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1 results

  • 2 - The Portuguese in India, 1500–1640

  • Om Prakash, University of Delhi
  • Book:
    European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    28 June 1998, pp 23-71

  • Summary

    The arrival of three Portuguese ships under the charge of Vasco da Gama marked the inauguration of a new era in the history of Euro-Asian contacts in general and of trade between the two continents in particular. In keeping with the traditional composition of the Asian imports into Europe, the principal item sought by the Portuguese Crown in Asia was spices, overwhelmingly pepper, though some other goods were also procured. The attempt at monopolizing the spice trade was unambiguous. It called for a total exclusion of Asian shipping from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, the instructions to Pedro Alvares Cabral, in charge of the first major commercial voyage to India that left Lisbon in March 1500. As far as the Indian maritime merchant was concerned, the Portuguese intrusion into the western Indian Ocean at the end of the fifteenth century initially created a situation of utter chaos.