Vasco Da Gama

The arrival of three ships under Vasco Da Gama, led by a Gujarati pilot named Abdul Majid, at Calicut in May 1498 profoundly affected the course of Indian history. The Hindu ruler of Calicut, the Zamorin (Samuthiri), however, had no apprehensions as to the European’s intentions. As the prosperity of his kingdom was due to Calicut’s position as an entrepot,

he accorded a friendly reception to Vasco Da Gama. The Arab traders, who had a good business on the Malabar coast were apprehensive and were not keen on the Portuguese getting a hold there.

For centuries, the trading system in the Indian Ocean had had numerous participants—Indians, Arabs, Africans from the east coast, Chinese, Javanese, among others—but these participants had acted according to some tacit rules of conduct and none had sought overwhelming dominance though all were in it for profit. The Portuguese changed that: they wanted to monopolise the hugely profitable eastern trade by excluding competitors, especially the Arabs.

Vasco da Gama stayed in India for three months. When he returned to Portugal, he carried back with him a rich cargo and sold the merchandise in the European market at a huge profit. The importance of direct access to the pepper trade was made clear by the fact that elsewhere the Europeans, who had to buy through Muslim middlemen, would have had to spend ten times as much for the same amount of pepper. Not surprisingly, other profit-seeking merchants of European nations were tempted to come to India and trade directly.

A voyage was undertaken by Pedro Alvarez Cabral to trade for spices; he negotiated and established a factory at Calicut, where he arrived in September 1500. There was an incident of conflict when the Portuguese factory at Calicut was attacked by the locals, resulting in the death of several Portuguese. In retaliation, Cabral seized a number of Arab merchant ships anchored in the harbour, and killed hundreds of their crew besides confiscating their cargo and burning the ships. Calicut was bombarded by Cabral. Later, Cabral succeeded in making advantageous treaties with the local rulers of Cochin and Cannanore.

Vasco da Gama once again came to India in 1501. The Zamorin declined to exclude the Arab merchants in favour of the Portuguese when Vasco Da Gama combined commercial greed with ferocious hostility and wreaked vengeance on Arab shipping wherever he could. His rupture with the Zamorin

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The landing of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 ... is generally regarded as the beginning of a new era in world history, especially in the relationship between Asia and Europe. Although Asia and Europe had been in commercial relations with each other since antiquity, the opening of the direct sea-relations between the two was not only the fulfilment of an old dream (according to the Greek historian, Herodotus, the Phoenicians had rounded Africa in the 6th century BC) it presaged big increase of trade between the two. This, however, was only one of the objectives of the Portuguese. For the Portuguese, the opening of a new sea-route to India would give a big blow to the Muslims, the Arabs and Turks, who were the traditional enemies of Christianity, and were posing a new threat to Europe by virtue of the growing military and naval power of the Turks. A direct sea-link with India would displace the virtual monopoly of the Arabs and Turks over the trade in eastern goods, especially spices. They also vaguely hoped by their exploration of Africa they would be able to link up with the kingdom of the legendary Prior John, and be in a position to attack the Muslims from two sides. Thus, the commercial and religious objectives supported and justified each other.

—Satish Chandra

thus became total and complete. Vasco da Gama set up a trading factory at Cannanore. Gradually, Calicut, Cannanore and Cochin became the important trade centres of the Portuguese.

Gradually, under the pretext of protecting the factories and their trading activities, the Portuguese got permission to fortify these centres.