Question

How was the Portuguese trade in India Financed ?

Answer 1

This work marks a sharp departure from the predominant Eurocentric emphasis in Indo Portuguese studies, on the sixteenth century Portuguese trade in the Carreira da India. Such an approach unjustly dismisses the subsequent centuries as periods of no commercial consequence to the Estado da India and Portugal and relegates to an un important level the significance of the privately operated intra Asian trade. The evidence gathered and their argument of this book challenges such prevailing stereo types. Based on a wide range on archival sources in India, Portugal and England, this study unravels the existence of a thriving native operated country trade, in the splendidand "the trifling" that emanated from Portuguese India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It not only took advantage of the vulnerability displayed and the animation efforts undertaken by the Estado da India and the metropolis but also learned to function through 'crevices' under the growing British he germony.

Answer 2

Portuguese trade with India had been a crown monopoly since the Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama opened the sea route to India in 1497-99. ... However, by 1560, the Casa's finances were in dire straits and in 1570, King Sebastian of Portugal issued a decree opening up trade to India to any private Portuguese nation



Portuguese trade with India had been a crown monopoly since the Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama opened the sea route to India in 1497-99. The monopoly had been managed by the Casa da Índia, the royal trading house founded around 1500. The Casa was responsible for the yearly India armadas. However, by 1560, the Casa's finances were in dire straits and in 1570, King Sebastian of Portugal issued a decree opening up trade to India to any private Portuguese national. As few took up the offer, the free trade decree was replaced in 1578 by a new system of annual monopolies, where the Casa sold India trading contracts to a private Portuguese merchant consortium, granting them a monopoly for one year. This annual contract system was abandoned in 1597, and the royal monopoly resumed.