Pedro Alvares Cabral, sailing to India, but steering far westward
to avoid the winds and currents of the Guinea coast, reached
Brazil (1500) and claimed it for his sovereign. João da Nova
discovered Ascension (1501) and St Helena (1502); Tristão
da Cunha was the first to sight the archipelago still known by
his name (1506). In East Africa the small Mahommedan
states along the coast—Sofala, Mozambique, Kilwa, Brava,
Mombasa, Malindi—either were destroyed or became subjects
or allies of Portugal. Pedro de Covilham had reached Abyssinia
(q.v.) as early as 1490; in 1520 a Portuguese embassy
arrived at the court of “Prester John,” and in 1541 a military
force was sent to aid him in repelling a Mahommedan invasion.
In the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, one of Cabral’s ships
discovered Madagascar (1501), which was partly explored by
Tristão da Cunha (1507); Mauritius was discovered in 1507,
Socotra occupied in 1506, and in the same year D. Lourenço
d’Almeida visited Ceylon. In the Red Sea Massawa was the
most northerly point frequented by the Portuguese until 1541,
when a fleet under Estevao da Gama penetrated as far as Suez.
Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, was seized by Alphonso d’Albuquerque
(1515), who also entered into diplomatic relations
with Persia. On the Asiatic mainland the first trading-stations
were established by Cabral at Cochin and Calicut (1501); more
important, however, were the conquest of Goa (1510) and Malacca
(1511) by Albuquerque, and the acquisition of Diu (1535)
by Martim Alfonso de Sousa. East of Malacca, Albuquerque
sent Duarte Fernandes as envoy to Siam (1511), and dispatched
to the Moluccas two expeditions (1512, 1514), which founded
the Portuguese dominion in the Malay Archipelago (q.v.).
Fernão Pires de Andrade visited Canton in 1517 and opened up
trade with China, where in 1557 the Portuguese were permitted
to occupy Macao. Japan, accidentally discovered by three
Portuguese traders in 1542, soon attracted large numbers of
merchants and missionaries (see Japan, § viii.). In 1522 one of
the ships of Ferdinand Magellan (q.v.)—a Portuguese sailor,
though in the Spanish service—completed the first voyage
round the world.
Up to 1505 the Portuguese voyages to the East were little
more than trading ventures or plundering raids, although a
few “factories” for the exchange of goods were
founded in Malabar. In theory, the objects of
King Emanuel’s policy were the establishment ofAlmeida
and Albuqu-querque.
friendly commercial relations with the Hindus (who were at
first mistaken for Christians “not yet confirmed in the faith,”
as the king Wrote to Alexander VI.) and the prosecution of a crusade
against Islam. But Hindu and Mahommedan interests were
found to be so closely interwoven that this policy became impracticable,
and it was superseded when D. Francisco d’Almeida
(q.v.) went to India as first Portuguese viceroy in 1505. Almeida
sought to subordinate all else to sea power and commerce,
to concentrate the whole naval and military force of the
kingdom on the maintenance of maritime ascendancy; to annex
no territory, to avoid risking troops ashore, and to leave the
defence of such factories as might be necessary to friendly native
powers, which would receive in return the support of the Portuguese
fleet. Almeida’s statesmanship was to a great extent
sound. The Portuguese could never penetrate far inland;
throughout the 16th century their settlements were confined
to the coasts of Asia, Africa or America, and the area they were
able effectively to occupy was far less than the area of their
empire in the 20th century. A Chinese critic, quoted by Faria
y Sousa, said of them that they were like fishes, “remove them
from the water and they straightway die.” It is thus absurd
to speak of a “Portuguese conquest of India”; in a land
campaign they would have been outnumbered and destroyed
by the armies of any one of the greater Indian states. But
their artillery and superior maritime science made them almost
invulnerable at sea, and their principal military achievements
consisted in the capture or defence of positions accessible from
the sea, e.g. the defence of Cochin by Duarte Pacheco Pereira
in 1504, the defence of Diu (q.v.) in 1538 and 1546.
Alphonso d’Albuquerque (q.v.), who succeeded Almeida in 1509, found it necessary to modify the policy formulated by his predecessor. Command of the sea could not be maintained—least of all in the monsoon months—while the Portuguese fleets were based on Lisbon, which could only be reached after a six months' voyage; and experience had proved that almost every Portuguese factory required a fortress for its defence when the fleets were absent. Portugal, like every great maritime trading community from Carthage to Venice, discovered that the ideal of “sea power and commerce” led directly to empire. In 1510 Albuquerque seized Goa, primarily as a naval base, and in so doing recognized the fact that his country was committed to a policy of territorial aggrandisement. Other seaports and islands were conquered or colonized in rapid succession, and by 1540 Portugal had acquired a line of scattered maritime possessions extending along the coasts of Brazil, East and West Africa, Malabar, Ceylon, Persia, Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago. The most important settlements in the East were Goa, Malacca and Hormuz.
To a superficial observer the prosperity of Portugal might well seem to have culminated during this period of expansion. Vast profits were derived from the import trade in the innumerable products of the tropics, of which Portugal was the sole purveyor in Europe. This influx of wealth furnished the economic basis for a sudden development of literary and artistic activity, inspired by contrast with the new world of the tropics. The 16th century was the golden age of Portuguese literature; humanists, such as Damião de Goes (q.v.), and scientists, such as the astronomer Pedro Nunes (Nonius), played conspicuous parts in the great intellectual movements of the time; a distinctive school of painters arose, chief among them being the so-called “Grão Vasco” (Vasco Fernandes of Vizeu); in architecture the name or King Emanuel was given to a new and composite style (the Manoeline or Manoellian), in which decorative forms from India and Africa were harmonized with Gothic and Renaissance designs; palaces, fortresses, cathedrals, monasteries, were built on a scale never before attempted in Portugal; and even in the minor arts and handicrafts—in goldsmith’s work, for example, or in pottery—the influence of the East made itself felt. Oriental splendour and Renaissance culture combined to render social life in Lisbon hardly less brilliant than in Rome or Venice.
In order to understand the apparently sudden collapse of Portuguese power in 1578–1580 it is necessary to examine certain facts and tendencies which from the first rendered a catastrophe inevitable. Chief among these were the extent of the empire and its organization, the financial and commercial policy of its rulers, the hostility, often wantonly provoked, of the chief Oriental states, the depopulation of Portugal and the slave trade, the expulsion of the Jews, the growth of ecclesiastical influence in secular affairs, and the decadence of the monarchy.
It is necessary to exclude Brazil from any survey of the Portuguese imperial system, because the colonization of Brazil (q.v.) was effected on distinctive lines. Otherwise the whole empire was governed on a more or less uniform system, although it included communities of the most diverse nature—protectorates such as Hormuz and Ternate in the Moluccas, colonies such as Goa and Madeira, captaincies under military rule such as Malacca, tributary states such as Kilwa, fortified factories as at Colombo and Cochin. West of the Cape the settlements in Africa and the Atlantic were governed, as a rule, by officials directly nominated by the king. East of the Cape the royal power was delegated to a Viceroy or governor—the distinction was purely titular—whose legislative and executive authority was almost unlimited during his term of office. The vice royalty was created in 1505, and from 1511 the Indian capital was Goa. Between 1505 and 1580 only four holders of the office—Almeida (1505–1500), Albuquerque (1509–1515), D. Vasco da Gama (1524) and D. João de Castro (1545–1548)—were men of marked ability and high character. All officials, including the Viceroy and naval and military officers, were usually appointed for no more than three years. Although few large
