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Gama, 1498.

CHAPTER XIV.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS (1498 TO 18TH CENTURY A.D.).

The Portu- THE Muhammadan invaders of India had entered from the guese in north-west. Her Christian conquerors approached by sea from India. Vasco da the south. From the time of Alexander to that of Vasco da Gama, Europe held little direct intercourse with the East. An occasional traveller brought back stories of powerful kingdoms and of untold wealth; but the passage by sea was scarcely dreamed of, and by land, wide deserts and warlike tribes lay between. Commerce, indeed, struggled overland and via the Red Sea; being carried on chiefly by the Italian cities on the Mediterranean, which traded to the ports of the Levant.1 But to the Europeans of the 15th century, India was an unknown land, which powerfully attracted the imagination of spirits stimulated

1 The following is a list of the most noteworthy early travellers to the East, from the 9th century to the establishment of the Portuguese as a conquering power in India in the 16th. The Arab geographers will be found in Sir Henry Elliot's first volumes of the Indian Historians. The standard European authority is The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, edited by Colonel Henry Yule, C.B., 2 vols., second edition, 1875. The author's best thanks are due to Colonel Yule for the assistance he has kindly afforded both here and in those articles of The Imperial Gazetteer of India, which came within the scope of Colonel Yule's researches. The authorities for the more ancient travellers and Indian geographers are, as already stated, M'Crindle's Megasthenes and Arrian, his Ktesias, and his Navigation of the Erythrean Sea, which originally appeared in the Indian Antiquary, and were republished by Messrs. Trübner. The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, by Dr. William Vincent, Dean of Westminster (2 vols. quarto, 1807), may still be perused with interest, although Dr. Vincent's materials have been supplemented by fuller and more accurate knowledge. 883 A.D. King Alfred sends Sighelm of Sherburn to the shrine of Saint Thomas in India.' The site of the shrine is doubtful, see chap. ix. 851-916. Suláimán and Abu Zaid, whose travels furnished the Relations of Reinaud.

·

912-30. The geographer Mas'udi.

1159-73. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela; visited Persian Gulf, reported on

India.

1260-71. The brothers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, father and uncle of Marco Polo; make their first trading venture through Central Asia.

FIRST PORTUGUESE VOYAGES.

357

by the renaissance, and ardent for discovery. The materials. for this period have been collected by Sir George Birdwood in his admirable official Report on the Old Records of the India Office (1879), to which the following paragraphs are largely indebted. The history of the various European settlements will be found in greater detail, under their respective articles, in The Imperial Gazetteer of India.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed westwards under the Portuguese Spanish flag to seek India beyond the Atlantic, bearing with voyages. him a letter to the great Khán of Tartary. He found America instead. An expedition under Vasco da Gama started from Lisbon five years later, in the opposite, or south-eastern, direction. It doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and cast anchor off the city of Calicut on the 20th May 1498, after a protracted voyage of nearly eleven months. An earlier Portuguese emissary, Covilham, had reached Calicut overland about 1487.

1271. They started on their second journey, accompanied by Marco Polo; and about 1275, arrived at the Court of Kublai Khán in Shangtu, whence Marco Polo was entrusted with several missions to Cochin China, Khanbulig (Pekin), and the Indian Seas.

1292. Friar John of Monte Corvino, afterwards Archbishop of Pekin;
spent thirteen months in India on his way to China.

1304-78. Ibn Batuta, an Arab of Tangiers; after many years in the
East, attached himself to the Court of Muhammad Tughlak at Delhi,
1334-42, whence he was despatched on an Embassy to China.
1316-30. Odorico di Pordenone, a Minorite friar; travelled in the East
and through India by way of Persia, Bombay, and Surat (where he
collected the bones of four missionaries martyred in 1321), to Malabar,
the Coromandel coast, and thence to China and Tibet.

1328. Friar Jordanus of Severac, Bishop of Quilon.

1338-49. John de Marignolli, a Franciscan friar; on his return from a mission to China, visited Quilon in 1347, and made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas in India in 1349.

1327-72. Sir John Mandeville; wrote his travels in India (supposed to be the first printed English book, London, 1499); but beyond the Levant his travels are invented or borrowed.

1419-40. Nicolo Conti, a noble Venetian; travelled throughout Southern India and along the Bombay coast.

1442-44. Abd-ur-Razzak; during an embassy to India, visited Calicut, Mangalore, and Vijayanagar, where he was entertained in state by the Hindu sovereign of that kingdom.

1468-74. Athanasius Nikitin, a Russian; travelled from the Volga, through Central Asia and Persia, to Gujarát, Cambay, and Chaul, whence he proceeded inland to Bidar and Golconda.

1494-99. Hieronimo di Santo Stefano, a Genoese; visited the port of Malabár and the Coromandel coast as a merchant adventurer, and after proceeding to Ceylon and Pegu, sailed for Cambay.

1503-08. Travels of Ludovico di Varthema. In the Hakluyt Series.

State of India on arrival of Portuguese.

Rájá of

letter,

1498.

From the first, Da Gama encountered hostility from the Moors, or rather Arabs, who monopolized the sea-borne trade; but he seems to have found favour with the Zamorin or Hindu Rájá of Malabar. An Afghán of the Lodí dynasty was then on the throne of Delhi, and another Afghán king was ruling over Bengal. Ahmadábád formed the seat of a Muhammadan dynasty in Gujarát. The five independent Muhammadan kingdoms of Ahmednagar, Bijápur, Elichpur, Golconda, and Bidar had partitioned out the Deccan. But the Hindu Rájá of Vijayanagar still ruled as paramount in the south, and was perhaps the most powerful monarch to be found at that time in India, not excepting the Lodí dynasty at Delhi.

After staying nearly six months on the Malabar coast, Da Calicut's Gama returned to Europe, bearing with him the following letter from the Zamorin to the King of Portugal:-'Vasco da Gama, a nobleman of your household, has visited my kingdom and has given me great pleasure. In my kingdom there is abundance of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and precious stones. What I seek from thy country is gold, silver, coral, and scarlet.' The safe arrival of Da Gama at Lisbon was celebrated with national rejoicings as enthusiastic as those which had greeted the return of Columbus. If the West Indies belonged to Spain by priority of discovery, Portugal might claim the East Indies by the same right. The Portuguese mind became intoxicated by dreams of a mighty oriental empire. Portuguese The early Portuguese navigators were not traders or private expediadventurers, but admirals with a royal commission to conquer territory and to promote the spread of Christianity. A second expedition, consisting of thirteen ships and twelve hundred soldiers, under the command of Cabral, was despatched in 1500. The sum of his instructions was to begin with preaching, and if that failed, to proceed to the sharp determination of the sword.' On his outward voyage, Cabral was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Brazil. Ultimately he reached Calicut, and established factories both there and at Cochin, in spite of active hostilities from the natives.

tion, 1500.

in eastern

1600.

Portuguese In 1502, the King of Portugal obtained from Pope Alexsupremacy ander vi. a bull constituting him Lord of the Navigation, seas, 1500. Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India.' In that year Vasco da Gama sailed again to the East, with a fleet numbering twenty vessels. He formed an alliance with the Rájás of Cochin and Cananore against the Zamorin of Calicut, and bombarded the latter in his palace. In 1503, the great Alfonso d'Albuquerque sailed to the East in command of

ALBUQUERQUE VICEROY.

359

one of three expeditions from Portugal. In 1505, a large fleet of twenty-two sail and fifteen thousand men was sent under Francisco de Almeida, the first Portuguese Governor and Viceroy of India.

takes Goa,

In 1509, Albuquerque succeeded as Governor, and widely Albuextended the area of Portuguese influence. Having failed in querque an attack upon Calicut, he in 1510 seized Goa, which has 1510. since remained the capital of Portuguese India. Then, sailing round Ceylon, he captured Malacca, the key to the navigation of the Indian archipelago, and opened a trade with Siam and the Spice Islands. Lastly, he sailed back westwards, and after penetrating into the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, returned to Goa only to die in 1515. In 1524, Vasco da Gama came out to the East for the third time, and he too died at Cochin, in 1527. For exactly a century, from 1500 to 1600, the Portuguese enjoyed a monopoly of Oriental trade.1 'From Japan and the Spice Islands to the Red Sea and the Cape of Good Hope, they were the sole masters and dispensers of the treasures of the East; while their possessions along the Atlantic coast of Africa and in Brazil completed their maritime empire.'2 But the Portuguese had neither the political strength Cruelties nor the personal character necessary to maintain such an Empire. Their national temper had been formed in their India. contest with the Moors at home. They were not traders, but knights-errant and crusaders, who looked on every pagan as an enemy of Portugal and of Christ. Only those who have read the contemporary narratives of their conquests, can realize the superstition and the cruelty with which their history in the Indies is stained.

of Portuguese in

Albuquerque alone endeavoured to conciliate the goodwill Albuof the natives, and to live in friendship with the Hindu querque's policy of princes, who were naturally better pleased to have the Portu- conciliaguese, as governed by him, for their neighbours and allies, tion. than the Muhammadans whom he had expelled or subdued. The justice and magnanimity of his rule did as much to extend and confirm the power of the Portuguese in the East, as his courage and the success of his military achievements.

1 For a full account of the Portuguese in India, and the curious phases of society which they developed, see article GOA, The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Also for local notices, see articles DAMAN, DIU, BASSEIN, CALICUT.

2 This and the following paragraphs are condensed from Sir George Birdwood's official Report on the Miscellaneous Old Records in the India Office, dated 1st November 1878 (folio, 1879).

Later

their bravery.

In such veneration was his memory held, that the Hindus of Goa, and even the Muhammadans, were wont to repair to his tomb, and there utter their complaints, as if in the presence of his shade, and call upon God to deliver them from the tyranny of his successors.

'The cruelties of Soarez, Sequeyra, Menezes, Da Gama, Viceroys; and succeeding viceroys, drove the natives to desperation, and encouraged the princes of Western India in 1567 to form a league against the Portuguese, in which they were joined by the King of Achín.' But the undisciplined Indian troops were unable to stand against the veteran soldiers of Portugal; 200 of whom, at Malacca, routed 15,000 natives with artillery. When, in 1578, Malacca was again besieged by the King of Achín, the small Portuguese garrison destroyed 10,000 of his men, and all his cannon and junks. Twice again, in 1615 and for the last time in 1628, Malacca was besieged, and on each occasion the Achinese were repulsed with equal bravery. But the increased military forces sent out to resist these attacks proved an insupportable drain on the revenues and population of Portugal.

Spanish influences, 1580.

Downfall

of Portuguese in India,

1639-1739.

In 1580, the Portuguese crown was united with that of Spain, under Philip II. This proved the ruin of the maritime and commercial supremacy of Portugal in the East. The interests of Portugal in Asia were henceforth subordinated to the European interests of Spain. In 1640, Portugal again became a separate kingdom. But in the meanwhile the Dutch and English had appeared in the Eastern Seas; and before their indomitable competition, the Portguese empire of the Indies withered away as rapidly as it had sprung up. The period of the highest development of Portuguese commerce was probably from 1590 to 1610 on the eve of the subversion of their commercial power by the Dutch, and when their political administration in India was at its lowest depth of degradation. this period a single fleet of Portuguese merchantmen sailing from Goa to Cambay or Surat would number as many as 150 or 250 carracks. Now, only one Portuguese ship sails from Lisbon to Goa in the year.1

At

The Dutch besieged Goa in 1603, and again in 1639. Both attacks were unsuccessful on land; but the Portuguese were gradually driven off the sea. In 1683, the Maráthás plundered to the gates of Goa. The further history of the Portuguese in India is a miserable chronicle of pride, poverty, and sounding

1 Reproduced, without verification, from Sir George Birdwood's Report, p. 70.

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