Ch 11 - Western Encroachment

The First of Many

In the early sixteenth century, Portugal began a forceful effort to dominate the silk and spice trade in India and Indonesia. In a single generation, Portugal established its imperial power in the region and built an effective commercial monopoly of the spice trade between Southeast Asia and Europe.

In the remarkable decade between 1488 and 1498, Bartholomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama opened the world to exploration and discovery. Columbus promised to discover the fabled cities of India and Japan by sailing west. Instead, he discovered a savage wilderness on uncertain shores in the islands of the eastern Caribbean Sea and opened the way for later Spanish conquests in the Western Hemisphere. Bartholomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama sailed south around Africa and opened the sea route to India. During the next half century, the Portuguese expanded their presence in the trading capitals of India and pushed open the door for profitable trade with the East. These first European voyages were dramatic, yet isolated incidents that resulted from the persistent, determined and ultimately successful effort to establish direct contact with Asia. These were the first attempts to link trading centers in western Europe with ports in the East, the first steps to opening the door to Western encroachments India, the Indonesian islands, China, Japan and ultimately, Korea.

The underlying purpose for these voyages was not to discover new lands, but to discover new routes to "old lands," places known or believed to exist, highly civilized lands with great commercial importance. Europe's great voyages of discovery reflected more than a growing demand for Asian goods, but an intense curiosity about the Far East itself. That interest however, was one-sided. Europe sought out Asia. Asia did not seek out Europe. Except for the Ottomans engaged in the conquest and plunder of the ancient Byzantine Empire and the Arabs who sold Asian goods at great profit to Italian traders in Alexandria or Aleppo, nowhere in Asia was there any demand for European goods or even much interest in Europe.

One way of understanding Western interest in the rest of the world is to look at the process by which interest became research, research became knowledge and knowledge became power. By the time Europe was able to expand in the 16th century and later, it was far better equipped to understand, and if necessary undermine, other cultures than other cultures were to understand Europe. While Europe expanded its reach across the oceans and around the world, China acted to suppress seafaring altogether. Europeans absorbed all they could from the Far East;  goods, information, culture and ideas. Except in those situations when their sovereignty, safety or livelihood seemed threatened, most Asians were generally indifferent to the presence of small numbers of Europeans off their shores or in their harbors. This situation remained true for over two centuries after the Portuguese first laid eyes on Calicut, India. As arrogant, pugnacious and formidable as most Europeans were, it was not until the eighteenth century that Asian finally began taking them seriously.

In February 1502, four years after his first expedition, Vasco da Gama, Admiral of the Indian Ocean, set sail for India with his uncle Vicente Sodré, his nephew Estevão, and a new fleet of twenty heavily-armed ships. He sailed under orders to safeguard the interests of Portugal's commercial enterprises in India, and to protect the Portuguese who had settled there. This time there was no pretense about Portugal's plans for India. Vasco da Gama intended to turn Calicut into a Portuguese colony.

When the Portuguese warships arrived off the Malabar coast near Calicut on October 1, Vasco da Gama spotted a large Arab dhow, the Meri, slowly sailing homeward with its cargo of 380 Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca. The Portuguese squadron quickly came alongside the Meri and da Gama ordered the captain to deliver her treasure, a combination of coin and commodities valued at nearly 22,000 ducats. After transferring the booty aboard his ships, Vasco da Gama ordered his sailors to lace the Meri with gunpowder and set it aflame, incinerating the ship and all those on board, including men, women and children. The wanton destruction of the Meri was an ominous portent of future East-West relations in Asia.

On October 30, Vasco da Gama's squadron dropped anchor in the harbor at Calicut. The Samuri soon discovered that the Portuguese had not returned to India to negotiate for trade and peaceful relations. Backed by the power of heavily armed ships and fighting troops, the Portuguese commander ordered the Samuri to surrender and demanded the immediate expulsion of all Muslims from the city. The King of Calicut rejected the demand and instead sent his envoys to da Gama's flagship to negotiate a peaceful arrangement.

Vasco da Gama had no inclination to talk and attempted to force the Samuri into a quick surrender. He ordered the seizure of a number of local traders and fishermen from the harbor and had the hapless victims hung at once. To reinforce his point, da Gama ordered their heads, hands and feet amputated and placed the grisly cargo in a boat along with a message written in Arabic. He sent the bloody remains to the Samuri along with the suggestion that he use the pieces of his subjects to make himself a curry.

The violent behavior of the Portuguese brought a quick response from the Arabs, who sent two fleets comprised of 170 sailing dhows from the Red Sea and the Malabar coast to challenge the Portuguese off Calicut. Vasco da Gama's eighteen ships, each heavily armed with long range cannon, easily defeated the Arabs in the Battle of Malabar. Before departing Calicut for Lisbon, Vasco da Gama concluded an agreement with the local ruler of Cochin that established a fortified Portuguese factory compound in the major port city in west-central Kerala state in southwestern India. He also established the first permanent European naval force in Asia by stationing five ships at Cochin under the command of his uncle, Vicente Sodré.

Just as they had extended their reach along the African coast, the Portuguese entrenched themselves in India by building on each successive step taken. King Manuel I dispatched the Portuguese navigator and statesman Afonso de Albuquerque to India to organize the Indian Ocean trade. Arriving in India in 1503, de Albuquerque's keen strategic eye quickly understood that to control the commerce of South Asia, he first had to control the three strategic waterways that fed its growing markets:  the Strait of Bab el Mandeb commanding the outlet from the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aden;  the Strait of Ormuz, which dominated Persian Gulf traffic at the Muscat coast;  and the Strait of Malacca, the narrow waterway that funneled all sea traffic to and from the South China Sea. Holding the first two would eliminate Arab competition and dominate the coastal shipping of the Middle East. Holding the third would have the same affect on Indonesian and Malaysian shipping. With limited naval resources, de Albuquerque decided to center the Portuguese Empire along India's western Malabar coast, which offered the fine ports of Diu, Bombay, Goa, Calicut and Cochin. Having set his strategy in place, de Albuquerque returned to Lisbon to urge its implementation.

India's political situation at the beginning of the sixteenth century was very unstable. The nation was weak and divided into several small states and kingdoms. In addition, religious divisions among Hindus and Muslims created further splits and divisions. Even states with a common religion suffered from serious internal rivalries. The heavily armed Portuguese took maximum advantage of the situation to conclude favorable treaties with the full consent of weaker rulers and establish military and commercial bases in India. In March 1505, King Manuel I appointed Francisco de Almeida as Portugal's first Viceroy of India. After sailing around the Cape of Good Hope with 21 ships, de Almeida visited and destroyed Mombasa before taking up residence in Cochin.

The Portuguese sent more and more ships to the Malabar coast. In addition to capturing trade, Portugal's primary aim was to gain supremacy over the Indian Ocean and trade routes through the area. The Portuguese were quick to attack any Indian and Arab merchant ships along the Malabar coast which ventured to sea without their permission. Continued Portuguese interference with Arab trading interests at Calicut eventually subjected the port to an economic blockade. Portuguese intervention at Cochin aggravated the traditional feud between the rulers of Cochin and Calicut. Nevertheless, both states raised their own armed flotillas to challenge the Portuguese, but they proved to be no match for the Portuguese men-of-war on the high seas. Lisbon continued to consolidate its influence in the Indian Ocean and established other settlements along the west coast of India and Ceylon.

Afonso de Albuquerque returned to India in 1507 under orders to assume eventual authority in the East as Viceroy, replacing Francisco de Almeida. With a small force of only six ships, de Albuquerque attacked and captured the fortified Socotra Island at the Strait of Bab el Mandeb and followed up with a similar assault against Muscat. After fortifying Muscat as a Portuguese base in 1508, de Albuquerque's six ships next sailed to the port city of Ormuz, where the bold captain sailed headlong into the harbor. After a daring attack against the three largest ships among the Arab fleet of 250 dhows in the harbor and the uncontrolled plunder and pillage of the city, the astonished and demoralized Arabs surrendered Ormuz, giving Portugal control over the gateway to the Persian Gulf.

Viceroy Francisco de Almeida and his son, Lorenzo, consolidated Portugal's strategic position by establishing bases on Ceylon, at Kilwa and Mombasa in East Africa, and by concluding a commercial treaty with Malacca in Southeast Asia. The rapid buildup of Portuguese forces in the Indian Ocean and their intrusion into the lucrative spice trade provoked a universally hostile reaction among not only Muslim rulers, but many of the great trading houses of Venice and Genoa, who saw the Portuguese as a growing economic threat. Encouraged by the Venetians, the Mameluk Sultan of Egypt constructed a huge galley fleet at Suez. In the summer of 1508 the Arab fleet arrived in Diu, where it joined the local fleet from the Indian state of Gujarat for offensive operations against the Portuguese. That autumn, the Arabs trapped Lorenzo and his eight ship squadron at the mouth of the Chaul River south of Diu. Lorenzo managed to hold the Arabs at bay during three days of ferocious fighting before finally going down with his flagship. Only two Portuguese vessels managed to escape. Lorenzo's tenacious defense so impressed the Arabs they called off their sea campaign, retired to Diu, and never again challenged Western rule in the Indian Ocean with a major fleet.

When Afonso de Albuquerque arrived in Cochin in December 1508 to assume his duties as the new Portuguese Viceroy, de Almeida refused to surrender his office and threw de Albuquerque into prison. Viceroy de Almeida put his heart and soul into avenging his son's death and permanently neutralizing the Arab fleet at Diu. In February 1509, he sailed directly into the harbor at Diu, completely ignoring the defensive forts along the shore. The Portuguese boarded and captured the undermanned Arab warships at anchor and burned all but four of the Arab dhows. Before he left, he entered into a commercial treaty with the King of Gujarat that granted trade rights to Portugal at Diu. A new Portuguese squadron arrived in Cochin before de Almeida returned from his foray at Diu, and forced him to recognized Afonso de Albuquerque's authority as the new Viceroy in India.

Finally released from prison in November 1509, when de Almeida set sail for Lisbon, Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque moved quickly to complete Portugal's consolidation of the spice trade and its new empire in the Indian Ocean. After a series of naval attacks, Viceroy de Albuquerque, in alliance with the Hindu corsair Timoja, captured the island city of Goa and its harbor from the Muslims on November 25, 1510. He heavily fortified Goa and developed it into both a naval base and the administrative and commercial center of all Portuguese possessions in India. He next blockaded every other harbor in southwestern India with small naval patrols, a move that forced virtually all Arab and Indonesian-Malaysian sea trade into Goa. After de Albuquerque crippled the Arab coastal trade by halting all seaborne trade to Egypt and the Red Sea, the rulers of India quickly accepted Portugal's commercial monopoly and allowed new forts to be built at their harbors. With the center of its new empire intact, Portugal sent an increasing number of trading fleets to the East.

The eastern luxury goods which were of principal interest to the Portuguese were not products of India. They came from the islands of the Malay archipelago. Furthermore, the seaports along the Malabar coast were not the only markets, or even the principal markets where such luxury goods were being bought and sold. While Portuguese warships patrolled the Malabar coast, Arab traders shipping goods to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf easily eluded capture by avoiding India altogether and making their purchases directly in one or more of the Malayan or Indonesian markets. The busiest and best known of these markets was in Malacca.

Most of the shipping between the Malay archipelago and the Bay of Bengal passed through the narrow Malacca Strait. This fact alone made Malacca a city of great strategic as well as commercial importance. Viceroy de Albuquerque and his Portuguese commanders in India soon realized that in order to establish a monopoly of the supply of spices to Europe they would have to destroy the trade of their Arab competitors. To achieve that goal, Portugal had to take control of Malacca. If the Portuguese could establish their own factories even further east and purchase spices directly from the growers, so much the better.

Portuguese expeditions sailing from Goa swept into the East Indies to seize strategic and commercial strongpoints along India's seacoast and in the Malay archipelago. In 1511, Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque took eighteen heavily-armed warships to Malaysia, where he seized and burned a great many Asian ships at Sumatra. In July, the Portuguese fleet conquered the town of Malacca after a murderous ten day bombardment. They protected their new conquest by constructing a fortified garrison at Malacca manned by 600 troops and backed it up by permanently stationing a small fleet of fourteen warships at the Malacca Strait. The town became a fortified base of operations that remained in Portuguese hands until 1641.

The following year, Viceroy de Albuquerque sent a three-ship squadron under the command of Antonio de Abreu eastward to reconnoiter the "spicery" in the Moluccas. Captain de Abreu sailed as far as the Banda Sea before returning to Malacca. Francisco Serrao, one of de Abreu's officers, was shipwrecked during the expedition and eventually made his way to the tiny island of Ternate in the Moluccas, one of the few islands at the time that grew cloves. Serrao spent the rest of his life on Ternate as an advisor to the local Muslim ruler and as an occasional, though somewhat unreliable, informant to Europeans on island affairs.

During the voyage, de Abreu's navigator, Francisco Rodriguez, compiled a brief report on maritime routes in the area. His rudimentary "China rutter," illustrated with views and sketches taken partly from Javanese originals, gave the Portuguese government its first reliable cartographic information on the eastern Malay archipelago. The information and contacts brought back to Malacca by Captain de Abreu enabled the Portuguese to begin regular trade with the Moluccas. Under an agreement with Ternate's Muslim ruler, the Portuguese established a small factory compound on the island.

In the second decade of the sixteenth century, Afonso de Albuquerque had finally completed Portugal's imperial defense structure and established an effective commercial monopoly of the spice trade between Southeast Asia and Europe. The system he helped set in place would last unchallenged by major European powers for another century. In less than a decade, Portugal had established a vast new empire in India. Although the royal banner of King Manuel I flew unchallenged across the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese sat in a precarious position. Their adventures in India and Southeast Asia might have afforded them long-term benefits had they not made the economic mistake of selling Indian spices at such high prices in the European marketplace. Worse, because they could not maintain cordial relations with the Indian community from the beginning, their conquests created enemies on all sides. By the time the Portuguese reached the height of their power in East Asia, they had generated a mortal enmity with the Muslim rulers of trading centers in Java and Sumatra. Their high-handed arrogance and brutality created conditions that made it virtually impossible for Muslims and Christians to live side-by-side in peace, a fatal defect that permanently marred the European presence in Indonesia.

Portugal's mistakes invited competition from other European powers and soon attracted competing navies into the Indian Ocean. The Dutch arrived and set up an initial base of operations at Masulipatnam on India's east coast. After spreading southwards along the Coromandal coast, they established settlements in both Java and Sumatra, areas of special interest to the Dutch. The Portuguese viewed the Dutch presence as a dramatic infringement on what they considered to be their own sphere of influence. The growing rivalries and hostilities grew to the point where frequent open clashes occurred between the Dutch and Portuguese at Pulict, Nagapatnam, Quilon, Cochin and Goa.

After breaking the Portuguese monopoly of Indian spice trade in Europe, the Dutch made the same mistake of demanding exorbitant prices for pepper and other Indian goods sold in Europe. This motivated the English to enter the game and, in time, British warships established a significant presence in the Indian Ocean. In due course, the British emerged as the predominant western power in the region, a status that would have significant repercussions throughout East Asia.