Evaluate the extent to which the Portuguese transformed maritime trade in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century
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Portuguese Maritime Meddling In the Indian Ocean
MICHAEL HONIG
The Arab ship burned brightly on the Indian Sea. A pillar of flames leapt from the water.
A funeral was underway. But this was not a noble burial like the Vikings of yore. Portuguese
adventurers seeking to establish a trade route and eager for plunder boarded this merchant vessel
and ravaged it thoroughly. They then locked the Arabs, many women and children, below the deck
and burnt it whole. Such were the methods of the Portuguese. They did not come in peace but in
pursuit of prosperity, by any means necessary.
Born in a Reconquista, militaristic culture, the Portuguese on the edge of the European
continent took to the seas on the eve of the 16th century embarking on an odyssey which by
century’s end would result in a far-flung thalassocracy. This maritime empire would dot the coasts
of Africa and India and would possess certain Southeast Asian posts. This maritime endeavor
represented Europe’s first direct forays into Asian maritime trade. It sought to bypass the
middlemen Muslim traders of the continent. The purpose of this essay is to explore in no
uncertain terms how the Portuguese managed to achieve this awesome feat. It is not an attempt to
recreate linearly all the details of expansion such as legal promulgations establishing the Estado da
India. Instead it will illustrate through key details and broad and consistent themes a central
question. The essential question is: did military tactics and engineering associated with the
military revolution as addressed by Geoffrey Parker in his seminal work The Military Revolution
1500-1800 account for Portugal’s ability to loudly insert itself into the bustling Indian Ocean
trade; or was it an absence of power or neglectful apathy, referred to by some as maritime
exceptionalism, which permitted Portuguese colonial polity? Special emphasis will be placed on its
establishment and early years roughly from 1500-1550.
The majority of historians today emphasize the serendipity of the Portuguese in arriving on
the scene at a uniquely advantageous time. Malyn Newitt, Jack Goldstone, Tonio Andrade, and
others all state quite clearly in their works on the issue that the Portuguese entered the Indian
Ocean in a period when the major Asian states were tending more to the turmoil within their vast
land based empires. They hardly cared who dominated the maritime trade as long as taxes and
goods flowed inland. The Portuguese did not interrupt this flow. They were very eager to trade
silver and gold for the precious and rather inexhaustible Asian spices and commodities.
The traditional perspective of Western superiority has given way to this much more
historically accurate framework for understanding Portuguese expansion. However, their military
advantage was not to be ignored. Portugal enjoyed, at least for a long enough period to establish
themselves, naval superiority and an artillery edge. Michael Pearson notes the insufficiency of
Asian states’ naval power. This insufficiency allowed for ostentatious Portuguese claims to a
sovereign-less sea. Furthermore, Geoffrey Parker outlines in his salient treatise The Military
Revolution: 1500-1800 reasons for why early modern Indian states were unable to imitate the
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Answer:
Although the arrival of the Portuguese was a very important change in Indian Ocean maritime trade in the sixteenth century, it did not completely transform the trade, as the Portuguese never extended their control beyond a few ports and had to compete with Indian merchants and regional states such as the Ottoman
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