RandallUnknown Seas
Unknown Seas: The Portuguese Captains and the Passage to India (Watkins, Ronald), 2011
Loc. 220-225 | It was the Portuguese who opened the way into the Atlantic. They were the first to sail south down the west coast of Africa, the first Europeans to pass the equator, to double the African continent, the first to reach India by sea from Europe. They were the first Europeans to reach Ceylon, Sumatra, Malacca and Timor, the first to find the mythical Spice Islands, the Moluccas. They were the first Europeans to reach and trade with both China and Japan by sea, the first to view Australia. And in the Americas they ‘discovered’ Brazil. There is credible evidence they were the first to land on North America in 1500. The methodical Portuguese expeditions were all a part of a decades-long, systematic exploration and discovery of the unknown world.
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Loc. 240-246 | The story of the Portuguese explorations is not one of quaint men in picturesque wooden ships. It is a tale of passion, of blood and treachery, of incomparable bravery, of majestic sweeps of vision, of nation- and empire-building. It is a drama played across a world stage, in a time that will never be repeated, for it was the last era when the physical world and its peoples were largely unknown, when each ship returned with new knowledge, when myth was finally separated from reality. It is no wonder ‘The Discoveries’, as the Portuguese came to call them, filled so many with such hunger and compelled so much sacrifice. The cost was enormous and in many ways is immeasurable. ‘God gave the Portuguese a small country as cradle but all the world as their grave’,
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Loc. 256-261 | For Prince Henry, John I, John II and Manuel, those who had the most to do with directing the effort, it was nothing less than the Crusades, reborn in a different manifestation but with the same objective. It was believed, correctly, that flanking the Muslims who controlled the gateway to Asian spices would weaken the infidel. It was hoped, futilely, this would lead to the reconquest of Jerusalem. The Portuguese achievement, however, had far greater implications by imposing European superiority in technology and weapons across the world. It spread Christianity and Western culture to the most distant lands, the effects of which are profound to this day and the ramifications of which continue to be felt.
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Loc. 271-276 | The most disturbing aspect of the Discoveries was the introduction of black African slaves into the European economy. The Portuguese did not invent slavery, nor did they create African slavery, but they gave it a scale unknown previously and brought untold misery and suffering to countless millions through its merciless application. They did not see it like that. The Christian nations of Europe, or for that matter the Hindu and Muslim nations who likewise practised widespread slavery, considered it to be the natural state of the world. In Europe it was accepted that it was better for a pagan black African to spend his or her life in Christian bondage than to remain in Africa and burn in hell for eternity.
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Loc. 379-380 | Possessed of few natural resources and no great wealth, the monarchy struggled every year to remain solvent and nearly every generation fought to hold its power against the powerful counts.
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Loc. 408-412 | But ships of the era depended on known winds and currents to make a safe return. While a ship could sail with the wind at no great effort, it could only make its way back by tacking against a slight wind. If the currents of the ocean and the speed of the wind were more than modest, any vessel of the time sailing too far downwind would never find its way home. By the fifteenth century there were many accounts in history of ships that had sailed south along the coast of Africa and not a single telling of one that had ever returned. One source extravagantly claimed more than 12,000 such losses.
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Loc. 463-464 | But while spices were eventually valued for their purported curative powers and other positive benefits, they were initially sought primarily to be used as aphrodisiacs.
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Loc. 469 | But most valued above all the others was pepper.
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Loc. 507-509 | The clearest signs of a lucrative trade with India were the attempts to construct a canal across the Suez, finally accomplished, or restored by some accounts, by Darius I, king of Persia from 521 to 485 BC.
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Loc. 516-517 | Alexandria in Egypt become the gateway for spices into western Europe; one of its portals was called ‘the Pepper Gate’.
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Loc. 518-519 | The Romans established direct contact with India after they occupied Egypt, in essence taking control of the trade that had existed between Pharaoh and India for nearly 3,000 years.
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Loc. 535-539 | Jews played a key role in the spice trade nearly everywhere. The Book of Conquests and of Countries, by the Iman of Baghdad, gives as the reason the fact that Jews ‘speak Persian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Spanish and Slav’. They travelled freely from Saipan to Tangier, across north Africa to Cairo then to Damascus, Baghdad and from there to India and China. They exported silks, furs, swords, female slaves and eunuchs. From Asia they returned with aloes, camphor, cinnamon, musk and other valuables.
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Loc. 546-547 | At Poppea’s funeral, the grieving Nero ordered all the cinnamon imported from Ceylon over one year to be burnt.
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Loc. 584-585 | The trade in spices meant great wealth, luxury and power for those in control of the choke points. Constantinople and Alexandria were the two primary gateways for the flow of spices into the West,
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Loc. 593-594 | The creation by Genoa, Florence and Venice between 1252 and 1284 of gold coins, which allowed even greater expansion of trade east, was the first in Europe since Charlemagne.
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Loc. 595-596 | The spice trade was the single most powerful economic engine for producing wealth in medieval Europe.
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Loc. 597-598 | The price of spices began to rise dramatically in 1300, when the Sultan in Cairo ordered that all such traffic in his region be routed through the city, where he imposed a heavy tax.
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Loc. 625-628 | Most significantly, the Black Death was introduced into Europe from the Black Sea in 1348. The resulting decrease in European population, the ensuing decline in its economy and the religious fervour it produced all disrupted trade significantly. Just as Europe was beginning its slow recovery, the Great Khans in China were succeeded in 1368 by the Mings, who promptly expelled the Mongols and all other foreigners.
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Loc. 629-630 | Constantinople’s key role in the spice trade ended in 1453, when the Muslim Turks seized the city and prohibited all commercial trade with Christians.
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Loc. 634-635 | By this time Europe’s supply of precious metal was exhausted, leading to an inevitable devaluation of all currencies. Portugal was among the worst to suffer.
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Loc. 698-700 | Christians did inhabit lands to the East, though they were not in regular contact with western Europe, and practised a version of the faith, primarily as Nestorians, considered corrupt by the pope. There was a strong desire on the part of the Portuguese to contact these groups and restore them to the True Faith, a desire the equal of that to convert the pagan.
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Loc. 702-704 | … inspired by Ptolemy’s in his Geographia depicted the Indian Ocean as a landlocked sea and the continent of Africa as extending southward to form a continuous land mass that could not be rounded.
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Loc. 712-715 | Magi who had visited the Christ Child. He defeated the Muslims in a great battle but had been prevented from joining the crusaders because his army was unable to cross the Tigris river. Still, he remained a demonstrable ally in the East. The basis of this story is probably the merging of certain historical events and personages, capped by a great deal of wishful thinking.
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Loc. 724-726 | The legend of Prester John, the powerful Christian king who desired to make common cause with the European Christians, was a seductive draw to the Portuguese and an essential element in their decision to risk rounding Africa and sail the increasingly extraordinary distances the passage to India entailed.
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Loc. 735-736 | Portugal has the oldest fixed borders of any European nation.
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Loc. 974-975 | Henry’s interest in all things African was especially excited by the conquest of Ceuta, with its riches and exotica.
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Loc. 977-978 | He quickly grasped that if Portugal was to benefit from the riches that lay to the south, it would have to reach the source by following the coast of Africa in ships.
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Loc. 984-985 | … a heady mix of God and greed, the perfect elixir to stimulate the Portuguese to even greater endeavours.
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Loc. 1011-1015 | … explore southward with the purpose of establishing a trade link with the Mali empire, to discover new lands as opportunity presented itself and to gather intelligence for their crusade against the Moors. At about this time Henry was named Grand Master of the Order of Christ. From its foundation the order had been given the responsibility of expelling the infidels and that remained its primary objective. This was a great honour to Henry, but even more important for the future of the small kingdom, it meant he received the lucrative income from the order, resources he could use to finance the discoveries.
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Loc. 1126-1131 | So it was for Henry’s commitment to his life’s work, which slowly evolved during his research and consultations. The plan, as he conceived it early on, was to use his resources as Grand Master of the Order of Christ to push his ships ever south along the coast of pagan Africa, to carry to those primitive peoples the word of God and to bring back to the king pepper, ivory and gold. The ultimate goal was to establish a link with the elusive Prester John and his Christian kingdom. The location of this kingdom, long held to be somewhere in Asia, was uncertain but once the link was made Christian Europe and Portugal would have a powerful ally in the fight against the Muslims.
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Loc. 1333-1335 | The Portuguese were not alone in slave-taking. The Arabs in north and east Africa had already established their own profitable trade in black slaves taken from central Africa and exported the captives to Arabia, Persia and India. Gonçalves and Tristão had introduced the modern dark chapter of African slavery.
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Loc. 1421-1422 | When his nephew the new king expressed his desire to attack the Moors in retaliation for the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Henry offered advice and encouragement.
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Loc. 1449-1450 | Although trade opportunities and a source of gold remained primary Portuguese objections, they were no longer the only ones. The idea of circumnavigating Africa to reach the origin of the spice trade had gradually become an important part of the mix.
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Loc. 1891-1895 | The two small ships resumed sailing and on the third day reached the vicinity of the Great Fish river, some 25 leagues east of Algoa Bay. The waters were warmer now and a steady current flowed northward. There could be no doubt but that Africa had been rounded and here Dias erected a pillar. In his mind’s eye, we are told, Dias could see the distant ‘land of India, but, like Moses and the promised land, he did not enter it’.
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Loc. 1900-1901 | Bartolomeu Dias and his men named it Cape of Storms [Cabo Tormentoso]
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Loc. 1922 | Interestingly, Christopher Columbus was present when Dias made his report to the king.
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Loc. 1995 | The Portuguese court was filled with spies from jealous European kings,
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Loc. 2037-2042 | With the fall of Constantinople to the Muslims in 1453, the Genoese Black Sea trading colonies had collapsed and their traders had largely relocated to Alexandria, which was now more prosperous than at any point in its rich history. As the focal point for trade from Asia, India and Africa, quantities of silk and spice, printed cotton and skins, as well as ivory and, of course, slaves passed through Alexandria to Europe, all of it lucratively taxed. Every luxury, and every vice known to man, was for sale in Alexandria. The city had long since outgrown its ancient boundaries as well as the Roman drainage and water systems. By the fifteenth century the port was known for its decidedly unhealthy climate
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Loc. 2043-2052 | The Mameluke sultans of Egypt may have profited from Christian traders, but Muslims did no more than tolerate them. For purposes of control and to avoid unnecessary contact with them, Europeans were required to live in distinct walled settlements called fonducs. These were in place for every significant group of Europeans engaged in trade in Alexandria. Within these enclaves each group managed its own affairs and at night the gates into this artificial world of the fonducs were sealed.96 The European Christians were permitted to remain in Alexandria only during the time when spice arrived from Asia, but within these enclaves for that period of time they were protected from harassment and arrest by Egyptians authorities, although in the course of their trade they were subjected to every possible insult and humiliation. Christians were for instance required to wear a 5 pound wooden cross on a chain about their necks. Their trade goods were taken for counting and examination, then a tax of 2% was levied on them, and another tax of 1 ducat per person was required as well. Finally the Europeans were literally stripped to the skin and searched, to be certain they had with them nothing that had not been declared and taxed.
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Loc. 2061 | Cairo was a vibrant city and the true centre of the spice trade in Egypt.
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Loc. 2083-2084 | Aden, situated near the Arabian Sea, was the gateway to India and Asia.
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Loc. 2330-2334 | … the Portuguese monarchs were nearly obsessed with the idea of continuing the reconquest of the Moors by systematically driving them from north Africa. The eventual objective was Jerusalem and the heady title ‘Emperor of the East’. This also must have helped to motivate Manuel to reach India and usurp the spice trade. In doing so he would remove the economic underpinnings of the Mamelukes in Egypt, the primary obstacle to Jerusalem, as well as providing himself with the financial means to renew the conquest across north Africa.
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Loc. 2468-2472 | But for all the Portuguese ingenuity and all their success, the caravel still possessed serious limitations. Because of its small size, often no more than 50 tons, it could not carry sufficient supplies for the increasingly lengthy voyages of discovery. There was also no provision for crew quarters in its design. The captain and hisofficers had a cramped living space but the seamen were expected to live and sleep on the deck. During inclement weather they sought refuge below, huddling where they could on top of the cargo.
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Loc. 2479-2480 | Dias was placed in charge of ship construction. He was given instructions to design ships ‘to resist the fury of the sea at the great Cape of Good Hope’.
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Loc. 2481 | Dias worked under Gama’s direction from the first.
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Loc. 2722-2726 |. . . Oh, Mighty God, be Thou our watchful guide. . . . To weigh our anchors from our native shore – To dare new oceans never dared before – Perhaps to see my native coast no more.
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Loc. 2901-2903 | Throughout the Indian Ocean Arab traders were responsible for the spread of rice, coffee and sugarcane. They also introduced the Chinese inventions of paper, the saddle and stirrups, the compass and gunpowder. They brought to the Chinese the astrolabe, so essential to long-distance blue-ocean sailing.
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Loc. 2915-2917 | Among the major commodities traded throughout the region were black slaves taken from east Africa. Countless cargoes of slaves were transported into the Middle East and to India, many of them carried as far east as China, a traffic that continued until the nineteenth century. Trade in slaves had always existed in the Indian Ocean, but it was the Arabs who became its great specialists and perfected its operation.
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Loc. 2927-2928 | The first expansion of Islam by force into India came from the Middle East in AD 711, when an Arab expedition entered the lower Indus Valley in northwest India.
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Loc. 2931-2934 | The great Muslim push into India began in the late tenth century, when Maymud of Ghazni, ruler of a Turkish state in Afghanistan, executed a series of seventeen devastating raids against the declining Pratiharas to plunder and seize slaves. As a consequence a substantial expanse of north central India passed under Muslim control, with Lahore as the capital.