Shipbuilding, Navigation and the Portuguese in Pre-modern India

223 Pages·2017·9.29 MB·English

by  K.S. Mathew

SHIPBUILDING, NAVIGATION AND THE
PORTUGUESE IN PRE-MODERN INDIA

Shipbuilding, Navigation and the
Portuguese in Pre-modern India
K.S. MATHEW
Firstpublished2018
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Contents
Acknowledgements 7
I. Introduction 9
II. Shipbuilding and Navigation in India Prior to 1500 26
III. The Arrival of the Portuguese in India:
Early Interactions 66
IV. Portuguese Shipbuilding in India 103
V. Portuguese Claims to the Exclusive Domination
of the Indian Ocean Regions 135
VI. Life on Board a Portuguese Ship of the
Sixteenth Century 173
VII. Conclusion 200
Bibliography 207
Index 217

Acknowledgements
The idea of working on the different aspects of naval architecture
and navigation in pre-modern India, especially during the sixteenth
century when there was close interaction between the Indians and
the Portuguese, took root in my mind ever since I started research on
Indo-Portuguese history in the 1970s. This was envisaged to make
a comparative study of the indigenous and Portuguese techniques
of shipbuilding and navigation and to identify the mutual give and
take if any. This long cherished plan was materialized easily with
the award of a Short-term Research Fellowship by the Fundação
Oriente, Lisbon and Emeritus Fellowship by the University Grants
Commission, government of India. My heart-felt thanks are due
to the president and the director of Fundação Oriente and to the
University Grants Commission for providing financial assistance to
complete my researches.
I express my sincere thanks to all those who extended a helping
hand in my attempts to collect relevant sources of information from
the various repositories of documents in Europe and India: Archivo
Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Bibliotheca de Marinha, Bibliotheca
Nacional, Lisbon, Leiden University Library, The Netherlands, Goa
Historical Archives, Panaji, and Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai.
I place on record my indebtedness to the authorities of these institu-
tions for their goodwill.
I am greatly beholden to the Manohar under the stewardship of
Mr. Ramesh Jain for bringing out the book neatly.
Kurumulloor K.S. Mathew
21 September 2016

chapter i
Introduction
The Relevance of the Study
Scholarship on the maritime history of India has covered a number
of aspects such as imports and exports of the sea-borne trade;
merchant groups and guilds; activities of the merchant companies
such as the English East India Company, the United Dutch East India
Company, the Danish East India Company, and the French East India
Company; merchant financiers, brokers and middlemen; port–
hinterland relations; the dynamics of the relation between the
colonies and metropolis; weight and measures; and Indo-European
coinage. The Indian Ocean figures as the chief thoroughfare for the
international sea-borne trade during the pre-modern period. Some
studies have been conducted also on migrations of culture, peoples
and even agricultural products across the Ocean. In the wake of the
discovery of the vast riches of India, especially peninsular India,
the rulers and merchant companies of Western Europe vied with
each other to gain a foothold in India at the risk of the loss of life
of hundreds of mariners on the high seas in their internecine naval
confrontations. The role played by port towns and hinterlands has
also become an interesting subject. Port towns in the colonial period
turned out to be centres of extraction of the surplus produce of
the hinterland and places of storage of foreign items of exchange
besides offering space for bureaucracies and administrative offices.
Life and culture of the coastal and island society with their eyes
fixed on the sea constitute another aspect of maritime history that
can attract the attention of the social historians as well as scholars
deeply interested in psycho-history. The Indian Ocean instead of
separating peoples, could also bring various peoples together to