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June 15 - September 18, 2018
In the Indian Ocean, the monsoon dictated the rhythm of everything: when ships could sail, when wars could be fought, when the spice fleets could arrive and when they must depart—missing a critical moment could cost months. Opponents of the Portuguese quickly worked out that an enemy dependent on sea power was vulnerable once storms came. They timed their attacks accordingly. During April, the weather started to worsen.
The Egyptians had their spies in Chaul, and they were infinitely better informed than the Portuguese languishing there in the heat. They knew how small Lourenço’s force was. He had three small carracks, three caravels, and two galleys—about five hundred men in all. Hussain’s aim was to fall on them suddenly and wipe them out, then tackle the Portuguese caravels blockading Calicut and cut off the forts at Cochin and Cannanore before the monsoon. He now called on the support of Ayaz. There was no alternative but a show of enthusiasm from Diu’s governor. With the addition of his small fleet,
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If Lourenço would allow the carracks to be positioned where he indicated, all his men could disembark and his gun crews could sink the entire fleet by nightfall, “and if not…you may order my hands to be cut off.”
Glory came from individual courage, hand-to-hand fighting, and the winning of booty.
The wind shifted, then died. The ship was drifting on the current; forward momentum was sufficient to bring the São Miguel in to grapple with the enemy flagship, with the São António following behind, but Hussain, seeing the moment, managed to effect an extraordinary maneuver. By slackening the forward anchor cables and hauling in the stern cables tied to the bank, his sailors managed to pull the ships back to the shore—out of the path of the oncoming attack. The rudder of the São Miguel was unable to correct its course. It began to drift past its target.
Men died where they stood, or threw themselves overboard, or fled to the adjoining galleys along the connecting gangplanks. As each vessel was swept clean, the Portuguese pursued the fleeing enemy, hammering up the gangplanks after them. Those who leaped into the sea were hunted by other Portuguese in rowboats; then their route to the shore was cut off by one of the caravels. Boxed in, like tuna in a fish trap, they were mercilessly harpooned from the boats. It was a massacre.
Ayaz had to surrender all the Rumes he was sheltering in the city to a variety of ghastly fates. The governor smoothly acquiesced. Some had their hands and feet chopped off and were burned alive in a great pyre; others were tied to the mouths of cannons and blasted to pieces or put shackled into captured vessels that were sunk by gunfire. Some were compelled to kill each other. The city gates were decorated with bloody rosaries of dismembered body parts “because through these gates the Muslims who had killed his son had gone in and out.”
If the outcome of Diu was perhaps inevitable, its consequences were profound. It destroyed once and for all the credibility of the Mamluk sultans and Muslim hopes that the Portuguese could be swept from the sea. The Franks were in the Indian Ocean to stay.
A fortune-teller had predicted that Almeida would not pass the Cape alive; at sea he spent the days composing his will. He left alms to prisoners, a large diamond to the king, money for his servants, and freedom for his slaves.
IF ALBUQUERQUE THOUGHT THAT the departure of Almeida would at last free him to fulfill his duties as governor of India, he was mistaken.
“IF ALBUQUERQUE THOUGHT THAT the departure of Almeida would at last free him to fulfill his duties as governor of India, he was mistaken. Dom Fernando Coutinho might have been a relative, but he was also marshal of Portugal, the highest-ranking official yet to visit the Indies, an important personage at the royal court and much in favor there. He now laid before Albuquerque trumping orders from the king, namely to destroy Calicut, still a thorn in the side of the Portuguese and a continuous prick to royal pride. Coutinho had come with a large fleet and the authorization to act independently of the governor, who was requested to help.”
And he threw in the rallying call to all the captains present that might serve both for the most magnificent moments of Portuguese courage and for its most disastrous military misjudgments, namely that “the best thing in all the world, after the love of God, was honor.” “Honor”: a word that rang down through all the decades of Portuguese conquest, resistance, and defeat.
On the last day of December 1509, the fleet sailed—some twenty ships and sixteen hundred men, as well as twenty small boats from Cochin, carrying sailors familiar with the sea conditions at Calicut to help with disembarkation.
“There was seldom any element of surprise possible in military operations along the Malabar Coast. The samudri quickly got wind of the large fleet at Cochin and guessed its intentions. He sent an ambassador to sue for peace on the best terms he could. Whatever sympathy Albuquerque had for the overture—and he had good reason to trust this particular visitor—he had frankly to admit that the man had come too late. The ambassador was too frightened to return to Calicut with bad news. He elected to remain with the Portuguese. On the last day of December 1509, the fleet sailed—some twenty ships and sixteen hundred men, as well as twenty small boats from Cochin, carrying sailors familiar with the sea conditions at Calicut to help with disembarkation.”
Coutinho was oblivious, obsessed by the unyielding door. His only message back to Albuquerque was that “he came without him and would return without him.” Albuquerque set guards on the outer gate to prevent further men being lured into a death trap.
Pushed back, they fought a gallant rearguard action: Vasco da Silva with his two-handed sword and a host of others went down in a roll call of honor as men “who all performed valiant deeds, and who fought until they could no longer lift their arms and they all died, and their heads were hoisted aloft with the royal flag.”
Finally Diogo Fernandes and Dom António embarked simultaneously, to preserve their precious honor.
As for Albuquerque, he would never fully regain the use of his left arm, but he honored the miracle of his survival. The bullet that had felled him was retrieved by a servant and sent with a sum of money to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Algarve; the bullet was laid before her image and the money paid for a lamp that “might burn forever” there.
There was one bright spot for the governor in all this. He inherited all but three of the marshal’s ships, which returned to Portugal.
“There was one bright spot for the governor in all this. He inherited all but three of the marshal’s ships, which returned to Portugal. It provided him now with a substantial fleet to deploy as he wished—and he had plans to do so. He spent the next day writing to the king about everything that had happened recently, without a word about the Calicut fiasco. The men returning to Portugal could explain that. His silence was eloquent. Calicut itself remained a problem to be solved. Three years later, he would find a solution to the samudri; it would be far simpler, and almost bloodless, but without honor or glory. Meanwhile, he pondered the lessons of the disastrous collapse of discipline, in which the emphasis on individual bravery outweighed tactical organization, and how the hunger for booty, which was the compensation for continual late pay, could reduce an army to a rabble that might break and run.”
The city of Goa, situated on a fertile island between two rivers, was the most strategically positioned trading post on the west coast of India.
“The city of Goa, situated on a fertile island between two rivers, was the most strategically positioned trading post on the west coast of India. It lay on the fault line between two rival empires competing for the heart of the southern subcontinent: to the north, the Muslim kingdom of Bijapur; to the south its rivals, the Hindu rajas of Vijayanagar. Goa was fiercely contested between these two dynasties. It had changed hands three times in the past thirty years. Its particular value, and its wealth, derived from its role in the horse trade. From Ormuz it imported animals from Persia and Arabia, indispensable to both sides in their frontier wars. In the tropical climate, horses quickly succumbed and did not breed successfully, so stocks required continual replenishment. Goa had other advantages. It had an excellent deep-water port sheltered from the monsoon winds. The area was extremely fertile, and the island on which the city itself was located, Tiswadi or Goa Island, allowed all goods coming in and out to be efficiently taxed at customs points. As an island, it also suggested the possibilities for effective defense.”
After a short, sharp fight, the defense collapsed and its captain retreated into the town. Meanwhile, Timoji had infiltrated the city. Two representatives came out to meet the armada and offered peaceful surrender. Albuquerque sent a message to the populace, granting complete religious tolerance for both resident Muslims and Hindus and a lowering of taxes. His only condition was that the Rumes and Adil Shah’s mercenary garrison should be expelled. They took chaotic flight out of the city.
From the moment he set foot on the island, Albuquerque considered Goa to be a permanent possession of Portugal.
Failure to leave soon would mean being trapped by the rains and forced to sit out a long season, possibly under siege. It was already evident that the favored tactic of Portugal’s enemies was to wait until the heavy rain and rough seas isolated their forces from outside help. Albuquerque was not to be shaken. Goa was Portuguese and would remain so.
Albuquerque knew that Adil Shah did not want to be detained in Goa indefinitely. He had other threats and obligations throughout his kingdom. The Portuguese leader was counting on the shah cracking first.
Adil had presumed that he could starve the Portuguese into submission, but the attack on Pangim dented his pride. It was now necessary to go on the offensive.
“Adil had presumed that he could starve the Portuguese into submission, but the attack on Pangim dented his pride. It was now necessary to go on the offensive. In Goa harbor he ordered the secret preparation of a large number of incendiary rafts to destroy the fleet. Yet it proved impossible to hide these activities. The indispensable Timoji was always able to put spies ashore to seek information. Albuquerque decided to launch his own preemptive counterstrike, using light cannons in the boats. The surprise raid was entirely successful, despite resistance. The rafts were simply blown apart by the destructive power of Portuguese gunnery.”
The only bright spot for Albuquerque was the news that Adil’s truce with Vijayanagar was over: the shah was needed elsewhere.
They had been trapped in the Mandovi River for seventy-seven days of rain, hunger, and bombardment. Endurance and survival were almost a victory. For Albuquerque, however, it was unfinished business. As with Ormuz, he vowed to return to Goa and win. The speed with which he did so was astonishing.
IN THEIR FIRST DECADE in the Indian Ocean, time, for the Portuguese, moved both fast and slowly. The process of communication between Lisbon and India was certainly torturous—at least a year and a half for a royal order to receive a reply—and yet, the learning curve had been extraordinary: the collation of geographical, cultural, and linguistic knowledge, the drawing of maps and the nuancing of political understanding had been so rapid that from the perspective of 1510, the first coming of Vasco da Gama seemed almost like a legend.
If strangling Muslim trade in the Red Sea was the ultimate goal, Malacca, “the center and terminus of all the rich merchandise and trades,” was a critical and connected part. It was “the source of all the spices, drugs and riches of the whole world…the route by which more pepper came to Mecca than via Calicut.” Its capture would throttle Cairo, Alexandria, and Venice and hinder the spread of Islam: “whoever is lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice,” in the words of Tomé Pires.
On August 10, 1511, on an incoming tide, which they hoped would dislodge the castellated junk from its sandbank and float it even closer to the strategic bridge, the Portuguese prepared to conquer a city of 120,000 people with some thousand men and two hundred Malabars.
“On August 10, 1511, on an incoming tide, which they hoped would dislodge the castellated junk from its sandbank and float it even closer to the strategic bridge, the Portuguese prepared to conquer a city of 120,000 people with some thousand men and two hundred Malabars. It was probably the most disciplined, carefully planned military venture they had yet undertaken. Albuquerque was haunted by the lessons of Calicut and the ghost of Coutinho—the fear that, if they broke the barricades at the sea and took the bridge, the dream of imagined treasure would lure the men feverishly forward into the tangled lanes of an unknown city, where, weighted down with plate armor and exhausted by the stifling heat, they could be picked off and massacred.”
The capture of Malacca, with its huge population, by a few hundred Portuguese in leaky ships had been an extraordinary coup, a risky feat of breathtaking daring and outrageous self-belief, undertaken against vastly superior numbers armed with their own gunpowder weapons.
Where the nobles wished to wield their enormous two-handed swords in heroic single combat, winning booty and polishing their reputations, the governor wanted to deploy organized bodies of men in coherent tactics.
The Muslims were safely evacuated without being harmed. Albuquerque kept his word with the renegades, too: their lives were spared—just. For three days they sat in the stocks being jeered at, pelted with mud, having their beards plucked out. On the second day they had their noses and ears cut off; on the third, their right hands and their left thumbs. Then their wounds were dressed. Many died; those who survived “bore their sufferings with much patience,” saying that “their grievous sin deserved an even greater punishment.”
Albuquerque himself was the first European since Alexander the Great to establish an imperial presence in Asia.
In Goa in the winter of 1513, Manuel’s executive officer, Afonso de Albuquerque, was preparing the final encirclement of the Indian Ocean: entry into the Red Sea.
The Red Sea, a fourteen-hundred-mile gash in the desert separating Arabia from the African continent, was inhospitable terrain.
“The Red Sea, a fourteen-hundred-mile gash in the desert separating Arabia from the African continent, was inhospitable terrain. Shallow, lacking in sources of fresh water, made treacherous to navigation by its low-lying islands and hidden shoals, blasted by desert winds and subject to the meteorological rhythms of the Indian Ocean, whose rain failed before its mouth, it could be entered only at certain seasons. It was impossible to sail without local pilots, who would have to be captured or coerced. The Bab el Mandeb strait, the “Gates of Woe,” formed the half-open jaws of a potential trap—a suffocating furnace where men might dream of water in vain. Once inside, the Portuguese would be entering the ancient heartlands of the Islamic world. From there it was 650 sea miles to Jeddah, 1,350 to Suez; tracks across the desert from Suez reached Cairo in three days; from Jeddah to Medina, where the body of the Prophet lay, in nine. The men of the Iberian Peninsula felt they were sailing toward the temple of the Antichrist. They were spurred on by centuries of crusading zeal.”
Enough for us to know that the hidden half of the globe is brought to light, and the Portuguese go farther and farther beyond the equator. Thus shores unknown will soon become accessible, for one in emulation of another sets forth in labors and mighty perils. —PETER MARTYR D’ANGHIERA (1493)
When Dawit was killed fighting in 1540, it was a heroic expedition of four hundred Portuguese volunteers that saved Christian Ethiopia.
“When the news of Prester John reached Manuel, the following spring, he fired off a letter of rejoicing to the pope. In June 1521, the king publicly declared that the destruction of Mecca and the recapture of Jerusalem were in sight. Yet the truth was otherwise. Manuel was as yet unaware that, impressive as Dawit II was in person, he was not the all-conquering king whose golden image had embossed medieval maps. Up close, it was obvious that the Ethiopians were in no position militarily or economically to launch any attack on the Islamic world; on the contrary, they were hemmed in by Muslim enemies. When Dawit was killed fighting in 1540, it was a heroic expedition of four hundred Portuguese volunteers that saved Christian Ethiopia. Like the gradual revelation of the face of the real Prester, the first century of Portuguese discoveries saw a successive stripping away of layers of medieval mythology about the world and the received wisdom of ancient authority—the tales of dog-headed men and birds that could swallow elephants—by the empirical observation of geography, climate, natural history, and cultures that ushered in the early modern age.”
Manuel died in December 1521. Though no one knew it at the time, his crusading plans had first faltered years back with Albuquerque’s failure at the walls of Aden, the ladders cracking like fatal pistol shots, then with the governor’s dismissal and death. He was replaced, in turn, by three fumbling and timid men, none blessed with his strategic nous.
Though its supremacy lasted little more than a century, Portugal’s achievement was to create the prototype for new and flexible forms of empire, based on mobile sea power, and the paradigm for European expansion. Where it led, the Dutch and the English followed.
In Belém today, close to Vasco da Gama’s tomb, the statue of gruff Albuquerque, and the shore from which the Portuguese sailed away, there is a venerable pâtisserie and café, the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém. It is perhaps a shrine to the more benign influences of Portugal’s global adventure. People flock here to eat its specialty, the pastéis de Belém, sweet custard tarts, baked golden brown and sprinkled with cinnamon, accompanied by hits of coffee, black as tar. Cinnamon, sugar, coffee: the tastes of the world first landed here in sailing ships.
