II.

First Empire: Africa and the East (1415-1665)

The original impulse for Portuguese overseas expansion would seem to have been to carry the crusade against the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula into North Africa—hence the capture of Ceuta in 1415 and Tangier in 1471. To the religious motive, including the quest for the legendary Christian kingdom of Prester John, were soon added the urge to explore (which gave the Portuguese a major role in European geographical exploration), the search for gold and spices, and the acquisition of slaves. Portuguese influence spread with the voyages of discovery down the western coast of Africa, with Cape Bojador in the Western Sahara coast rounded by Gil Eanes in 1434; the creation of a trading centre on Arguim Island (c.1448) for the Guinea trade; the establishment on the Gold Coast of São Jorge da Mina (1482) for the exploitation of the commerce in gold, ivory, and slaves; the alliance with the Kongo Empire (from 1490); and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488. With the voyage of Vasco da Gama to Kozhikode (Calicut) (reached in 1498), the Portuguese presence was also felt along the eastern coast of Africa and in India.

The objective of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean was to monopolize the trade in spices, which the Arabs, who sold them on to the Venetians, then controlled. Maritime superiority in this vast area was assured with victory over an Egyptian-Gujarati fleet off Diu (near Goa) in 1509. Often playing off Hindu rulers against Muslim, the Portuguese set up forts and trading posts in Cannanore, Cochin, and Goa in the first decade of the 16th century. They sought to secure their dominance by subduing Hormuz (at the entrance to the Persian Gulf) and Socotra (near the entrance to the Red Sea) in 1507; and, in East Africa, by building forts at Kilwa (1505), Mozambique Island (1507), and Mombasa (1593). Their commercial empire extended eastward to Melaka in the kingdom of Malacca (taken in 1511) for the China and South East Asia trades, Sri Lanka (Colombo taken 1518), Ternate in the Moluccas (1521), Macassar (modern Ujung Pandang) in Celebes (1545), Timor (reached in 1511), and Macau, where the Portuguese were allowed to set up a trading centre in 1557. This network of trading and naval bases gave the Portuguese control of the valuable Eastern trades in pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, precious stones, silk, and porcelain. Their trade reached out into China and Japan, as did missionary activity, of which the Portuguese had been given the monopoly by the papacy in 1455 (confirmed in 1514).

Portugal’s Afro-Oriental empire was essentially maritime and commercial, being confined to coastal regions. Trade was administered by the Portuguese Crown’s India Office (Casa da Índia). Settlement, which had begun with the colonization of the uninhabited Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira islands in the 15th century, where territory was granted by the Crown to captains-donatory and municipalities were created, was notable only in the Cape Verde Islands (from the 1460s), São Tomé and Príncipe, and Goa. In the former, the Crown took back control through governors in the early 16th century, the better to benefit from the transatlantic slave trade. Given the scarcity of white women, the Portuguese took African wives and created mixed-race families. In Goa, centre of the eastern empire, a Luso-Indian community resulted from the policy of Governor-General Afonso de Albuquerque after 1510 of subsidizing marriages between Portuguese residents of Portuguese India and Hindu brides.

Despite the great material benefits that the eastern empire brought the Portuguese Crown, interest in Morocco never abated. Coastal forts were taken and sometimes lost during the 16th century before the childless King Sebastian (reigned 1557-1578) decided on the subjugation of the interior. He was killed, and almost his entire force of about 20,000 lost, at the battle of Alcázarquivir. The last outpost of Mazago was not abandoned until 1769.

In 1580 the crown passed to the Spanish Habsburgs, until a revolt restored independence in 1640. This period coincided with the decline of the eastern empire, as the Portuguese ran short of skilled manpower to crew their vessels and the rising sea powers of the Dutch Empire and British Empire challenged their position. Following the Portuguese mercantile example, and often allying with local rulers against them, the Dutch, in their superior ships, progressively wrested trade and bases from Portuguese hands in the east during the 17th century. Malacca, Ceylon, and Cochin fell to the Dutch in 1641, 1658, and 1662 respectively, while the Persians, with English help, ousted the Portuguese from Hormuz in 1622. Ceuta remained Spanish after 1640, but Tangier and Bombay passed to England by marriage treaty in the 1660s. The great days of the first European empire in the East, whose profits had enriched the increasingly profligate Portuguese Crown, were over, leaving only the State of India (essentially Goa), Macau, and part of Timor as lasting mementos.