The Journey of Vasco da Gama

In 1498, Vasco da Gama arrived on the shores of India and landed in the village of Calicut. The long and by no means easy voyage was finally crowned with success. The Arab monopoly in trade with India was under threat - now Portugal could bring fabrics, incense and, most importantly, spices to Europe much easier and cheaper, which in those days were worth almost their weight in gold.

Goa plan

Capture of Goa

The Portuguese king, however, had no plans to capture Goa. It happened rather by accident. In 1510 it was taken over by the Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque. At that time, the army of Adil Shah was stationed in the city, but the ruler himself was not there. Albuquerque occupied the city without difficulty, but the Shah soon arrived with an army of sixty thousand.

The Portuguese king did not plan to conquer Goa

St. Catherine's Cathedral in Goa

Catholics in Goa

St. Catherine's Cathedral is the largest Catholic church in India and one of the largest in Asia. In 1776, the south tower of the cathedral was struck by lightning and it collapsed. The facade of the temple was never repaired - either out of fear of God's punishment, or out of laziness. IN mid-19th The Miraculous Cross was brought to the cathedral from Mount Boa Vista, on which, according to legend, the appearance of Christ took place in the 17th century. Locals tell a legend that the cross gets bigger every year and also grants wishes.

A quarter of Goans profess Christianity

One of the most famous Catholic cathedrals in Goa is the Temple of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Panaji. Countless steps lead to the snow-white temple. Another legacy of Portuguese rule was built in the Catholic Baroque style: the Church of Our Lady of the Snows.

Shrine of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception

Catholicism is the second largest religion in Goa, second only to Hinduism. More than a quarter of the inhabitants of the former Portuguese colony are Christians, and the bulk of them are Catholics. Locals celebrate Christmas together with the entire Catholic world - they decorate palm trees and set up scenes with mangers near their houses. They speak, however, in the local language, and all the inscriptions in the churches are in either English or Latin. In addition, even Christians maintained the caste system.

Ups and downs

On throughout the XVI centuries, Portugal dreamed of using Goa as a starting point for the conquest of all of India, but these plans were not destined to come true. In the 17th century, the Portuguese trade monopoly was undermined by the Dutch and British. The latter even took control of Goa during Napoleonic Wars, but then were forced to return it.

Goa passed to India only in 1961

At the beginning of the 20th century, committees of local resistance to European rule began to appear in Goa. India tried to resolve the conflict peacefully, but Portugal did not want to give up the tidbit: it declared that Goa was not a colony at all. Portuguese rule in Goa came to an end only in 1961. The Indian government organized an armed action. For 36 hours it bombarded the state from water and air. Goa, after 451 years of Portuguese rule, became part of India.

Portuguese India

TO At the end of the reign of King Manuel, Portugal was at the peak of its splendor and power. Its possessions stretched across four parts of the world - from Brazil to the distant Moluccas Islands in Pacific Ocean and from Lisbon to the Cape Good Hope in the south Atlantic. Portuguese fortresses stretched along the entire African coast - from Morocco to Somalia, rose on the islands of the Indian Ocean, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, along the coast of India, in Ceylon, on the Malay Peninsula and on the semi-legendary Moluccas islands among the waves of the Pacific Ocean.

No one dared to challenge Portuguese dominance. Ships were heading to Lisbon from everywhere. The city quickly became the world's largest market for African slaves, spices and tropical goods. Cervantes wrote that “Lisbon is greatest city Europe, where the wealth of the East is unloaded for distribution throughout the world."

Venetian trade suffered crushing blow. Vasco da Gama's voyage to India marked the beginning of the decline of the great Adriatic Republic. By cutting off the routes from the Indian Ocean to Turkey, Egypt and Iran, the Portuguese made it much more difficult for Turkey to continue to strengthen. Huge profits from overseas trade and treasures looted in the East enriched the Portuguese court and the nobility of Portugal. In Portuguese cities and estates of the nobles of King Manuel, the construction of palaces, churches and castles began. Skilled stone and wood carvers, gilders and stonemasons, artists and architects came from Flanders, Italy, Egypt and India.

In the harsh and simple castles of the Portuguese feudal lords, Persian and Hindu carpets, Flemish tapestries and mirrors, Venetian glass, Moroccan embossed leather pillows, Italian paintings, Damascus and Toledo blades appeared.

Among the servants there were slaves from Java, Arabia and Ceylon, slaves from Brazil and Gujarat. Slaves from Guinea worked in the fields of the feudal lords. The court of King Manuel was famous for its unprecedented splendor and luxury. The Portuguese nobles tried to keep up with their king.

But all this external shine covered stagnation and rot. Position colonial power required enormous effort from little Portugal. First of all, there was a shortage of people. During the voyage to the East, many soldiers and sailors died not so much in battles with enemies, but from diseases - scurvy, cholera, dysentery and fever. Many died from wound infection; in a tropical climate, the most trivial wounds healed very slowly, and ignorant barbers, who also served as healers, were usually helpless when it came to dealing with suppuration and inflammation.

Very soon, while equipping the squadron to the East, the Portuguese commanders began to experience difficulties in recruiting a team. It became more and more difficult to find experienced sailors.

Already in 1505, the first Viceroy of India, Francisco d'Almeida, when equipping a squadron, could not staff it with experienced sailors and was forced to recruit peasant boys who had never seen the sea as sailors. On one of the caravels of d’Almeida’s squadron, the crew could not even distinguish right side from the left. The captain of the caravel, João Homes, hung a bunch of onions on one side and a bunch of garlic on the other and commanded:

- Steering wheel to the garlic! Steering wheel to the bow!

In India, veterans have been replaced by criminals and teenagers. Recruiters went around prisons looking for people willing to go to India. Death penalty, sentence to prison or to the galleys was replaced by sending to India. An amnesty was declared to all criminals who agreed to enter the Indian service. Subsequently, one of these criminals turned out to be greatest poet Portugal Luis Camões. In Portugal itself, the flow of men to the East was so significant that to cultivate the fields of the feudal lords and do other hard work it was necessary to resort to the import of slaves from Africa. Very soon, in many areas of Portugal, genuine slave farms. In Portuguese India everything was based on slave labor.

The influx of precious metals from the new colonies produced a genuine “price revolution” in Portugal and Spain. Precious metals fell sharply in price, and prices for all goods rose several times. But in Portugal itself the discovery sea ​​route to India did not entail significant social changes. In Portugal, the power of secular and spiritual feudal lords has always been extremely strong. In the 14th–15th centuries, the Portuguese kings broke the resistance of the cities that defended the old liberties, and the merchants never played any significant role in the life of the country.

A big blow to the Portuguese economy was dealt by the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. Jews have lived in Portugal since ancient times and were given equal rights with the rest of the population. The first Portuguese kings confirmed all the liberties of the Jews. But later, under the influence of the clergy, persecution began. Jews were locked in special quarters - yuderia - and forced to wear clothes different from everyone else. Pogroms began.

But for the time being, the kings of Portugal protected their Jewish subjects, since they received very large incomes from the Jewish population. Three different poll taxes were levied on Jews; a special tax was levied on every item purchased by a Jew. Back in the middle of the 15th century, the Minister of Finance of Portugal was the famous Jewish scientist Isaac Abarbanel. When the Jews were expelled from Castile, John II, for a large ransom, gave them temporary shelter in Portugal, but when the period ended, he forced the Castilian emigrants to leave Portugal, and converted those who remained to Christianity.

Manuel understood perfectly well what a profitable source of income the Jewish population was. At first he did not even think about expelling the Jews. But Manuel, hoping to unite the whole Iberian Peninsula, strenuously sought the hand of Isabella, daughter of Fernando of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Princess Isabella, like her mother, was a fanatic and obediently obeyed her confessors. She made the marriage conditional on the expulsion of Jews from Portugal.

In 1496, the year Vasco da Gama sailed to India, King Manuel issued a decree banning the Jews.

Not wanting to lose subjects who brought in such significant income, Manuel ordered the forcible baptism of all Jewish children and adolescents from four to twenty years of age, as well as many adults. But the clergy did not leave the “new Christians” alone, accused them of heresies, sacrilege and witchcraft and set the ignorant flock against the Jews. So, in April 1506, during the plague, two Dominican monks organized a pogrom against Jews in Lisbon. With shouts of “Heresy, Heresy!” pogromists killed “new Christians” and plundered their property. About 2 thousand people were killed. The pogroms further increased the emigration of Portuguese Jews to Italy, Africa, Turkey and the Netherlands.

With the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, Portugal lost many skilled artisans and traders. The Portuguese merchants and artisans were too weak to take the place of the exiles.

The very policy of the Portuguese kings prevented the formation of a large merchant stratum. Very early on almost all trade with India was declared a royal monopoly. This monopoly extended, in particular, to the trade in pepper, ginger, nutmeg, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and brazilwood.

The royal monopolies made it very difficult for the already frail Portuguese bourgeoisie to develop. Very soon they began to play in the trade and crafts of Portugal decisive role foreigners, people from countries more developed economically than Portugal. Trade and crafts passed entirely into the hands of foreigners - Flemings, Germans, Venetians, Lombards, Florentines.

In Portugal, the power of the king and the oppression of the Catholic clergy were increasingly strengthened. But the Portuguese feudal lords themselves did not know how to hold on to the treasures obtained by robbery and trade in the East. They spent huge amounts of money on feasts, outfits and tournaments, on “deeds of piety.” Very soon, most of the noble families of Portugal became entangled in debt and pawned their jewelry with Lombard moneylenders. The rest of the population of Portugal - peasants, sailors and fishermen - lived too poorly and could not buy oriental goods with their miserable earnings. Stagnation began. Oriental goods, gold, precious stones and spices filtered through Portugal and enriched other countries - Holland, England, and the Rhine Valley.

In the most Portuguese colonial empire it was unfavorable. Only a few people, like Afonso d'Albuquerque, dreamed of a great colonial empire in the East. Most Portuguese commanders believed that India was needed by Portugal only as an arena for piracy and a place for buying spices.

Extortions, bullying, robberies and brutal cruelties, hypocrisy and deceit armed the population against the Portuguese eastern countries. A Hindu proverb of that time said: “It is fortunate that the Portuguese are as few as tigers and lions, otherwise they would exterminate the entire human race.”

All Portuguese in India received rations from the treasury. They considered themselves masters and abhorred all work, placing everything on the shoulders of numerous slaves, and left trade to the Indians and Moors. Every rogue who came from Portugal claimed the title of “house” in India and tried to surround himself with slaves. Crowds of idlers who spent their days playing dice and cards, chewing betel nut or smoking opium filled Portuguese possessions in the East.

In 1539, out of 16 thousand Portuguese living in India and receiving government military rations, only 2 thousand could be counted on if it were necessary to recruit into the army civilian population. Traitors soon turned out to be among the Portuguese soldiers. Already in 1510, when d’Albuquerque was besieging Goa, a detachment of Portuguese renegades under the command of Fernand Lopes fought on the side of his opponents.

And the rulers of India themselves were far from blameless. Adventurers went to India, those who counted on easy money; embezzlement and bribery flourished in the colonies.

After the death of Afonso d'Albuquerque, King Manuel tried not to send any more to India big people. He feared that, having strengthened himself, the Viceroy of distant India would refuse to obey Portugal. If d'Albuquerque spared neither money nor effort to create a Portuguese colonial power, then subsequent governors saw in India only a place where they could quickly get rich at the expense of the natives, the treasury and their compatriots.

Each new governor arrived with a pack of hungry followers; and then in Portuguese India all civil and military officials were replaced.

The governor's powers lasted, as a rule, three years; and for this short time he and his henchmen were in a hurry to enrich themselves as much as possible.

In pursuit of easy money, Portuguese commanders did not hesitate to directly betray their fatherland. Their actions soon undermined any confidence in the laws of the Portuguese, in their oaths and promises. Thus, one of the Portuguese commanders attacked the sanctuary of a friendly Hindu state, plundered and burned it, and subjected the priests to sophisticated torture in order to find out from them where the treasures of the temple were hidden.

The second commander, having solemnly concluded peace with the Moors, broke it the next day, justifying himself by saying that the representative of the Moors swore on the crown, and the Portuguese, taking advantage of the Muslim’s ignorance, kissed the book of songs. The third, when the captain of an Indian ship approached him for written permission to go to sea, wrote in Portuguese that he advised the Portuguese captains who met this ship at sea to rob him. The fourth, for a substantial bribe, placed the Portuguese caravel at the disposal of the Sultan of Aden, an enemy of the Portuguese. The fifth sold cannons and gunpowder from the Portuguese fortress to the Moors.

Portuguese officials in the colonies compiled lists of " dead souls“to receive rations, they sent damaged and littered goods to Portugal, hid them from the treasury and divided among themselves the valuables obtained in battles. They also profited from their compatriots. Trade in ranks and positions was almost legalized; judges accepted bribes openly. By delaying payments to sailors and soldiers, King Manuel's officials waited until the sailors and soldiers, driven to extremity, agreed to a third or fourth of their salaries.

The income of officials in the colonies was almost officially calculated under two headings - “salary” and “receipts”, and usually “receipts” exceeded “salaries” by six to seven times.

This was the situation in India by 1521, when King Manuel I the Happy died. Complaints poured in from India to the new king, Juan III. It was not only the Portuguese who wrote.

The Hindu authorities in Cannanur complained that the Portuguese, by issuing permits to ship captains to sail in the Indian Ocean, were violating own rules: ships that have such permits are robbed and sunk.

The king replaced the governor of India, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, and appointed Don Duarte de Menezes in his place. But this governor turned out to be even worse than his predecessor. With feverish haste, he filled his pockets and chests, not embarrassed by any means to enrich himself. His bribery and embezzlement surpassed everything that Portuguese India had known so far. His henchmen tried to keep up with the governor.

The Lisbon court was inundated with complaints, requests for justice and petitions. Then John III summoned old Vasco da Gama from Evora and invited him to go to India to restore order there. The old admiral of India agreed. Like King John III, he believed that all evil is in unworthy people, who were entrusted with Indian affairs. He could not, of course, understand that the reasons for the trouble that reigned in Portuguese India lay much deeper.