The biggest source of financial power the Muslim Empire had always came from controlling large parts, if not all, of the Silk Road. This was literally a road in some places, with oases and cities along the way to support travelers’ needs for a fee. Goods from China and India were so different from what could be found and made in Europe that they had always commanded very high prices—-and those transportation fees were a big part of the price. If someone could find another route to China and India, the economic power of the Ottoman and Persian Empires would be reduced.
In 1498, Vasco de Gama landed a Portuguese ship at Calicut, the same Indian harbor where Ibn Battuta’s China-bound ships had been wrecked by a storm. Portuguese ships had been working on the goal of reaching India for much of the 15th century, pushed in early stages by Prince Henry “the Navigator.” The Prince did not actually sail, but he used his influence and money to get ships to sail incrementally farther down the coast of Africa. Each cape—beyond which land could not be seen until you actually rounded the cape in person—was a limit that captains believed they could not cross without grave danger. Prince Henry kept pushing them and commissioning new voyages until finally the first cape was rounded, then the second…and then they realized there was no real reason not to keep going.
The Portuguese were part of the Reconquista effort through all these years, and their greatest adversary was the Muslim fleet of corsairs in the Atlantic Ocean. The accounts of exploration that I remember from school left out this key motive: to reduce the power of the Silk Road and thus strip the Muslim kingdoms of some of their wealth—-which would reduce their power to buy and train slave armies, which would hamper their ability to keep taking over more of Europe. It was a far-seeing strategic push.
Vasco da Gama’s ships passed around the Cape of southern Africa at the close of 1497 (they named Natal Province to mark Christmas Day). As they worked their way north again, in the Indian Ocean, it wasn’t long till they were back in Muslim territory. Mozambique was a busy Arab port, and so was Mombasa. In this part of the Indian Ocean, Arab ships could proceed without fear of meeting hostile ships, so they generally went unarmed. Vasco da Gama’s men may have acted as pirates a few times, looting ships for supplies.
The Portuguese were making inquiries about hiring a pilot who could navigate them to India. They got no takers—-in fact a lot of hostility—until they found a town near Mombasa where an Indian pilot agreed to come on board. From there, they went straight to India.
What made any of these long voyages possible was the discovery of predictable cyclical wind patterns. The Portuguese first found Brazil by catching the South Atlantic gyre westward to South America, then eastward to Africa. They didn’t understand the winds of the Indian Ocean, which reverse course when the monsoon season changes. The summer monsoon winds had made their trip to India relatively short, but they did not wait long enough for the winter monsoon winds to turn. The return voyage back to Africa took five times longer, and when they arrived in Malindi, where they had hired their Indian pilot, they had scurvy and many sailors had died. Da Gama had to reduce his fleet to two ships, but those two were able to return, catching the South Atlantic gyre to turn north along Africa. One of his ships arrived at Lisbon in July, 1499, to tell the news.
While da Gama was gone, the King of Portugal had married a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. After her death, he married her younger sister. The dynastic marriages were empire-building steps, hoping to put a Portuguese prince on the Aragonese throne. As a condition of these matches, Portugal had ordered the forced conversion or expulsion of Jews.
The purpose of Portugal’s voyages to India, too, was empire-building. They wanted to do individual trade with Calicut, but they wanted more, too. At best, they wanted tribute, while at least, they wanted serious influence. Subsequent Portuguese fleets colonized Mozambique, where Muslim rulers had been unwelcoming before. It made a good layover place to get more supplies or repair ships after the stormy southern passage. The South Indian Ocean along Africa was no longer a Muslim lake.
Vasco da Gama commanded the fourth India Armada voyage in 1502. By then, Portuguese traders had gotten into a dispute with Arab traders in Calicut, and many of them were killed in a riot. Portugal held the king responsible, so this fleet was larger—20 ships—and armed. Its mission was conquest: to blockade Calicut’s harbor and force the king into a position of tribute.
Along the way, da Gama opened trade in East Africa’s city of Sofala while resting in Mozambique, whose Muslims were now eager to make up for past slights. He left simple consulates at both places—or as they are called, factories. The factor was the person who acted (Lat. facere) for another party, so where he lived was the factory. But at his next stop, Kilwa, he did more. The Sultan of Kilwa was brought on board ship (effectively a captive) to sign a treaty that included a huge gold tribute to Portugal, and when he did not want to sign, da Gama threatened to level the city with his guns.
On the Indian side, da Gama had an even more aggressive approach. On an island off the south coast of India, he picked up a guide and translator, a Jew from south India—-where there had been Jewish settlements for centuries. They started sailing south to Calicut, following the coast. After they battled an Indian pirate, their translator said the pirate’s home city was a hornet’s nest of piracy, so da Gama attacked it with guns, fire, and an armed landing party. It’s not that da Gama objected to piracy, he just wanted to be the perpetrator, not the victim.
Given the example of his burnt town, the Raja of the Vijayanagara kingdom chose to sign a treaty with the Portuguese. What else could he do? He had no idea how big this threat was; da Gama was not acting like the small party that he really was. So the Raja’s port city, Bhatkal/Batecala, would pay an annual tribute in rice, expel Muslims, and refrain from trading with Calicut. The joke’s on da Gama, in a way; the kingdom was a wealthy horse-trading center, but he perceived the port as a little fishing and farm trading town and didn’t ask much tribute. It’s interesting that the Raja of Vijavanagara didn’t mind expelling Muslims, because we know from Ibn Battuta that India was a Hindu-Muslim battleground much of the time. The Hindu Raja may have seen distant Portugal as a valuable ally against the Sultan of Delhi.
Then Vasco da Gama did something really appalling. Muslims in India had chartered a ship to carry them to Mecca. The ship was owned by a Muslim in Calicut, so da Gama decided the war against Calicut was starting now. He boarded the ship and looted it. Then he had the passengers locked in their cabins and set the ship on fire. The spectacle was gruesome. It took the burning ship several days to sink, and anyone who jumped into the water was speared like a whale by da Gama’s soldiers. Da Gama saved only twenty Muslim children so that they could be baptized and raised as monks in Portugal.
When they arrived at Calicut, the ruler started to negotiate as to their losses in the riots a few years before. Da Gama made it a precondition of talks that all Muslims would first be expelled, and then he seized some fishermen as hostages. Calicut’s reply was that da Gama had already avenged his dead many times over (when he sank the pilgrim ship) and had already looted more value than they had lost, in his piracy, and Calicut was not going to expel anyone. After hanging his hostages from the masts, da Gama began to bombard the city with his ships’ guns. His ships had brought along a lot of powder and shot; they bombarded the city for two days.
Da Gama let Calicut rest for a few days; he sailed to the next city, Kochi, to make a treaty. There, the Indian Christians we talked about previously, who may have first heard the Gospel from St. Thomas, contacted him and asked to become subjects of the King of Portugal. To da Gama, this must have felt like a first embassy from the legendary King Prester John!
The ruler of Calicut was not finished defending his city against the invaders. Inviting da Gama back for a parley, he had a flotilla of small ships surrounded da Gama’s huge flagship. Calicut’s tech disadvantage was overcome by getting so close to the tall ship that it couldn’t operate its guns and had to defend with low-tech methods. A few weeks later, da Gama passed Calicut again, and the city now had hired Arab ships from the Red Sea. These ships were much closer in technology to the Portuguese, resulting in a full naval battle. The Portuguese narrowly won it.
Da Gama’s fleet set sail for home in 1503, leaving a patrol behind to assist the two cities that had made trade treaties, Batecala and Kochi. Da Gama reached Portugal with a large mass of spices, but his patrol was not enough to help defend Kochi, which the ships of Calicut burned down. Then some Italian passengers from da Gama’s ships slipped out of Kochi and went to Calicut, revealing themselves as military engineers and agents of rival Venice. The next batch of naval battles by Mediterranean powers would take place off the coast of India.
The Portuguese dominated the spice trade in the Indies for about a hundred years. At the same time, they were colonizing Brazil—but that’s not part of the story of medieval Islam.