THE ESTADO DA ÍNDIA

The Portuguese crown's possessions in maritime Asia and East Africa were called collectively the Estado da Índia – the State of India. This expression began to appear regularly in Portuguese documents from about the mid-sixteenth century. In a strict legal sense it meant all the cities, fortresses and territories listed in the deed of transfer given to each incoming viceroy or governor at his ceremonial induction. However, there were also numerous Portuguese settlements not listed because they were unofficial – they had been established informally by private initiative. Some such settlements were eventually elevated to formal status, given an official captain, granted a câmara (town council) and brought under crown protection. Their names would then duly appear on the next deed of transfer. The most important of these was Macau, which became an official settlement only in the early seventeenth century.

The expression Estado da Índia was also sometimes used in a much broader sense, as though it embraced all the coasts, islands and waters east of the Cape where the Portuguese crown maintained a presence or claimed a vague theoretical lordship. One early-seventeenth-century writer described this Portuguese ‘state’ as extending all the way from the southern tip of Africa to the lower Yangste river. But this chapter is concerned with the Estado da Índia in its restricted sense – with formal, officially-acknowledged Portuguese possessions only. Informal Portuguese settlements and interests are discussed in the next chapter.