Maritime Trade of the Malabar Coast and the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century

Title: Maritime Trade of the Malabar Coast and the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century
Author: K S Mathew
Publisher: Manohar Publishers, 2016 (First published 1983)
ISBN: 9789350980118
Pages: 432

Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India was a corollary to the age of exploration and grand voyages carried out from the Iberian Peninsula. Earlier, Indian spices had reached Europe through the markets of Alexandria, Beirut and Istanbul and then on to Venice and Genoa on the Italian coast. The Arab Muslims had monopoly of the trade and they had Europe in the palm of their hand. The Portuguese sought to displace the Arabs from the trade altogether by imposing monopoly on cargo procurement in Malabar and its transportation to Europe. As the material then directly reached Lisbon, European merchants abandoned Venice and flocked to Portugal. However, Portugal’s highhanded measures invited resistance from Muslim traders and local Indian rulers. Thus the sixteenth century was a crucial period in world history as the point of colonialism’s ascent. This book is based on a thorough study of Portuguese archives in Lisbon. After India had forcibly annexed the Portuguese enclave of Goa in 1961, diplomatic relations were cut between the two countries. Thus Indian scholars couldn’t lay hands on the documents preserved in the archival repositories of Portugal till 1976. The situation became more relaxed thereafter and this author was one of the first scholars who utilized the open window of opportunity. K S Mathew was a professor of history at the central universities of Hyderabad and Pondicherry. He was also a visiting fellow/professor at many universities in Europe and North America. He had published 23 books besides many research articles. This book was first published in 1983.

With his knowledge of the Portuguese language, Mathew reconstructs the basics of Malabar – Portuguese trade with reference to primary sources in some detail. The political, social and commercial equations have been taken into consideration. The mechanism of cargo movement is analysed both through land and sea. They tried blockade of the movement of spices through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in order to become the sole dealers of the cargo precious in Europe. On the land side they entered into contracts with agents to procure spices, of which pepper and ginger were the major crops of export from Malabar. The economic backwardness of Kerala at that time is plainly visible in the exchange of material. In return for the spices, Malabar wanted only gold, silver and copper. Items of consumption in Europe were not popular in Malabar. This trade imbalance and overdependence on bullion in buying spices created grave difficulties. Sometimes, they resorted to obtain spices on credit, with the local ruler acting as their surety.

The author makes a deliberate effort to paint the Portuguese in a beneficial light by either suppressing some of the heinous atrocities they committed or attempting to make it lighter. The book just glosses over the longstanding feud between the Portuguese and Muslim traders and sailors of Malabar. In fact, I had expected to get to know some facts about Kunjali Marakkars, the naval chiefs of the Zamorin, from this book but was entirely disappointed by its lack of coverage of this topic. The Muslim merchants of Calicut obstructed the supply of pepper to the Portuguese whose entry was threatening their own monopoly. Clashes took place between the two, but Mathew exonerates the Portuguese. A ship belonging to Mammali Marakkar, a Muslim trader of Kochi, was going to Mocha with elephants from Ceylon. The author accuses the Zamorin of having persuaded the Portuguese to capture the ship by falsely claiming that it carried pepper. He wanted to appropriate the elephants for his own use. In retaliation to this act, Muslims attacked the factory at Calicut, killed the factor Aires Correa along with 50 other Portuguese. The factory was also razed to the ground. Gama returned next year to extract vengeance by bombarding the town. Several people were killed and Gama sent a boat carrying the severed head and limbs of the people to the Zamorin along with a note stating that these were the merchandise in which he was going to deal. The author claims that Kunjali Marakkar indulged in piracy, which turned the Portuguese against him. The horrifying massacre of Hajj pilgrims returning from Mecca along the Malabar coast and consequent plunder of the ship is not even mentioned.

When the first Portuguese sailor landed at Calicut in 1498, he was met by a Tunisian merchant who had arrived there to buy pepper. When he enquired what brought them there, Gama’s men replied that they came in search of ‘Christians and spices’. There was a strong inclination to proselytisation among them and we read of instances when the Portuguese trying unsuccessfully to convert the nobles and ruler of Kochi. But the author tries to paint a secular sheen to the entire episode by projecting Venetian rivalry and cooperation with Muslim intermediaries in collecting cargo. With Lisbon’s entry into the European spice trade, Venice was totally eclipsed and they sometimes could not even procure cargo in the Middle East. So they helped and fought alongside the Egyptian Mameluk sultans against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean even though they were Christians. Mathew uses this economic fighting point to claim that the Portuguese were not keen in propagation of the Christian faith and the annihilation of Islam (p.100). Similarly, the cooperation with Muslim traders is trumpeted as a case of how the Portuguese ‘having to throw their lot with the Muslims and the crusade joining hands with the jihad’ in the matter of trade (p.156).

The book includes extensive statistics on commodities imported and exported from Malabar which compiles port-wise details of total weight and value. The financial arrangements of the trade also find due representation in the book. As the scope for barter trade was rather slim, they had to exchange gold, silver or copper for purchasing spices. This fiscal need forced the Portuguese king to invite merchants and bankers from other European countries such as Germany and Italy to finance and also to participate in the trade. The Venetians swallowed their pride and established links with Lisbon to carry on trade to interior Europe. Judging from the price of pepper at various markets, readers get an idea of the immense profit the Portuguese made. They bought pepper at the rate of 3 ducats per quintal (of 52 kg) from Kochi. The same commodity cost 15 ducats at Alexandria and 45 ducats when it reached Venice. At Lisbon, this was sold for 22 ducats, thereby giving a solid financial advantage. The 3 ducats price agreed at Kochi in 1503 remained the same till 1585. When quality of the cargo fell as the agents adulterated the stock on account of rock-bottom prices, slight increases were granted.

The book also sheds light on the immense scale of ecclesiastical support to maintain Portuguese control on heathens and regions of great commercial potential. For nearly a century starting from 1454, many Popes proclaimed papal bulls to allocate new jurisdictions or ratify the actions of the Portuguese. In the bull named Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicholas V highly commended the possibility of preaching the name of Christ to unbelievers if the efforts of Prince Henry the Navigator to find a sea route to India would finally bear fruit. This edict permitted them to invade, conquer and appropriate territories and kingdoms and reduce them to perpetual slavery (p.270). Moral considerations always came last in the scheme of medieval religious leaders. Piracy was an accepted practice for all Europe. The Portuguese sometimes plundered even those ships that had obtained passes (cartaz) from them for safe conduct. The booty from pirate raids was expected and planned to offset a portion of the operating cost of the maritime venture. It provided for payment of a part of the salary of officials and soldiers, expenses of the factories, purchase of commodities and also for Portuguese weddings in India. The Portuguese king instructed Viceroy Francisco de Almeida to exploit this source to the maximum. Slaves were also a portion of the booty. Slaves from captured vessels were taken to Portugal or employed in galleys.

This book is written from a purely European point of view, based on archival material in Lisbon. It does not name the Zamorin or other local rulers. Only the designations such as ‘ruler of Kochi’ are used while describing their involvement in a battle or concluding a treaty. Some of the content is duplicated in other chapters. For example, the general survey of history narrates some events, which is repeated in the chapter on diplomacy. A lot of tables and quantity of cargo transported to Portugal is included throughout the text. This book also sports an impressive bibliography. However, the readability is very limited owing to the extensive data on merchandise quoted frequently in the narrative.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star