Impact of Portuguese Control on the Indian Ocean

Unarmed, open trade in the Indian Ocean was brought to an end by the Portuguese.

To their dismay, the Portuguese found that with such practices they lost more on land than what they gained in the seas. The traders who were affected by the Portuguese put pressure on their rulers to retaliate by taking actions against Portuguese trade in their areas.

Moreover, it was nearly impossible to curtail the activities of the pirates who operated all along the coasts and lagoons of Oman, Malabar and South-East Asia by policing. They attacked Portuguese ships with impunity, receiving support from local rulers and traders.

Commenting on this, Satish Chandra says: “Hence, the rules regarding giving cartaze to local traders had to be liberalized. This included Muslims traders. Trade in horses which was exclusively in the hands of Muslims, was a highly profitable trade.

It was also of great strategic importance to various rulers. The Muslims were also active in trade in various other commodities, such as textile products, glass, aromatics, and coffee in which the Portuguese neither had the money nor the ships to engage themselves. Hence, the dictates of trade and profit soon overcame religious prejudices.

“The Portuguese were unable to monopolies even the trade in pepper and spices. This was so because the Portuguese private traders were unhappy with the royal attempt to monopolies the trade in those commodities.

Royal officials, who received small salaries, were often in league with private traders, Portuguese as well as Arabs, Gujaratis, etc. to line their own pockets. In consequence, the cartaze system proved to be both corrupt and leaking like a sieve.”

Portuguese trade to Europe was, according to Steensgaard, largely a “redistributive enterprise”, that is, it derived its income by taxing the trade of others instead of developing trade or by opening up trade in new lines of goods, commodities and products. Nonetheless, in the Far East, the Portuguese had some measure of success in expanding trade and in deals in new lines of products.

There was another trade route, to South America via the Philippines, which the Portuguese opened up. In Philippines there was a great demand for Indian textiles and the Spaniards, by banning the Muslims and the Protestants from doing business there, made it easier for the Portuguese to get in. In this trade, the Portuguese allowed some Armenians and Gujaratis to participate.

A conventional belief that has been dispelled by modern research is that the Portuguese estab­lished a degree of transparency in the eastern trade by their participative intervention. It was said that by establishing factories or warehouses in widely separated areas, the Portuguese brought stability in markets and prices.

This, however, was not a feature of the markets in olden times where fluctuation in prices was quite common. Furthermore, as experi­enced businessmen, the Arab and Indian traders knew the difference between spot and future markets. The Portuguese policy was contrary to the interests of the market.

Not only did they use political pressure to pay the pepper cultivators, for instance, low prices, but they also prevented their competitors from bidding. As a result, the cultivators had little interest in growing pepper because expan­sion brought little or no benefit to them.

The Portuguese had little effect on the Asian polity. Their number was too small to capture any large part of territory in India or elsewhere and to keep it under their control. In view of this, they prudently kept themselves confined in islands or forts on sea coasts which could be supplied and defended by sea.

This was also one of the reasons for selecting Goa as the seat of their central and military administration. In addition, they resorted to threats and reward to the rulers of small states, like Cochin, Cannaore, etc., to act as their agents or brokers in the spice trade.

In view of their limited numbers, the Portuguese allowed intermarriages which in time gave rise to a new Indo-Portuguese or Goanese society.

Inspite of this, racism was not absent; people of pure Portuguese origin held high positions in the society and were at the top in administration and govern­ment; while people of mixed origins were generally at the bottom.

The Eurasians also had no political power. As stated earlier, there was a chief inquisitor in Goa since the early days, whose duty was to punish the heretic Christians.

However, it would not be proper to regard the Portuguese feat of opening a direct sea route from Europe to Asia as of not much consequence. That was the beginning of a closer integration of India with the world economy and the further strength­ening and growth of India’s prevailing market economy.

According to historian K.N. Chaudhuri, it jolted India’s “introspectiveness”, but did not end it. As new species of fruits became available and were grown in India after the arrival of the Turks, so also with Portuguese contact came the crops of South America, such as potato, corn, pineapple, etc.

The cultivation of these crops were started by the Indian peasants and the income from them made contri­butions to the economy.

At Cochin, a beginning was made under Portuguese supervision of western meth­ods of shipbuilding. Interestingly, however, western innovations and discoveries, like printing, clocks, etc., which were introduced in Goa, did not find acceptance on the mainland of India.