Portuguese Seaborne Empire

Lesson by Michael E. Brooks

Published on November 3, 2012.

In this lecture we are going to look

to the rise of the Portuguese
seaborne empire.

The map on this slide
gives you an indication

of territory controlled at one point
in time or another by Portugal.

This is a map if you are looking to date
this would be in the 16th century.

So, parts of South America,
some parts of Central Africa,

a lot of coastal Africa,

the coasts in the Indian subcontinent

and as far away as southern Japan.

The Portuguese had many motivations
for seeking to expand

certainly, land is always in high demand.

There were excess of soldiers
in Portugal at the time

due to political consolidation
that had ended

so what better use for soldiers

than to put them on ships
and send them someplace else

because if you keep them around
they could turn on you.

Some Portuguese citizens
became interested in overseas territories

for honorific titles and for glory

others were interested in trade and profit

many Portuguese had Christian
missionary zeal

others were curious and wanted
to visit new places.

In some way you could consider

Portuguese expansion to be
a continuation of the Crusades

that we have talked about
in previous weeks.

Certainly, there was an element
of many Portuguese believing

that their version of Christianity
was superior to others

and that Islamic people
was somehow inferior

and so that was certainly a factor
in traveling overseas.

You might be surprised to hear
the name Portugal

when talking about the first
truly global or world power

because it is a fairly small nation

even at the time we are talking here
in the 16th century

Portugal only had about a million
and a half people.

On the Reconquista the reconquering
of the Iberian Peninsula

had taken place much earlier in Portugal
that it did in Spain.

Spain did not really finish until 1492
when they conquered Granada

in the southern portion
of modern-day Spain.

The Portuguese finished their Reconquista

or the reclaiming of these lands
from the Islamic rulers

in the 12th century.

Portugal had a much stable monarchy,

much more stable than other
European nations at this time.

If you think of Britain, at the time,

in the 15th century they were fighting
the War of Roses.

The French had not even unified
what is modern-day France at this time.

Places like Burgundy were still
relatively independent.

The Portuguese had an ideal location
on the Atlantic seaboard

which gave them several advantages

certainly, that of being close to the sea

where you want to be if you want
to expand and create a seaborne Empire.

They also had a long tradition
of maritime activities

and tens of thousands of sailors and ships
at ready disposal

so that benefited them.

Finally there was this issue
of the "fidalgos".

So the word "fidalgo" is similar
to the Spanish word "hidalgo"

means "son of someone".

In particular a "fidalgo" or a "hidalgo"
in the Spanish tradition

would be the son of a noble,
the son of someone, maybe with a capital S

so there were a generation of "fidalgos"
who no longer had wars to fight,

civil war was long over

and you had to do something
with these individuals.

They were trained for warfare,

they were seeking glory
and making a name for themselves

and there just was not much else
to do in Portugal

if you were, for example,
the duke of a remote region

where there was sheep herding
or grain growing.

It is not particularly lucrative
nor is it particularly exciting

so some of these "fidalgos",
this generation of young nobles

seeking adventure and glory
helped to catapult Portugal

to the top as a world power.

One of the most important reasons
of the rise of the Portuguese

as a world power was a man named
Dom Henrique, or Prince Henry,

of the royal house of Aviz.

He lived from 1394 to 1460.

He was the third son
of King John of Portugal,

the founder of the Aviz dynasty

and he was related
to King Edward III of England

through his mother's side.

In 1420 he was named the governor
of the wealthy Order of Christ.

the Portuguese successor
to the Knights Templar.

As the third son of the Portuguese king,
chances were pretty slim

even for those days that he would live
long enough to be king,

so he was always going to be
a claimant to the throne

but a sort of distant claimant

so he kind of carved
a new niche out for himself.

As governor of the Order of Christ

he had a very wealthy
and steady income stream

which allowed him to sponsor
many voyages of discovery.

We should note, I should add,

that Prince Henry the Navigator
went on very few voyages himself

and one we will talk about
in particular

but mostly stayed in his court at Sagres
which is on the screen here.

He attracted scientists, sailors,
and merchants to his court.

Unlike — and your book may say this too,
I don't recall exactly what it said then

many textbooks have this mistaken
impression that at Sagres

there was a research school
for maritime studies or something

they came with these crazy terms.

It really was not a school,
it was just a medieval prince

that people came to see
and they were after his money

or his sponsorship
for these voyages which he did

but he was very integral,
even though again

he almost never left his court at Sagres.

Here is Sagres, a very southern tip,
extreme southwestern tip of Portugal.

on the Atlantic Ocean.

If you were looking out from the court
of Prince Henry, the Navigator

— which you can't anymore
because it's no longer there,

there is a memorial there for it —

but this is the view that Prince Henry
ostensibly would have seen

looking out from his court.

And this is your intrepid instructor
in the beach near Sagres

thinking that in August it would be
great whether for swimming.

In fact, the water was probably
about 4º or 5º C.

The North Atlantic current
comes right down the coast of Portugal

at that time of year.

It was very icy, so I was there only
long enough to get a photo.

Prince Henry had a number of motivations.

He was a deeply religious individual

and there are some questions
to how to rank this.

I would probably say God and gold
would be 1 & 2,

depending on the day of the week.

He certainly wanted to spread
the Christian Gospel,

to tale back lands that were
in the hands of pagans or Muslims

but he was a man of his times
and a man who sought prophet

where he could find it

so, he had these dual competing
first motivations.

Certainly. he was interested in glory.

He was born into a royal house

and this is sort of expected
to make a name for oneself.

One of the main interests though
for Prince Henry

was to find a route to what
he called the Indies,

places where valuable spices were grown.

Things like pepper,
nutmeg, cloves, and maize

could only be at this time purchased
through a very fortuitous route.

If you think back to our
earliest discussions of the Silk Road,

you get an idea of how far
things have to travel across land

to get to Europe.

So, he wanted to sort of a bypass
Venetian middlemen merchants

who did business with the Arabs

who did business with the Persians

who did business with people in India
and the Indian Ocean basin

and bring those spices to Europe
at a cheaper price

and thus, keep the profits for himself.

Finally, Prince Henry was interested
in an individual

that we refer to today as Prester John.

Prester John was a mythical figure,
he did not exist.

There is a number of theories

as to who might have inspired
this legendary figure

but he was believed by the Portuguese
and many Europeans at this time

to live somewhere in the east.

So, they had a term
they referred to as the Indies

which could have been
the Arabian Peninsula.

could have been the Horn of Africa,

could have been India itself.

Europeans at this time
had a very fuzzy notion

of what the world looked like.

They did not believe it was flat
unlike the common misconception

about Columbus,

but they believed the Indian Ocean
was a closed ocean

and the Portuguese were among
the first to contest that,

but Prester John was believed
to be a very powerful Christian king

somewhere in the east

and Europeans believed fervently

that all they needed to do
was to contact with Prester John

and they would have a valuable ally
against the Muslim world.

We should not overlook
the role of technology

in Portuguese expansion.

The Portuguese proved themselves
to be very innovative

both in their use of new technology,

their invention of new technology
in their overseas voyages

pictured here as a monument in Lisbon.

Actually it is in Belém,
just to the west of Lisbon

It is the "padrão dos descobrimentos",
or the pillar of discovery.

Henry the Navigator is first
and foremost on the far right.

You can see he is holding a ship

and a number of other famous explorers
are in this sculpture,

including Vasco da Gama
we'll talk about a bit later

in this presentation.

The astrolabe was used
for measuring angles

between observers and the stars,
the moon or the sun.

It has Greek and Arabic origins
as a land-based navigation tool

but the Portuguese and the Spanish
began using this at sea

which was an innovation.

With an astrolabe
you can determine latitude

which allows you to sail
out of sight from land.

Portulani or portolan charts are maps
that show coastal features and ports.

They provide the user a very realistic
depiction of the shore

but they do not take into account
the curvature of the Earth.

They are very unhelpful
in crossing open ocean

where you can't see the land.

They are better used
for smaller bodies of water

like the Mediterranean or any place
that you could stay in reach of the coast.

But the Portuguese
were among the innovators

who began using these portulani.

"Roteiros"

We would translate this
in English as rudders.

They are more like diaries
that may be like a diary plus a map.

They were highly accurate
and secret sailing instructions

that describe harbours and routes
to get to various places.

They would provide information
about landmarks

and other navigational information

and drawings of notable features.

The Portuguese did their very best
for several centuries

to keep these from falling into the hands
of would-be competitors.

The Portuguese did not invent the cannon
and this use of gunpowder based firearms

as we know from earlier discussions
first occurred in China.

But the Portuguese innovation
was to stick cannons on ships

and make them sort of floating fortresses.

The "caravela", that the English
called the carrack

was a very innovative ship
that the Portuguese developed.

It was very agile and easier to navigate.

It had a tonnage
of between 50 and 160 tons.

Usually it was a three-masted ship
and it mixed a variety of sails

so it had a square mast sail

which is kind of a northern
European tradition

— you can see it
in the centre of the ship —

which provided power.

And then they mixed in
these triangular-shaped or lateen sails

and they get this idea from the Arabs
in the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean.

So lateen sails allow you to tack
or take 90 degrees angle back and forth

so you can sail against the wind.

The caravel had a very shallow keel
instead of a very deeper keel

so shallow keeled ships
can go up deeper rivers

as opposed to more ocean-going vessels.

This is a very fast and manoeuvrable ship
although somewhat limited

in its cargo capacity, very little
in the way of cabin accomnodations.

People generally slept on deck.

Interestingly too, you can see
the forecastle and aftcastle.

These are structures built on the ship

but through which armaments
could be fired

but they were very powerful ships
for the time period, very innovative

and one of the reasons
Portuguese took off

as a major seaborne imperial power.

A much larger ship they developed
a little bit later into the 16th century

was the "nau".

These would be over 100 tons.

They were more like, if the character
of caravel was the floating fortress,

this would be like a floating
warehouse with cannons.

They were designed to carry large cargoes

and to protect them as best as possible.

They were able to old sufficient stores
for much longer voyages

than the "caravelas" which had to pull
into port relatively frequently,

after a few weeks
for fresh water and food.

The Portuguese were innovative
in developing systems of maritime insurance

to protect against hazards
when ships were sent out to sea.

Of course, it was very expensive
to outfit a ship and send it to sea

so, this was just another
modernization or innovation

the Portuguese were forerunners up.

The beginnings of the Portuguese Empire
is the next section

that we'll take a look at

so we have to see how Portugal
goes from being a tiny nation

of a million and a half people
at the beginning of the 15th century

into becoming a world power.

This process begins with the capture
of a place called Ceuta

on the northern African coast in 1415.

This was an expedition and it's one
of the few times

Prince Henry actually left Portugal.

He was on this initial military expedition
against Ceuta.

45 000 soldiers and support personnel

and 200 Portuguese ships
left Lisbon in 1415.

European observers knew
something was going on

but they didn't know exactly
where the Portuguese were going.

They did catch the defenders
of Ceuta off guard

and it was a relatively quick victory.

Unfortunately for the Portuguese,
they had originally thought

that if they captured Ceuta,
they would have this stranglehold

on trans-Saharan trade,
especially gold,

but the caravans just found
other ports to go to

and they sort of bypassed Ceuta
since it was in Portuguese hands.

So, it was a military victory
and they captured some land and territory

but it did not provide the Portuguese
the wealth they thought.

The next series of expeditions
were down the West Africa coast

and Prince Henry was sponsoring
these voyages again.

He would send out ships sometimes
several per year.

The expedition led by Gil Eanes
to keep Bojador

was particularly significant

because Europeans believed
this is a point of no return

where if you went too far
sea monsters will devour you.

It's in modern-day Western Sahara.

In my crudely drawn map here
you can see

one of the reasons why this had been
a source of difficulty for Europeans

is the way that the waves
and current systems

travel at Cape Bojador.

They split, they either go north or south.

The difficulty in the past
before the development of ships

like the "caravela", was that
ships would go past Cape Bojador

and never came back.

They didn't get eaten by sea monsters
but they just couldn't make it back

because of the winds
and the currents at that point.

Continuing down African coast, 1441

you can see, if you look closely

António Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão.

Nuno Tristão was a knight
and an employer of Henry the Navigator.

The success of this expedition
led Portuguese merchants and adventurers

to apply to Henry
for slave trading licences

between 1444 and 1446.

Several dozens of Portuguese ships
set out for slave raids

around our Guinea Bay

which you can see is near the centre
of this particular map.

They started initially hunting seals
but they brought back slaves to Price Henry

because they couldn't catch seals
on one expedition

and this proved to be
a very lucrative trade.

Lisbon almost overnight became
a major slave selling market

and this really was the beginning
of the transatlantic slave trade.

So, if I sound enthusiastic
about Prince Henry the Navigator,

keep in mind he was also
the world's first merchant

in human trafficking in
the transatlantic slave trade.

So, rather mixed history
for our friend, Prince Henry.

Alvise Cadamosto was
a Venetian ship captain

so, he wasn't ethnically Portuguese

but was in the employ of
Prince Henry the Navigator

In 1455 he discovered at least
for the Europeans

the Madeira and the Canary Islands.

In 1456 he discovered
the Cape Verde Islands.

He sailed about 60 miles
up the Gambia River.

Most those accounts of journeys

especially the detailed observations
of West Africa

are invaluable to modern-day historians.

The Canary Islands eventually
go to the Spanish

but both of those major island chains
were major sources of sugar cultivation

and this was sort of a way
in which the Spanish and the Portuguese

learned how to make
very healthy profits

from exploiting human labour
in the form of slaves

to produce a particularly lucrative
cash crop which is sugar.

There was an interesting...

Prince Henry the Navigator
died in 1456, by the way,

and there was a little bit of a lull
in the Portuguese expansion

in part due to an attempted
coup d'état on the crown

or civil discontent in the country

but there was an interesting discovery

that was made
by João Vaz Corte-Real, the Explorer.

He called it Terra Nova do Bacalhau,
in 1472.

Now the Portuguese, remember,
are very secret about where they go

but he called it
the New Land of the Codfish.

The Portuguese had been traveling
into the North Atlantic

to fish for cod
which are very big, at this time.

Some of them were up
to about eight feet in length

although the North Atlantic
has been kind of overfished on cod

but there are very important
commodity for the Portuguese.

Prior to traveling to India was codfish

because you can dry it very easily
you can sell it, it keeps for a long time.

All you have to do
is reconstitute it with water.

So, João Vaz Corte-Real landed
someplace in the North Atlantic

that he called it
the New Land of the Codfish.

This might have a new feeling.

He might have beat Christopher Columbus
to North America by 20 years.

There have been other Europeans
not the least of which were the Vikings

who we know today wound up
in Newfoundland Labrador

and parts of Canada.

But we are pretty sure he was somewhere
in the Grand Banks off the coast

of Newfoundland and may
have set foot on North America.

The next major figure that leads
Portuguese expansion again

after this period of a civil war
and ??? discourse

is João II, who was the grand-nephew
of Henry the Navigator.

As a prince, John II accompanied his father

in campaigns in northern Africa,
as a young man.

He was made a knight after victory
the conquest of Arzila

in northern Africa, in 1471.

In 1473 he married Leonor of Viseu,
the Infanta of Portugal, his first cousin.

It was crazy times back then

and that kind of things was pretty normal
among the royal houses of Europe.

Significance is he kind of kickstarts
and jumpstarts Portuguese expansion.

He is very much interested
in the unexplored lands

and the potential for profits
that existed overseas.

After Henry the Navigator,

he is probably the second
most important figure

in leading Portugal's expansion

and he begins to sponsor new voyages.

Diogo Cão, the first European known
to cross the Equator

— I'm sure there were plenty of others
who did, we just do not have records of.

In this image you can see a "padrão"
or a pillar, a marker,

erected by Cão at the river Congo.

He was the first European known
to sight and enter the Congo River

and he explored the territory
of Central Africa

from the Equator all the way down
to Walvis Bay and Namibia.

The marker he left reads
something like this,

"Here arrived the ships
of king John II of Portugal"

and the names of the explorers.

On July 2nd also, he sent forth explorers
to go to what is modern-day Ethiopia.

This is one of the places that Europeans
thought Prester John might be located

because the Ethiopians — as we have
talked about in previous weeks —

were a Christian kingdom

but they were not really well known

at least by first-hand experience
to the Europeans.

Of course, it's very difficult
to get to Ethiopia

— except for the modern world,
we can fly there.

It is a highland region
so it is 10 -15 thousand feet in the air

and difficult to arrive at

but this is one of several efforts
by the Portuguese

to locate this legendary priest,
king Prester John.

The Cabo da Boa Esperança,

— which we would translate
as the Cape of Good Hope —

was passed by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488.

He made it around and this is the point
at which the Portuguese knew

there was another route by which
they could get to India.

By this time the Portuguese had figured out
the Indian Ocean was not a closed ocean

and there was a route to get there.

The Portuguese are
in a very enviable position.

Unfortunately, at this time too

you have Christopher Columbus
getting ready to make his voyage

across the Atlantic,

so, the Portuguese are going
to wait-and-see mode

after a few years to figure out
what has Columbus done

and how this affect us

because they knew at this point
that they had a route

they could get to India.

The Indian Ocean basin, at this time,
is really the centre of the world commerce.

You can see just a few of the items
that are being traded in this region

with this region being sort of the centre
for goods going back and forth

between Europe and East Asia

or many products themselves.

A great number
of spices, textile products.

Left off of this map here, interestingly,
is the East African merchants.

I'm going to have to make a point

to update this map
as I'm looking at it

because slaves. ivory and gold
were traded from East Africa

to some of these other regions.

But the important point is that
the Portuguese knew

this was a place where there was
a lot of valuable commodities

and they had to get there.

The Spanish too knew
of the existence of this region.

I mean they have been receiving
these products

through Venetian and Arabic traders
for hundreds of years.

In 1494 we have already had
Columbus travel back,

travel to the New World back.

The Portuguese, at this time, know
that they have a road to the Indies

so they agree to develop
a treaty with the Spanish.

It has to involve the Pope

and it doesn't really go
so well for the Portuguese

because there is a Spanish Pope
on this time

and so the Spanish kind of have
one of their own on the papal throne.

The Treaty of Tordesillas essentially
divided the world into two spheres.

This map shows you the boundaries
of the Treaty of Tordesillas.

You can see, interestingly,
there is this dotted line.

We'll get to that in a second.

Everything to the west was supposed
to be Spanish territory.

Everything to the east was supposed
to be Portuguese territory.

Of course, the English, the French,
the Germans, the Russians,

anybody else who might have
an interest in some of these areas,

the Italians, they were not happy
about this treaty

and of course, many of them
have denounced it

but again, we had a Spanish Pope
on the throne.

The dotted line represents the original
line of demarcation,

at the 38th longitude.

Interestingly, the Portuguese insisted
on getting this pushed further west.

To the Spanish this seemed
like a no-brainer be there, like,

"Ok, if you want some open ocean,
you can have more open ocean"

because, as far as they knew,

Columbus had landed in the West Indies

— what we today call the West Indies —

and there was nothing else there
between the 38th and 46th marker.

Some conspiracy theorists
or even educated historians

suggest that maybe the Portuguese
knew of the existence of Brazil

and that is why they insisted
on moving this line for the west.

The other explanation is
the Portuguese were just negotiating

and they had no clue
as to the location of Brazil.

But it wouldn't surprise me
that the Portuguese again

who were so very secretive and kept
all their information tightly close to them

would have known about this.

At any rate, after this treaty is signed
there is a new king.

We have got Manuel I.

Vasco da Gama and his famous voyage.

He is the first European to go around
the southern coast of Africa

and get to India.

The first voyage in 1497-1499,
a very significant expedition

with four ships, 500 men.

When he arrived in Calicut
his first words allegedly were,

"We seek Christians and spices".

So, this reinforces this idea
that they were still looking

very dedicated fashioned
for Prester John.

The second voyage, a much bigger fleet,
20 ships, over 2000 men.

This was a voyage built heavily
on the use of what we would today called

gunboat diplomacy.

Vasco da Gama showed up in places
like Calicut in the Indian coast,

the Malabar coast of India,

and places like Quiloa,
on Swahili coast of East Africa

and essentially gave an ultimatum,

"either sign a trade treaty with us
or we will bomb you into oblivion.

Of course, they didn't quite have
enough firepower to destroy entire cities

but it was fairly effective

in getting some of these local leaders

to come on board with the Portuguese.

The Mîrî was a pilgrim ship.

You can see it is spelled here.

As a way to try to enforce
Portuguese rule

— this was actually in the Arabian Sea

which us kind of the northern part
of the Indian Ocean —

this pilgrim ship was traveling
back from Mecca

and had mostly women,
children and old people on it.

In order to make his point

Vasco da Gama ordered
the burning and sinking of the ship

with all the occupants on it.

So, very harsh realities
that the Portuguese were seeking

to impose on the Indian Ocean basin.

In terms of a legacy, Vasco da Gama
made almost overnight

Portugal a dominant world power.

He provided a new route to the east

something known as the "estado da India"
comes out of this.

So, they translated it directly
a "state of India"

but it's like the Portuguese
Seaborne Empire in India.

This opened a new period
of European expansion

and the Portuguese reputation
became one of

— I don't know how else to put it —

they become known as rather ruthless

thugs who would do
whatever they needed to do

in order to protect their new empire.

Here is a quick image of the
"estado da India".

The method by which
the Portuguese set shops

in the east was mostly
to get these small regions,

little port cities hold on
to those tenaciously

and try to control all the choke points
on the main trade points

in these networks.

For the better part of a hundred years

the Portuguese had
an almost exclusive lock on spices

and other Asian and South Asian products
traveling to Europe.

They became extremely wealthy
in a very short period of time.

In terms of early effects
Portugal again became a major world power.

This really changed the political
and commercial structure

of the Indian Ocean basin.

The Portuguese established themselves
as a dominant power

not the only power in
the Indian Ocean basin

throughout the 16th century.

They were the most powerful
maritime force

in the Indian Ocean basin

and had a stranglehold kind of
on much of the trade coming out of there.

This was a very significant blow
for the Venetians

who again had had that middle person
or middleman trading

with Arabs and Persians
going through the Middle East.

They used to control the spice trade

and some of the important
east-west trades

and they were almost overnight
sort of booted out of these trades.

They never really recovered from that.

Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese
as a world power,

the Venetians had been on the rise.

They were a major commercial power

and something of a military power
in the Mediterranean basin.

That loss almost overnight
of revenue doomed them.

Portugal dominated the spice trade
to Europe in much of the 16th century

became very wealthy

but good news for Venice
bad news for the Portuguese

because other European powers
became very interested

in tapping into profits that Portuguese
seemed to have monopolized.

This brings to a close
or a brief look at

the Portuguese Seaborne Empire.