower taxation. By comparison, Portuguese Timor received no subsidies and one fifteenth of the Portuguese Timor budget even went to paying off an old loan to the home government. Archer was also impressed with the roads and airport in West Timor compared with those in Portuguese territory. He was aware that this situation was due to the riches the Dutch were able to extract from Java, Sumatra and Borneo, but failed to acknowledge the real difficulties under which Portuguese officials laboured, lacking any such budgetary subsidy from the richer parts of their empire.

Foreign Trade and Investment Economic activity in Portuguese Timor was neither at a very high level nor of enormous significance to the lives of most of the population. Most Tirnorese scarcely participated in the economy beyond what was necessary to pay the poll tax and purchase a few simple items of clothing.

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Foreign trade was modest and the domestic market very limited. Neither Timar's natural resources nor its modest plantation sector were of much significance in international markets. However, the colony's strategic position meant that these were matters in which the Allies, and the Japanese even more, took a close interest. Exports were dominated by coffee, which formed seveny per cent of their value -in 1939 and fifty-two per cent in 1940, when coffee prices were depre~sed by the isolation from growers imposed by the Royal Navy on German and other central European coffee drinkers. The coffee crop had fallen from 1626 tonnes in 1938 to 840 tonnes in 1940. There had been floods in 1939 and drought in 1940. The fall in coffee prices, from between 35 and 40 guilders per 100 kg in 1939 to between 25 and 30 guilders per 100 kg in 1940, meant that production costs were no longer covered. Alternative coffee markets were difficult to find. Australia seemed to offer the best potential and the first modest exports-just 15 tons to Adelaide-were just being organized. Other exports were beeswax, rubber, sandalwood and buffalo hides. The Netherlands Indies took eighty-seven per cent of exports in 1939, but only fifty per cent in 1940. The slack was taken up by Portugal, which went from insignificance to taking twenty-three per cent of exports. No doubt this was coffee ,vhich went from neutral Portugal into Axis countries in Europe: Japan took around ten per cent of total exports, but hardly any coffee, even though Japanese investors were active in the Timor coffee industry. The largest import item was cotton cloth, about a third of the total, virtually all of it ofJapanese origin, although about half of it was imported indirectly through the Netherlands Indies. The Indies and Japan led the list of importers, followed by Portugal. Australian imports were trivial, comprising mostly flour, groceries, medicines and toiletries for use by Europeans in Dili, mostly imported by the Australian businessman, Bryant. The plantation economy was dominated by one company, the SAPT. Together with its subsidiaries, the Empresa Agricola Perseveranfa and the Emprna Agricola Timor Limitada, the SAPT was the only important agricultural enterprise in Portuguese Timor. They prodqcee-cocoa, rubber and almost the entire arabica crop. (Arabica is the more valuable of the two varieties of coffee cultivated inTimor, the other being robusta.) Initially owned by the da Silva family, these enterprises were now partly Japanese-owned. As discussed above, Japanese penetration ofSAPT had begun soon after the first Japanese merchant vessels called at Dili in 1934. Japanese capital came through the South Seas Development

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Company or Nan yo Kohatsu K.K. In 1941 NKKK owned forty per cent of SAPT, the Banco Nacional Ultramarino eight per cent and Porruguese investors fifty-two per cent. The three directors were the governor's son, Jose de Rocha Carvalho (in charge of production), the NKKK nominee Sachimoro Segawa (in charge of exports-he had arrived on 22 January 1937) and Joao Jorge Duarte, manager of the bank. There were three other Japanese employees.

Dili sForeign Community The largest foreign community in Dili in 1941 was the Japanese, who numbered thirteen. Besides the four NKKK personnel, there were six Dai Nippon Airways officials, headed by Tatsuo Kawabuchi, a woman doctor and her two children. All the Japanese residents were in Dili as the result of the deliberate strategy of penetration devised by the T ainanken and the NKKK. The Portuguese were well aware of them and so maintained strict surveillance and censorship of the activities of the Japanese population. They insisted, for instance, that the Japanese communicate with Palau and Japan in English only, so that the Portuguese knew exactly what instructions and reports were being exchanged. Besides the Japanese, there was a German couple who had gone there when expelled from Singapore about April 1940, and also a German Jew named Max Sander, who had lost his nationality and acquired no other. He had thought of becoming Australian. He claimea to be antiNazi but socialized with the Japanese. Archer saw no sinister Axis plot in this, reporting almost pathetically that, 'Mr Ross is convinced that ... his intimacy with the Japanese-now somewhat reduced-is no more than the result of extreme loneliness and a common liking for billiards.' There were a couple of Dutch subjects, and the Australian businessman Bryant, who was ill and hoped to return to Australia to collect the oldage pension. However, a higher and more patriotic calling awaited him. David Ross arrived as the new Qantas agent and Anglo-Australian spy on 13 April. Ross proposed to employ Bryant as a translator, as he spoke good Portuguese. The final foreigner was Ross's predecessor as Qantas agent, Laurie. The Belgian financier, Dr Serge Wittouck, had been a resident of Dili, where he had established his Asia Investment Company in 1936, widely seen as a front for Japanese operations. He had employed various personnel, including the German Jew Sander, and had built large offices in Dili. Wittouck had made all sorts of claims, but rurned out to be an advenrurer and committed suicide in 1940. A year later Sander was trying to sell the buildings to recover his salary. He found potential buyers in short supply.

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Conclusion The Archer report is a valuable source on the economic and political life of Timor as the island was being propelled into a violent and tragic episode in its history. The circumstances of its creation were unique in the island's history, which had become an important place in the rivalry of the great powers, a potential point d'appui in what seemed to be a coming war. Even in the seventeenth century, when the Indonesian archipelago had been the focus of much European diplomacy and war, Timor had never attained this status. After Archer's departure, the most important sowce ofAllied intelligence was David Ross. His Japanese counterpart, the Dai Nippon Airways agent, Kawabuchi, played the same role on his government's behalf. The issues throughout the rest of 1941 remained the same: Japanese demands for a regular air service and the establishment of a consulate. By October 1941, the Portuguese, threatened with reprisals in Macao, were no longer able to resist. Ross was appointed British consul to preserve the appearance of neutraliry. 20 By the time war broke out, the dual Allied and Japanese presence, supported by sound intelligence on both sides, meant that Timor was to be a focus of operations for both sides. The result was the loss of 60,000 Timorese lives as the colony was invaded first by the Allies and then by the Japanese. To all this, the Portuguese colonial administration was little more than an aggrieved witness. The Pacific War may not have broken out in Timor, but the fear that it may have broken out there had created an irresistible momentum. This meant that Timor became the site of bloody struggles whose toll on civilian life was, in relative terms, one of the highest anywhere in the world during those desperate years of the early 1940s.

Notes 1

C .C .H. Wray, Timor 1942,Australian Commandos at War, Melbourne, 1987, p. 5. 2 C.H. Archer, Report on Portuguese Timor, 3 May 1941 in Australian Archives (henceforth AA) Series A816 NO 19/301/822, Relations with Portuguese Timar, Appointment of Commonwealth Representative, Occupation of Portuguese Timor, 1940-1941 [hereafter Report). 3 0n Ross sec P. Hasluck, The Government and the Peopk, 1939-1941, Canberra, 1952, p. 538. • Depanmcnt ofExternal Affairs, Japanese Activities in Portuguese Timor (Summary of Information received since the preparation of Mr Archer's Report), 19 July 1941 in AAScricsA816 NO 19/301/822. 5 Archer, Report.

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Vasco dit Gam11 11nd the Linking ofEuro~ and .AsiA 6 H.P. Frei, f•P"ni S""thultlrd Ad1111ntt .,,J Atutr11lill, jm,, tht Sixtemd, Cmtury to

Wor/J W4r II, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 152-3. 7 Wray, Timor 1942, p. 6. 1 Frei, ]4p11n 's Southwtzrd Adv4ntt, pp. 150-1. 'Archer, Rtport. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Quoted in Frci, ]4P4n 's Southward Advdntt, p. 152. 13 R.G. Menzies, War Cabinet Agendum, Occupation of Portuguese Tim~r, 240/ 1941, 12August 1941 inMSericsA816/l NO 19/301/820AOccupationofPonugucsc Timor, 1942. 14 These options for war arc discussed in Hasluclc, Th, Gor,,rnmmt and tht Ptopk, p. 554. The Timor question is ignored in D. Day, Th, Grtat Betrayal· Brit11in, Australill 4nd tht Onstt oftht Patific war, 1939-1942, Sydney, 1988. is A fine account of the campaign in Timor from the point of view of an Australian leader, in B. Callinan, Indeptndmt Company, tht Australian Army in Portugunt Timor, Melbourne, 1953. 16 Thc KNILM (Royal Netherlands Indies Airlines) pilot stationed in Dili, Captain Verstccge, reponed to the Acting Australian Government Commissioner in Batavia on Japanese ship and aircraft movements and even on the details ofJapanese fud stocks in Dili. (Secretary, Depanmcnt of External Affairs to Acting Secretary, Depanmcnt of Defence Coordination 18/411941 No D.1012 in M Series A816 NO 19/301/822.) The master of the KPM vessel, Gtntral Verspyclt, Capt J. Oudcnaardc, gave the British consul m mission, C.H. Archer a copy of the chart he and his predecessors had made of Dili and iu approaches, which Archer forwarded to the RAN. 17 Archer, Rtport. Unless indicated to the contrary, the details of the description of Timor which follows arc drawn from this repon. 18 Archer to Foreign Office, from Koepang (now spelt Kupang), 7 April 1941, AA Series A816 NO 19/301/822. 19 On the role of the Timorcsc in supponing Allied, especially Australian, commandos in Ponuguese Timor during the Japanese occupation, see Callinan, Indepmdmt Otmpany. Callinan's account has been used by supponers of East Timorcsc independence as evidence of an Australian 'debt of honour', to the Timorcsc. A close reading of Callinan's account reveals that the attitudes of the Timorese to the Allies and Japanese were varied and changed according to circumstances. Many Timorcsc did, in fact, rally to the Japanese. 20 For correspondence from the Allies: AA Series A816 NO 19/301/822.

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Chapter Twenty-eight

Vasco da Gama and the Later Ponuguese Colonial ·Presence in India Teotonio R de S011za A visible resistance, but also a visible cooperation between the Portuguese and some Indian groups, date back to the first voyage ofVasco da Gama to India. It was a matter of coincidence of mutual interests, which could mean gains, or avoidance of trouble. It did not matter if the dominant Muslim groups of the population first contacted by the Portuguese felt threatened and manifested hostility. The diary of the first voyage of V asco da Gama tells us about locals who were trying to approach the Portuguese ships offshore to sell their ~es. Despite the suspicions of the Portuguese, it is not certain that all of them were spying on the new arrivals. But preliminary to commencing the main substance of the paper, I wish to present a few modern assessments by some prominent Indians on the impact of the Portuguese arrival in India in 1498.

I While the Portuguese argonaut had set sail from a distant Finiiterra on a voyage of 'discovery', a maker of modern India would discover India &om within the confines of the Ahmadnagar fort, where the British had detained him in 1944. We read in Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery

oflnaia: In April 1944, two thousand years were completed and a new millennium began. This has been the occasion for cdebracion throughout India, and the celebrations were justified both because it was a big turning point in the reckoning of time and because Vikram or Vdcramaditya, with whose name the calendar is associated, has long been a great hero in popular tradition. 1

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And he goes on to say that acrually there was no ruler called Vikramaditya in the period that marked the beginning of the era named after him. But there was one in the fourth century AD who fits the description. However, his rule affected only a part of northern India, while he is celebrated as a defender against foreigners and a hero of the unity of India. Nehru sees this as an instance of the manipulation of the past for nationalist motives. Nehru's Discovery of India is pretty accurate in its assessment of the Portuguese power in India: With all his great prestige as the Grand Mughal and his strength as a land power, he (Akbar) was powerless at sea. Vasco da Gama had reached Calicut via the Cape, in 1498; Albuquerque had seized Malacca in 1511 and established Portuguese sea-power in the Indian Ocean. Goa on the western coast of India had become a Portuguese possession. All this did not bring the Portuguese in direct conflict with Akbar. But Indian pilgrims going to Mecca by sea, and these sometimes included members of the imperial family, or of the nobility, were often held up for ransom by the Portuguese. 2

Behind the failure of the Mughals to ,vithstand the new power, Nehru discovered an absence of the dynamism that moved the advancing European culture. He came to the conclusion: 'A foreign conquest with all its evils, has one advantage: le widens the mental horizon of the people and compels men to look out of their shells. They realise that the world is much bigger and more variegated place than they had imagined. ' 3

II Salman Rushdie's latest provocation seems to be directed towards the Portuguese discoveries and its aftermath. The Moor's Last Sigh chides: Had it not been for peppercorns, then what is ending now in East and West might never have begun. Pepper it was that brought Vasco da Gama's tall ships across the ocean, from Lisbon's Tower of Belem to the Malabar Coast: first to Calicut, and later, for its lagoony harbour, to Cochin. English and French sailed in the wake of that first-arrived Portugee, so that in the period called Discovery-of-India-but how could we be discovered when we were not covered before?-we are 'not so much sub-continent as sub-condiment', as my distinguished mother had it. 'From the beginning, what the world wanted from bloody mother India was daylight-clear,' she'd say. 'They came for the hot stuff, just like any man calling on a tart'.

Then he goes on to describe Prince Henry the Navigator as a homosexual, Camoens, a little goateed stick of a man, persecuted by the ghost of Belle, Francisco da Gama who made himself a fool with the discovery

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of'Gama rays', and Morais Gama-Zogoiby, the villain of the piece, the 'Moor', a physical and cultural deformity.'4

III Archana Masih, a journalist of'Rediff On the Net', flashed a long report through the World Wide Web early this month. It contained her interview with the most recent Indian biographer of V asco da Gama, .b ut she started with: May 20, 1998 will mark 500 years of Vasco da Gama's arrival in India. Plans for a proposed celebration have fallen on rough weather. Amidst allegations that he marked the advent of colonialism, the Portuguese explorer is trapped in controversy in new age India. With four small ships, 171 men, food reserves for a minimum of three years, a short and swarthy aristocrat took off from the western tip of Europe fringing the mighty Atlantic Ocean. Ten months later, past the Equator and vast expanses of unknown waters, he reached the lucrative Malabar coast of peninsular India. The voyage connected Europe to India, and Vasco da Gama sailed into the pages of history. Five hundred years later, the Portuguese explorer has been sucked into a whirlpool of controversy far more treacherous than the ones he encountered on his travels.

The reactions ofAsians, or rather of different Indian groups or individuals, to the arrival of the Portuguese, reflected the social, economic and political realities of the times, regions and particular societies or individuals. Hence, it is not easy to draw a still picture of these reactions valid for changing times and circumstances. Considering the fact that my research has been mostly on the Portuguese in India, it is obvious that I can speak with greater confidence of the early Indian response to the Portuguese. About the other Asian reactions, I shall scratch the surface. Besides, it is imponant to note that it is a matter ofAsian response to the Europeans, and not just to the Portuguese. The Portuguese enterprise in Asia included numerous individuals and groups of other European nationalities, particularly Italians, Flemish and Germans. While the former groups were more commercially motivated, Germans like the Fuggers acted as big financiers of the Portuguese trader but many less-celebrated figures were the mainstay of the Portuguese defence needs in Asia, as gunners of their fleets and fortifications .5 The Ponuguese missionary enterprise in Asia was equally a multinational effort. To take the case of the Jesuits who were in the forefront till the suppression of the Society ofJesus in the mid-eighteenth century, nearly half of their membership in Asia came from non-Portuguese nations of Europe, and included Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Belgians, Austrians, Poles, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and even Croats.6 In reality, Francis

as

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Xavier, Alessandro Valignano, Matteo Ricci, De Nobili, arc the betterknown Jesuit celebrities of the Ponugucsc Padroado in Asia, and they were not Portuguese. The native response to Europeans, and to the Western brand of Christianity, was a prime concern to each of them, and they contributed significantly to mitigate the cultural one-sidedness of the European missionaries.7 The reactions of the Asians to the Ponuguesc appear to have been influenced by the latter•s systematic tendency to interfere in the culture of the local people by means of conversion and miscegenation drives. In places where the Portuguese military presence was strong, as was the case in Goa and various other settlements along the west coast of India, the natives could hardly remain indifferent to the Portuguese. While large sections of the population had to fall in line, willingly or with varying degrees of resignation, with the Portuguese colonial and cultural impositions that were enforced through European religious structures and Inquisition procedures, there were also significant migrations of the more unbending types. A Jesuit visitor who travelled through Kanara in the seventeenth century calculated 30,000 Goans, chiefly Hindus, had migrated thither to escape the religious and other pressures. It was among these communities of Goans that appeared the proverbial Konkani, saying 'Goeant firangi na mhunno hhoim?' ('Who dares say that the Portuguese are not in G.oa?'), a rhetorical assertion of the futility of resistance of those who had stayed behind. 8 However, despite such lamentations of futility by those who migrated to distant places, expressions of resistance within Goa were never fully absent, and the Hindu community utilized its economic clout to vindicate a:nd safeguard its heritage and traditional interests.9 The colonialists' hopes of winning over new converts for their cause were not always realized. The colonial superiority complex, and ethnic conflicts, often held the upper hand, and contributed to brewing discontent among converted native co-religionists. The cases of Matheus de Castro in the seventeenth century, and the Pinto conspiracy in the midnineteenth century, arc well-known illustrations of this; but an ongoing resentment of the natives, who felt themselves taken for granted as Christians, can be detected in existiI?,g Portuguese documentation from the sixteenth century onwards. This contains protests of. the natives against their e~ploitation and ill-treatment, not only at the hands of the lay Portuguese or half-breeds, but even by their European parish priests and their few privileged native collaborators. 1 Curiously, the native priests were the most disenchanted and led the protest and revolutionary movements against the Europeans, not only in Goa, but also in the

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Vasco Ja Gama and tht ilzter Portuguest Coloni4./ Prtsmct in Indi4. 441 Philippines, 11 and in Japan, where several native members of the Society ofJesw left the order because they had not been promoted r.o the priesthood. One of them, Fabian Fukansai, published an anti-Jesuit tract in 1620, denouncing the pride and arrogance of the European missionaries and their contempt for their Japanese colleagues. This may have helped to enhance the ill-feelings that led to the decisive persecution of the Jesuits and the expulsion of the Portuguese from Japan in the wake of the Shimabara rebellion. 12 While utilizing European sources, we need to bear in mind their concerns and concepts of resistance and collaboration. Resistance is often tantamount to an anticipated fear, and collaboration could be wishful thinking. Hence, these phenomena may be untrue, or misrepresentations, from the native point of view. There arc plentiful references in the missionary accounts to the 'devil at work', meaning native resistance to the missionary efforts. A deeper analysis of the socio-economic context often reveals that the native resistance-is to the new social and economic interests that they saw lurking behind the missionary front. 13 Sanjay Subrahmanyam's treatment ofVasco da Gama has analysed the reported instances of collaboration by Abraham Zacuto and Ibn Majid as appropriated symbols ofAsian wisdom and science, and as a way of gaining legitimization for the national venture in the eyes of other peoples, somewhat along the lines of the Magi from the East tracing the star of Bethlehem, in Christian messianism. 14 But certainly not all cases of resistance and collaboration were only imagined. Should I say that at times even Nature seemed to be cooperating with the new European colonists? This too can have its legendary aspect, and be put to serve partisan politics: but we need to look for the scientific credentials, if any. I wish to cite the fact ofVasco da Gama's first arrival on the Malabar coast at a time of year when staying in the Indian Ocean during the three months of the monsoon could only be a daredevil performance. Was it superior Portuguese navigational knowledge, or had the monsoons failed that year? If we add nine days to convert the calendar of the diarist of V asco da Gama's first voyage from the Julian into the Gregorian, Vasco da Gama could not have escaped the fury of the monsoons, almost from the start. 15 I am given to understnd that, according to recent investigations of a Goa-based scientist of the Indian Institute of Oceanography, there exist three pockets of the Kerala coast, unique in the world, which retain a quantity of sediment in suspension during the monsoons, reducing the turbulent impact of the seasonal winds on the sea. It was not without

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reason that da Gama was advised by the local people to put his ships into Pantalayini, or Pandaranc to the Arabs and the Chinese navigating in Indian waters. They had discovered this phenomenon centuries before the arrival of V asco da Gama. What matters for our purpose is that V asco da Gama did not fail to receive local advice, and he did not fail entirely to accept it. I say entirely, because the diarist of his voyage reveals that with their customary suspicion of local advice, the Portuguese anchored only near the place at first. 16 If King Manuel of Portugal was seeking allies among the St Thomas Christians of India, his expectations were not entirely unfounded. Despite the fact that relations soured with the heavy-handedness of the Jesuits, and the politics of Portugal under John III (which led to the crisis of the Synod of Diamper at the close of the sixteenth century and its troubled aftermath), there are indications that the initial response of the St Thomas Christians to the arrival of the Portuguese was one of hope to recover their own dwindling economic and political importance in Malabar. The earliest written testimony is a letter in the Syrian language sent by the local church authorities to their Catholicos in East Mesopocamia.17 On the occasion of the second 'bloody' visit ofVasco da Gama to India, when he threatened all and sundry, friends and foes, he was approached by a delegation of St Thomas Christians, willing to pay obeisance to the king of Portugal. 18 The scenario in Goa was not very different. We have the figure of Timmayya, to whom is attributed the initiative of suggesting to Afonso de Albuquerque the conquest of Goa, with his military assistance. He may have had his own personal scores to settle and political ambitions that he cherished. According to T omc Pires, Goa had a large Hindu population, and many among them were of high social and economic status. 19 There are suggestions in the Portuguese documentation that Timmayya belonged to a lower caste, and that his collaboration could be motivated by intentions of rising socially. He became inconvenient to the Portuguese at a later stage; but initially, as described by the Portuguese chronicler Joao de Barros, when 'Afonso de Albuquerque heard Timmayya, he was all ears, and could not believe he was hearing a gentile, but took him rather as a messenger of the Holy Spirit'. 20 In the face of Bijapuri resistance to the conquest of Goa, the Portuguese played the card of protecting the interests of the disaffected local Hindu population. The same Portuguese chronicler narrates how the Goan Hindus took an active part in the defence of the territory, and even accompanied Albuquerque in his naval sorties. There were others who revealed the Goan love for music by playing Portuguese tunes in

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Albuquerque's military band. 21 And there was no lack of women who fell for the Portuguese men and married them, while others merely satisfied their biological nceds. 22 A contemporary Portuguese writer, Tome Pires, who wrote a detailed manual ofstrategic information about places, people, customs and commerce of the Indian Ocean region, docs not fail to mention the Goan women who dressed exquisitely and danced well. 23 We have the published receipts of the payments sanctioned by Afonso de Albuquerque, and these include references to rewards issued to the Goan Hindus, who were vying with each other to bring more chopped heads of their former Muslim masters. Several of the local collaborators who were wounded in these exercises received compensations from the Portuguese. 2• If literally thousands of Paravasof the fishery coast sought Portuguese military protection, accepted Christianity, and became Colambucos, 25 early in the sixteenth century and later, it was entirely due to the fact that they saw in the Portuguese a potential ally that could enable them to survive as a community against Muslim oppression. It was a complex socio-economic scenario, in which the Muslims of Kayalpatnam and Kilakkarai resisted the Portuguese assaults, with the support of Calicut. The interior-based local ruler, Martanda Yarman, got involved because of his military need for elephants and horses. In the wake of the declining Pandya fortunes, he had captured Kayalpacnam. His interests became involved in the new struggle in the area following the arrival of the Portuguese. Rulers in Ceylon and elsewhere in the Ease also saw opportunities and threats with this evolution.26 The complexity of the situation was not limited to the Portuguese vis-a-vis the natives. The European religious orders, like the Jesuits and the Franciscans in South India (and it happened with other religious groups elsewhere in the East, including China and Japan), were quite often at loggerheads. The Jesuits accused the Franciscan Bishop of Cochin of seeking to place his subjects as vicars in t~e chwches of the Fishery coast. The Franciscan Bishop of Cochin was reluctant to recognize the Jesuit Francis Ros as bishop of Cranganor in 1607. The two reached almost a battle situation with threats of violent conflict over the control of the Fishery coast. The Franciscans had a more friendly and accommodating approach in their dealings with local Christianity, while the Jesuit mood is reflected by Gaspar Fernandes, a Jesuit writing from India in 1618: 'The archdeacon is a terrible Keralice [Malabar] by nature, very discreet, and knows how to get his way, with little fear of God and less scruples of conscience.' 27 The Jesuits denounced the

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Franciscan Bishop for wanting to appoint 'a black priest [um cllrigo p~to] as father of Christians [Pai dos Christao]'. 28 The Jesuits as usual got the better of the situation by representing to the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon that divisions among Christian Paravaswere harming strategic state interests. The Jesuits had congregated several thousand Paravason an island called the Island of Kings (today part ofTuricorin port?) to protect them against the persecutions moved by the ruler ofTuticorin and the Muslim entrepreneurs. The protection and unity of the Paravas was considered essential for Portuguese trade and presence in the region. Th,ey were potential allies in war, just as king Manuel had envisaged in the case of the St Thomas Christians when he sent Vasco da Gama in search of Christians and spices. The Paravas did actually contribute substantially with cash and services for the construction of the Mannar fort, and regularly supplied foodstuffs to Malacca.29 Portuguese control of the Kanara ports, especially Bhatlcal and Mangalore, on which Calicut depended for rice supplies, had funher weakened Calicut's resistance. And the progressive squeezing of Calicut and its Moplah trade by the end of the 1530s made possible Francis Xavier's feat of massive conversions of the Paravas. The friendly relations of the ruler of Cochin (Kochi) with the Portuguese at a time of dire need is another historic example of politics of convenience. Cochin had discovered the political advantage that would accrue to it by diverting the Portuguese away from Calicut. Later, following the collapse ofVijayanagar, the pretensions of the ruler ofTravancor 01enad) in assuming the title of 'Perumal', and his interest in wresting the control of Quilon from the Portuguese, also served to give Cochin a common cause with the Portuguese. It is important to know, however, that the politics of convenience was always more complex than it appeared, and the Portuguese settlers in Cochin were often in collusion with the raja of Cochin, to the detriment of the state interests of the Porruguese. 30 An important factor that called for concessions from, and reluctant accommodation by, the Muslim rulers of India and the Indian Ocean region, was the need to safeguard the hajj pilgrims to Mecca. Portuguese chronicler Barros described the general Muslim reaction to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean: These kings and princes, as merchants through whose hands ran the commerce of spices and oriental riches, seeing that with our arrival in India, in the brief space of five years, we had taken controf of the navigation of those seas, and they had lost the commerce which they had dominated for so many years, and especially were an insult to their House of Mecca, since already we had reached

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Vasco da Gama and till l,,,n- Portuguese Colon ill/ Presmce in India 44 S the gates of the Red Sea, seizing their pilgrims, all of these things were so serious for them and so sorrowful, that not only those directly offended, but all of them in general so hated us they each in their own way sought our destruction. 31

A brother of Zain-ud-din, author of the famous Tohfot-ul-Mujahideen, wrote a long poem from Malabar in the early sixteenth century which noted how the 'Ponuguese forbade ships to set sail for Mecca, and this was the worst calamity', and they 'restricted vessels from sailing on the sea, especially the vessels of the greater and lesser pilgrimage'. 32 The second voyage of Vasco da Gama to India provides a classic example of Portuguese intransigence: he captured a vessel returning from Mecca with many hajjis and some rich merchants of Calicut and their families. V asco da Gama paid no heed to their plea for a fair deal, and burnt and sank the vessel. It seemed to be da Gama's way of avenging the killing of the Portuguese of Cabral's earlier fleet, or even the humiliations to which he had been subjected during his first visit. In his study, Subrahmanyam has reported this with much flavour, using the opportunity to launch yet another provocative broadside against 'third world' moralises distinguishing between the Eastern and Western ways of reacting to evil. Saradindu Bandhopadhyaya's Rakta Sandhya serves to bring this home to his readers. 33 Mughal-Portuguese relations were punctuated by frequent tension, chiefly in Gujarat, due co Portuguese threats to hajj shipping from Surat and other ports. We have in Pires' Summa Oriental a shore and clear definition of che Portuguese strategy: 'a Kingdom without ports is like a house without doors', rhyming 'portos' and 'portas' in his Portuguese text (Reino sem portos casa I sem portas).~ When Akbar's aunt Gulbadan Begum and some other important ladies of the imperial family left for Mecca in 1576 some serious concessions were made to the Portuguese, but later put in doubt, after the ladies were safely back. The Portuguese had begun seeing the Mughals as their 'hidden enemy' behind most threats to their presence in western lndia.35 We need to balance the above picture of Portuguese treatment of Muslim pilgrims, and trade. A Jesuit account of mid-sixteenth century Malacca conveys the impression that interest in spiritual matters was minimal, and that illicit trade flourished: The Muslims, and even kazis, utilize ships owned by the Portuguese, and on the pretext of being merchants and carrying goods they reside in places where

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they have converted many to their religion and cwtoms. They arc so zealous in this mission, that many arrive from Mecca, Cairo and Constantinople and &n out to most remote regions to expand their creed. In the same boat by which Fr. Baltazar Dias embarked in Bhatkal, 20 leagues away from Goa, also embarked a Mwlim with many others in his company, and carrying arms. He was going to Borneo, where his companion had converted a large section of the local population, and even the local ruler had become his convert. These Mwlims are a terrible pest, and in Siam, a very important kingdom of this region, when these kazis preach, many listen to them with open mouths and shaking their hands, claiming that the breath of those words sanctifies their hearts. 36

This critical and negative report confirms indirectly that in reality, with obviow exceptions and periods of tension, there was accommodation and compromise on either side. The private trade conducted by Portuguese merchants (clerics not excluded) did not recommend any wanton state action that would disrupt the trade network to the extent of blocking all chances of profitable evasion. The state too would not wish to lose the considerable yield the Portuguese cwtoms derived from the Mecca or Jcddah-bound trade. Occasional rich seizures were generally a way of reminding people of, and enforcing, the licensing regulations, and were not intended to kill the goose that laid golden eggs.3i Once in direct contact with the reality of Asian trade and politics, Afonso de Albuquerque had tried to ensure Portuguese control of the straits of Hurmuz and Singapore as a way of forcing their way into the Asian trade network on either side of the Indian subcontinent. The immensity of the task and the allurements of quick profits soon went beyond the capacity of Albuquerque to check, and he himself became a political victim of what has been described as a 'grande soltura: a largescale Portuguese privateering alongside official activity, leading at times to unbridled and high-handed behaviour by the adventurer clement. It had become difficult to identify and distinguish official from private interests in the Portuguese 'shadow empire' to the cast of the Bay of Bengal. Possibly this feature permitted the Portuguese to make the best of either starus; but they also paid dearly for this ambiguity through native reactions that did not always care to distinguish the private from the official initiative. 38 Portuguese freelancers or renegades could be found in most unexpected regions of Southcast Asia. They entered the services of the local rulers as mercenaries in large numbers, as was the case in Siam, Pegu and Martaban, where their numbers ran into hundreds. Fernio Mendes Pinto, the author of the Peregrinaflo, records meeting 700 Ponugucsc

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Vasco "4 Gama and tlH !Ater Portugwse Colonild Pramce in -lnlUII 447 mercenaries in Manahan, where he was sent to lure them back to Malacca at the request of its Portuguese captain, in order to assist in defence against impending Achinese threats. Just then Martaban was besieged by the forces of Burma, and the Portuguese mercenaries belied the expectations of the ruler of Martaban that they would fight for him in his desperate plight. Disappointed, he could only lament: 'Ah, Portuguese! Portuguese! How badly they have repaid everything I did f~r them on so many occasions! I thought I had earned the treasure of their friendship and had them as loyal subjects to help me in just such an extremity as this!' He still let his Portuguese captain leave Martaban in safety, and gave him two bracelets off his own arm, but not without reminding him: 'Do not forget to tell all your Portuguese friends how hurt I am by their ingratitude, which I am determined to denounce before God on the day of reckoning and accuse them of criminal behaviour!'39 But his shock was greater when he saw his Portuguese captain and soldiers in the victory parade of the ruler of Burma. The victorious enemy was equally shocked, and on request of the defeated king drove the Portuguese away, insulting them for their cowardly behaviour and calling for them to shave off their beards to avoid fooling people that they were gentlemen, while they were no better than prostitutes. The author of Peregrinafao claims to have been there, and confesses that he never felt so ashamed in all his life of being Portuguese. 40 We could in this context recall briefly the early Chinese reactions to the Portuguese. Describing China, T omc Pires, the author of A Summa Oriental a manual of strategic information about lands, people and commerce of the Indian Ocean region, completed around 1515, reports a view of some Portuguese who had been to China, that its inhabitants were weaklings, who greatly feared foreign pirate-merchants, and that the governor of Portuguese India who had conquered Malacca, could have taken control of the entire coast of China, with ten additional ships.41 It did not take long for Tome Pires himself to gain first-hand experience of Chinese power and politics. He was chosen to lead the first Portuguese embassy to China in 1516. The embassy faced immeniC bureaucratic delays, and when it reached Peking nearly three years later, the emperor refused to receive it. The Portuguese were given to understand that they had done wrong in conquering Malacca, and should restore it to its legitimate ruler. The Chinese were also unhappy with the violent and arrogant behaviour of the Portuguese who attempted to build a fort in the island of T arnan (or Lin Tin), hanged a sailor, and allegedly purchased Chinese children.42

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The Ponuguese embassy on its way out of Peking suffered humiliations and ill-treatment, and condemnation to death. Another Portuguese embassy met a similar fate in 1522, and the survivors had to desist. Two letters that are atuibuted to two members of the first embassy, Crist6vao Vieira and V asco Calvo, seem to repeat the idea of Chinese military weakness in the same terms as did T omc Pires in the Summa Oriental. They added that the Chinese in Canton were hard-pressed by hunger and the oppression of their Chinese rulers, and were only waiting for a signal from the Portuguese to revolt. Apparently this was more of a wishful thinking by the Portuguese captives, who wanted their own liberation, and were obviously suggesting some military operation for their release. 43 We may recall that Francis Xavier had convinced himself that Japan could be converted only by reaching its cultural suzerains in China first. But the difficulties of entry left him dead near Canton, off the Chinese coast, before a Chinese merchant, who had been promised a large sum of money, could take him secretly to the mainland.+4 It was only in 1582 that the Jesuits could officially enter the Chinese imperial court, and its Board of Mathematics and Board of Rites. But, not unlike the contemporary case of the Jesuits at the Mughal ct>urt, the longterm impact of these high visibility performances needs a more careful assessment as Asian responses to cultural offers of Europe, and not as mere political-strategic gimmicks.

Notes 1

J. Nehru, The Discovery ofIndia, Calcutta, 3rd edn, 1947, pp. 75-6. 2 Nehru, Discovery, p. 213. 3 T.R. de Souza, '500 Years After: From the New World to the New World Order', Boletim do lnstituto Meneus Braganfa, no. 167, 1993, pp. 134-41. • S. Rushdie, Tht Moori Last Sigh, London, 1995, pp. 4-5, 9, 21, 28, 57, 241. Refers to 'traditional Lusophilia of persons of Goan extraction', p. 327. 5 L. de Albuquerque and J.P. da Costa, 'Cartas de "Servitjos" da India (1500-1550)', Mllrt liberum, vol. 1, Lisbon, 1990, pp. 365-6. In a letter dated 21 November 1545, the 'condestabre mor' of Portuguese India reponcd to the home government that he faced a crisis situation in finding gunners for the fleets and fortifications. While the fleet requirement was for 200 gunners, he could hardly find 130. He required at least forty to fifty Germah gunners with experience and trusted service, and asked for gunners to be sent from Portugal. He lamented that the only arrivals from Ponugal had been tailors and cobblers. 6 D. Alden, Tht Malting ofan Elitt Enttrprist: Tht]nuits ;,, tht PortNptst AssistlUU], 16th to 18th centurits, Madison, 1992, pp. 16-17. 7 T.R. de Souza, 'The Christian Missions in the Aftermath of Discoveries: Tools for Shaping the Colonial Other', in Souza (ed.), Discovtrits, Missionary Expansion andAsian Cultures, New Delhi, 1994, pp. 40-1 .

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T.R. de Souza, 'The Ponugucsc in Goan Folklore', in C. Borges and H. Feldmann (eds), Goa and PortuxaL: Thnr Cultural Linlts, New Delhi, 1997, p. 187. 9 . T.R. de Souza, Medieval Goa, New Delhi, 1979, pp. 116-8. 10 de Souza, Medieval Goa, p. 119. National Archives of Lisbon, Monf6es 56: ff. 285 ff. This is a long transcription of the sworn complaints of villagers in Jafnapatarn against the oppression they suffered at the hands ofJesuit and Franciscan parish priests. Some of the grievances are about their children being forced to water and manure the gardens of the parish house under the pretext of attending catechism classes, about adults pressed into keeping night-watch over parish plantations, about private detention cells of the parish priests, and the physical punishments to which the natives ~ere subjected there. The inquiry was conducted by the captain of the fort ofJafnapatam on the instructions of the viceroy Filipe Mascarenhas in 1645. 11 M.J. Mananzan, 'The Spanish Expansion and Christianity in Asia', in M.D. David (ed.), Western CoUJnialiJm in Asia and ChriJtianity, Bombay, 1988, pp. 30-6; J.N. Schumacher, Revolutionary Ckrgy, Quczon City, 1981 . . 12 C.R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, Manchester, 1994, pp. 337-8. 13 T.R. de Souza, 'Why Cuncolim Martyrs? A Historical Re-assessment', in T. de Souza and C. Borges (eds), Jesuits in Indi4: In Historical Persp~ctive, Macau, 1992, pp. 37-47. 14 S. Subrahmanyarn, The Career and Legmd of Vasco tUZ Gama, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 62, 121 ff. is E.G. Ravenstein, Ajoum11I ofthe First VoyageofVascoda Gama, New Delhi, 1995, pp. 198-200. 16 Subrahmanyarn, Career and Legmd. p. 130. Ravcnstein, journal, p. 50. 17 L.F.F.R. Thomaz, A Cartll qiu mandaram os padres da India, "4 China e da Magna

China-Um relato sirlaco da chegada dos Portugueses ao Maabar e seu pri1neiro encontro com a hierarquia CTista local Lisbon, 1992. Provides useful and detailed explanatory notes. My translation here is based on his Portuguese translation of the Syrian and Latin versions. The letter dated 1503-1504 states inter alia: We are pleased to inform our Fathers that a king from the Western Christians, our Frangi brethren, has sent powerful ships to these parts of India, which they reached after crossing the seas during a whole yc.ar ... After acquiring pepper and other goods dtey returned to their land. They opened a new route and learnt it well. Six months later the same king-may God keep him-sent another batch ofsix ships to Calicut. This city is full oflsmahili Muslims, who were furious at this interference of Christians. Instigated by them the pagan ruler of Calicut ordered the Frangis in the city to be killed. There were seveny of them, and five priests. The others aboard their ships escaped and sought refuge with our Christians at Cochin. Also the king of Cochin provided them comfort and vowed to protect them with steadfastness. ln the meantime more Frangi ships arrived, and they dealt fiercely with the ruler of Calicut and killed many of his supporters. The Frangis established a fort at Cochin, and placed three hundred men in it with weapons to launch stones and fire balls. In further encounters with the men of Calicut, the Frangis destoryed three thousand of them. The Frangis also sought alliance with Cananore, and here too they were welcomed and given a place to set up base ... Their country is known as Portugal, and their king Emmanud. 18

A.M. Mundadan, History ofChristianity in /nduz, Bangalore, 1989, vol. 1, p. 269 ff. Subrahmanyam, Career And Legmd. pp. 218-9. 19 A. Conesao (ed.), A Sum11111 OrimtAI t:k Tomi Pir~s ~ o Livro de Francisco Rodrig,us, Coimbra, 1978, p. 216. 20 J. de Barros, Dlcitdas da Asia, Livraria Sam ~los, Lisbon, 1973, vol. 2, p. 429. 21 A.B. Bragan? Pereira, Arquivo Portupa Orimta£ Goa, 1937, Book IV, vol. 1, part I, pp. 843-4. Ten Goans played trumpets, tabaqius, 1estros and drums.

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450 22

V1Uco d. Gamll mu/ the Lin/ting ofEurope 11nd .Asia Ibid. Pay to IN,;J.ri,w and mnYlrias, pp. 524, 736. CfA. Bulhio Pato (ed.), utrtlls

M Afonso tk Albru/wrrpu, Lisbon, 1942, p. 40. Albuquerque was writing to his king that Indian women, the hard work and the hot climate of the region had a terrible effect on his men. He was promoting their marriages with great enthusiasm and rcponed success. But he al$o complained that many were getting easily bored with sleeping with their newly converted consorts, and sought Hindu panners. 23 .A Summa Orimt1tl tk Tor,1/ Pim, p. 217. 14 Ibid., pp. 407-26, 461-6, 525,554,886,910. The names of some arc mentioned as Balaji Naik, Madhva Rau, Gopam Naik, Nagc Naik, Yojna, Malogi, Damu Naik, Dagu Naik, Krishna etc. Some of these had other locals in their service, including some who acted as Ponuguese spies against Bijapur. 2s Pwtltuth11 vmi,mo? Do you want to enter the caste (of the F11r11nfis)? (K"°4m + Pi,l,/uu • caste + enter). This was the question asked of the candidates for baptism. De Nobili opposed this approach. Cf ARSJ, G04, 66, ff.80-119. He describes the effons of the Jesuits to protect the local Christians in the 'llha dos Reis', against the attacks of the Hindu ruler ofTuticorin during the first decade of the seventeenth century. This island is now pan of the harbour. 26 J.M. Flores, 'The Straits of Ceylon, 1524-1539: The Portugucse-Mappilla Struggle over a Strategic Arca', S11n111 Bttrb11r11 Portllf"ese Struiin, vol. 2, 1995, pp. 57-74. It was not so much the pearl fishery that was important for the Ponugucse, but control of the Gulf of Mannar and safe access to the cinnamon of Ceylon, breaking the Mappilla monopoly over it. In Ceylon the Portuguese had gained the cooperation of the ruler of Kotte, Bhuvaneka Bahu, but had co face the hostility of Mayadune, the ruler of Sitawaka. Control of the Gulf of Mannar permitted the Portuguese to control the supply of rice from the Coromandel coast to Ceylon as a strategic weapon and guarantee of cinnamonin exchange. The Portuguese trade between Malacca and Malabar also required control of the Fishery coast. The Ponuguete cllSlldos of Cochin had their own interest in the trade between Kerala and Coromandcl. The Mappilla Maralckars of Calicut had been playing havoc with their pttdaus in rhe Coromandel waters in the first half of the sixteenth century. 27 'O arccdiago c terribil{ssimo Malavar por naturcza, mui dissimulado, c que sabe fazcr suas coisas, como pouco temor a dew e menos cscrupulos de conscicncia', ARSJ, Go1117, f. 235. 18 ARSJ, Go1164, f. 185. Cf J. Wicki, 0 Livro do Pai dos Crist4os, Lisbon, 1969. This was a state functionary, generally chosen among the rdigious orders, to look after the spiritual and temporal interests of the new converts. i , ARSJ; Goa64, ff. 48-56, 141 , 146-7. Goa Historical Archives, Monf6er26 B, ff. 468-9. "'° J.A.R. da Silva Tavim, 0 rei que Joi em peregrin1tfao a Varanasi, Cart4S de R4ma Vanna, Raja tk Cochim, Lisbon, 1997. S. Subrahmanyam, 'Cochin in Decline: Myth and Manipulation in the Estado da India', in Rothermund and Ptak (eds), Portuguese Asia: Aspects in History and Economic History (16th and 17th centuries), Stuttgart, 1987, pp. 58-95. 31 Barros, Dlcada.s d4 Asia, vol. 1, viii, p. 1. Text translation from M.N. Pearson, Pilgrimage to Mecca: The Indian Experience 1500-1800, Princeton, 1995, p. 83. 32 Pearson, Pilgrimage to Mecca, p. 83. Quotes from M.A. Muid Khan, 'Indo-Portuguese Struggle for Maritime Supremacy (as gleanec;l from an unpublished Arabic Urjllf'IY Frh,J Mubyin)', in P.M. Joshi and M.A. Nayeem (eds), Fomgn Relations ofIndi11: Frtm1 the &rliest Tim~s to 1947, Prof. H.K Shmuani Fe/id111tion Vo/i,me, Hyderabad, 1976, pp. 172, 176.

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Vasco da Gama and tht later Portugutst Colonilll Prtsmct in Ind.ill 451 '' Subrahmanyam,

°'"" and utmd. pp. 208-9.

,. .A Swnnu, Orimt4l tk Tomi Pim, p. 215. 3s S.

Subrahmanyam "'O inimigo encubcrto": a expansao mogol no Decio e o Estado da fndia', Povos r Culturas, vol. 5, Lisbon, 1996, pp. 115-68. This discusses, on the basis of some correspondence of the Portuguese viceroy Conde de Vidigueira, his hidden role in the death of Prince Murad in Ahmadnagar at the close of the sixteenth century. '6 J. Wicki (ed.), Docummta lndica, Rome, 1954, vol. 3, pp. 537-8. 37 Pearson, Pilgrim4fr to Mtcca, pp. 163-4. M.N. Pearson, Mn-chants 11nd Ruln-s in Guj11r11t, New Delhi, 1976, p. 43. ,. L.F.F.R. Thomaz, Dt Ctut11 a Timor, Lisbon, 1994, p. 354. R. Ptak, 'Pincy along the Coasts of Southern India and Ming-China', in A.T. Matos and L.F.F.R. Thomaz (eds), As rrillfors mtrr a {ndut Portuguna, • Asui "'1 suntr, to Extrnno Orimtt, MacauLisbon, 1993, pp. 255-73. )') F.M. Pinto, Tht Prrtgrin11tion, Michael Lowry (transl.) and L.S. Rebelo (Intro.), Manchester, 1992, p. 204. There were Portuguese mercenaries fighting for either side. Cf M.A.M. Guedes, lntnfermci4 t lnugr11r40 "'1s Portugunrs "" Birm4ni4. c11. 15801630, Lisbon, 1994, p. 52, n. 15. 40 Pinto, TIN PnYfJ'iMtion, pp. 211-12. 41

.A Swnm4 Orimt11/ tk Tomi Pim, p. 364.

42 Ibid.,

p. 33. 43 A. de Gouvea, Asi4 Extrnn11, vol. 1, Horicio Araujo (ed.), Lisbon, 1997, p. 40. 44 M.J. Costelloe (transl.), Thr 11nd lnstruaions ofFrttncis Xilvin-, Anand, 1993,

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XXIII.

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Chapter Twenty-nine

Spiritual Peoples at Odds: Portugal, India and the Goa Question, 1947-61 Douglas L. Wheeler 'The Portuguese people are a spiritual people.'

-attributed to a Portuguese Minister of Finance responding to a student's question, Yale University, early l 950s. 1 'Heroic resistance of A People who Defend Western and Christian Civilization.'

-Lead headline, Didrio de Noticias, 20 December 1961, reporting Indian Army's invasion of Portuguese India, a day and a half after Portuguese forces had surrendered. 'Mr. Nehru today maintained that India's action in Goa was fully justified ... no event in the last 14 years had thrilled the people of India so much as the liberation of Goa.'

-Manchester Guardian, 29 December 1961.

Introduction The Goa question was an emblematic crisis for the Estado Novo, unlike any earlier external problem. Portugal's struggle to retain Goa overlapped with the later, better-documented, larger-scale crisis which began with a colonial war in Angola in ~arly 1961, which was, in effect, Portugal's second fourteen-year external crisis. An analysis of aspects of the Goa question helps illuminate critical elements of how the dictatorship's ruling group thought and behaved and how and why Portugal, against heavy odds, ardently defended its ancient overseas empire. Further, the

Goa question can help historians understand Portuguese action in post1961 Africa, links with the Goa question, and consequences for Ponugal's dictatorship in 1974, and, finally, how the regime perceived its own motives regarding overseas imperial interests.

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Compared to the scholarship analysing the·1961-74 African colonial wars and crisis, serious study of the Goa question is in its infancy. The relevant literature is largely journalism, pr~paganda, or political attacks and defences of the conflicting leaders, institutions and policies. 2 There is a vast pro-regime Esta.do Novo official propaganda literature on the Goa question,3 but there are few profound scholarly works. Indeed, in the historiography of Portugal's overseas empire, 1926-74, the African colonial questions have taken the lion's share of schol.arly attention. This study has only modest pretensions. It is designed to provide a brief, accurate picture of the background of the Goa question and the crisis associated with it, a succinct narrative of the conflict's main elements over fourteen years, and a brief study of the crisis' emblematic importance for both the regime's activities, and Portugal's political culture and policy toward the African wars during the annus ttnibilis of

1961.

Portuguese India, and the Estado Novo and its Empire The Goa question became an international issue and a new concern for the Portuguese government from 1947. How can we characterize Portuguese India and what was its place within the overseas empire of Portugal? Let us begin with the historical geography. Portuguese India was composed of three small territories: Goa, Damao and Diu in western India, earlier known as 'Hindustan'. The small area of Portuguese India was about 3983 square kilometres, and, as of the 1950 census, had a population of about 625,000 people, ofwhom 310,000 were classified as Catholics, 300,400 Hindus, 12,000 Muslims, and about 3000 members of other religions. 4 Portuguese India was a colony of Portugal until in 1951 Portugal altered its constitution with regard to the legal term for units of the empire-and changed the name from 'colony' to 'overseas province'. But like the Macao and the Cape Verde Islands' populations, the peoples of Goa were legally treated ~ full citizens of Portugal, in effect 'civilized' peoples who were not under the jurisdiction of the so-called Estatuto Jndigma (or Indigtnato) which held good in the African colonies. There populations were divided into 'civilized' and 'non-civilized' peoples with respective rights and legal systems, etc. like the poorer classes of northern Portugal and the Atlantic islands. Goans were considered to be assimilated both into Portuguese culture and polity. Until World War II, the economy of Portuguese India was very weak and largely agrarian, and there was a long tradition of emigration to Bombay or to Portugal by the mobile, elite, and educited Goans. After

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World War II, the Government, with Indian capital, developed the port of Mormugao and iron mines in Goa. Till then the economy seemed to have little potential; compared with Goa's past record in economic development, then, the 1950s were a time of relative prosperity and the development of long neglected resources. As for the Goan elite, there.was a tradition of migration of the.commercial and professional classes to India and to Ponugal. The Goan, Catholic elite, or Lwo-Indians, for several centuries played the role of an intermediary, auxiliary elite class of officers, officials, merchants and professional people (especially medical doctors), not only in India, but also in Portugal and in Portugal's empire, especially in Mozambique, and also in other territories. More than a few Goan-born doctors and scientists-such as Professor Gama Pinto (1853-1945), Professor of Medicine at Lisbon University, and Dr Alfredo da Costa, a surgeon at the same Faculty (1859-1910)-held significant positions in Portugal as well as in the Ponuguese overseas empire, frequently outside Portuguese India. Indeed, it could be argued that a select Goan or LwoIndian elite formed an intermediary, culturally assimilated, homogeneous leadership class in Portugal and its overseas empire after 1822 and held positions in the Catholic Church, central and local government, education, and in variow professions including medicine, law and teaching. While the question of the Medical School founded in Goa in the seventeenth century is a complex one, the fact that a medical school in Goa had existed off and on for centuries, with interruptions, was often cited in Portuguese official statements and propaganda; this institution was claimed to be 'the oldest Western medical school in Asia'. 5 . While the Goan educated elite were scattered in va,iow posts in Angola and Mozambique as well as in Portuguese India, their own overseas province was among the poorest and the most densely populated in Portugal's empire. An important portion of the Goan elite had emigrated to India before Indian independence. In fact, Goans, whose elite had more than the average education among imperial peoples, were a relatively mobile, emigrating people, like the poorer classes of northern and Atlantic island Portugal.

Phase One of the Goa Question Crisis: Early Warnings and Alarms (1946-50) Unlike the case in Africa, the Portuguese regime received early warning of an impending crisis in Goa. Premier Salazar, through a response to intelligence reports from Portuguese agents in Bombay, anticipated a threat to Portuguese sovereignty in Goa and called for careful study and

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planning. On 28 September 1946, nearly a year before Indian independence, Salazar wrote to Minister of Colonies, Marcello Caetano, that recent reports of public statements by Nehru referring to Goa were ominous. Though a military attack on Goa was then unlikely, 'naturally, it [India] is going to attempt to make life impossible for us, by various means at its [India's] disposal'. Salazar urged Caetano to plan for the defence of Goa and asked him to set up a small Lisbon committee 'without delay' to prepare a 'precise and serious' monograph on Portuguese India, one not too long or erudite.6 On 30 October 1946, Salazar followed this request up with a memo to Minister Caetano which urged a study of the Indian Press with regard to Goan affairs. Keeping the Anglo-Portuguese alliance in mind, Salazar did not then recommend approaching Britain for assistance against a potential Indian attack on Goa; as of late 1946, Lisbon concluded Britain was too weak to control India any more and was, in effect, surrendering the Portuguese enclaves to 'the cannon of India'. 7 In effect, this official correspondence in Lisbon initiated the contemporary Goa question which was Portugal's first fourteen-year colonial crisis. Following the independence of the Indian Union in August 1947, the Goa question was pursued in the Indian and Portuguese media, both press and radio, with little result, and Lisbon took no official action. The next act in this phase came with the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Portugal and India in 1949-50. In Lisbon, an Indian Legation was established, and a Portuguese Legation was set up in New Delhi. On 27 February 1950 the Indian Legation, Lisbon, presented an aidememoire to Portugal which discussed the Padroado8 negotiations between Portugal and the Holy See and raised the question of the future of Portuguese India, Portugal's claimed sovereignty, and the notion of incorporation into the Indian Union in the near future. On 15 June 1950 Portugal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded by emphatically refusing to discuss the question of Portuguese sovereignty in Goa, Damao and Diu.9 The Goa question began as only in part an issue of anti-colonialism, or Third World nationalism against European colonialism, and was not in the conventional de-colonization pattern that characterized tropical African struggles. First, India was not proposing that the Goan peoples in Portuguese India be given independence outside the Indian Union, but rather that India incorporate these enclaves into the Union, by taking possession and assuming sovereign rule. Second, a significant portion of Portuguese India, including the enclave of Goa itself, had been ruled by Portugal since 1510, before there was India or the Indian Union, or

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before the imposition of British rule after 1770. Third, it was true that a portion of the Portuguese Indian enclaves had been conquered by force by Portugal after British-ruled India had begun to be pieced together in the late eighteenth century. Founh, while until 1951 Ponugal still referred to Portuguese India and other colonial territories overseas as 'colonies' (1933 Constitution), and while Portuguese law forbade the alienation of this territory, the Goan population were legally classified as Portuguese citizens with all rights. Given this situation, the Indian Union could not convincingly argue on the basis of one classic anticolonial point as in the case of Portugal's African colonies: namely, that the Goans had the right of self-determination to rule themselves. India intended to assume control of Portuguese India, not to give it independence. Ever mindful of the legal aspect of the dispute, now becoming more international (Portugal had applied, but was initially turned down for membership in the United Nations, which she joined only in December 1955, participating fully in a General Assembly session only in 1956), Portugal revised the 1933 Constitution with regard to the terminology of overseas empire. From 1951, the territories of Portugal's overseas empire were legally referred to as 'overseas provinces', as a part of,ublishcd PhD dissertation, University of Keele, England, 1988, p. 132. 49 Copy in Houghton Library, Ms Portugal 4504F, 'Contrato, rrcnunciacion dcsistcncia y obligacion', no folio. "° Faria, 'Succssos', f. 258. The 1629 junta recommended taking harsh measures against New Christians, including their expulsion. Lucio de Azevedo, Histdria, pp. 193-201, and appendix 16; Rooney, Habsburg govtrnmmt ofPortuglll p. 133. . si Lucio de Azevedo, Histdria, p. 209; Rooney, Hllbsburg goVtrnmmt ofPortuglll p. 138. s2 Col/ecf.io, p. 176; Faria, 'Succssos', ff. 269v-70; Lucio de Azevedo, Histdria, pp. 2023. A. de Oliveira, 'O motim dos cstudantcs de Coimbra contra os Cristaos-Novos, 1630', Biblos, vol. 57, 1981, pp. 597-627. The Icing temporarily dosed the University ofEvora. Popular sentiment against Portuguese New Christians was simultaneously increasing in Castile. Elliot, Count-Duke, pp. 449-50. 2t AGS SP, lib. 30 Sec marginal

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Tht Fllilurt oftht Portuguest India Company, 1628-33

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s3 Disney, Pepper Empire, p. 90. Moreover, his wife's uncle was the prominent Ponuguese banker, Manud de Pu. · 54 H.P. Salo man, 'New light on the Portuguese Inquisition: the second reply to the · Archbishop of Craganor', Studia Rosmthalilln4, vol. 5, no. 2, 1971, pp. 178-86, esp. p. 184. ss Disney, Pepper Empire, pp. 88-9. The two directors were Ant6nk> Gomes da Mata and Leonardo Frois. Fr6is also cited preoccupation with personal business affairs. Though their illnesses may well have been genuine, bad health was often used as a pretext for giving up official posts. 56 Evidence was provided by Diogo Mendes de Brito, one of the two cousins of Francisco Dias Mendes de Brito, and a Lisbon silk merchant, Joio Duarte, who was also arrested id 1629. Disney, Pepper Empire, pp. 145-6. s7 AGS EST, leg. 2714; Disney, Pepper Empire, pp. 144-5; Colkcfib, p. 226. s•AGS SP, lib. 1526, ff. 10-v. s, Disney, Pepper Empire, pp. 146-7. 60 Codcx Lynch, f. SS. 61 Faria, 'Succssos', p. 275. 62 A.C. de Sowa, HisttJria Gmealogica da Casa Real de Portugal. Coimbra, 1946-53, vol. 11, pp. 319-20. Though certainly not unique, the more usual progression to the primacy was through the Archbishopric of Braga. His predecessor, Afonso Furtado de Mendon~a, governor from 1626, had died on 2-6-1630. Nobrn:11 de Portugal, 3 vols, Lisbon, 1960-1, vol. 2, pp. 302-3. 63 Faria, 'Sucessos', f. 289. 64 Ibid., ff. 291-v; u,/kcfao, p. 309. 65 Lucio de Azevedo, Histdri4, p. 200. «, Dom Jorge himself noted in 1631 when he was appointed president of the Junta da Fazcnda that he would have to 'work with ministers who until now have dealt with these matters themselves'. Cited by Oliveira, 'O atendado contra Miguel de Vasconcdos', p. 13. 67 Faria, 'Succssos', f. 291. The new president was the Count of Miranda, governor of the Rda~o of Porto. · "Rooney, Habsburg government ofPortugal. pp. 201-3. 6'The banker-treasurer was Fernio Tinoco. AGS SP lib. 1555, ff. 30-38. 70 Basco was appointed viceroy in June 1633. Faria, 'Succssos', f. 290. The Council was reformed on 3-3-1633, and the presidency abolished. AHN EST lib. 699, entry under C. 71 The third estate had canvassed the crown to appoint governors in the 1619 Cortes. AGS SP 1580, ff. 187-8v. Conversely, the first and second estates (church and nobles) preferred government by governors. n Rooney, Habsburg government ofPortugal. pp. 216-23. 7 ~ A secret report prepared in late 1634 stated ' ... those of the faction [parcialidad] are his enemies, and they spread doubts about his honesty (limpicza de manos).' Oliveira, 'O atendado contra Miguel de Vasconcelos', p. 12. 74 Colkcfao, p. 310. 7 s Oliveira, 'O ~ten dado contra Miguel de Vasconcelos', p. 30. 76 Faria, 'Sucessos', f. 291 .

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Chapter Thirty-one

Few Thanks to the King: The Building of Portuguese India George Winius The Portuguese created the first of all the European oversea empires, and the great exploits of its navigators and conquistadors, like Diogo Cao, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, and Afonso de Albuquerque, arc by now pretty well known. But there is one aspect-a maladroit one-of imperial formation which few Portuguese scholars seem to have noticed (or at least called attention to): the gross ineptitude of its leadership from the metropolis. That servants of Manuel I were able to create a lasting presence on such distant strands seems almost a miracle in the light of the bungling leadership supplied from Lisbon. It would seem that, after Manuel I's decision to create his Asian operation there, Portuguese success in India owes little to anything save chance: the initially lucky appointments of men who knew how to seize initiative and make full use of the rather slender means at their disposal-namely, Francisco de Almeida, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, and Afonso de Albuquerque. Of course the metropolitan Portuguese leaders were not unique during the expansion of Europe ~t gross fumbling and/or making unhappy moves: in their own ways, the home-bound Spanish, French and English ones were almost equally dense when it came to understanding realms far removed from their sight and experience. The crown in Paris, for instance, tried long and unsuccessfully to create a neo-fcudal system in Quebec and turn restless fur traders and adventurers in Canada into sedentary farmers, while the directors of the Honourable East India Company for years attempted to finance each India voyage separately via different groups of investors with the result that when the previous year's expedition was delayed in starting for home, it often found itself competing tooth-and-claw with colleagues who meantime had arrived

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in the same Asian ports. If colonial historians in general and Portuguese ones in particular seldom call attention to these ineptitudes, it is probably from a combination of patriotic pride and a desire to recount actual happenings in the areas they were investigating rather than to find fault with the quality of rule from the metropolis. But, I reason, why not do so? It is illuminating occasionally to examine the dust beneath the carpet-for it exists, too. Besides this, it teaches a valuable lesson: that empires-in this case, the Portuguese Asian onewere almost wholly built by Europeans who were on the scene and not back home, and not through the efforts of monarchs, their councils and boards of directors. By studying how wrong these frequently were, one can come closer to realization that it was seldom because ofenlightened leadership from the European side that colonial achievements were wrought. Studying metropolitan direction and its blunders is yet another way of showing that achievement lay with clever and opportunistic people in the colonies who were motivated to act on their own without much dependence upon their superiors in Europe. In doing so, they left their bosses at home no choice but to sanction what had meanwhile become

foits accomp/is. In the case of Portugal, this paper will argue that only the efforts of men like Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Francisco de Almeida, and Afonso de Albuquerque, together with many of their less famous colleagues, saved Manuel and his councils from disaster in India. In fact, the Estado seems to have designed itself with only a few guidelines (such as nominations, the foitoria structure and the three-year terms) imposed from Europe. Together, of course, with some barely adequate convoys of men, ships and supplies shipped outwards to Cochin and later, Goa.

Noble Fighting Grounds There can be little doubt that Manuel I was eager to create a royal trading presence in Asia, but there is every indication that he sought to do so with a minimum of involvement and expense to himself; rather, he wanted a ready money supply from it to lavish on his court followersnot to mention the fame of having tapped into the wealth of India. Save only for the brilliant but unpopular Joao II, Portuguese kings have always felt impelled to please their nobility, perhaps rather than the other way around. In Spain, at least, the much greater size of the realm allowed kings to choose who might serve them from among groups who had little or no affinities with one another. But in Portugal such choices were limited and in effect obliged Icings to compromise for the sake of stability.

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This story, as all others concerning the Portuguese ultramar, begins at Ceuta. From 1415 onwards, there ensued an almost fatal ambiguity in Portuguese imperialism over where the nation's real interest lay. The attack on Ceuta might have been the starting point for Prince Pedro's and Prince Henry's explorations, but it also inaugurated a series of conquests along the North African littoral which in many eyes held more promise. While historians of the expansion consider as important only Vasco da Gama's voyage and the subsequent development of an Asian empire, it is not hard to demonstrate that the high nobility surrounding Manuel I greatly preferred Safi and Azemmour to the far more distant India. For, after all, what could be more attractive than catching the king's eye in some feat of nearby derring-do and being rewarded with a fat tenfa 'before memory of it had faded? The names of all the great families adorn the records of fighting in North Africa, but it is rare until near the end of the sixteenth century to find titled nobilitycondes among the names of those serving in·India. 1 One is not speaking of the modern state just yet, but of a toss-up of feudal patronage interests and geo-political ones. At the turn of 1500, the crown had not yet made up its mind which consideration was the more important one. Hence it is that in 1506, even before Francisco de Almeida had established any kind of real Portuguese permanence in India, Manuel was already constructing a huge fortress at Safi, on a quiet bay and he was it his favour_ites' idea or his own?-went ahead with plans to expand Portuguese power inland toward Fez. In 1513, just as Albuquerque had to abandon his designs on Aden due to insufficient men and materiel the Portuguese attacked Azemmour. There was plenty of everything available for the assault, as well as one on Mamora in 1515. Around 18,000 men and two hundred ships took part in the assault on Mamora, six times as many as had been available for an assault on Aden, though of course, the feudal levies (3,000 contributed by the Bragan~_alone) would not have been available for service in India. But the vast energies, manpower and monies expended in North Africa were all to no avail, unless one counts the benefits accruing to the courtiers. For, before the Portuguese were able to build themselves a fortress, the Moors counterattacked, slaughtered hundreds and took thousands of prisoners, who had to be ransomed at enormous expense. And the following year, Manuel's chief ally, one Yaya Bentafufa, was assassinated. The moral is not that such expeditions were silly-though they might seem so in modern eyes-but that Aden could have been carried with far fewer men and supplies than those squandered in Morocco had only some of

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those employed at Mamora been made available to Afonso de Albuquerque in India. Unhappily, neither enough soldiers nor sufficient monies wete left over for him. 2

Gama Versus Columbus Royal priorities were thus. skewed in favour of pleasing ambitious members of the high nobility at the expense of building an Indian empire. Almost worse than that was the inability of the king and his councillors to decide how and by whom the new Indian undertaking should be run. It is obvious that the titled nobility had little desire at the beginning to serve in India personally, but that they were not eager to see those of lower status elevate themselves unduly via spectacular successes there. The royal explorers, Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Diogo Cao, Bartolomeu Dias were from the petty nobility, and thus not taken seriously, while Vasco da Gama himself was an upswt. Even though Gama had reaped the reward of being created Admiral of India after his return from Calicut, this seemingly did not make up for his lack of traditional weight in the eyes of his peers. Moreover, one wonders if Manuel had not gone farther than he might have intended in creating this title for Gama. He appears to have done so mostly because of his rivalry with his in-laws, Isabella and Fernando. The Catholic kings had of course openly challenged Joao II by sending Columbus westward to discover the sea route to the Orient, and when the Genoese returned from his first voyage, they thought they had won. They created him Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy of the Indies, giving him full gubernatorial rights in the regions he had visited. But from his third voyage onwards, it began to be suspected that whatever Columbus may have found, it was hardly Asia. So, naturally, when Gama returned from Calicut in 1499, Manuel lost little time in sending hts royal in-laws a letter patently composed with tongue-in-check. In it he informed them that 'God has been pleased in his mercy' to bring the quest for India to a successful conclusion. He wrote them, he proclaimed, 'because we know what great pleasure and satisfaction this will be to Your Hign~cs•.3 Manuel, who had already assumed his famous titles, now created the new one, 'Admiral of India' for Gama in a decree which not only specified the great economic prerogatives Gama was to enjoy, but implied that, as admiral, he might henceforth become the royal intermediary in Indian affairs. 4 Hence Manuel's delicious revenge created a dilemma for him-for while the title, 'Admiral of India' did not go so far as Columbus' 'Viceroy of the Indies', it did put Gama in a position where he necessarily had

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the greatest influence next to the king over what went on east of the Cape. One can imagine the courtly factions then set out to convince the king that in awarding the Admiral's status for Gama, he had given too much away. It was therefore perhaps convenient that for the second expedition to India, coming as it did so soon after Gama's return, the new Admiral was in no physical condition to lead it. Therefore, when Pedro Alvares Cabral was chosen, Gama may not have liked it much, but he could scarcely have interfered. Whether or not Gama had any say in the small expedition of 150 I is unknown, as is almost everything about it, but it is obvious that he was greatly annoyed at the renomination of Cabral to head the considerable India fleet of I 502 and probably saw it as an erosion of his privilege. At this point, he invoked his prerogatives as Admiral and caused Cabral's nomination to be vacated and replaced with his own. Then he loaded the command with his own sons and nephews. This second voyage was highly successful commercially, and it might well have been that the Admiral could next have worked himself into something like the royal intermediary for all Indian commercial and naval operations. Certainly, it would seem that upon his triumphal return in I 503, the crown as yet had no plans for a resident viceroy. But the Asian scene meanwhile proved too volatile for absentee or travelling management: in I 504, it was learned that the Mamelukes were preparing a blow against the Portuguese fleets in the Arabian Sea. Instead of a solution which might have built upon Gama's position as Admiral of India, Manuel thereupon decided to create what in effect became a resident military command and to place at its head Francisco de Almeida, not only an experienced warrior from his service to the Catholic kings during their conquest of Granada, but as a younger son of the Duque de Abrantes, descended from the creme of Portuguese nobility. Whether or not this appointment served the double purpose of correcting the overentitlement of Gama is unclear, but it certainly did have that effect.

Factionalism It might seem both the Catholic and the Most Faithful Kings perceived on reflection that in the flush of their competition to reach the Orient first, they had given away too much power to their reconnoitring admirals. Of the monarchs Manuel had given away less to begin with than had Queen Isabella, and so had to take less back; but, like Fernando and Isabella, he was seemingly obliged to shower titles and emoluments on his Admiral of India, if only to make up for shuntng him aside when he appointed Almeida as viceroy.

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Having opted for a direct chain of Indian command rather than an indirect one, Manuel again found hlmsclf in the driver's seat. But, then again, he seems to have been of two minds about the conditions of Francisco de Almeida's own appoinancnt. The chronicler Gaspar Correia claims that Manuel had led Almeida to believe he enjoyed boundless confidence and that there was to be no limit on his term, explaining 'I give you power, as if it were in my own person, with the tide of viceroy of India, which in my days no other person will hold'.s But when Almeida's regimmto, or standing orders, was issued, it must have shocked him by specifying his term as only three years. It next turned out that Almeida had scarcely begun to operate in India, when Manuel issued a patent to Albuquerque to replace him the very moment his three-year term was up. If Correia's account is true, this would help explain Almeida's resentment and the bad blood between him and Albuquerque. That appointment, Correia says, was supposed to have been kept top secret, but such secrets have a way of leaking, then as now. It is known that Vasco da Gama had the Bragan~ as staunch allies, and it is likely that the king's vacillation over the conditions ofAlmcida's appointment came as a result of vehement recrimination from that allpowerful clan (to which Manuel was closely related). For the Bragan~ lost no love on the first Duke of Abrantes. In that case, it would explain how Albuquerque leaked into tl1e equation, for it was obvious that an experienced soldier was needed to replace Almeida, but that no members of the highest nobility qualified or were willing to do service so far from home. Hence Portuguese India's founder and greatest soldier must have been no more than a compromise candidate. During his tenure both king and council treated him as one. It is a general rule of Renaissan.cc politics that rulers disliked the delegation of much power to subordinates who could not be kept under thumb, and this might be enough to-explain why, after Almeida's three years expired, Manuel and his council endeavoured to split his command, not in twain, but in three, giving Albuquerque the Indian coast, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira an independent command to the cast of Cape Comorin and another foia/go, Jorge de Aguiar, a third between the Cape of Good Hope and Cambay. One can read in this either extremely naive ideas about geography vis-a-vis the relative strength of Portugal, or else the consequence of political pressures from the Sequeira faction, who were jidAJgos Ja casa deJ..rei. (Little else is known about Jorge de Aguiar, save that he was shipwrcdc.cd and died en route; he may or may not have been the cartographer of a map dated 1492.) At any rate, Albuquerque was able to deflect Sequeira's claim when that fi"4/go straggled in from

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his narrow escape at Malacca, and simply to absorb Aguiar's. But the fecklessness of royal direction was not lost on Albuquerque, who dared write home to his master: I must say to you, Sire. that you must be careful of the orders and directions you send, for each year you change your mind and have new counsel. India is not -like the castle of Sao Jorge da Mina, something you can play around with, because it has many great kings and rulers with multitudes of cavalry and footsoldiers and plenty of artillery. 6

For his exemplary performance as governor, Albuquerque was relieved of command and replaced with Lopo Soares deAlbcrgaria, a greatfida/go and son of Afonso V's chief chancellor. With the Portuguese presence safely established, Manuel thus replaced Albuquerque with this blue-blooded incompetent and pillager. Albergaria's replacement was none other than the same Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who when he finally had his innings, proved equally bad. Fortunately, just often enough during the sixteenth century able nominees appeared to keep the Goan viceroyalty in fair shape, like Estevao da Gama ( 154042) Joao de Castro (1545-48), Francisco Barreto (1555-58) and Luis de Atafde (1569-71 and 1578-81). But perhaps most fundamentally, in spite of all the influences and selfish interests at court just detailed, one positive thing stands out: Portuguese India throve because it attracted able personnel, lower on the social scale than the blunderers, and many of them anonymous, who served with Almeida, Albuquerque and their successors. In his role as leader of the Asian enterprise, one can award Manuel and his strategists no better than a '5½' (or on the American grading scale, a 'C-').7

How the Estado da India Really Came to Survive Everybody admits that the Portuguese were ferocious fighters during the sixteenth century, and one docs not have to search much farther than Almeida, Albuquerque and the magnificent support they received from their soldiery to explain how they could gain footholds on the Indian subcontinent (of course, one must also take into account divisions among the Indian leadership). But longer term survival there was quite another thing, and as poorly managed as Portuguese Asia was from Lisbon and as putrid as were some of their nominees, on the whole, the foundations of the Portuguese Asian state were intelligently engineered, if indeed most of its institutional origins are hard to trace. To begin with, the system of foiwrias needs no explanation, since this had existed from the time of Joao I in other places. Nor, as already remarked, do governors/

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viceroys and their three-year terms seem anything but imports from the Mediterranean. But new and serviceable ideas did appear as a result of the Portuguese arrival in India. It has never been completely clear where they came from, though definitely not from the royal councils in Lisbon. One of the earliest and most perceptive pieces of geopolitical thinking is found embedded in the regimento handed to Francisco de Almeida upon his departure for India in 1505 and in a subsequent royal letter to him written in 1506. 8 In these rare documents there is outlined the whole strategic concept of closing the Indian Ocean to all but those vessels authorized by Portugal: the ideas of capturing Aden, Ormuz, and Malacca are all expressed as objectives for the new viceroy to achieve. These could not have originated at Manuel's court because people there had no such ideas of geography in their heads. The question, then, is where did they come from? Once again, the chronicler, Gaspar Correia may provide the clue, for he writes that one Duarte Barbosa, a scribe at the foitoria of Cananor, was busy on a geographical treatise,9 and it is known that he arrived in the fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral, in 1500. This man, incidentally, does not seem to have been the same Duarte Barbosa who sailed and perished with Fernao de Magalhaes in 1521, but another Duarte Barbosa, who was in India several years earlier and who proves by his other writings to have been capable of such daring concepts. It is entirely possible that he. posted them to the king in time for them to be discussed by his advisers and incorporated in Almeida's regimento of 1505-though Almeida djd little to fulfil them. Albuquerque, of course, did, and his conquests of Goa, Malacca, and Ormuz remained the cornerstone of Portuguese Asia until the seventeenth century. There remains the possibility that the early geopolitician, the author of these ideas, was another, totally unknown individual and not Barbosa; but certainly, he could not have been Tome Pires, who did not depart for India from Lisbon until 1511. 10 The second anchor of Portuguese policy in Asia was the cooordinated system of cartazes and convoys as combined with port taxes. While the cartaz itself, or laissez-passer document, may be identified with the leabi/a and thus originated among the Arabs, it was certainly an original twist for the Lusitanians to transfer these elements to the sea and adapt them to their own needs. Jan C. Heesterman, the famous Dutch Indologist, has remarked that imposition of tolls on merchant caravans passing through the Indian countryside to other destinations had been practiccd by Indian rajas from time immemorial-and he observed that 'nauticalizing' the practice afforded the Portuguese a place on the Indian scene which did not interfere seriously with anyone else's territory and thus

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gave them the novelty to exist. 11 Because mcrcbao~ vessels were not obliged to follow a single road, as were caravans on land, the Portuguese conceived the idea not only of requiring that passes be carried by merchant vessels in the Arabian Sea, but of escorting them with naval units to keep them either from sttaying, coming under attack, or otherwise avoiding the conditions and levies imposed on them. Thanks to this innovation, Goa and the other cities along the western littoral of the subcontinent had enough money to pay salaries and to meet ordinary expenses of the state. Exactly who conceived of all this is not known, but it is sure that the CllrtllUS evolved in India, seemingly first as the result of a deliberation bctWccn Gama and his captains in 1502, 12 but that the idea of convoying merchant ships on a routine basis only evolved piecemeal over the next few years. The chronicler Gaspar Correia speaks of the convoying of merchant ships to protect them from the hostile Samorin of Calicut, and of cowsc it would entail only one additional step to continue the issuance of CllrtllUS with the practice of convoying and routing merchant ships along the alflndegas, or c11stoms houscs. 13 The Porrugucsc made another significant adaptation in Asia as well, though perhaps the practice was easily derived from the extra-territoriality which had long existed among the fattorie and fonu.rhi in the Mediterranean and North Seas, and indeed among the nonconforming groups conquered by both Muslims and Christians in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula-not to speak of the Ottomans and other Muslims in their own conquests. Rather than requiring natives under their jurisdiction to live as Europeans, as the Spanish colonial administrators did, the Portuguese in Asia allowed native populations residing within their enclaves to live under their own legal systems. The indigenes were only required to pay tributes to the Portuguese via ~cir own headmen. In the following century this system was copied by the Dutch in Asia nearly as soon as they acquired territories of their own. This innovation can hardly have come from the court in Lisbon, and it almost certainly was instituted by Albuqerque, if because before his time, the Portuguese had not had any natives to administer; no doubt Albuquerque and his councillors simply adopted the expedient they found already in effect vis-~-vis the Hindus when they captured Goa from the Adil Shah of Bijapw;.

A Late Attempt at Royal Interference and Its Consequences There remains to explain only one more phenomenon which afforded viability to the Est1tdo tltl f nduz Orimtll4 one which was due to the actions of tho••sands of anonymous denizens of what I have called the 'Shadow

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Empire'-namely, the imprompu fanning out of Portuguese, especially Portuguese or mestifo traders, into parts of Asia not subject to practical viceregal sovereignty. The private trade created by thowands of these individuals ultimately connected to Malacca and, perhaps, Cochin, contributed greatly to their buoyancy-and helped to stabilize the Portuguese presence in Asia. Of course the crown automatically considered all the wanderers as royal subjects becawe they fell within the hemisphere allotted to Portugal by the papal donation and Treaty of Tordesillas, but practically speaking, these owed little or nothing to the royal governance and most had even sought to escape its long arm. Anthony Disney has even spoken of their partial incorporation into the official Portuguese system as the 'East Asian' model-as opposed to his 'South Asian' model (comprising che well-known territories of Portuguese Asia proper, as conquered or otherwise acquired by Albuquerque and his successors and thus under actual Portuguese sovereignty). 14 This classification is satisfactory, providing one realizes that the crown's sudden declaration of monopolies over trade in the 'Shadow' (East Asian) territories, reserving their wufr_uct only to concessionaries nominated by Lisbon or Goa, was in the nature of a confiscation-icertainly in the sense that the crown reached far beyond its effective sphere in claiming for itself trade and trading practices which its wandering subjects had pioneered, by dint of their own hard work in areas far removed from official Portuguese influence. Creation of the concession voyages for Macao and Japan and those to Sao Thome de Meliapor (Mylapore) and Hughli in the Bay of Bengal were thw high-handed, and totally ignored the livelihood of the (Indo)Portuguese settlers who had pioneered them. But no matter, Portugal did not pretend to be a democracy, nor did the wanderers intend to dry up and blow away. It would seem that quantities of smuggling from the 'Shadow' traders even cawed the official concession voyages in the Bay of Bengal to become extinct, while the Macaonese seemingly continued trade illegally with Japan, anyway. And after 1565 and the foundation of Manila, they further enriched themselves with illicit trade to the Philippines where silver was very attractively available from the mines of Mexico. Who dreamt up the conccssion·voyages is not clear, and it is impossible to fix their origins either to Lisbon or to Goa with any certainty. The only sure thing is that they date from the second half of the sixteenth century, after the foundation of Macao and the beginnings of the Japan trade. No doubt the lesson had finally begun to sink in among ruling circles that much profitable trade lay beyond the scope of the declared crown monopolies. My guess would be that the desire to obtain more

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revenues certainly came from Lisbon, where the impulse might well have been to declare all country trade a crown preserve. This could only have been thwarted by the entire Goan apparatus, whose officials fattened from investing illegally in it. The emerging compromise muse have been the creation of the concession voyages, whose concessionaires were mostly chosen from among the Goan insiders, and whose annual ships could not actually have represented anything like the volume of the country trade in the hands of the 'shadow' traders. Probably the only real effect was to increase royal control over Macao and cut the 'shadow' merchants out of the Japan silver trading, at least visibly. The prevalence of private trading in Portuguese Ac;ia only illustrates once again chat nearly all the innovation and vitality of the Portuguese presence there originated from subjects who had had actual experience of the East and were far removed from the intrigues and backbiting of the royal court. Meanwhile the episode of the concession voyages goes to suggest chat Lisbon was not very effective when it came co colonial ruling. For the only result of whatever transaction that took place was that the Goan insiders walked off with the gains, while, whatever its intent, the crown went begging. The concession voyages seem to have yielded little, if any, income that did not end up in the pockets of those on the scene. 15 But in the bigger picture of European expansion, it was always so. Perhaps what most distinguishes Portuguese Asian history in its formative stages is not that it was primarily influenced by its fumbling of king and court back in Europe, but that it was first to find its own path in spite of Lisbonian attempts at rule from afar. It suggests one of the constant themes of the expansion of Europe: that its kings and councillors at home were more liabilities than helps to the colonizing process, while nearly all of the state-building and manipulating came from less pretentious officers in the field who had rather little hope of advancement at home. Aside from the (republican) V.0.C., or Dutch East India Company, which had closely studied the Portuguese case and consequently located its own chief executive body in the East, the only (royal) government whose early colonial policy proved a success was Spain's. For after that monarchy's infelicitous relations with the Columbuses, it simply issued captiu/aciones to anyone who applied for them, let the recipients ·do the hard work on their own moneys and time, and when these fell to discord and quarrelling over their spoils and perquisites, neatly stepped in and took over the territories they had already won. Such benign neglect may not have worked for Portugal in Asia (and in Spain's American case this probably was more circumstantial than rationalized), but it is hard

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to deny the contrary-that the Portuguese of the Estado da India Oriental only survived the foolishness of their 'Forrunate' king and his descendants by ignoring most of their insuuctions and contouring themselves successfully to the terrain and challenges that only they were in a position to understand. Their suucrure might have lasted indefinitely-had not the Dutch (and to a lesser extent, the English) arrived with hostile intent and superior resources to dismantle it.

Notes 1

I mean with the exception ofYasco da Gama himself, who did not start out as one, but achieved his title through service. 2 Of course the feudaJ levies used in N orth Africa might not have been available for India service, but there were other troops which might have been enlisted for India with the monies wasted in the grandiose operation. 3 In W .B. Greenlee (ed.), The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India, London, 1938, pp. 41- 52. Irony is hardly an invention of recent date. 4 Sec C .M . Radulct, 'Yasco da Gama and His Successors'. in G .D . Winius, Portugal

the Pathfindn; Journeys from the Medieval toward the Modern World. 1300-1600, Madison, 1995, p. 140, and C .M . Radulct and A. Vasconcelos de Saldanha (eds) , 0 Regimento do Almirantado da India. A Questao da Concessio do Cargo, Lisbon, 1989, 'Introduction', p. 8. 5 Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India, 4 vols, Lisbon, 1858, vol. l , p. 532. 6 See Afonso de Albuquerque, "Cartas de AlbUIJuerque, seguidas de documentos que as elucidam, Bulhao Paco and Lopes de Mendon~a (eds) , 7 vols, Lisbon, 1884- 19 I 5, vol. I, p. 165. 7 In this blanket condemnation, I do not include the Dutch V.O.C., or United East India Company, for it did not rule Dutch operations in the Indies from Holland. But even trading company governing bodies in the metropolis could err in judgement: consider the Dutch Wcst-lndische Compagnie and its fataJ handling of its settlement in Brazil. 8 Sec Albuquerque, Cartas, vol. 2, p. 311 and vol. 3, pp. 268- 76. 9 Correira, Lendas, vol. 1, p. 235. 1 For a discussion of this Duarte Barbosa, sec Lufs de Albuquerque and Francisco Contcntc Domingues (eds), Diciondrio da Histdria dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2 vols, Lisbon, 1994,vol. l,pp.116-17. 11 As cited in G.D. Winius, The Black ugend ofPortugue1e India, New Delhi, 1986, pp. 93- 5. 12 Sec Correia, Lendas, vol. l , p. 298. 13 Sec Albuquerque and Contcntc Dominqucs, Diciondrio, vol. 1, pp. 211 - 12; the statement is aJmost certainly based upon Correia, though specific citations arc lacking. 14 A. Disney, 'Contrasting Models of "Empire": the Estado da fndia in South Asia and East Asia in the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries', in A. Dutra and J. Camilo dos Santos (eds), The Portuguese and the Pacific, Santa Barbara, 1995, pp. 2637.

°

•s Sec my analysis in B.W. Diffic and G.D. Winius, Foundations of the Portugueie Empire, 1415-1580, Minneapolis, 1977, pp. 396-9 and 420-2.

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Contributors Dauril Alden is the author of The Making ofan Enterprise: The Jesuits in Portugal its Empire and Beyond, 1540-1750(1996). He is also preparing two additional volumes: The Destruction ofan Enterprise: The Jesuits in Portugal and Elsewhere, 1710-1777 (from which this essay is drawn), and The Liquidation ofan Enterprise: The Disposal of the Former Jesuit Assets in Portugal and Its Empire, 1757-1808. Professor Alden is also engaged in writing The Remarkable Careers ofCR Boxer: Soldier, Scholar,

Teacher. Address:

Department of History, EX 353560 University of Washington Seattle, 98195-3560 Leonard Blusse teaches history at the Institute of the History of European Expansion, at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Among his publications are Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (1986), and Companies and Trade: Essays on Overseas Trading Companies During the Old Regime (1981), edited with Femme Gaastra. Professor Blusse is also an editor of the journal ltinerario. With the other editors of that journal he recently edited Pilgrims to the Past: Private Conversations with Historians ofEuropean Expansion (1996). Address: I GEER History Department Post Box 9515 2300, RA Leiden. Dejanirah Silva Couto is a senior lecturer at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris/Sorbonne) where she teaches the history of the Portuguese world. She is the author of several texts concerning Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century. Her main focus of study is the poli teal relationship between the Ottoman and •

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Portuguese Empires at the time of John III and Sulcyman the Magnificent. Her Portuguese Rmegatks in the Sixteenth Century will soon be published. Address: :&ole Pratique des Hautes Erodes 45-47, rue des Ecoles 75005 Paris. Joao Jose Alves Dias holds a doctrate in History from the New University of Lisbon, where he now teaches. He has particular expenise in Palaeography and Diplomatics. His nine books include Ensaios de Historia Moderna (1988), Album de Palaeografia (1987) and Gentes e Espafos (1996). Professor Dr Dias has also published numerous articles. Address: Rua Francisco Andrade, 10 1700 Lisbon. Mariam Dossal is professor of Modern Indian History, at the University of Mumbai. She is author of Imperial Designs, Indian Realities: The Planning ofBombay City 1845-1875 ( 1991). She co-edited State Intervention and Popular Response: Western India in the Nineteenth Century (1998). Professor Dossal has also published numerous articles, and contributed co volumes in urban, maritime and social history. She is currently engaged in research projects on the policies of land use in colonial Bombay, Bassein and the northern province, and che crafts and craftsmen of Kutch. Address: Department of History University of Mumbai Kalina Campus Santa Cruz (East) Mumbai, 400 098. John Everaert is professor of colonial and maritime history at the University of Ghent. He has published articles on the Flemish merch.ints in Andalusia (De internationak en koklniak handel der V/aamse firma te Cadiz, 1973) and on the Negro slave trade (De Franse slavenhandel, 1978). Professor Everaerc's interests also include the Atlantic Islands (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries), missionary history (Mexico, sixteenth century) ~company-trade and emigration co Soucheasc Asia (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries), emigration and colonization projects in Latin America and Africa (nineteenth century). He has contributed co the organization of several exhibitions, and has co-edited an arc book on Flanders and Portugal. · Address: Dept Colonial and Maritime History University of Ghent Blandijnberg 2 B 9000 Ghent, Belgium.

s

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Felipe Fernandez-Armesto has been a member of the Modern History Faculty at Oxford sinc.c 1983. Professor Armesto's other rec.cnt, current or pending appointments include the Andrew W. Mellon Senior Research Fellowship of the John Carter Brown Library, a Resident Fellowship of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, and the Union Pacific Visiting Professorship of the University of Minnesota. His books include Mi/lmnium (1995) and Truth: A History (1997). He

edited The Times Atla.s ofWorla Exploration. Address:

Modern History Faculty Broad St, Oxford. Carney T. Fisher specializes in the history of Ming China. Currently he is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide. His publications include The Chosen One: Succession and Adoption in the Court ofMing ShiMng ( 1990), and various articles. Address: Centre for Asian Studies University of Adelaide Adelaide, 5000. Maurice Kriegel is the head of the Centre d'Etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Erudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He works or\ Jewish medieval history, particularly in Mediterranean countries. Professor Kriegel is the author of Les juifi a la fin de Mayen Age dtzns /'Europe Mediterra11eene (1994). Address: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales 54 Boulevard Raspail 75006 Paris. Robert Lee was born and educated in Sydney, Australia, where he is the director of the Centre of Asian Studies at the University of Western Sydney. He is especially interested in Western imperialism in Asia and issues of technology transfer. Dr Lee's France and the Exploitation of China, 1885-1901 was published in Hong Kong in 1981. Address: University of Western Sydney, Macarthur P.O. Box 555 Campbelltown, 2560. Artur Teodoro de Matos is a professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he coordinates a Masters' degree course on the History of the Portuguese Discoveries and Expansion. He is an expert on the history of Portuguese expansion, and has published several books and almost a hundred articles concerning his scientific field of expertise. Address: Universidade Nova de Lisboa Av. de Berna 26 C, 1069-061 Lisbon. Digitized by

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Elena Losada Soler, born in Barcelona in 1958, is a tenured professor in Portuguese Literature at the University of Barcelona, from which she received her doctorate in 1986. Her research examines nineteenth century Portuguese literatwe. Professor Losada Soler has written on Antcro de Qucntal ~ de Queir6s and Camilo Castelo Branco. Since 1991 she has worked with Emma Martinell on languages of contact in Portuguese travel narratives of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Address: Arca de Filogfas Gallcga y Portuguesa Facultat de Filologia Univcrsitat de Barcelona Gran Via de lcs Corts Catalanes, 585 08007 Barcelona. Campbell C. Macknight holds the chair of Humanities in the University ofTasmania, and has worked extensively on the early history ofAustralia and Indonesia. Professor Macknight is particularly attracted to the study of early South Sulawesi, with its rich diversity of archaeological and indigenous written sources. These sources provide remarkable understanding of the evolution of complex societies among the Bugis and Malabar peoples. Address: School of History and Classics University of Tasmania P.O. Box 1214, Launceston, 7250. Maria de Jesus dos Martires Lopes has a PhD in history, and is a researcher at the Center for African and Asian Studies at the Tropical Research Institute. Professor Martires Lopes teaches the history of Goa at the New University of Lisbon, and is author of Goa Seucentista: Tradif.i.O e Modernida.de, as well as numerous other studies on the history of

Goa. Address:

U niversidade Nova de Lisboa Av. de Berna 26-C, l 069-061 Lisbon. Derek Massarella is professor of History in the Faculty of Economics at Chuo University, Tokyo. He is the author of numerous articles, and A

World Elsewhere: Europe's Encounur with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ( 1990), and co-editor of The Furthest Goal· Engelbert Kaempfer and Tokugawa Japan (1995). His research interests include Europe and Asia in the early modern period. Professor Massarella is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Address: Faculty of Economics Chuo University Hachioji-Shi, Tokyo 192-0393.

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A.H.H. de Oliveira Marques, historian and professor, was born in 1933. He is the author of more than fifty books and hundreds of articles on many subjects in Portuguese history and the history of relations between Ponugal and 9ther countries. His History ofPortugal(1972), originally in English, is published in eight languages, including Chinese and Japanese. Professor Marques has taught history since 1957, and has acted as the director of the National Library of Lisbon. He also holds an honorary doctorate from La T robe University. Address: U niversidade Nova ·d e Lisboa Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais Humanas Av. de Berna 26 C, 1069-061 Lisbon. M.N. Pearson's research interests include the history of early modern India, early European presences in Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Among his books are (co-edited with Ashin Das Gupta) India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800(1987, 1999); ThtPortuguneinlndia(1987); Pious Passengers: The Hajj in Earlier Times (1994); Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India and Portugal in the Early Modern Era (1998) and editor of An Expanding World, vol. 11: Spices in the Indian Ocean World (1996). Professor Pearson is currently working on a history of the Indian Ocean. Address: 1/55 Pacific Pole., Lennox Head NSW 2478. Orn Prakash is professor of Economic History at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. His principal research interests include an analysis of the commercial linkages between Europe and Asia in the early modern period, a history of the Indian Ocean trading networks and Mughal Indian monetary and economic history. Professor Prakash's recent publications include European Commercial Enterprise in PreColonial India (1998) and (with Denys Lombard) Commerce and Culture in the Bay ofBengal, 1500-1800 (1999). Address: Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi Delhi - 110007. Roderich Ptak is a sinologist and economist. He received his MA and PhD from universities in Germany and Canada. He has been Professor of Sinology in Heidelberg and Mainz/Germersheim, and now holds a chair in Munich. He has been a guest lecturer in Lisbon, Macau and Paris. Professor Ptak has published on Chinese maritime history, Macau and Chinese literature.

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Address:

Ludwig-Maximilians-Univeristat lnstitut fur Oswienkunde, Sinologie Kaulbachstr. 51 a D-80539 Munich. Isabel Soler Qui11taoa was born in Barcelona in 1964. She received her uaining in Philology and in Library Science and teaches in the Portuguese area of the Philology Depanmcnt at the University of Barcelona. Her research interests include the study of Portuguese Renaissance culrure, and Portuguese uavcl literature. Dr Quintana is also interested in Portuguese literature of the twentieth century. Address: Arca de Portugucs Facultat de Filologia Universitat de Barcelona Gran Via de les Corts Ca.talancs, 585 08007 Barcelona. Anthony Reid has been at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at Australian National University since 1970. In 1999 he took up an appointment as Professor of History and Director of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Reid's books includeSoutheastAsia in theAgeofCommerce(2vols, 198893); The Indonesian National Revolution (1974); and, as editor, The Last Stand ofAsian Autonomies ( 1997); Slavery, Bondage and Deperukncy in Southeast Asia ( 1983) and Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era ( 1993). Address: Department of History UCLA Box 951473 Los Angeles 90095-1473 Paul Rule obtained his PhD in Asian Studies at the Australian National . University. He has taught History and Religious Studies at La Trobe University since 1973, specializing in Chinese history and religion, Aboriginal religion and modern Catholicism. He has conducted research in Chinese and European archives, and in the United States, into the history of the Jesuit missions in China. Dr Rule has published widely on that topic, as well as on Chinese and Aboriginal religion. He is currently Director of the Religious Scudies Program. His publications include: Mao Zedong (1984); K'ung-tzu or Confocius? The Jesuit Interpretation of Confocianism ( 1986); The Peace ofGod ( 1995). Address: Department of History La Trobe University Bundoora, Victoria, 3083.

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Vasco da Gama and tht Lin/ting ofEuropt and Asia

A.J.R. Russell-Wood received his doctorate from Oxford University, and joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in 1971, where he now holds the chair of History. His publications include Fidalgos and

Philanthropists: The Santa Casada Misericordia of Bahia, 1550-1755 (1968); From Colony to Nation (1975); The Black Man in Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (1982); Society and Government in Colonial Brazil (1992), and A World On the Move: The Portuguese in Africa, Asia and America, 1415-1808 (1992, 1998). Professor Russell-Wood won the Dom Joao de Castro Prize (International Division) and was created a Commander of the Order of Dom Henrique in recognition of his contribution to scholarship. Address: Department of History Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, 21218. Maria Alzira Seixo is Professor of French, Comparative and Portuguese Literature at the University of Lisbon. She works mainly on travel literature, narratology and cultural studies (postmodern and postcolonial theory). Professor Seixo's published works include Le Parcours du Plaisir (1995); and Poeticas da Viagms na Literatura (1998). Address: Faculty of Letters University of Lisbon Alameda da U niversidade 1699, Lisbon. Chandra R de Silva is professor and chair of the Department of History, Old Dominion University, Norfolk Virginia. He was previously professor at Indiana State University and the University of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Peradeniya. He is author and editor of ten books, including Sri Lanka: A History(1987, 1997) and The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638(1972). Address: History Department, BAL 801 Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA 23529. Teotonio R de S011za is a Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History. He is professor of Economic History at the Universidad Lus6fona, in Lisbon. More details regarding.Professor de So11za's academic and cultural activities can be found by visiting http:/ /www.geocities.com/Athens/ forum/7/1503. Address: U niversidade Lus6fona Av. do Campo Grande 376 1700 Lisbon. Sanjay Subrahmanya.m is the director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudcs en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He specializes in the social and economic

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history of the early modern Indian Ocean World. Professor Subrahmanyam's various texts include The Career and legmd of Vasco da Gama ( 1997), and Sinners and Saints (1998) of which he was editor. Address: &ole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales 54 Boulevard Raspail Y5006 Paris. _ John Villiers studied Portuguese and Spanish history at Cambridge University. Since then his principal research interests have lain in the maritime history of Southeast Asia and the Portuguese and Spanish presence in that region. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Research Associate in the Department of Portuguese and Brazillian Studies, King's College, London University, where he is general editor of a forthcoming series of translations concerning the Portuguese discoveries and early settlements overseas. Dr Villiers has published extensively on Southeast Asian and Portuguese history, and is currently writing a biography ofVasco da Gama. Address: 21 Overstrand Mansions Prince of Wales Drive London

SWl 1, 4EZ. Douglas L. Wheeler has taught History at the University of New Hampshire since 1965. He has held the chair of Portuguese History there since 1995, and is now Prince Henry the Navigator Professor. He teaches African, Iberian (esp. Portuguese and Spanish) and world history since 1800. His research has been on modern Portuguese and Lusophone African history, with an emphasis on Angola. Professor Wheeler's books include: with R. Pelissier, Angola (1971); with L. Graham, In Search of Modern Portugal (1983); and Historical Dictionary ofPortugal (1993). He has been decorated by the government of Portugal. Address: Department of History/Horton University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824-3566. Lorraine White is a lecturer in the History and Politics Programme at the University of Wollongong. Her research interests include the Hapsburg government of Portugal and the War of Portuguese Independence (1640-68), together with the military revolution in Iberia. Dr White is currently preparing a study on early modern Portugal for MacMillan Press. Address: History and Politics University of Wollongong Wollongong, 2522.

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504 V~o ,u G11ma 1111A dM Lin/tint ofEuro~ ad Asut John E. Walls Jr specializes in the history of China in the Ming and Qing periods, and in early modern maritime history. Professor Wills' most recent volume is Mount4in of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History

(1994). Address:

Department of History Uniyersity of Southern California Los Angeles, 90089-0034. George Winius .received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1963. He has taught at the Universiry of Florida-Gainesville, the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, and Brown University. Emeritus Professor Winius is interested in European expansion and Asia. His texts include: The Fatal History of Portuguese Ceylon (1971); with B.W. Diffie, Foundations ofPortuguese Empire (1977); The Black Legend ofPortuguese India (198 5); with Marcus Vink, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified(1992). He has edited Portugal. the Pathfindn-(l 995). Address: 15 58 Harborsun Drive, Charleston, S.C. 29412 .

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