The advent of the Portuguese put an end to the trade monopoly of the Arabs on the Malabar Coast. The great prosperity of Calicut depended upon the victory of the Arab merchants over their rivals from China who made Quilon their centre of activity for centuries.

There is nothing on record to suggest that the Arabs competed among themselves to eject their commercial rivals; till the beginning of the 16th century, therefore, trade on the Western coast of India was essentially peaceful, inviolability of trade Carracks and Caravans be: generally recognized and plundering of them censured.

Trade prospered because of the scrupulous care with which the merchants observed the unwritten laws of navigation and commerce and the vigilant watch kept over them by the rulers of the land. Calicut provided the ideal atmosphere for this and therefore, it became the most prosperous city in South India. No wonder, Pyrard de Laval described it as “the busiest and the most full of all traffic and commerce in the whole of India.”

About the secret of its prosperity he said that “it has merchants from all parts of the world, and of all nations and religions, by reason of the liberty and security accorded to them there; for the king permits the exercise of every kind of religion, and yet it is strictly forbidden to talk, dispute, or quarrel on that subject, so that there never arises any contention on that score, everyone living in great liberty of conscience under the favour or authority of the king who holds that to be a cardinal maxim of government with a view to making his kingdom very rich and of great intercourse.”

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Under these wholesome conditions, large numbers of Muslim merchants from Arabia and Egypt could settle down in Calicut and carry on a lucrative trade for six centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese and make themselves rich and Calicut prosperous. But the most significant fact with regard to this Malabar-Arab trade was that even though the Muslim merchants has immense economic power and influence, they never tried to interfere in a political life, nor did they attempt to disturb the placid social and religious life of Malabar.

Zeinuddin says that these traders and settlers “lived in great comfort and tranquility in consequence of their abstaining from exercising any oppression towards the people of the country as well as from the consideration which they invariably evinced for the ancient usages of Malabar.”

In clear contrast with these people and their policy the Portuguese came with the express intention of monopolising the spice trade and Christianising the people. The strong bond of mutuality that existed between the Moors and Malabaris they wanted to wreck for accomplishing the above object.

The principle of peaceful commercial rivalry was not accepted by the Portuguese because equally strong was their desire to propagate Christianity which could necessarily be realised only through violent struggle. Their ships carried goods to be sold or exchanged as well as fanatical Catholic canons to be sowed in the East. The Portuguese were obliged to be violent towards the Moors as they were their main rivals in trade and antagonists in faith.

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They were intolerant and cruel towards Hindus insofar as they accommodated the interests of the Muslims. Moreover, their passion for Christianization of new lands was ever burning in them as the Bull of Pope Alexander VI enjoined upon them the duty to propagate the Catholic Religion in all new lands discovered by Portugal as a condition of being allowed to hold them on conquest.

Naturally they had to combine trade with Catholic faith and violent conquest. “To this end,” says Danvers, “priests of different orders accompanied the several expeditions to India and large funds were appropriated for their services and maintenance. Unfortunately, at an early date, violent measures were adopted with a view to forcing the people to embrace the Catholic faith.

Their pagodas were destroyed, and an attempt appears almost to have been made to carry out their propagandism by fire and sword, in imitation of the manner in which Muhammadanism had been previously introduced into India.”

The unwritten law of the inviolability of the trader and the merchandise that long governed the realm of trade on the Malabar Coast, was violently broken by the Portuguese by their wanton destruction of ships anchored at Calicut, killing their crew and plundering their cargoes.

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They introduced a new theory of international trade which was repugnant to civilized principles of justice and fairplay. “The Portuguese as Lords of the Sea” they maintained, “are justified in confiscating the goods of all those who navigate the seas without their permission”.

A seed of imperialist arrogance thus sown has grown wild in the succeeding centuries which to the chagrin of all European nations, were gleefully harvested by the British. The Portuguese theory of exclusive right of oceanic trade for them, in other words, was an attempt to regularise piracy and plunder.

When they entrenched themselves in South Indian politics and gained foot-holds in Cochin and Goa, they institutionalised this piratic theory into what is called the system of Cartaz. This was a device by which the Portuguese arrogated to themselves the benefits of navigation and controlled the carrying trade of India.

They being the soi-disant lords of the sea compelled others to navigate the sea only with the permits issued by them. This implied recognition of the King of Portugal as the overlord and payment of tribute to him to by all those who carried on maritime trade. The vessels which did not carry the cartazes were liable to be preyed upon by the Portuguese ships. The fear of confiscation of the cargoes and destruction of the ships and the men made the merchants to purchase their right to navigate their own sea from the Portuguese.

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The Portuguese authorities issued these permits for one year on payment of a fee which varied according to the capacity of and articles carried by the ship. Every Cartaz specified the capacity of the vessel for which it was issued, its name, owner, his native place, the persons on board, and the defence personnel, and equipment aboard. It also mentioned the port to which the vessel was allowed and forbidden to go, the articles it was permitted and prohibited to carry.

Any violation of these provisions would be punished by confiscation of the vessel. Cartazes were issued at Goa for vessels intended for voyages abroad and at other Portuguese forts or factories along the coasts of India for ships engaged in coastal trade. Until the beginning of the 19th century Indian sea-trade was severely affected by the Cartaz menace. As Barros stated, “the Portuguese as lords of the sea by the strength of their fleets are justified in compelling all Moors and Gentiles to take out safe-conducts under pain of confiscation and death.”

The Portuguese attempt, however, was not to destroy Indian commerce but only to control it, to channel it to their own advantage. We find them giving Cartazes to Muslim merchants also. Mohammad Ali, the prominent Muslim merchant of Cannanore, was at first trading with a Portuguese permit. But an act of piracy by Gonzalo Vaz, a Portuguese Captain, later drove the Ali family into enmity. Piratic tendency was always present in the trade policy of the Portuguese and their Cartazes had no sanctity attached to them; they could search the ship and seize cargoes under some pretext or other.

Apart from the tribute they collected from the merchants who sent out their vessels to trade with distant ports, this commercial weapon the Portuguese effectively used to attract traders to their own ports or where they had monopoly rights or to divert the vessels away from their enemy ports. It is interesting to find that the Dutch, following the example set by the Portuguese, introduced the system of Cartazes in Malabar in 1788 to safeguard the commercial interests of Cochin where they had established themselves.

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Thus the Portuguese brought about a drastic change in the long existing placid trade relations on the Indian coast and in the Indian waters by displacing peaceful competition by violent compulsion. On the land the compulsion was exercised through a series of treaties they imposed on the defenseless princes by force, whereby they secured exclusive rights to procure spices and other produce of the land at arbitrary prices fixed by them.

Much coercion went into making the people submit to this new and hitherto unknown system of trade. At sea the compulsion appeared in the form of Cartaz and systematic piracy, both of which became the incubus of the oceanic traders.

In spite of all these compulsive exertions, the Portuguese, however, did not enjoy any considerable political influence or unquestioned commercial power in India; nor did they possess land mass of any significant extent other than Goa. Their supremacy at sea was only a big balderdash; it was effectively cut holes in it. At one Stage of the protracted naval warfare, the light and small paroes of Calicut were a veritable nightmare for the Portuguese fleets.

The guerrilla tactics adopted by these fast moving fighting vessels of Calicut practically made short of the Portuguese supremacy in the Arabian Sea. We have the testimony of Correa that these tiny things “were so bold that they appeared before the Viceroy Vasco Gama during this third Viceroyalty during the whole voyage from Goa to Cochin in all directions, showing that they took no heed of him.” Malabar sea men thus proved themselves the horrified amazement of the Portuguese whose cargo vessels and fleets took round-about routes to avoid the latter’s pack. The violent resistance offered by these local paroes put the Portuguese trade in jeopardy and made even the despatch of the annual cargo to Europe difficult.

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Howsoever strenuously they strove, the Portuguese failed to exert any influence, commercial or political, on the affairs of Calicut; the Muslims, their sworn enemies, on the other hand, have always but at the last stage had upper hand in controlling and directing the economy of that state. But directly, the Portuguese interference served to weaken the political strength of Calicut and to strengthen the political weakness of Cochin. Had it not been for the Portuguese, the Zamorins woud have, in all probability, succeeded in lording over the whole northern and central Kerala and in establishing a strong unified monar- chial state.

The Portuguese also made the congeries of Kerala principalities to keep their mutual enmity aflame, by direct dealing with the petty chieftains without reference to their overlords, the Zamorin and the Rajas of Cochin and Venad. Under the protective umbrella provided by the Portuguese, the chiefs successfully flouted the authority of their sovereigns which led to the weakening of the state system in Kerala. The rulers of Cochin, Purakkad and Quilon behaved like true vassals of the King of Portugal and allowed the Portuguese to exercise effective political and commercial authority in their lands.

From their stand­point, however, these kings suffered the Portuguese influence to grow mainly because they gained considerably from foreign trade and the yearly subsidy in gold, which served to increase their sense of importance and pride. The squeezed out friendship of these local potentates the Portuguese used to fill their ships with easy cargoes of spices and other products and to unlade the Latin Catholic canons for planting in their lands.