Occupation of the African coast, the Atlantic islands and Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India

Introduction.

In this topic we will study the occupation of the African coast and the Atlantic islands, which were colonised by the Portuguese from the 15th century onwards. We will also study the voyage of Vasco da Gama, which led to the discovery of a sea route to the Indies.

Since the beginning of the 15th century, the Portuguese had been exploring the African coast with the intention of establishing trading posts to guarantee trade with these unknown regions.

The main interest of the Portuguese was the search for precious metals, spices and, later, African slaves.

As a result of the knowledge gained from the expansion of the expeditions that colonised the African coast and the Atlantic islands, Portugal was able to reach India, a region rich in spices.

It was Vasco da Gama’s expedition that enabled Portugal to trade with the East.

It also proved the viability of a sea route to the East. Vasco da Gama’s expedition was followed by many others, including that of Pedro Álvares Cabral, which culminated in the “discovery” of Brazil in 1500.

Occupation of the African coast and the Atlantic islands

The first milestone in the occupation of the African coast was the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa (now Morocco) in 1415.

This conquest was the starting point for Portuguese expansion.

It was from this trading post that the Portuguese launched their project to occupy and conquer the West African coast of Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde and São Tomé.

From this conquest, the expansion extended to the entire coast.

The methodical expansion developed along the west coast of Africa and the islands of the Atlantic Ocean.

As a result of the same movement, contact with these two geographical areas resulted in such different situations that it is worth separating them in our account.

The discovery of the west coast of Africa didn’t happen overnight.

It took 53 years from Gil Eanes’ passage of Cape Bojador (1434) to Bartolomeu Dias’ feared passage of the Cape of Good Hope (1487).

Vasco da Gama’s entry into the Indian Ocean enabled him to reach India, the dreamed-of and illusory India of spices.

The Portuguese then reached China and Japan, where their influence was so great that Japanese historians refer to the period between 1540 and 1630 as the “Christian Century”.

In colonising the coast, the Portuguese did not seek to penetrate the continent; their intention was to establish various fiefs (fortified trading posts) with the aim of exchanging and trading products with the natives.

The Portuguese did not actually colonise the African continent, preferring instead to establish trading posts.

These were usually maintained by military intervention.

Without penetrating deeply into African territory, the Portuguese established a series of trading posts on the coast, which were fortified trading centres; this indicates the existence of a situation in which trade was precarious and required the guarantee of weapons.

The commercial part of the centre was run by an agent called a feitor.

He was responsible for buying goods from local chiefs or traders and storing them until they were collected by Portuguese ships for delivery to Europe.

The option of the trading post made it virtually unnecessary to colonise the territory occupied by the African populations, who were well organised from Cape Verde onwards.

Although the Portuguese did not actually penetrate the African coast and colonise the area, they did establish a series of procedures that ensured effective control of trade in the region.

But if the Portuguese didn’t advance territorially, the Crown did organise African trade, establishing a royal monopoly on gold transactions, requiring coins to be minted in a mint and also creating, around 1481, the Casa da Mina or Casa da Guiné as a special customs house for African trade.

From the west coast of Africa, the Portuguese brought small quantities of gold powder, ivory (which until then had been traded by Arab merchants via Egypt), a variety of chilli called malagueta and, from 1441 onwards, slaves.

These were first sent to Portugal and used for domestic and urban labour.

The process of colonising the islands was more complex.

From the outset, the Portuguese sent settlers to effectively populate them, encouraging sheep farming and the cultivation of sugar cane, wheat and vineyards.

In this way, from the first half of the 15th century, the islands became important advanced colonies in the Portuguese maritime expansion.

The Portuguese, who already knew them, landed in Porto Santo in 1419 and in Madeira in 1420.

Colonisation began a few years later. About a hundred settlers moved in.

They immediately began to clear the land.

The small dwellings of the first settlers soon became towns: Funchal and Machico received their charters in 1451.

Wheat, sugar cane and vines were planted in the soil of the old forests.

By 1455, exports to Portugal and the fortresses of North Africa were already considerable.

The pace of development continued to be intense until the end of the century.

In 1481, the Cortes reported that twenty foreign ships had left the island with sugar the previous year, and the king was asked to prohibit the settlement of foreigners, who were arriving in large numbers.

The population, before 1500, already totalled twenty thousand people.

The process of colonising the islands would give the Portuguese experience.

Later, when they colonised Brazil, this experience would be useful, as the Portuguese would adapt the colonisation strategies of the islands to the process of settling and colonising Brazil.

The history of the occupation of the Atlantic islands is quite different from that of Africa.

There, the Portuguese carried out important experiments in large-scale plantations using slave labour.

Having fought with the Spanish and lost the Canary Islands to them, they managed to establish themselves on the other islands: Madeira in 1420, the Azores in 1427, Cape Verde in 1460 and São Tomé in 1471.

On the island of Madeira, two parallel agricultural systems competed for economic supremacy.

The traditional cultivation of wheat attracted a considerable number of modest Portuguese peasants who owned their own land.

At the same time, sugar cane plantations based on slave labour sprang up, encouraged by Genoese and Jewish merchants and agents.

The sugar economy eventually triumphed, but its success was short-lived.

Its rapid decline was due to both internal factors and competition from sugar from Brazil and São Tomé.

In fact, on this island in the Gulf of Guinea, the Portuguese established a system of large-scale sugar cane plantations very similar to those in Brazil.

Close to the African coast, especially the trading posts of São Jorge da Mina and Axim, the island had an abundant supply of slaves.

There were mills which, according to a description from 1554, held between 150 and 300 captives.

São Tomé has always been an entrepôt for slaves coming from the continent to be distributed in America and Europe, and this eventually became the island’s main activity.

As we have seen in the previous paragraphs, the starting point for the colonisation of the African coast was the conquest of Ceuta in 1415.

However, much remained to be done before the sea route to the Indies was discovered.

We have also seen that the colonisation of the Atlantic islands provided the Portuguese with the experience they needed to establish latifundia, slave labour and the monoculture of sugar cane in Brazil.

In the following paragraphs, we will study the different stages that led to the conquest of the African coast and the discovery of the sea route to the Indies.

Between 1421 and 1434, more than 15 Portuguese expeditions failed in their attempts to pass Cape Bojador on the west coast of Africa.

This obstacle was more symbolic than technical, as the cape forced sailors to move away from the coast, which at the time was terrifying for sailors who feared that the oceanic waters were inhabited by diabolical creatures.

The main reason for the difficulty in passing Cape Bojador was the Portuguese sailors’ fear of risking themselves in the ocean; close to the coast, the currents, reefs and sandbanks made it very difficult, if not impossible, for the means available at the time to pass the cape.

And in the open sea, the superstition that the ocean led to the end of the world frightened even the most daring.

Overcoming this psychological, rather than physical, barrier in 1434 was the first great achievement of the Portuguese explorers – for from then on, the obstacles were difficult to overcome, but everyone believed they could be overcome.

After overcoming Cape Bojador, the Portuguese expeditions made progress year after year towards their goal of conquering the African coast.

Dozens of expeditions were organised and in 1444 the navigator Gil Eanes brought the first shipment of slaves from Africa, around 200.

This shipment was a source of optimism for the Portuguese, as it brought a good profit to the Crown’s coffers.

What’s more, as a result of this commercial success, Portuguese public opinion was in favour of efforts to colonise the African coast.

After 1445, the Portuguese reached the richer regions of the African coast and from then on their trade flourished.

Twelve years later, a Venetian captain in the service of Dom Henrique discovered the Cape Verde archipelago and sailed almost 100 kilometres into the interior of the continent via the Senegal and Gambia rivers.

The King of Portugal, Dom João II, took advantage of the structure established by his predecessors.

He built fortifications to protect Portuguese trade on the African coast and financed land expeditions into the interior of the continent.

The naval advance southwards was maintained by Diogo Cão, who reached the mouth of the Congo River between 1480 and 1484.

Optimism was growing in Portugal because, according to Covilhã’s reports, Portuguese ships could easily reach the east coast of Africa because of the abundance of food along the coast.

To do so, they had to overcome a major challenge: the Cape of Storms, later called the Cape of Good Hope.

In order to better understand the historical process that led to Bartolomeu Dias’ expedition crossing the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, we will present a fragment from the book “Os Descobrimentos – Origens da Supremacia Europeia” (The Discoveries – Origins of European Supremacy) by the historian Paulo Migliacci. Let’s get started.

So, in order to open up the longed-for sea route, King John II carefully prepared a great expedition to bypass Africa and reach the seas of India.

Under the command of Bartolomeu Dias, the project involved three ships, two caravels and a supply ship.

Bartolomeu Dias carried six Africans captured on previous Portuguese expeditions to Africa, who were to disembark at regular intervals on the coast to make contact with ships in the unexplored regions and establish trade relations.

After disembarking the last of these messengers, Bartalomeu Dias’s ships encountered a storm that forced them away from the coast and out to sea.

When the storm passed, Bartalomeu Dias ordered his ships to head east in search of the African coast.

After sailing 700 kilometres without finding any land, Bartalomeu Dias turned north and with another 250 kilometres to go, he found land near what is now Cape Town in South Africa.

The southern tip of Africa was there. The route to India was open.

He followed the north-eastern coast for more than 500 kilometres, opening up a route to the Indian Ocean.

Bartolomeu Dias wanted to continue, but his commanders refused.

After locating the supply ship on its way back through Africa, Dias’ two caravels set sail for Portugal, where they arrived in December 1488, sixteen and a half months after they had left.

In the port of Lisbon, Christopher Columbus watched the caravels arrive.

When he heard the news they brought, he concluded that it would be useless to try again to get the Portuguese sovereign’s patronage for his voyage to the Indies via the western route, since the eastern route was open to the Portuguese.

Nine years passed between Diaz’s return in 1488 and Vasco da Gama’s expedition, the first to reach India in 1498.

The delay was caused first by Dom João’s illness and disputes over the succession, then by the death of the king and finally by the accession of his son Dom Manuel, o Venturoso, in 1495.

Meanwhile, Portugal was also involved in a diplomatic dispute with Spain over the territories discovered by Christopher Columbus, which was resolved in 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas.

But perhaps the real reason for the Portuguese delay was the expeditions they undertook (so secret that we don’t even have records of them) to map out the best shipping routes across the South Atlantic.

This can be deduced from the route that Vasco da Gama took, which did not follow the African coast route used by Portuguese trading ships, but went deep into the Atlantic to take advantage of the favourable easterly winds that prevailed near the South American coasts.

Discovery of the sea route to India – Vasco da Gama’s voyage

After two years of preparation, Vasco da Gama’s expedition to the Indies finally left Portugal.

This expedition was one of the most important for Portugal, as it opened up a trade route unprecedented in the history of European trade with the East.

It also contributed significantly to the strength of the Portuguese Empire.

Another factor that increases the importance of this expedition is the fact that it was followed by a second expedition led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, which culminated in the “discovery” of Brazil.

Regarding Vasco da Gama’s expedition, Paulo Migliacci (1997, p. 44) states that

After two years of preparation, Vasco da Gama’s expedition set sail with two square-rigged ships, a Latin-sailed caravel and a supply ship, with a crew of 170 and provisions for three years.

The ships left Lisbon in June 1497, stopped to refuel at the Cape Verde Islands and entered the Atlantic, reaching the South African coast 93 days later.

From there, after finding his way north and wasting some time negotiating his passage with the Muslim sultans of the coastal cities of Mozambique and Tanzania, Vasco da Gama led his expedition to Calicut.

The expedition led by Vasco da Gama can be seen as the culmination of Portuguese efforts to navigate the African coast. These efforts date back to the time of Henry the Navigator.

The expedition represents the accumulation of maritime knowledge linked to previous endeavours and is one of the main fruits of the School of Sagres.

Vasco da Gama drew on the experience of previous navigators, following the advice of Bartolomeu Dias to the letter.

Vasco da Gama was able to take advantage of the favourable winds and reach the Cape of Good Hope as quickly as possible.

Navigating this region was very difficult as there were no maps or charts to help locate the fleet.

It was therefore necessary for Vasco da Gama to hire a Muslim pilot to guide his fleet to Calicut.

“It is said that the pilot hired by Vasco da Gama to guide him to Calicut was Ibn Majid, the most brilliant of the Arab navigators, who enjoyed the reputation of being the man who knew the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean best. (MIGLIACCI, p. 45).

The Portuguese arrived in the Indies after a 70-year effort aimed at opening the East to European trade and destroying the various commercial monopolies that existed at the time.

Vasco da Gama’s achievements can be considered superior to those of Christopher Columbus, because Portugal didn’t make its discoveries at random like Columbus.

The Portuguese were extremely careful and scientific in their expeditions.

Portugal’s interest in reaching India was to secure the spice route, which had great commercial value.

But what does the word spice mean?

The word is of Latin origin and means especia, a term used by doctors to describe a substance.

“The term later took on the meaning of a very active, very expensive substance used for various purposes, such as spice – i.e. seasoning for food -, medicine or perfumery”. (FAUSTO, 2007, p. 26).

Spice is associated with the idea of an expensive product; for a time sugar was considered a spice, but with its large-scale production it lost this status.

Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and especially pepper, which made it possible to preserve food, especially meat, are considered spices.

In the words of Boris Fausto (2007, p. 28), spices were important because

The high value of spices is explained by the limits of preservation techniques at the time and also by dietary habits.

Western Europe in the Middle Ages was a “carnivorous civilisation”.

Large numbers of cattle were slaughtered at the beginning of the summer, when the fields ran out of fodder.

The meat was stored and preserved by salting, smoking or simply by exposure to the sun.

These processes, which were also used to preserve fish, made the food unpalatable, and chilli was used to disguise its unpleasantness.

Condiments also represented a food flavour of the time, like coffee, which was later consumed on a large scale around the world.

There was even a kind of hierarchy in their consumption: at the bottom, those with a pungent smell, such as garlic and onions; at the top, the freshest spices, with aromatic, mellow smells, reminiscent of the scent of flowers.

From the above description, we can imagine the importance of spices in European society in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

Because of this importance, the Portuguese invested a lot of material and human resources in the process of opening up a route to the East.

Vasco da Gama’s expedition made contact with Calicut in India, but was not well received by the local rulers.

“Gama returned to Lisbon in 1499 with two of the four ships and 55 of the 170 men, without having won the friendship of the Samorim (local ruler), which would have meant permission to set up a trading post in the city. (MIGLIACCI, 1997, p. 45).

In order to better understand the issue of the denial of the Indian population, as well as that of the Muslim merchants in the face of the Portuguese desire to establish partnerships and trading posts in the Indian territory, we will introduce into the discussion a fragment from the book “The Great Explorers – from Christopher Columbus to the Conquest of the African Continent” (2009, p. 94-95).

Difficulties in the Indies

In the ports on the east coast of Africa, the Muslim inhabitants and especially the Arab traders, aware of the objectives of the mission and its consequences for them, were openly hostile to the Portuguese.

The same thing happened in India, where the existence of strongly structured states with powerful means of action to hinder the explorer, combined with the ill-will of the explorers and the Arab traders who did everything they could to keep Vasco da Gama away and prevent him from obtaining silk and spices, almost caused the enterprise to fail.

The disappointment of John II’s envoy was much greater than the Portuguese had previously thought, namely that the Muslims held only a fraction of the route to the spices and not all the states of India.

Vasco da Gama was forced to realise that the area controlled by Islam was much greater than was generally believed: entire regions of India were in Muslim hands.

Vasco da Gama also gradually discovered, to his great inconvenience, that the commercial practices to which the Portuguese had become accustomed on the African coasts, i.e. exchanging trinkets for valuables, were ineffective in Indian territory.

Indian merchants had nothing but contempt for the imitation glass that the Africans valued so highly.

The investment will therefore be heavier than expected, should the Portuguese ever gain access to the goods they covet.

Heavier, relatively speaking, because the leader of the expedition is in for a good surprise when he realises that the spices on offer are, on the whole, ridiculously cheap compared to their value in the West. After many difficulties, the Portuguese managed to negotiate.

The three largest ships were loaded with pepper, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, in large quantities because they took up little space.

Vasco da Gama also carried a large quantity of stones, which he bought at a very high price because the Indians knew the value of these goods.

The return journey was made in difficult conditions. Vasco da Gama had no idea about the monsoon.

He set sail in the worst conditions: it took him three months to reach Africa.

The fleet was scattered. They lost two of their four ships. The exhausted crew succumbed to scurvy.

The survivors arrived in Lisbon in August 1499; the cost of the expedition was covered sixty-fold by the sale of spices.

The mission proved that India could be reached from Africa and the spices could be delivered to the West without the intervention of Muslim traders.

Despite the difficulties that Vasco da Gama’s expedition encountered with the Muslim merchants who dominated a significant part of the Indian trade, the path to trade and, above all, profit seemed to be opening up for the ambitious Portuguese.

It was up to the King of Portugal to organise a new, even larger expedition to strengthen contact with Calicut.

The commander of this expedition would be Pedro Álvares Cabral, who, in addition to forcibly establishing trade with the Indies, would be famous for ‘discovering’ Brazil.

You have learnt this in this chapter:

• The occupation of the African coast and the Atlantic islands was the result of extensive research involving virtually the whole of Portuguese society.
• Vasco da Gama’s voyage was the discovery of the sea route to the Indies.

See the following periods in the history of colonial Brazil:

1. Brazilian Independence – Breakdown of colonial ties in Brazil
2. Portuguese Empire in Brazil – Portuguese royal family in Brazil
3. Transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil
4. Foundation of the city of São Paulo and the Bandeirantes
5. Transition from colonial to imperial Brazil
6. Colonial sugar mills in Brazil
7. Monoculture, slave labour and latifundia in colonial Brazil
8. The establishment of the General Government in Brazil and the founding of Salvador
9. Portuguese maritime expansion and the conquest of Brazil
10. Occupation of the African coast, the Atlantic islands and the voyage of Vasco da Gama
11. Pedro Álvares Cabral’s expedition and the conquest of Brazil
12. Pre-colonial Brazil – The forgotten years
13. Establishment of the Portuguese Colony in Brazil
14. Periods in the history of colonial Brazil
15. Historical periods of Brazil

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