A Short History of Portugal

H. Morse Stephens

• Verlag: Serapis Classics
• Jahr: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783962555900
• Thema: Literatur
• Thema: Europäische Literarische Sammlungen

THE Story of Portugal possesses a peculiar interest from the fact that it is to its history alone that the country owes its existence as a separate nation Geographically, the little kingdom is an integral portion of the Iberian peninsula, with no natural boundaries to distinguish it from that larger portion of the peninsula called Spain; its inhabitants spring from the same stock as the Spaniards, and their language differs but slightly from the Spanish. Its early history is merged in that of the rest of the peninsula, and but for two great men, Affonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, and John I., the founder of the house of Aviz, Portugal would not at the present day rank among the independent nations of Europe. The first of these monarchs created his dominions into a kingdom like Leon, Castile, and Aragon, and the latter encouraged the maritime explorations which gave the little country an individuality and national existence, of which it was justly proud. When Philip II. annexed Portugal in 1580, it was at least a century too late for the Portuguese to coalesce with the Spaniards. They had then produced Vasco da Gama and Alboquerque and other great captains and explorers, who had shown Europe the way to India by sea; and their tongue had been developed by the genius of Camoens and Sá de Miranda, from a Romance dialect, similar to those used in Gallicia, Castile, or Aragon, into a great literary language. Conscious of its national history, Portugal broke away again from Spain in 1640, and under the protection of England maintained its separate existence during the eighteenth century...

THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA AND THE EASTERN SEAS.

THERE is no subject that calls more loudly for an historian than the history of the Portuguese in India during the sixteenth century. There are Portuguese authorities in plenty, for, with a vivid perception of the picturesque, many of the greatest writers of the golden age of Portuguese literature devoted themselves to this fascinating subject. João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy, and a contemporary of the great Indian viceroys, wrote a history of the first half century of Portuguese conquest in India in several volumes, full of interest and charm; Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, Diogo do Couto, and Manoel de Faria e Sousa, all worked in the same field, and the lives of the two greatest of the Portuguese viceroys have full light thrown upon them in the Commentaries of Affonso de Alboquerque, published by his son, and the beautiful Life of Dom João de Castro by Jacinto Freire de Andrade, which is a model of a perfect biography. Nor have the leaders of the revival of the study of history neglected to treat this subject in a scientific manner; many valuable monographs and reprints of precious documents have seen the light within the last fifty years, and much material still remains undigested and unarranged in the archives at the Torre del Tombo. Yet this period, in spite of all the work which has been done upon it, still remains without an historian, fitted by a thorough knowledge, both of Indian history and of the state of civilization in India at the period in question, to draw out the salient and interesting points of the first direct contact between modern Europe and modern Asia, between the East and the West.

Yet it is work which well deserves to be done. Prescott, the great American historian, has shown the interest attaching to the first conflict between Spanish chivalry and the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru; but when will an historian arise to tell worthily the story of the contact between the heroes of Portugal and the more civilized inhabitants of Hindustan? Apart from the fascination of this side of the subject, there remains the fact that for a century the intercourse between Asia and Europe remained in the hands of the Portuguese. The history of the Dutch and the English in the Eastern seas has its own peculiar interest, but they did not find their way in that direction until the nations of the East had been for a whole century in contact with Europeans, and until their attitude had been greatly modified by this contact. Besides, the Dutch and English both went to the East as traders, and not as conquerors, colonizers, and preachers as well. Far different was the intention of the Portuguese. Regardless of the small size and slender population of their fatherland, they dreamed of nothing less than conquering the mighty empires of the East, and imposing Christianity upon them, if need be, by the edge of their swords. Grandiose as this intention was, and full of inconsequence as the idea seems to modern eyes, which have seen with what difficulty England with its teeming population has managed to maintain its hold upon India, even while it has discouraged proselytism and protected native religions, there is something noble in the confidence of the Portuguese warriors in their God, and in their belief that through their means He would spread Christianity throughout the East. For the ambitions of the Portuguese were not confined to India; Portuguese adventurers actually established themselves in power in parts of Arabia, in Burma, and in the district of Chittagong at the head of the Bay of Bengal; Portuguese emissaries found their way to Pekin and Japan, closely followed by the missionaries of the Roman Church; and it was while on his way to convert the millions of China to Christianity that St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, gave up his life. And, lastly, it must be remembered at what odds the Portuguese fought and tried to proselytize in Asia: at many months’ voyage from their homes and base of operations; only able to reach their destinations after sailing in feeble craft round the hardly known, unexplored, and dangerous coast of Africa; deprived of the modern knowledge alike of tides and winds, and of the means to promote existence in tropical climates; they arrived amidst the hostile millions armed only with clumsy arquebuses and their swords; and yet with all these drawbacks they were victorious in many hard-fought fights against more powerful armies than their European successors in the East ever met. Of course there are many blots upon this noble history, tales of corruption and oppression, and of the preference of commercial transactions which made fortunes to the harder régime of honesty and uprightness; but for all that the history is one marked by achievements of valour and adventurous daring, unmatched elsewhere in the history of the world. No wonder that Portugal was exhausted by her efforts; the only wonder is that her sons ever did one tithe of these glorious deeds, or exerted themselves one-tenth as much as they did. This story of the Portuguese in India cannot be treated adequately in a single chapter. Only a résumé of the very briefest description can be given, but if it inspires any reader to go, for instance, to the history of De Barros, he will there find the record of many a deed which will justify these remarks and excite both his interest and his admiration.

It was in the July of 1497 that the fleet of four ships, destined to double the Cape of Good Hope and find its way direct to India, set sail from Lisbon. King Emmanuel, who in carrying out this project and despatching this squadron was only fulfilling the plan formed by John II., selected for the command Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of his household, and son of an experienced mariner, named Estevão da Gama, who had been the nominee of John II. for this post; and two able captains, Paul da Gama, the brother of Vasco, and Nicolas Coelho, volunteered to accompany him. The perils and dangers of this famous voyage have been told in immortal stanzas by Camoens; it is enough here to say that the Portuguese fleet safely rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and began to work its way up the south-eastern coast of Africa. The rulers of Mozambique and Mombassa showed no disposition to assist the Portuguese admiral in his endeavour to find a pilot to guide him across the Indian Ocean; on the contrary, they proved actively hostile, and the false pilot, whom the chief of Mozambique had given him, under the hostile influence, according to Camoens, of Bacchus, who was fearful lest his fame as Victor Indicus should be surpassed, deserted the fleet at Mombassa. However, Vasco da Gama pressed northwards, and at the little town of Melinda, to the north of Zanzibar, he found a friendly monarch, who gave him a skilful pilot. But the perils of the expedition were not yet over; it was the wrong time of the year for crossing the Indian Ocean, and it was only after encountering fearful storms that the Portuguese heroes cast anchor off the city of Calicut on May 20, 1498, after a voyage of nearly eleven months.

The India, which Vasco da Gama reached, was in a very different condition to the India of the Great Moghuls, which came into relations with the first Dutch and English adventurers. It contained no emperor, exercising almost universal sway, but many independent kingdoms. “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 Ahmadnagar, Bijápur, Ellichpur, Golconda, and Bídar had partitioned out the Deccan. But the Hindu Rājā 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.” The ruler of the city at which Vasco da Gama first arrived was a Hindu Rājā, who bore the title of Zamorin, a word derived, according to some writers, from the tradition that the first limits of the settlement were decided by the distance the crowing of a cock could be heard from the summit of the Tali Temple. But though himself a Hindu, the most important subjects of the Zamorin were the fanatical Moplas, the descendants of some Arab and Mohammedan settlers on the Malabar coast. These men had greatly extended the dominions of the Zamorins of Calicut and were the wealthiest inhabitants of the seaboard, for they held the trade of the Malabar coast with Aden, and therefore with the Red Sea, Egypt, and Europe in their hands. It is not to be wondered at therefore, that, though the Hindu Zamorin received the Portuguese navigator with courtesy, the Moplas showed the bitterest opposition to him, and discouraged the idea of a direct trade with Europe, which would bring about their own ruin. This opposition prevented Vasco da Gama from carrying out his intention of leaving some settlers to form a trade establishment at Calicut, and after cruising about along the Malabar coast he commenced his voyage back to Europe.

The voyage home was no less perilous than the voyage out, and it was not until the 29th of August, 1499, that Vasco da Gama cast anchor in the port of Lisbon, bringing back with him but fifty-five out of the 148 companions who had started with him on his adventurous journey. The pious navigator at once went up to the church of Our Lady at Belem, where he had offered up prayers for help before his departure. His devotions completed, Vasco da Gama made his solemn entrance into Lisbon, where he was received with a burst of popular enthusiasm, equal to that which greeted Christopher Columbus on his return from discovering America. King Emmanuel took the title of “Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,” which was confirmed to him by a Bull of Pope Alexander VI. in 1502, and he erected the superb church of Belem, as a testimonial of gratitude to heaven. On Vasco da Gama the king conferred well-deserved honours; he was permitted to quarter the royal arms with his own, and was granted the office of Admiral of the Indian seas, with a large revenue to be levied on the Indian trade; he and his brothers were granted the right to use the prefix Dom or Lord, and a little later, when the importance of his voyage became more manifest, he was created Count da Vidigueira.

When the rejoicings were over, King Emmanuel determined to see what advantages could be gained from Dom Vasco da Gama’s discovery, and despatched Pedro Alvares Cabral with a fleet of thirteen ships carrying twelve hundred picked soldiers to establish “factories” on the Malabar coast, for the collection of the most valuable products of the East, which should be conveyed to Portugal in royal ships every year. And here it is necessary to again insist upon the fact, that the Portuguese trade with India was a royal monopoly. The Portuguese establishments in India were not, as was the case with regard to Holland, England, and France in later years, formed by companies of private merchants, who looked upon the Indian trade as a speculation, but were royal factories, managed by royal officers, and served by royal fleets. Private trade was impossible, and not even dreamed of, because it was considered necessary that these factories should be defended by bodies of troops and served by powerful fleets, which cost an amount of money no private firm could furnish. But these royal factories were intended not only to establish and guard trade, but also to spread Christianity, and for that purpose they included from the first not only soldiers, but missionary priests. Pedro Alvares Cabral was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Brazil, of which country he took possession in the name of his sovereign, and then proceeded to follow the course laid down by Vasco da Gama, and reached Calicut in safety. He immediately established a factory at that place, but the Moplas showed the same unfriendly disposition which they had before exhibited towards Vasco da Gama, and at once murdered all the colonists. Cabral then cannonaded Calicut, and proceeded to Cannanore and Cochin, at both of which places he was favourably received, for their Hindu Rājās were unwilling tributaries to the Zamorin of Calicut and his Moplas; and after purchasing great stores of pepper and other Indian commodities, the Portuguese admiral left establishments at these two places to open up trade, and returned home. In 1502, Vasco da Gama arrived for the second time on the Malabar coast with twenty ships, and after again cannonading Calicut, and destroying all the shipping in the port, he strengthened the factories at Cochin and Cannanore and returned. On his departure, Vincente Sodre, one of the officers he had left, deserted the factory and set up as a pirate in the Arabian seas, being the first of those Portuguese adventurers in the Eastern seas whose stories read like romances. In 1503, three separate Portuguese squadrons under the command respectively of Francisco de Alboquerque, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Antonio de Saldanha, reached India, and the first of these captains gave effective assistance to the Rājā of Cochin, who had been attacked by the Zamorin for his welcome of the Portuguese, and was being besieged in the island of Vypin. Francisco de Alboquerque was only just in time, and to guard against such extremities in the future, he built a strong fort, guarded with artillery, at Cochin, and when the three captains departed they left there a garrison of nine hundred men, under the command of Duarte Pacheco. This officer performed the first great feat of arms which illustrated the history of the Portuguese in India; with his small garrison, enfeebled by sickness, he not only drove back the great army which the Zamorin sent against Cochin, but utterly defeated five thousand of his best troops in open battle. This victory established the reputation of the Portuguese in India as soldiers; the factories now found no difficulty in purchasing all the goods they needed at a reasonable price; and what was more important, the fame of Pacheco spread abroad, and he was able to send envoys into the interior of India, who were everywhere favourably received, and generally returned laden with presents. Pacheco’s success inspired the Portuguese monarch with the idea that he could not only absorb the Indian trade, but could conquer India, and Emmanuel decided that a powerful imperial government should be established on the Malabar coast, instead of isolated factories.

ALBOQUERQUE. (From the Sloane MS. 197, folio 11.)

The first viceroy he selected was Dom Francisco de Almeida, a Portuguese nobleman of high rank, who had learned the art of war under Gonsalvo da Cordova, better known in Spanish history as the “Great Captain,” and had been a favourite of King John II. The fleet with which he set sail from Belem on March 25, 1505, consisted of sixteen ships and sixteen caravels, and carried fifteen hundred soldiers besides many officials for the new establishment. On his way to India, Dom Francisco de Almeida occupied Quiloa and Mombassa on the south-eastern coast of Africa, and erected forts, which should make them safe resting-places for the Portuguese fleets; and on his arrival at Cannanore on October 22nd he took the title of Viceroy of Cochin, Cannanore, and Quilon. The great Portuguese nobleman looked upon the state of affairs in India from a very different point of view to Cabral, Vasco da Gama, and Pacheco; he did not regard commerce as the sole purpose of the establishments of the Portuguese in the East, and instead of trying to open up trade as Pacheco had done, and only defending himself when attacked, the first viceroy adopted a vigorous policy of active interference with native states, proselytism, and offensive war. He established his seat of government at Cochin, and sent forth expeditions along the Malabar coast, which generally came to blows with the Mohammedan merchants, who saw with dismay that their commerce with Egypt by way of the Red Sea would soon disappear. His chief commander was his son, Dom Lourenço de Almeida, a boy in years, but a hero in the fight. On October 19, 1505, young Lourenço cannonaded and nearly destroyed Conlão, the modern Quilon; on March 18, 1506, he almost annihilated the fleet of the Zamorin of Calicut, consisting of eighty-four ships and one hundred and twenty prahs, with only eleven vessels, and received a check at Dabul, the modern Dábhol; in 1507, he discovered the Maldive Islands, and with Tristão da Cunha sacked the port of Ponáni, and in 1508 the young hero was killed at Chaul in a combat against an Egyptian fleet, which had been sent by the Mamluk Sultan to expel the Portuguese from India under the command of an admiral named Emir Hoseyn. But a more serious danger was impending; the wrath of the Mohammedan sovereigns, whose domains extended to the north-western coasts, and especially of the kings of Bijápur and Gujarāt, was aroused by these aggressions, and they collected powerful fleets and joined Emir Hoseyn. The Viceroy of India, nothing daunted, sailed northward to avenge his son’s death, with only nineteen ships, and after sacking Dábhol he entirely defeated the Mohammedan fleet of more than one hundred ships, on February 2, 1509, off the island of Diu. While the first Portuguese Viceroy was undertaking these operations, his appointed successor, Affonso de Alboquerque, with whom he had quarrelled, and the admiral Tristão da Cunha were exploring the Indian Ocean, and after stopping some time at the island of Socotra, they stormed the wealthy city of Ormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. These explorations had the most important results, and Affonso de Alboquerque was glad, when the appointed time arrived for him at the close of 1509, to take over the government of India as second viceroy.

Affonso de Alboquerque was the greatest of all the Portuguese heroes who served in India, and he owes his fame not only to his feats of arms, numerous and glorious as they were, but to the wisdom and justice of his civil government, and to the fact that he was a great and a far-seeing statesman, as well as a brave warrior. Like Francisco de Almeida, he had been a favourite and an intimate friend of King John II., in whose reign he filled the Court office of Master of the Horse. He commenced his viceroyalty by making a fresh attack on Calicut, the headquarters of the Moplas. He succeeded in burning the palace of the Zamorin and wrecking the city, but the populace then arose in force and drove the Portuguese back to their ships, killing many of their leaders, including the Marshal of Portugal, Dom Fernando Coutinho. Alboquerque then proceeded to take a more important step; he soon perceived that Cochin was too far south to serve as the headquarters of either the trade or the political dominion of the Portuguese, and that it was necessary to occupy some more central spot on the Malabar coast for a capital. The place he selected was Goa, a port in the possession of the Mohammedan king of Bijápur. Thither he sailed with twenty ships and twelve hundred men; and one feat of arms, performed by Antonio de Noronha, at Panjim, at the mouth of the river Goa, where the present capital of the Portuguese possessions in India is situated, laid the city open to him. The citizens, who had been discouraged by the prophecies of a holy mendicant that they were about to be conquered by a foreign people from a distant land, surrendered at once; eight leading men gave Alboquerque the keys of the gates, and the Portuguese viceroy entered the city in triumph on February 17, 1510. But he did not hold it long, for on August 15th, Yūsuf Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, recaptured the city after fierce fighting. Alboquerque did not despair; he received reinforcements from Portugal, and on November 25th, he carried the city by storm, slaying over two thousand Mohammedans, and firmly established himself there.

But Alboquerque was not satisfied with conquering an appropriate capital for Portuguese India, he determined to make his country supreme throughout the Eastern seas. With this idea he undertook two famous expeditions to the east and to the west. The first Portuguese settlers upon the Malabar coast had been told by the native traders that spices and other produce of Asia could be obtained more cheaply further to the east, and these stories had been repeated to King Emmanuel, who determined to send an expedition to these “Spice Islands,” under the command of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. This captain reached the Malabar coast in safety, and was favourably received by the Viceroy, Francisco de Almeida, who found an experienced pilot for him, and gave him sixty well-seasoned soldiers, under the comm...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• EARLY HISTORY.
• THE COUNTY OF PORTUGAL.
• PORTUGAL BECOMES A KINGDOM. THE REIGN OF AFFONSO HENRIQUES.
• PORTUGAL ATTAINS ITS EUROPEAN LIMITS.
• THE CONSOLIDATION OF PORTUGAL.
• PORTUGAL DURING THE AGE OF EXPLORATION.
• THE PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS.
• THE HEROIC AGE OF PORTUGAL.
• THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA AND THE EASTERN SEAS.
• THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL.
• THE LAST KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF AVIZ—DOM SEBASTIAN AND THE CARDINAL HENRY.
• PORTUGUESE LITERATURE—CAMOENS.
• THE SIXTY YEARS’ CAPTIVITY.
• THE REVOLUTION OF 1640.
• THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
• PORTUGAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.
• THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION—THE PENINSULAR WAR.
• MODERN PORTUGAL. CIVIL WARS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT.