Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T22:30:42.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indigenous Assistance in the Establishment of Portuguese Power in Asia in the Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

G. V. Scammell
G. V. Scammell
Affiliation:
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The rapid expansion of European power throughout much of the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a matter of wonder at the time, just as its causes have remained a subject of contention ever since. To pious contemporaries it was simply the natural triumph of the True Faith over pagan and infidel. Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, wrote of his ‘just war’ against the tyrant Aztec emperor and his people addicted to unspeakable practices. Freedom to navigate the Indian Ocean, maintained João de Barros, the chronicler of Portuguese triumphs, was properly denied by his compatriots to those ignorant of Christianity and Roman Law. More recently, subtler explanations have come into fashion. The penetration by Portugal (with about 1,500,000 inhabitants) of the maritime economy of Asia (sustaining populations of millions), and the destruction by Castile (with a population of about 7,500,000) of the Aztec empire, some 27,000,000 strong, were the victories of superior morale. Europeans, with their will to win, overcame the adherents of stoic, passive and pessimistic religions, or, as M. Chaunu unkindly puts it, quality triumphed over quantity.3 Equally all-embracing is the thesis that meat-eating Iberian warriors had a natural advantage over the troops of civilizations whose grain-based diets were deficient in protein, or that Europeans, with their superior technology-their firearms and their sailing ships mounting artillery— were the predestined winners in any conflict with the less technologically advanced.4 The aim of this paper is to suggest that such arguments have little to commend them, and that European success very largely came from the adept exploitation of conflicts and divisions in indigenous societies, and from the securing of indigenous aid. Such behaviour reflects the pragmatic approach of European commanders in the field, typified by Afonso de Albuquerque, the captor of Goa–future capital of the Estado da India–who there pressed into service all from local dancing girls and musicians to war elephants and mercenaries.5 But such proceedings also reflect the attitudes of an age highly conscious, through resurgent knowledge of the classics, of the virtues of statecraft, just as they reflect, of course, the willingness of some elements in non- European societies to come to terms, for a variety of reasons, with alien intruders.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Straub, Eberhard, Das Justum Bellum des Hernán Cortés in Mexico (Cologne, 1976) pp. 53–4.Google Scholar

2 See the discussion in Pearson, N. M., Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat (California University Press, 1976), pp. 40ff.Google Scholar

3 Chaunu, H. and Chaunu, P., Séville et l'Atlantique, 1504–1650, 8 vols (Paris, 1955–1959), VIII (I), 149ff.Google Scholar

4 Cipolla, Carlo M., Guns and Sails in the Early Phase of European Expansion, 1400–1700 (London, 1965).Google Scholar But cf. Scammell, G. V., ‘Ships and Shipping in Early Modern Europe’, The Historical Journal, XI, 2 (1968), 372ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Correia, Gaspar, Lendas da India, ed. Felner, R. J. L., 4 vols (Lisbon, 1858–1864), II 363;Google Scholar and cf. the writs of payment in de Bragança Pereira, A. B., A (rquivo) P(or tuguês) O (riental, Nova Edição), II vols (Bastora-Goa, 1936–1940), 4 (i.i.).Google Scholar

6 Castillo, Bernal Diaz del, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, ed. and trans. Maudsley, A. P., 5 vols (Hakluyt Society, London, 1908), passim.Google Scholar

7 Cartas (de Afonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de documentos que as elucidam, 7 vols (Lisbon 1884–1935)).Google Scholar

8 de Barros, João, Décadas da Asia, 8 vols (Lisbon, 1778–1788), Dec II, bk 5, caps 3 and 5.Google Scholar

9 Powell, P. W., Soldiers, Indians and Silver (California University Press, 1952);Google ScholarJara, A., Guerre et Société au Chili (Paris, 1961).Google Scholar

10 Barros, , Dec I, bk 7, cap. 2Google Scholar

11 Pagden, A. R. (ed. and trans.), Hern´n Cortés, Letters from Mexico (New York, 1971), p. 156.Google Scholar

12 Barros, , Dec II, bk 5, cap. 3Google Scholar

13 APO 4 (i.i.), pp. 293, 306.Google Scholar

14 de Castanheda, Fernão Lopes, Historia do Descobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portugueses, ed. de Azevedo, P. and Coelho, F. M. L., 9 vols (Coimbra, 1924–1933), bk I, cap. liii, p. 113.Google Scholar

15 APO, 4 (i.i), no. 43;Google ScholarAlbuquerque, , Cartas, 1, 174;Google ScholarHakluyt, Richard, The Principal Navigations, Maclehose, edition, 12 vols (Glasgow, 1903–1905), V, 500.Google Scholar

16 Purchas, Samuel, Hakluyt Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, Maclehose, edition, 20 vols (Glasgow, 1905–1907), IV, 153.Google Scholar

17 Castanheda, , Historia, bk I, cap. lxii, p. 128;Google ScholarCorreia, , Lendas, sub anno 1539.Google Scholar

18 do Couto, Diogo, Décadas da Asia, 15 vols (Lisbon, 1778–1788), Dec IV, bk 7, cap. 2.Google Scholar

19 See Hemming, John, The Conquest of the Incas (London, 1970), pp. 95, 112ff.Google Scholar

20 Barros, , Dec II, bk 5, cap. 5.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., cap. 10.

22 Albuquerque, , Cartas, letter dated 22.12.1510.Google Scholar

23 Barros, , Dec II, bk 5, cap. 9.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., cap. 10.

25 Ibid., cap. 5; Studia, 8 (1961), 173.Google Scholar

26 Albuquerque, , Cartas, letter dated 22.12.1510.Google Scholar

27 APO, 4 (i.i.), pp. 328ff.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., pp. 355, 357.

29 Hakluyt, , IX, 56.Google Scholar

30 Cortés, , Letters, p. 70.Google Scholar

31 Hemming, , Conquest, pp. 242, 426–7, 611.Google Scholar

32 Cortés, , Letters, pp. 62, 262.Google Scholar

33 Hemming, , Conquest, pp. 217, 226.Google Scholar

34 Cortés, , Letters, p. 248.Google Scholar

35 APO, 4 (i.i.), p. 316.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., pp. 542, 819.

37 Ibid., p. 76.

38 Ibid., nos 80, 226.

39 Ibid., no. 252 and pp. 549ff; Studia, 29 1970, 145ff;Google ScholarPearson, N. M. in Mare Luso-Indicum, II (Paris, 1973), 64ff.Google Scholar

40 APO, 4 (i.i), no. 54.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., writs for the period 1511–13, and nos 105, 126.

42 Ibid., nos III, 119, 120.

43 Correia, , Lendas, II, 79, 363;Google ScholarAPO, 4 (i.i), nos 189, 200, 259, 267, 269.Google Scholar

44 Rau, Virginia, Carta de D. Manuel I āo Rei de Aragāo, Fernando, sobre a Tomada de Goa (Lisbon, 1968), pp. 42–3 and notes assembles much useful information.Google Scholar

45 I am particularly indebted here to Pissurlencar, P., Agentes da Diplomacia Portuguesa na India (Goa, 1952) and to the unpublished findings of Dr P. J. Bury.Google Scholar

46 APO, 4 (i.i), p. 865;Google ScholarBarros, , Dec II, bk 5, cap. 4.Google Scholar

47 Rau, , Carta de D. Manuel; APO, 4 (i.i.), nos 138, 209;Google ScholarPissurlencar, , Agentes da Diplomacia p. 4, n. 1.Google Scholar

48 APO, 4 (i.i.), nos 105, 123, 125, 200.Google Scholar

49 Pissurlencar, , Agentes de Diplomacia, 12;Google ScholarCouto, do, Asia, Dec V, bk 7, cap. 4;Google ScholarCorreia, , Lendas, sub anno 1539;Google ScholarMacgregor, I. A., ‘The Portuguese in Malaya’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 28, 2 (1955), p. 25. n. 80;Google ScholarBoxer, C. R., The Christian Century in Japan, 1549—1650 (California University Press, 1951), p. 297.Google Scholar

50 Boxer, C. R., Salvador da S´ and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola, 1602–1680 (London, 1952), p. 228.Google Scholar

51 Hakluyt, , Xl, 224.Google Scholar

52 APO, 4 (i.i.), no 257 (1514).Google Scholar

53 Ibid., nos 220, 252 and p. 304; ibid., p. cxxxii; Correia, , Lendas, II, 246.Google Scholar

54 APO, 4 (i.i.), p. 539.Google Scholar

55 Scammell, G. V., ‘The New Worlds and Europe in the Sixteenth Century’, The Historical Journal, XII, 3 (1969), 389–412, esp. pp. 397–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar