Rulers of India: Albuquerque Part 1

Rulers of India: Albuquerque.

by Henry Morse Stephens.

PREFACE

Affonso de Albuquerque was the first European since Alexander the Great who dreamed of establis.h.i.+ng an empire in India, or rather in Asia, governed from Europe. The period in which he fought and ruled in the East is one of entrancing interest and great historical importance, and deserves more attention than it has received from the English people, as the present ruling race in India. Dr. A. C.

Burnell, an authority second to none in Indian historical questions, says in his prefatory note to _A Tentative List of Books and some MSS. relating to the History of the Portuguese in India Proper_: 'In the course of twenty years' studies relating to India, I found that the history of the Portuguese had been shamefully neglected.... In attempting to get better information, I found that the true history of the Portuguese in India furnishes most important guidance for the present day, and the a.s.sertions commonly made about it are utterly false, especially in regard to the ecclesiastical history.' I purpose, therefore, to give a short list of the more important works on the history of the Portuguese in the East during the sixteenth century, while they were a conquering and a ruling power, in the hope that it may be useful to any one wis.h.i.+ng to investigate the subject further than it has been possible for me to do in this volume. I confine myself to the sixteenth century and to books on political history, as I have not the knowledge to cla.s.sify the numerous works on the history of the Roman Catholic Missions in India, which is closely bound up with the ecclesiastical history of the Portuguese in the East.

Before mentioning books of general history, I must draw attention to the _Commentaries of Albuquerque_ on which this volume is chiefly based, as indeed all biographies of the great governor must necessarily be. They were published by his son, Braz de Albuquerque, in 1557, reprinted by him in 1576, and republished in four volumes in 1774. They have been translated into English for the Hakluyt Society by Walter de Gray Birch in four volumes, 1875-1884, and from this translation the quotations in the present volume are taken. The nature and the authority of this most valuable and interesting work are best shown by quoting the first sentence of the compiler's dedication of the second edition to the King of Portugal, Dom Sebastian. 'In the lifetime of the King, Dom Joo III, your grandfather, I dedicated to Your Highness these Commentaries, which I have collected from the actual originals written by the great Affonso de Albuquerque in the midst of his adventures to the King, Dom Manoel, your great-grandfather.' The _Commentaries_ have been for three centuries the one incontestable printed authority for Albuquerque's career. But in 1884 was published the first volume of the _Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de Doc.u.mentos que as elucidam_, under the direction of the _Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa_, and edited by Raymundo Antonio de Bulho Pato. This collection includes a large number of despatches to the King, dated February, 1508; October, 1510; April, 1512; August to December, 1512; November, 1513, to January, 1514; October to December, 1514; and September to December, 1515; of which two, dated 1 April, 1512, and 4 December, 1513, are of great importance, and veritable manifestoes of policy. It contains also a more correct version of Albuquerque's last letter to the King than that given in the _Commentaries_. It is to be hoped that the many and serious _lacunae_, shown by the above dates, will be filled in the long-expected second volume of the _Cartas_.

Turning to the more general authorities on the history of the Portuguese in India in the sixteenth century, it will be well to take them in a rough cla.s.sification of their importance and authenticity.

Joo de Barros (1496-1570), for many years treasurer and factor at the India House at Lisbon, published _Asia: dos Feitos que os Portuguezes fizeram no Descobrimento e Conquista dos Mares e Terras do Oriente_. This work is a primary authority, as the writer had access to all doc.u.ments, and was the recognised historian of the events he described during his lifetime. It is written in imitation of Livy, and is divided into Decades. The first Decade was published in 1552, the second in 1555, the third in 1563, and the fourth after his death in 1615, and it carries the history down to 1539. The best edition is that in nine volumes, Lisbon, 1777-78. A German translation by Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau was published in five volumes at Brunswick, 1821, and it has been largely borrowed from by succeeding writers.

Diogo do Couto (1542-1616) was long employed in India, and had access to doc.u.ments. He continued the work of Barros in the same style. His first Decade overlaps Barros, and his history goes from 1526 to 1600.

The best edition is that published as a continuation of Barros, in fifteen volumes, Lisbon, 1778-1787.

Gaspar Correa (died at Goa between 1561 and 1583) went to India in 1514 and was Secretary to Albuquerque. His _Lendas da India_ treat the history of the Portuguese from 1497 to 1549, and was published for the first time at Lisbon, four volumes, 1858-64. His chronology throughout differs much from Barros, and a critical comparison between them is much needed. A portion of this work has been translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley, for the Hakluyt Society, under the t.i.tle of _The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and his Viceroyalty_, 1869.

Ferno Lopes de Castanheda (died 1559) travelled much in India. He published his _Historia do Descobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portuguezes_, which covers from 1497 to 1549, in 1551-1561, and is therefore anterior to Barros in date of publication.

Damio de Goes (died 1573), _Commentarius Rerum gestarum in India citra Gangem a Lusitanis_, Louvain, 1539, is a small but early work.

These are primary authorities, but the following chronicles also contain some useful information:

Damio de Goes (died 1573), _Chronica do felicissimo Rey Dom Manoel_, Lisbon, 1566, 1567.

Jeronymo Osorio (died 1580), _De Rebus Emmanuelis Regis_, Lisbon, 1571.

The historians of subsequent centuries simply use, with more or less judgment, the materials provided for them by the historians mentioned above for the sixteenth century, and with one exception are of no value. The one exception is:

Manoel de Faria e Sousa, who in his _Asia Portugueza_, three volumes, Lisbon, 1666-75, made use of good MS. materials.

The purely secondary historians, who in spite of their reputation are better left unread, are: Giovanni Pietro Maffei, _Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI_, Florence, 1588; Antonio de San Roman, _Historia General de la India Oriental_, Valladolid, 1603; Joseph Francois Lafitau, _Histoire des Decouvertes et des Conquetes des Portugais dans le Nouveau Monde_, Paris, 1733.

_Os Portuguezes em Africa, Asia, America e Oceania_, published in Lisbon in 1849, is a lively summary of the best authorities.

In modern times the scientific historical spirit has developed greatly in Portugal, under the influence of the great historian Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, and the publication of doc.u.ments has taken the place of the publication of historical summaries. Among these ranks first the _Collecco de Monumentos ineditos para a Historia das Conquistas dos Portuguezes em Africa, Asia e America_, a series of which any nation might be proud, and of which the _Cartas de Albuquerque_ already described forms a part. It is published under the superintendence of the _Academia Real das Sciencias_ of Lisbon, which also brought out, in 1868, _Subsidios para a Historia da India Portugueza_, containing three valuable early doc.u.ments, edited by Rodrigo Jose de Lima Felner. Intelligent and thoroughly scientific articles have also appeared in the Portuguese periodicals, especially in the _Annaes Maritimos_ in 1840-44, and in the _Annaes das Sciencias e Letteras_, in which was published Senhor Lopes de Mendonca's article on Dom Francisco de Almeida. Mention should also be made of two books published in India, _Contributions to the Study of Indo-Portuguese Numismatics_, by J. Gerson da Cunha, Bombay, 1880, an interesting pamphlet on a fascinating subject, and _An Historical and Archaeological Sketch of the City of Goa_, by Jose Nicolau da Fonseca, Bombay, 1878, a most carefully compiled volume.

In conclusion I must express my grat.i.tude to the editor of the series for much kindly advice and a.s.sistance, to Mr. E. J. Wade of the India Office Library, who has been my ever ready helper, and to Mr. T.

Fisher Unwin for giving the plate of the portrait of Albuquerque, which appears as a frontispiece.

H.M.S.

ALBUQUERQUE

CHAPTER I

THE PREDECESSORS OF ALBUQUERQUE

The period of the growth and domination of the Portuguese power in India is marked by many deeds of bloodshed and by many feats of heroism; it is ill.u.s.trated by many great names, among which the greatest without doubt is that of Affonso de Albuquerque. But the general and administrator, to whom his countrymen have given the well-deserved t.i.tle of _The Great_, was only one of many famous heroes, and it is impossible to understand the greatness of his conceptions and of his deeds without having some idea of the general history of the Portuguese in India.

The importance to Europe of the successful establishment of the Portuguese in the East was manifested in two widely different directions. On the one hand, it checked the rapid advance of {16} Muhammadanism as represented by the Turks. In the sixteenth century the advance of the Turks was still a terror to Europe; Popes still found it necessary to preach the necessity of a new Crusade; the kings of Christendom occasionally forgot their own feuds to unite against the common enemy of the Christian religion; and the Turks were then a progressive and a conquering and not, as they are now, a decaying power. It was at this epoch of advancing Muhammadanism that the Portuguese struck a great blow at Moslem influence in Asia which tended to check its progress in Europe.

Of equal importance to this great service to the cause of humanity was the fact that the Portuguese by establis.h.i.+ng themselves in Asia introduced Western ideas into the Eastern world, and paved the way for that close connection which now subsists between the nations of the East and of the West. That connection was in its origin commercial, but other results have followed, and the influence of Asia upon Europe and of Europe upon Asia has extended indefinitely into all departments of human knowledge and of human endeavour.

A wide contrast must be drawn between the Portuguese connection with Asia and between the English and Spanish connection with America. In the latter case the exploring and conquering Europeans had to deal with savage tribes, and in many instances with an uncultivated country; in the former the Portuguese found themselves confronted with a {17} civilisation older than that of Europe, with men more highly educated and more deeply learned than their own priests and men of letters, and with religions and customs and inst.i.tutions whose wisdom equalled their antiquity.

The India which was reached by Vasco da Gama, and with which the Portuguese monopolised the direct communication for more than a century, was very different to the India with which the Dutch and English merchants sought concessions to trade. The power of the Muhammadans in India was not yet concentrated in the hands of the great Mughals; there were Moslem kingdoms in the North of India and in the Deccan, but the South had not yet felt the heavy hand of Musalman conquerors, and the Hindu Raja of Vijayanagar or Narsingha was the most powerful potentate in the South of India. The monarchs and chieftains whom the Portuguese first encountered were Hindus.

Muhammadan merchants indeed controlled the commerce of their dominions, but they had no share in the government; and one of the ruling and military cla.s.ses consisted, on the Malabar coast, where the Portuguese first touched, of Nestorian Christians.

The concentration of all commerce in the hands of the believers in the Prophet was not favourably regarded by the wisest of the Hindu rulers, who were therefore inclined to heartily welcome any compet.i.tors for their trade. The condition of the Malabar coast at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese was {18} particularly favourable to the Portuguese endeavours, and, had they been inspired with nineteenth-century instead of with sixteenth-century ideas of religion and morality, a prosperous and peaceful commerce might easily have sprung up between the East and the West.

But if the India which Vasco da Gama reached was favourably inclined to open relations with the nation to which he belonged, Portugal was also at that time singularly well fitted by circ.u.mstances to send forth men of daring and enterprise to undertake the task. The Portuguese nation had grown strong and warlike from its constant conflict with the Moors in the Peninsula, and the country attained its European limits in 1263. Since that time it had become both rich and populous, and a succession of internal troubles had led to the establishment of a famous dynasty upon the throne of Portugal.

King John I, the founder of the house of Aviz, and surnamed _The Great_, had won his throne by preserving the independence of the Portuguese nation against the power of Castile, with the help of the English, and rested his foreign policy upon a close friends.h.i.+p with the English nation. He married an English princess, a daughter of John of Gaunt, and by her became the father of five sons, whose valour and talents were famous throughout Europe. There being no more Moors to fight in the Peninsula, the Portuguese, led by their gallant princes, went to fight Moors in Morocco. The duty of fighting Moors had {18} from their history sunk deep into the hearts of the Portuguese people. Their history had been one long struggle with Muhammadans, and the Christian religion had therefore taken with them a fiercer and more warlike complexion than in any other country. This feeling was fostered by King Affonso V, the grandson of John the Great, who ruled in Portugal from 1438 to 1481, and who, from his many expeditions to Morocco, obtained the surname of _The African_.

His perpetual wars both with the Spaniards and the Moors continued to keep the Portuguese a nation of soldiers; and when the conquest of the East demanded the services of daring men, there was never any lack of soldiers to go upon the most distant expeditions. It was fortunate for the great enterprises of Vasco da Gama and of Affonso de Albuquerque that they had no difficulty in obtaining plenty of brave and experienced warriors; but it is to be deplored that these soldiers were possessed by a spirit of fanaticism against the religion of Islam which stained their victories with cruel deeds.

Such fanaticism is indeed deplorable, but considering the past history of the Portuguese nation and the century in which they performed their great feats of arms it was not unnatural.

Commerce with the East sprang up in Europe with civilisation. As soon as any nation became rich it began to desire luxuries which could not be procured at home. The Romans in the days of their greatness knew of the products of Asia, and attained them at a {20} great price.

Throughout the Middle Ages the commodities of Asia were known and valued, and as civilisation progressed and Europe emerged from barbarism the demand for pepper and ginger, for spices and silks and brocades increased.

The original trade routes for the products of India were overland.

The goods were borne in caravans from the North-West frontier of India across Persia to Aleppo and thence by s.h.i.+p to Italy and to whatever other country was rich enough to purchase them. But after the growth of Muhammadanism and of the power of the Turks, the caravan routes across Central Asia became unsafe. Two new routes then came into use, the one by the Persian Gulf, and the other by the Red Sea. Goods which went by the Persian Gulf were carried overland to Aleppo and other ports in the Levant; goods that went by the Red Sea were carried across Egypt from Suez to Alexandria. From these two entrepots of Eastern and especially of Indian trade the articles of commerce were fetched by Venetian s.h.i.+ps, and from Venice were distributed throughout Europe.

In the days of the Renaissance the products of the East pa.s.sed through the hands of Muhammadan merchants from India to the Mediterranean, and the large profits they made were commensurate with the risks they undertook. With the rapid growth of civilisation the value of this trade became enormous: every city through which it pa.s.sed was enriched; Venice became the wealthiest State in Europe; and the cost {21} of all Indian luxuries and spices was extravagantly high.

All wise kings envied the prosperity of Venice, and schemed to secure a share of the Eastern trade for their subjects. Mention has been made of the five ill.u.s.trious princes, the sons of John the Great and Eleanor of Lancaster. One of them is known in history as Prince Henry the Navigator. This prince devoted his life to the discovery of a direct sea route from Portugal to India. He established himself on the promontory of Sines, and collected around him the most learned geographers and mathematicians of the age. With them he discussed the probability of its being possible to sail round the continent of Africa and thus reach India. Year after year he sent forth expeditions to explore the African coast. Many and important discoveries were made by his navigators, and a generation of skilful pilots and adventurous sailors was formed by his wise encouragement.

Among the earliest discoveries by the sailors of Prince Henry were the islands of Madeira and the Azores, and at the time of his death, in 1460, the Portuguese navigators had learned the way past the River Senegal. What Prince Henry the Navigator began was continued by the enterprise of the Portuguese merchants. These men were not actuated by the high aims of Prince Henry; they were rather inclined to mock at his belief in the existence of a direct sea route to India. But with his discoveries along the African coast began the slave trade.

It was found {22} to be excessively profitable to import negroes from the Guinea coast, and the Portuguese captains and pilots soon mastered the difficulties of the navigation of the North-West shoulder of Africa from the frequent voyages which they made in search of slaves.

In 1481 King John II succeeded his father Affonso V upon the throne of Portugal. He was one of the wisest monarchs of his age, and was surnamed by his people John 'the Perfect.' By his internal policy he, like his contemporaries Louis XI of France and Henry VII of England, broke the power of his n.o.bility. His people aided him, for they were wearied of the pressure of feudalism, and he concentrated the whole power of the realm in his own hands. He took up the projects which had been left untouched since the death of his great-uncle, Prince Henry the Navigator. The dream of his life was to find the direct sea route to India. To achieve this end he collected at his Court all the learned men he could attract; he improved the methods of s.h.i.+pbuilding, and began to build full-decked s.h.i.+ps of 100 tons; he did much to perfect the knowledge of navigation; and exploration became his favourite hobby.

John II dismissed Columbus as a visionary, and thus left it to Spain to acquire the fame and the profit of discovering the new world of America. But he was diligent in making enquiries, with regard to the East. He sent two of his equerries, Joo Peres de Covilho and Affonso de Paiva, overland to India, and the former of these two travellers accompanied the {23} caravans to the East and visited the Malabar coast. He was refused a pa.s.sage from Calicut to Africa by the jealous Muhammadan merchants, but he managed to find his way through Arabia to Abyssinia, where he died. More important than these overland expeditions were those which John II sent on the tracks of Prince Henry's sailors along the African coast. One of his captains, Diogo Co or Cam, discovered the Congo in 1484, and in 1486 Bartholomeu Dias and Joo Infante for the first time doubled the Cape of Good Hope and reached Algoa Bay. John II, like Prince Henry, was fated not to see the fulfilment of his dearest hopes; but he it was who designed the expedition which, under the command of Vasco da Gama, reached India, and who trained the great captains and governors who were to make ill.u.s.trious with their valour the name of the Portuguese in Asiatic seas.

It was in the month of July, 1497, that a fleet of three s.h.i.+ps was placed under the command of Vasco da Gama to follow the route taken by Bartholomeu Dias and find the way to India. Vasco da Gama was the third son of Estevo da Gama, who is said to have been the captain nominated by John II for the command of the expedition. Other accounts give to King Emmanuel, the successor of John II, the credit of choosing the successful admiral. Whoever selected him made a wise choice, for Vasco da Gama showed himself during his eventful voyage possessed of the highest qualities of constancy and daring. The two s.h.i.+ps which sailed under his command, in addition to {24} his own, were placed under his elder brother Paulo da Gama and his intimate friend Nicolas Coelho, who proved themselves worthy of their chief.

The fleet, of which the crews did not number more than 160 men, nor the tonnage of any s.h.i.+p more than 120 tons, experienced terrific storms in doubling the Cape of Good Hope, but eventually Vasco da Gama struck the South-East coast of Africa. He met with opposition from the rulers of Mozambique and Quiloa (Kilwa), where he first touched, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he suppressed an incipient mutiny among his sailors.

In April, 1498, he reached Melinda, a port situated 200 miles to the north of Zanzibar, where he was kindly received by the ruling chief.

The pa.s.sage across the Indian Ocean was well known to the navigators of the South-East coast of Africa, for there was a considerable amount of trade conducted between the two localities which was almost entirely controlled by Muhammadans. At Melinda, Vasco da Gama was able to obtain experienced pilots, and after a stay there of one month according to most authorities, and of three months according to Correa, Vasco da Gama pursued his way to India.