(Chapter VI in Pius Malekandathil, Maritime India: Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean, Primus Books, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 110-130)
The Ottomans, who had already expanded into the maritime space of the Mediterranean in the fifteenth century, attempted to control the traditional trade routes connecting Asia with Europe by occupying the key strategic trade centers lying on the maritime rim of Indian Ocean. The Portuguese efforts to monopolize the eastern trade by making the commodities flow to Europe through the Cape route had started at the cost of the Ottomans and reducing the flow of wealth to the treasury of the Ottomans. This process in turn invited the latter to come out from the role of being the controller of inland caravan trade to be the key factors deciding the course of commodity movements through maritime channels. Though the Ottomans did not make any substantial impact on India by being on this soil, their frequent attempts to enter into the maritime space of Indian Ocean and particularly into the diverse maritime exchange centers of India as well as their unbroken commercial linkages with the Marakkar traders of Kerala, created multifaceted challenges to the Portuguese, who, while responding to them, developed a set of politico-military arrangements including the devices of fortresses and patrolling, which eventually had greater impact on the politico-economic history of India. The central purpose of this paper is to see the processes and mechanisms by which the Ottomans expanded into the Indian Ocean for the purpose of controlling its trade and also the ways as well as the means by which the Portuguese managed to contain the Ottoman expansion and retain their predominant position in conducting the Indian trade. This is done chiefly by locating the Ottomans in the context of Portuguese commercial expansion in the Indian waters. I hope that this paper will provide a glimpse into the parallel stream-developments of the sixteenth century in this maritime space.
*This was first published in M.N.Pearson and Charles Borges (ed.), Metahistory, History Questioning History : Festschrift in Honour of Teotonio R de Souza, Lisboa, 2007, pp. 497-508
Historical
Setting
The Ottoman desire to control the trade routes between Europe and eastern world as well as the strategic centers located in this trade route got ignited with the capture of Constantinople in 1453 by Mohammed II.[1] The developments following this decisive incident indicate that the Ottoman interest was not confined to the mere control of eastern trade routes alone, but extended to the farthest possibilities of tapping wealth from the very sources of trade in India and establishing spheres of influence at different levels. We find many adventurers and entrepreneurs moving over to India from Constantinople during the period following the Ottoman occupation of that city. The most evident case is that of the Constantinople-born Yusuf Adil Shah, who later became the governor of the Bahmanis over a vast land space in Konkan including Bijapur and Goa. In fact the hands of Yusuf Adil Shah were strengthened by the Navayat Muslims, who had come as a group of 400 from Onor (Honawar)and Baticala (Batkal) in 1479, following their persecution by the Vijayanagara rulers for having supplied horses from Arabia and Persia to the Bahmani Sultan.[2] Later with the disintegration of Bahmani kingdom in 1498, Yusuf Adil Shah established his political power over a considerable tract of territory centered around Bijapur and brought Goa under his control. The port of Ela(Goa) was the chief door through which the trading networks of the Constantinople-born ruler of Bijapur found maritime exposure. With the increase in the import of horses from Hormuz to this port for distribution in the Vijayanagara kingdom, the city of Ela got considerable amount of wealth as custom duties, about 1,00,000 pardaos per year, which Adil Shah claimed as his share.[3] However the duties that he collected on the objects of maritime trade in Goa and the neighbouring districts figured tentatively about 400,000 pardaos per year.[4] These developments suggest that the advent of the Ottoman adventurers like Yusuf Adil Shah in India took place against the background of their desire to bag trade surplus for carving out strong state structures at commercially strategic sites. Meanwhile, the Ottoman adventurers and traders also seem to have been in frequent contacts with the political and economic activities of Gujarat over a protracted period of time, which made the Ottomans to concentrate on its ports as the most vulnerable targets in India.[5]
On the other side, the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans and the re-routing of oriental trade according to their larger politico-economic designs started affecting severely the fate of the commercial centers of the Bratislava-Hapsburgs, which had till then been thriving on eastern trade. Correspondingly, the Ottoman intervention began to be increasingly reflected in the price index of oriental wares in Europe, as well. During the period between 1450 and 1495(especially after the fall of Constantinople) the prices rose steadily in the trade centers of Europe.[6] However the Ottomans supplied spices at cheaper price to the Venetians, which kept the price of pepper in Venice between 42 ducats and 49 ducats during the period between 1495 and 1497, a period when its price fluctuated between 66 and 75 ducats in Mamluk Cairo. In 1498, when the price of pepper in Cairo varied between 61 and 81 ducats, it was kept between 56 and 57 ducats in Venice.[7] This shows that even when the Mamluks imposed a high price on the spices in Cairo since the declaration of royal monopoly on its trade in Egypt in 1428, the Ottomans managed to make available pepper and other spices at cheaper price to the Venetians.[8] This is to be seen against the background of deeper economic ties that the Venetians and the Ottomans developed over decades on the trade-traffic of oriental wares, the gains from which were ably translated by the Ottomans for their frequent wars of expansion into Europe. Moreover the Venetian traders and Italian markets were needed for the Ottomans to break the backbone of the trade of Eastern Europe and the Bratislava-Hapsburgs as a part of their larger political strategy to weaken and bring Eastern Europe under their subjugation.
However commodity flow through the Ottoman territories dwindled following the discovery of sea-route to India and the consequent diversion of spice-trade to the Atlantic port of Lisbon via Cape-route. In 1501 Pedro Alvarez Cabral procured a cargo of 104,920 kilograms of pepper, 20,984 kilograms of ginger and 31,476 kilograms of cinnamon for transshipment to Lisbon,[9] which rose to 154, 120 kilograms of pepper and 23,607 kilograms of ginger in 1505.[10] The commodities taken to Lisbon were further distributed in Europe through the royal factory at Antwerp since 1501.[11] The principal loser in this re-orientation of the spice-trade of the Indian Ocean space was the Ottomans, who had captured Constantinople earlier for the purpose of controlling oriental trade. The increasing pepper shortage experienced in the Ottoman territories and in its supporting Italian markets following the entry of the Portuguese in Indian trade centers is evident from the high price (100 ducats per quintal) quoted for pepper in 1500 in Venice.[12]
Later with the land-oriented expansion of Afonso de Albuquerque and with the occupation of Goa(1510), Malacca(1511) and Hormuz (1515)[13], Portuguese control over the trade in Asian waters carried out with the help of cartaz-armada-fortress systems became considerably decisive and the flow of commodities through caravan routes started dwindling. During the early decades of the sixteenth century, Malacca, Aden and Hormuz were viewed as the principal entrance-doors of the Indian Ocean, through which commodities got distributed all over Eurasia. The Portuguese believed that all trade between Europe and Indies could be forced to go round the Cape of Good Hope by blocking its traditional outlets viz., the straits of Malacca, the Persian Gulf and the Red sea.[14] However Ottomans were quick to grasp the deeper nuances of these developments. On the one hand it meant slackening of trade in the Ottoman markets, which also meant dwindling of resources. On the other hand it smelt a severe political danger in its neighbourhood. Till 1515, the Europeans appeared to be an enemy of the Turks only in the western front. But in that year with the occupation of Hormuz (lying in the eastern part of Turkish empire) by the Lusitanians, the Ottomans found themselves being virtually encircled by the Europeans, which in fact sent political messages of caution to the Ottomans. The evolving economic pressure and the political threats emerging from the encircling European expansion made the Ottomans turn their attention increasingly to the politics of the Indian Ocean regions and interfere in them to their advantage.
The Eastward Expansion of the Ottomans and the Indian Ocean Trade
It was during the time of Selim I (1512-1520) that Indian Ocean was, for the first time, looked upon as an area of great political and economic significance for the Ottomans. He took decisive steps to control the various trade centers located on the rim of Indian Ocean by undertaking a chain of conquests starting with the occupation of Chaldiran in 1514 from the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail. The attack of Mamluk forces at Marj Dabiq in 1516 enabled the Ottomans to become masters of the eastern trade passing through Aleppo and Damascus. With the capturing of Cairo from the Mamluks in 1517, almost all the transit centers of caravan trade connecting Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean passed into the hands of the Turks. Meanwhile Selim I also established a naval base at Suez with a view to availing timely naval and military assistance for the purpose of controlling the international trade routes from the east but terminating in the western rim of the Indian Ocean.[15]
By this time the Marakkar[16] traders of Cannanore and Cochin, who were originally from Kayalpattanam, Kilakarai and Kunimedu but engaged in the coastal trade between Coromandel and Malabar, [17] had already started frequenting the ports of the Ottomans in the Red sea for the purpose of trade.[18] The emergence of the Marakkars as a principal merchant group conducting trade with the Red sea ports was made possible with the mass exodus of the Al-Karimi traders from Calicut in 1513 following the entry of the Portuguese in that city after having signed a peace treaty with the new Zamorin. [19] With the flight of the Al-Karimis from Calicut to the safer ports of Gujarat, Vijayanagara, Hormuz and Red sea fearing vengeance from the Portuguese, the Marakkar traders of Cochin and Cannanore carved out a commercial niche of their own and started sending spices to the ports of Red Sea, particularly after the Ottoman expansion into the western doors of the Indian Ocean following the occupation of Cairo and Suez from the hands of the Mamluks. The flow of commodities between the spice ports of Kerala and the Ottoman territories increased considerably with the increasing help extended to the Marakkar traders by the private trading lobby among the Portuguese officials.[20] However this rapport did not continue for long, as the Portuguese officials themselves began to attack and confiscate the vessels of the Marakkar traders going to the Ottoman trade centres under the pretext of checking cartazes. [21] Kuti Ali, one of these Marakkar traders, is said to have become a corsair later when the Portuguese governor, who previously joined hands with him to send pepper to Red Sea ports, himself confiscated the whole as contraband and appropriated the vessel.[22] However the available evidences suggest that the linkage with the Marakkars of Kerala continued to ensure the Ottoman ports of the Red sea area with sizeable cargo for the purpose of trade and for meeting the consumerial demands of its far-flung territories even during the last years of Selim .
The Marakkar traders of Cannanore had by this time started diverting commodities to the Ottoman trade centres of the Red sea region by using Maldives as the base of their operation.[23] The grand design of the Ottoman ruler Selim I to create a pan-Islamic network uniting the Muslim East also strengthened the commercial moves of the Muslim traders of Cannanore and Cochin, who in turn linked the production centres of the Indian spices in India with the trading world of the Ottomans that extended up to Europe.[24] The Portuguese responded to this move by erecting as many fortresses as possible near the spice ports of Kerala so that the flow of spices through the Ottoman territory might be prevented. The immediate response of the Portuguese to these developments was the erection of a fortress was in Quilon in 1519, as its spice was increasingly falling into the hands of the Muslim traders. [25] Meanwhile search was also made for locating suitable sites for the erection of fortresses along the west coast of India with a view to making them as military devices to counter the possible expansion of the Ottomans into Indian waters in the years to come.
The Ottoman Challenges and the Portuguese Estado da India
The developments in the maritime space of Indian Ocean captivated the attention of Suleiman the Magnificent(1520-1566), even when issues and developments in Europe turned out to be his primary concerns. Selim’s earlier attempts to link the various trade centers of the Indian Ocean with the Ottoman ports in the Red sea with the help of different merchant groups had already found fruits by this time. The Marakkar traders of Kerala turned out to be a significant mercantile group that co-operated with the Ottomans in carrying out a greater share of Indian trade. Being dissatisfied with the Portuguese behaviour towards them and seeing the prospects of trading with the Ottomans, the leading Muslim merchants of Cochin including Kunjali Marakkar, his brother Ahmad Marakkar, their uncle Muhammadali Marakkar and their dependents shifted their base of operations from Cochin to Calicut by 1524.[26] Meanwhile, the Zamorin who expelled the Portuguese from Calicut in 1525 started making use of this opportunity to re-organize the trade of Calicut with the navigational expertise of the Kunjalis. Things really worked in the way the Zamorin and the Marakkars had planned. Commodity movements from Calicut to the ports of Ottoman Turks in Red sea had already become relatively frequent, particularly during the period between 1526 and 1527.[27]
Meanwhile, in the midst of the adverse situation created by the control mechanisms of the Portuguese, the Muslim traders of Cannanore managed to continue their business by developing a trade route outside the Portuguese control system that got finally interlinked with the Ottoman commercial network. From Cannanore they used to divert commodities first to Maldives and then get it linked with the commodities coming from South East Asia through the straits of Karaidu and Haddumati to Ottoman trade centres in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.[28] The surplus deriving from this trade and the benefits accumulated by way of controlling the island groups of Maldives, were very much effectively used for their state building ventures in Cannanore, which in turn prompted the Muslim merchants of Cannanore to maintain preciously this network of trade running outside the Portuguese control system.[29]
In fact the commonality of religion made them join hands in diverting commodities to the network of Ottoman commerce. The revival of Venice trade from 1540s onwards was made possible[30], to a great extent, because of the joint and collective commercial activities of the Marakkar Muslim traders Kerala and the Ottomans, from two different operational points. Meanwhile, Cranganore was identified as an important spice exchange centre[31], whose commodities the Portuguese wanted to procure by instituting a fortress over there in 1536. The Portuguese found that a great portion of pepper from Cranganore was diverted to Red sea ports. The erection of the fortress of Cranganore is to be seen against the background of recurring Muslim attacks on the maritime trade centers of central and southern Kerala, which came as a result of peripheral impact of the Ottoman’s expansion into the Indian Ocean.[32]
The alliance that developed between the Ottomans and the Marakkars of Kerala was so thick during this period that an Ottoman ship even landed at Vizhinjam (1538), [33] a southern port of Kerala, at a time when Kunjali and his Marakkar allies were chased and defeated by the Portuguese at Vedalai and Negombo.[34] This is indicative of the larger dimensions of the relationship that evolved between the Ottomans and the Marakkar traders of Kerala by this time.[35] It seems that the important beneficiaries of the Marakkar trade in the Red sea area were the Ottoman representatives in Suez. In 1538 we find the Ottoman viceroy Khadim Sulaiman Pasha sailing from Suez against the Portuguese and trying to capture the Portuguese Diu.[36] For that purpose, ships were being built at Suez as early as 1537. It was with the help of these ships manned partially by the Venetian sailors that the Turks captured Aden in 1538 and entered Indian waters to attack on Diu.[37] Though the Ottomans did not gain anything out of this venture (as the Portuguese viceroy of India promptly thwarted the moves of the Ottoman), the presence of the Turks in the vicinity alerted the Portuguese to a chain of defensive actions, including the erection of new fortresses and the strengthening of the existing ones. The Portuguese started tightening their grip on the West Coast of India. A chain of new fortresses was instituted along the Konkan and Gujarat coasts, so that the Ottomans in collaboration with the Muslim rulers of these coastal regions of India might not make an alternative network to divert spices to the trading centres of the Ottoman in the Persian Gulf and the Red sea. Accordingly fortresses in Bassein( 1534), Diu(1536)[38] and Daman( 1559)[39], were erected to protect the Lusitanian commercial interests in the northern provinces.
Meanwhile with the capturing of Baghdad from the Safavids in 1534 and later with the establishment of a naval base at Basra by the Ottomans in 1538,[40] Persian Gulf turned out to be an Ottoman economic unit for all practical purposes. We find lot of spices from the ports of Kerala moving to the markets of the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Persia through Basra from 1540 onwards. From Basra they were further carried to Tripoly of Syria by two routes: one through the desert route that terminated at Damascus and the other passed by Baghdad. The merchants traveled in caravans up to the city of Aleppo, from where they were further taken to Tripoly of Syria[41]. The trade through the ports of Persian Gulf continued to be active even later, as Leonhard Rauwolfd gives an eye-witness account, with as many as twenty-five ships loaded with spices and drugs from India (evidently from Kerala) moving to Baghdad via Hormuz and Basra[42].
In the changed situation, Suleiman I the Magnificent had made a suggestion to the Portuguese king John III through a letter dated May 28, 1544 that he was ready to buy 2,00,00 kilograms of pepper and other drugs from the Portuguese, which the latter might hand over to the Ottoman governor in Aden.[43] This request might have been made to ensure regular supply of spices in the Mediterranean as to sustain the Venetian trade revived by 1540s. However this dream was not realized. This made them make a much longer and time-consuming voyage from Red Sea to Bengal to procure spices coming from the ports of Kerala for taking them to their homeland. In 1545 several Ottoman traders went to Bengal, Pegu, and Tenasserim to take pepper coming from Kerala ports to the Ottoman ports of Red Sea.[44] It seems that these were the preparatory moves of Suleiman the Magnificent before taking direct involvement in the affairs of India.
Meanwhile galleys were constructed in the Ottoman dockyard at Basra with timber brought down the Euphrates from the Mar’ash region of the southern Taurus Mountains with an evident intention of entering Indian soil and grabbing the Indian Ocean trade from the Portuguese.[45] A large fleet dispatched by Suleiman in 1546 started attacking the Portuguese fort of Diu. [46] Against this background of the ubiquitous presence of the Ottomans in the visible vicinity of Portuguese possessions, the crown and its officials of the Estado started increasingly banking upon Cochin and Goa for mobilizing resources for the purpose of defending the Estado from the Ottoman attacks. Attempts were made to mobilize large material and human resources from these cities, when the Ottomans laid siege on Diu in 1546. D.João de Castro took about 1500 men from Goa and Cochin to Diu on 20th September 1546.[47] While a good many of them like Antonio Leme,[48] Manoel de Sousa de Sepulveda,[49] Francisco da Silva,[50] Sebastião Luis, alcaide-mor of Cochin, [51] Antonio Correa, the very factor of Cochin[52] etc., were mobilized from Cochin, a considerably great number was gathered from Goa, as well, like Lucas Veiga,[53] Dom Leitão,[54] Simão da Rocha,[55] Sebastião Lopez Lobato,[56] Francisco Navaes Pereira, [57] Vasco Rebello,[58] Pedro de Liao,[59] etc. The lifting of the siege on Diu was effected thanks to the help, both in the form of wealth and men, extended by Cochin and Goa.[60] Meanwhile his representative in India, governor D.João de Castro, rewarded the city-dwellers of Goa and Cochin who had fought in the war of 1546 to defend Diu by granting commercial voyages, in most cases, to Bengal or Malacca or Ormuz.[61]
Though in the Luso-Turkish encounter,
the Portuguese ably kept the Ottomans out of Indian soil, the Ottomans attacked
and temporarily occupied Muscat in 1552 with the help of a strong squadron
consisting of 25 galleys, 4 galleons and a big ship with 850 troops under the
command of Piri Reis.[62]
The principal objectives of the Ottomans were to capture Hormuz and Bahrain
islands, whose possession was deemed to be necessary to oust the Portuguese and
to control the Indian Ocean trade. Though they could not achieve this target,
Piri Reis and Seydi ‘Ali Reis conquered the coasts of Yemen and Aden as well as
Arabia and cleared the coastal belt up to Basra for the purpose of conducting
easy trade with India.[63]
It is interesting to note that in the fleet of Ottoman Turks, a large number of Armenians were employed as fighting force. They entered the Indian Ocean in considerable numbers during the period between 1520s and 1552, laying siege on Diu and expanding the Ottoman authority to the western domains of this maritime space. However, when the Portuguese lifted the siege on Diu in 1546 and when the Ottoman navy in the Indian Ocean was disbanded, the Armenian fighting men instead of going back to their original homeland got dispersed in the waters of Asia, entering into the service of different Muslim rulers like that of Aceh as mercenaries and mediating between them and the Ottomans on strategic matters including commerce.[64] Though the Armenians initially operated under the political and economic umbrella of the Ottomans, eventually they emerged as leading merchants and bankers in the Muslim states and principalities of Asia. They used to conduct their business through a network Armenian Diaspora spread mostly in the Indian Ocean, but very much integrated with its core centre at New Julfa.[65] It is worth noting that though the Ottomans failed to sustain their mercantile interest in the Indian Ocean for a long period of time, their Armenian agents outlived them in matters of Indian Ocean commerce probably imbibing the spirit from their masters. However there is no doubt that their acceptability before the Muslim rulers of Indian Ocean region was initially ensured mainly because of their onetime closeness to the Ottoman Turks.
Thus the historical developments of the first half of the sixteenth century manifest a chain of actions and processes in Asian waters, in which the Portuguese expansion along the West coast of India is sequentially followed by the Ottoman expansion into the western rim of Indian Ocean, evidently suggesting a causal linkage between the two. An analysis of the historical developments of the period is indicative of the fact that it was the Portuguese expansion into the major trade centers of coastal western India and into Persian Gulf (Hormuz) as well as the regular patrolling of the mouth of Red sea that made the Ottomans turn towards the core areas of caravan trade located in Egypt as well as West Asia and establish hegemony over there. The Marakkar traders of Kerala, who developed an alternative trading network outside the orbit of the Portuguese control systems, were the principal feeders from India for the trade of the Ottoman ports in Red sea and Persian Gulf. The economic ties between the Ottomans and the Marakkars seem to have been well maintained and protected by the military devices and naval machineries of the Ottomans, as is suggested by the appearance of the Ottoman fleet in Vizhinjam in Kerala (1538), when the Marakkar traders were chased and frequently attacked because of their linkage with Kunjali Marakkar. Though the frequent attempts of the Ottomans to enter the soil of India were repelled ably by the Portuguese, the amount of influence that they exerted on the shaping of the military structures of Estado da India was enormous. Against the background of the Ottoman expansion into the western fringes of Indian Ocean, the Portuguese erected strong fortresses at key-strategic centers of trade along the West coast of India, besides strengthening and reinforcing the existing ones. The very structuring and proliferation of these Portuguese fortresses were greatly necessitated by the different types of challenges raised by the diverse streams of Ottoman expansion into the Indian Ocean from 1517 onwards.
Though both the Portuguese and the Ottomans moved to the maritime space of Indian Ocean almost simultaneously (the gap was only of nineteen years, as the Ottomans reached Suez in 1517), the Portuguese managed to appropriate a major chunk of it, as their primary concern was India and their secondary concerns were confined to other Indian Ocean regions. However the prime concern of the Ottomans continued to be Europe and Mediterranean regions even during this period. It is true that the Indian Ocean regions captivated the attention of the Ottomans as economically important areas, from where they tried to mobilize resources for their empire building ventures; however, they happened to remain all through as supplementary feeding zones for them. The Portuguese tried to obstruct the free flow of commodities to the Ottoman ports by erecting fortresses at strategic centres and junctional points of riverine and land routes, which they also developed as power-exercising devices. Though the degree of exercise of power varied and in some places the fortresses eventually turned out to be mere stone structures devoid of actual power of control as in the case of Cannanore, the chain of Portuguese fortresses erected along the coastal western India did a lot to prevent the Ottomans from completely integrating the economic activities of India into their designs, which they were cherishing from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards.
[1]
Pius Malekandathil, The Germans, the Portuguese and India,
Münster(Germany), 1999, p.10; Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, The
Classical Age, 1300-1600, London, 1973.
[2]Francisco
de Souza, Oriente Conquistado a Jesu Christo pelos Padres da Companhia de
Jesus da Provincia de
[3] Barros, Da
Asia, Decada II, Livro V,Capitulo II, p.24.
[4]
Tome Pires, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East Sea to
Japan written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, edited and tran.by Armando
Cortesão, vol.I,New Delhi, 1990, p. 58
[5]
This is evident from the fact that the repeated attacks of the Ottomans on
[6]
Donald F.Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol.I, The Century of
Discovery, book I,
[7]
Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Le repli venetien et egyptien et la route
du Cap, 1496-1533, Eventail de l’histoire vivante , homage a Lucien Febvre,
vol.II, Paris, 1953, pp.289;294; Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, L’Economie de
L’empire portugais aux XVe et XVIe siecles, Paris, 1969, pp.720-721; 725
[8] Pius
Malekandathil, The Germans, the Portuguese and
[9] “
The Anonymous Narrative” in William Brooks Greenlee(ed.), The Voyage of
Pedro Alvarez Cabral to Brazil and India, London, 1938, p. 86; Luis de
Albuquerque(ed.), Cronica do Descobrimento e conquista da India pelos
Portugueses: codice anonimo Museu Britanico, Egerton 20901, Coimbra, 1974,
p.25; Marino Sanuto, I Diarii di Marino Sanuto: 1496- 1533, ed. by G.
Berchet, R. Fulin, N.Barrozi, F.
Steffani and M. Allegri, vol.IV, Venice, 1879, cols.66-7; Rinaldo Fulin, Diarii
e diaristi Veneziani, Venice, 1881, pp.157-64; Wilhelm von Heyd, Histoire
du commerce du Levant au Moyen Age, vol.II, Leipzig, 1886, p.512
[10] Marino Sanuto, I Diarii di Marino
Sanuto, tom.IV, p.544; tom. XVII, p.191; tom.XXVII, p.641; Pius
Malekandathil, Portuguese Cochin and the Maritime Trade of India,1500-1663,
( A Volume in the South Asian Study Series of Heidelberg University, Germany,
No.39), New Delhi, 2001, pp. 166-167; Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Os
Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, vol.III, Lisboa, 1984, p.73;
K.S.Mathew, Portuguese Trade with India
in the Sixteenth Century, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 114-129.
[11]
Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Os
Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, vol.
III, Liboa, 1981, p.184; Hermann van der Wee, “Structural Changes in European
Long-Distance Trade, and Particularly in the Re-export Trade from South to
North, 1350-1750” in The Rise of Merchant
Empires, Long Distance Trade in the Early Modern World: 1350-1750, edited
by James D. Tracy, Cambridge, 1990, p.28
[12]
Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, L’Economie de L’empire portugais aux XVe etXVIe
siecles, pp.720-725
[13]
Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão Pato, Cartas de Affonso de
[14]
However, the attempts to control the gateway of Red sea by conquering
[15]
Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, The Classical Age, 1300-1600, London,
1973; Halil Inalcik and Donald Quartaet(eds.), A Social and Economic History
of the Ottoman Empire; D.S.Richards(ed.),Islam and the Trade of Asia,
Oxford, 1970.
[16]
Etymologically the word “Marakkar” means captain or owner of a ship and is
derived from the Tamil word “ Marakalam” meaning ship. For details see
O.K.Nambiar, The Kunjalis: Admirals of Calicut,
[17]
Jayaseela Stephen, The Coromandel Coast and Its Hinterland: Economy, Society
and Political System(AD1500-1600),
[18]
Pius Malekandathil, “Making Power Visible: Portuguese Commercial and Military Strategies in
the
[19]
ANTT, Chancelaria de Manuel I, liv.II, fol.83 “Capitulos de pazes entre
Afonso de Albuquerque e o Samorin de Calicut”, Lisboa, 26de Fevreiro de 1515; Genevieve
Bouchon, “Calicut at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century”, in The Asian Seas
1500-1800: Local Societies, European Expansion
and the Portuguese, Revista de
Cultura, vol.I, ano V ( 1991), 46; Raymundo Antonio de Bulhão Pato(ed.),Cartas
de Affonso de Albuquerque seguidas de documentos que as elucidam, tom.I,Lisboa, 1884, p.126
[20]
Pius Malekandathil, “From Merchant Capitalists to Corsairs: The Role of Muslim
Merchants in Portuguese Maritime Trade of the Portuguese” in Portuguese
Studies Review, 2004,12(1), pp. 84-85
[21]
Zaynuddin Shaykh, Tuhfat-ul-Mujahidin,
tran.by S.Muhammad Hussain Nainar,
[22]
R.S.Whiteway,op.cit.,p.196. Another important Muslim trader of
[23]
Genevieve Bouchon, Regent of the Sea: Cannanore’s Response to Portuguese
Expansion, 1507-1528, tran. By Louise Shackley,
[24]
It was in 1516 that the Mamluk Sultan Kansuh al- Gauri was completely defeated
and killed by Selim near
[25] Gaspar
Correia, Lendas da India,
tom.II,Lisboa, 1921, p.577
[26]
Faria y Souza, Asia Portuguesa: The History of the Discovery and Conquest of
India by the Portuguese, tran.by John Stevens, vol.I ,London, 1695, 284;
Shaykh Zaynuddin, op.cit.,66; A.P.Ibrahim Kunju, Studies in Medieval Kerala
, Trivandrum, 1975,60
[27] Gaspar
Correia, Lendas da
[28]
Genevieve Bouchon, Regent of the Sea,
118-9,161; For details on the flow of commodities from Cannanore to the ports
of
[29] Pius
Malekandathil, “The Maritime Trade of Cannanore and the Global Commercial
Revolution”, pp.45-54
[30]
For revival of Venice trade, see Frederic C.Lane, “ The Mediterranean Spice
Trade: Further Evidence of its Revival in the Sixteenth Century”, in Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in
the 16th and 17th Centuries, edited by Brian Pullan,
London, 1968, pp.47-58.
[31]
Silva Rego,Documentação para a Historia
das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente, vol.I, Liboa, 1949,
pp.352-354
[32]
George Schurhammer, The Malabar Church
and Rome during the Early Portuguese Period and Before, Trichinapoly, 1934,
pp.11-13; Pius Malekandathil, “The Portuguese and the St. Thomas
Christians:1500-1570”, in The Portuguese
and the Socio-Cultural Changes in India, 1500-1800, edited by K.S.Mathew,
Teotonio R.de Souza and Pius Malekandathil, Fundação Oriente,Lisbon/
MESHAR,Tellicherry,2001, p.133
[33] Gaspar
Correia, Lendas da India, tom.III, p.
882
[34]
João de Barros,
[35] Pius Malekandathil, “ Winds of Change and Links of
Continuities: A Study on the Merchant Groups of Kerala and the Channels of
their Trade, 1000-1800”, in Journal of
Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol.50, No.2, 2007, pp.271-2
[36]
Dejanirah Couto, “Les Ottomans et I’Inde portugaise”, Vasco da Gama et I’Inde, vol.I, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation,
Paris, 1999, pp.185-88; Salih Özbaran, The
Ottoman Response to European Expansion
–Studies on Ottoman-Portuguese Relations in the Indian Ocean and Ottoman
Administration in the Arab Lands during the Sixteenth Century, Analecta
Isisiana XIII, Istanbul, 1994, pp. 99-109.
[37]
M.S.Anderson, The Origin of the
[38]
Luis Filipe Thomaz, A questão da pimento
em meados do seculo XVI. Um debate politico do governo de D.João de Castro,
Lisboa, 1998, p.79
[39] Artur
Teodoro de Matos(ed.), O Tombo de Damão
1592, Lisboa, 2001, p.295
[40]
Salih Özbaran, “The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the
[41]
Nycolão Gomçallves, Livro que trata das cousas da India e do Japão,
edited by Adelino da Almeida Calado, Coimbra, 1957,p.74
[42]
Karl H.Dannenfeldt, Leonhard Rauwolf: Sixteenth Century Physician, Botanist
and Traveller, Massachussetts, 1968, p.121
[43] The
letter of the Sultan to the Portuguese crown in ANTT, Corpo Chronologico , I, Maço 74, doc.108
[44]
See the remarks of João Fernandes Galego about the flow of pepper to the
various destinations in the
[45]
Salih Özbaran, “The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the
[46]
João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, “O Imperio Portuguese m meados do seculo XVI”, in Anais de Historia de Alem –Mar:Homenagem a
Luis Filipe Thomaz, edited by Artur Teodoro de Matos, p.101
[47]
Antonio Baião, Historia Quinhentista (inedita) do Segundo cerco de Dio,
[48]
Antonio Leme was given the permission to get a ship built in Malabar and to
send commodities to any of the ports in Bengal as reward for fighting for the
state at
[49]
On 21st February 1547, Manoel de Sousa de Sepulveda was permitted to
send a ship to Bengal, for having served in
[50]
The casado trader of
[51]
ANTT, Chancellaria de D.João III, Doações 69, fol.98v
[52]
Antonio Baião, Historia Quinhentista ,pp.306, 309-310.
[53]
Lucas Veiga was given the voyage-concession to Bengal for his participation in
the defence of
[54]
Dom Leitão was permitted to send a ship to
[55]
Simão da Rocha was granted permission to send a vessel to Malacca as reward for
his role in the defence of
[56]
Sebastião Lopez Lobato was made the alcaide mor of
[57]
Francisco Navaes Pereira was rewarded with a commercial voyage to
[58]
Vasco Rebello was granted commercial
privilege to send vessels to
[59]
Pedro de Liao was rewarded with a commercial voyaged to
[60]
Crown has acknowledged in his letter the help extended by these cities in
lifting the siege on
[61] For
details see Bibliotheca do Palacio da Ajuda, Livro das Merces que fez D.João
de Castro, 51-8-46.
[62] Ibid.,
p.60
[63]
Ibid., p.64; J.F. Guilmartin, Gun Powder
and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the
sixteenth Century,
[64]
This information is based primarily on the paper of Giancarlo Casale. For
details see Giancarlo Casale,”Ottoman Imperial Ideology and the Politicization
of Piracy in the Indian Ocean”, A paper presented in the panel on Piracy in the Indian Ocean, in Second European Congress of World and Global
History, held from 3rd-5th July, 2008, at Dresden,
Germany.
[65] Soren Mentz, “The
Armenian Merchants in the Indian Ocean “, A paper presented in the International
Seminar on Indian Ocean, held on 7th and 8th January,
2008, at India International Centre, New Delhi
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