Portugal: explorations and colonization (for individual work)
Portugal: explorations and colonization
Portugal’s exploring efforts, encouraged by Prince Henry the Navigator, began around 1410 with voyages to the west and south. In 1488, Bartholomeu Diaz reached the southern tip of Africa, which the rulers of Portugal named the Cape of Good Hope, recognizing this as an important step on the way to India. Over the next decade, the Portuguese made their way into the Indian Ocean basin, capturing East African ports and cities and then crossing the ocean to India itself. The first European to reach India by sea was Portugal’s Vasco da Gama, who landed in Calicut in 1498, earning an immense profit upon returning home. The Portuguese quickly took steps to increase their presence in Africa and Asia.
The Portugal’s initial goals of exploration included finding direct access to Asia for spices and gold, spread of Catholicism and finding Christian allies in Africa against the Ottomans (Muslims) (medieval and early modern people believed that somewhere in Ethiopia one might find Christian kingdom of the legendary Prester John).
Spain and Portugal turned to the pope to determine who could claim which parts of this “New World." In lines of demarcation agreed to between 1494 (Tordesillas Treaty – Atlantic) and 1529 (Saragossa Treaty – Pacific), the pope gave most of East, South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Brazil (discovered in 1500) to the Portuguese.
In the 1520s, Portugal’s and Spain's earlier efforts were tied together by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese mariner sailing on behalf of Spain. Leader of the first circumnavigation of the globe, Magellan left Europe in 1519, traversed the Atlantic, and rounded the tip of South America. His ships crossed the Pacific and returned to Europe in 1522, although he himself died along the way, in the Philippine islands.
The Portuguese now established a commercial or colonial presence wherever they could. In the Far East and Southeast Asia, most states were too strong or advanced for the Portuguese to conquer, and for the most part they settled for trade. Still, they took over certain areas. In addition to their West African outposts, they gained control over East African cities like Mombasa and Zanzibar, and even the port of Muscat (1507), in the Arab state of Oman. They also seized the Indian port of Goa (1510), the thriving commercial center of Melaka (Malacca, 1511), and the island of Sri Lanka. Portugal opened up ties with China in the 1510s and with Japan in the 1540s, and while the Chinese granted it the port of Macau in 1557, as a reward for fighting pirates, the Portuguese had no hope of actual conquest here. What they built in this part of the world is generally referred to among historians as a trading-post empire. In the 1600s, Portugal lost many of these colonial and commercial assets to the Dutch, English, and Omani Arabs.
In the New World, Portugal moved into Brazil after 1500 when it was first visited by accident by the East India–bound Pedro Álvares Cabral.
The conquest of Brazil was partly due to military advantages like iron weaponry, horses and gunpowder weapons. The Portuguese also proved adept at divide-and-conquer tactics, whereby they stirred up rivalries among native tribes and allied with some against others. However, the most important reason for Portugal’s success in conquering Brazil involved disease. In particular, smallpox and measles killed indigenous Americans in massive numbers.
Brazil was placed under government control as a province and all colonial economic activity was run by the Lisbon officials. The Brazil was divided in 12 capitanias donatarias headed by private agents who would conquer and exploit the lands on behalf of the monarch in Lisbon. They exploited local population as slaves in plantation monoculture—with sugarcane the most prized and most labor-intensive cash crop
A direct consequence of Portuguese colonization in the New World was coerced labor. The Portuguese began the practice of slavery in the 1400s and brought it to Brazil by the 1510s. This led to the rapid rise of the Atlantic slave trade, which continued well into the 1800s. Over time, Brazil became by far the largest importer of African slaves, and it was the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery— not until 1888.
From 1580, after the death of the King of Portugal, Sebastian I, the Portuguese crown had been joined to that of Spain in an "Iberian Union" under the heir of Emperor Charles V, Philip II of Spain.
Expert questions
1. What were the stimuli of the Portuguese explorations and colonial expansion?
2. What tools and strategies did the Portuguese use in their colonial expansions and capital accumulation?
3. Did the Portuguese use joint-stock companies? If not, then, how, you think, Portugal organized its explorations and expansion?
4. What were the main achievements of Portugal’s expansion? Were there any falls in this expansion during the considered period?
5. Compared with other nations (Spain, France, England and Holland) what were the distinct features of Portugal? (before giving answer read other nations in the theme 8 section)