The Portuguese seaborne empire, 1415-1825

460 Pages·1977·19.88 MB·English

by  Boxer C.R.

THE PO RTU G U ESE
SEABO RNE EM PIRE
1415-1825
C. R. BOXER
^Or^AcV - /\oVj
Hutchinson o f London
Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd
3 Fitzroy Square, London Wi
London Melbourne Sydney Auckland
Wellington Johannesburg and agencies
throughout the world
First published 1969
Reprinted 1977
© C. R. Boxer 1969
Introduction © J. H. Plumb 1969
in Great Britain by litho at The Anchor Press Ltd
and bound by Wm Brendon & Son Ltd
both of Tiptree, Essex
ISBN o 09 131071 7
Contents
Preface xi
Introduction by J. H. Plumb xiii
prologue The western rim of Christendom i
PART I VICISSITUDES OF EMPIRE
1 Guinea gold and Prester John (1415-99) 15
2 Shipping and spices in Asian seas (1500-1600) 39
3 Converts and clergy in Monsoon Asia (1500-1600) 65
4 Slaves and sugar in the South Atlantic (1500-1600) 84
5 The global struggle with the Dutch (1600-63) 106
6 Stagnation and contraction in the East (1663-1750) 128
7 Revival and expansion in the West (1663-1750) 150
8 The Pombaline dictatorship and its aftermath (175 5—
1825) 177
PART II CHARACTERISTICS OF EMPIRE
9 The India fleets and the Brazil fleets 205
10 The Crown patronage and the Catholic missions 228
11 ‘Purity of blood’ and ‘contaminated races’ 249
12 Town councillors and brothers of charity 273
13 Soldiers, settlers, and vagabonds 296
14 Merchants, monopolists, and smugglers 318
15 The ‘Kaffirs of Europe’, the Renaissance, and the
Enlightenment 340
16 Sebastianism, Messianism, and nationalism 367
VI Contents
APPENDICES
i Outward-bound Portuguese East Indiamen, 1501-1800 379
11 Monarchs of Portugal, 1385-1826 381
hi Imports of Brazilian gold and diamonds and of English
goods into Portugal, 1711-50 382
iv Ships trading between Bahia and West Africa, 1681-
I7I° 383
v Slave exports from Angola and Benguela, 1710-48 384
vi Values of Portuguese manufactures exported to the
colonies, 1795-1820 385
Glossary 386
Bibliography 392
Index 415
List o f illustrations and maps
facing page
1 Gold coins from Portugal and her overseas
possessions (full sitf) 70
1. 6,400 rets of King John V, Rio de Janeiro mint, 1727
2. Sdo Vicente of King John III, c. 1555
3. Dobra of 12,800 reis, Rio de Janeiro mint, 1729
4. Moeda (moidore) of 4,000 reis, Bahia, 1693
5. Cruzado of King Manuel I, 1496-1521
6. 400 reis of King John V, Minas mint, 1733
7. Sdo Tomd pardau d’ouro, probably Cochin mint, c. 1555
2 Portuguese Ndo (Great Ship) from the atlas
attributed to Sebastiao Lopes, r. 1565 71
(Newberry Library, Chicago)
3 The Mozambique channel 102
(chart by The Pilot-Major, Gaspar Ferreira, 1612)
4 Diogo do Couto, 1542-1616 103
(from an engraving in his Decada VII, 1616)
between pages
5 Frontispiece of a book published at Goa, 1568 198-199
(from the original in the Lilly Library, Indiana University)
6 Map of Goa, 1596 198-199
(from J. H. van Linschotcn’s ltinerario, Amsterdam, 1396)
7 Goa. Tomb of St. Francis Xavier in the church of
Bom Jesus 198-199
(photo by Sousa & Paul, Panjim)
8 Diu. The west side of the city wall and the main
gate (seventeenth century) 198-199
(photo by Carlos de Azevedo)
9 Diu. Jesuit church and convent (seventeenth
century) 198-199
(photo by Carlos de Azevedo)
viii List of illustrations and maps
10 Fr. Antonio Ardizone Spinola celebrating com­
munion with a multi-racial congregation at Goa,
c. 1645 198-199
(from his Cordel Triplicado de Amor (Lisboa, 1680)
11 The battle of Ambuila, 29 October 1665, as
depicted in glazed tiles in the seventeenth-century
hermitage of Nazare, Luanda 198-199
12 Padre Antonio Vieira, s.j., 1608-1697 198-199
(engraving by Debrie, 1745, after a seventeenth-century portrait)
facing page
13 Brazilian costume in the eighteenth century: a lady
of quality in her sedan chair 294
(from a coloured drawing by Carlos Juliao, c. 1785)
14 Brazilian costume in the eighteenth century 295
(from a coloured drawing by Carlos Juliao, c. 1785)
15 Brazilian costume in the eighteenth century: a
couple engaged in duck-shooting 326
(from a coloured drawing by Carlos Juliao, c. 1785)
16 Printed cargo manifest of the Bahia fleet which
reached Lisbon, 25 March 1758 3*7
MAPS
1 Portugal in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries 8
2 The Carreira da India, sixteenth to eighteenth centuries 54-5
3 Angola and the Congo Kingdom, sixteenth to eighteenth
centuries 95
4 East and West Africa showing regions colonised or
influenced by the Portuguese 141
5 Area from which slaves were secured on the Guinea
Coast 163
6 Brazil and the Maranhao-Para in the eighteenth
century 182-3
7 Principal places mentioned in the text at end
Acknowledgements
grateful thanks are due to Mr. Fred Hall and the authorities
of the Newberry Library, Chicago, for permission to reproduce
the Portuguese Nao or ‘Great Ship’ from the atlas attributed to
Sebastiao Lopes (c. 1565) which is in the Ayer Collection there.
The Secretaries of the Hakluyt Society kindly gave permission
for the reproduction of the sketch-map of the Carreira da India,
and for the quotations in the text from The Travels of Peter Mundy,
The Tragic History of the Sea, The Travels and Controversies of Friar
Domingo Navarrete, O.P., and other works published under that
imprint. The Witwatersrand University Press likewise gave leave
for the inclusion in this book of some passages from my Four
Centuries of Portuguese Expansion, 1414-1824: A Succinct Survey,
first published at Johannesburg in 1961, and reprinted in 1963,
1965 and 1968.
The Librarian and staff of the Lilly Library, Indiana University,
generously allowed me unrestricted access to their treasures and
gave permission to quote from the unpublished correspondence
of the Spanish Augustinian missionaries in South China, 1680-
1720, and other original sources. A general acknowledgement to
the directors and staffs of the Portuguese and Brazilian archives
where I have worked at different times and places is made in the
Bibliography (p. 392). I must make special mention of the authori­
ties of the Ashridge branch of the Public Records Office, London,
for facilitating my consultation of the correspondence of the
British envoys and consuls at Lisbon between 1660 and 1750.
Also of Senhor Alexandre Euldlio Pimenta da Cunha and Senhora
Nellie Figueira of the Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, for
kindly supplying me with a set of the reproductions of the
coloured drawings by Carlos Juliao c. 1785, from which Plates 13,
14 and 15 are taken.
Finally, my thanks to David Hoxley who drew the maps,
and Professor J. D. Fage for allowing me to base maps 4 and
5 on material from his Atlas of African History, published by
Edward Arnold.
NORTH ATLANTIC
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^ Minas Gerais
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S2o Paulo
SOUTH ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Cape of Good Hope
Principal places mentioned in the text

As C. R. Beazley observed some seventy years ago, the first of
modern colonial empires, the dominion of the Portuguese on the
coasts and seas of Africa and Asia, is in one sense more interesting
than any of its successors. For it was, as he stated, essentially and
peculiarly connected with the beginnings of that maritime ex­
pansion of Europe and Christendom which, above all else, marks
off the modern from the medieval world. Since Beazley’s day it
has also become apparent that the first of modern colonial em­
pires bids fair to last the longest, as it is still going strong in
Tropical Africa whence all the others have withdrawn. But the
existing Portuguese African empire is mainly a development of
the last two or three generations, and its story requires separate
treatment. The present book attempts to summarise the vicissi­
tudes and the achievements of the old Portuguese seaborne
empire as manifested from the Maghreb to the Moluccas and to
the Mato Grosso, prior to Portugal’s recognition of Brazilian
independence in 1825. It also attempts to keep constantly in view
the interactions between the principal portions of this furtherest
flung of empires and the home country poised precariously on
the western rim of Europe. By so doing it will, perhaps, help to
explain not only how Portugal pioneered the overseas expansion
of Europe, but how she managed to retain so much of her shoe­
string empire when other and stronger powers appeared on the
scene.