Portuguese in India

Notes

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on 20 May 1498 and was received by the Zamorin. Pedro Alvares Cabral (1500) set up the first Portuguese trading post at Calicut and then at Cochin and Cannanore. The Portuguese built a "Estado da India", a maritime empire based on sea control rather than on land.

Key Governors

Francisco de Almeida (1505-09): the first Viceroy; followed the "Blue Water Policy" (naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean). In the Battle of Diu (1509) he defeated the combined fleet of Egypt, Gujarat and the Zamorin.
Afonso de Albuquerque (1509-15): the real founder of Portuguese power. Captured Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510; encouraged marriages with local women; prohibited sati in Goa; captured Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515).
Nino da Cunha (1529-38): shifted the capital from Cochin to Goa (1530); secured Bassein (1534) and Diu (1535) from Bahadur Shah of Gujarat; Daman (1531).

Cartaz system: a pass issued by the Portuguese; ships in the Arabian Sea had to buy it or face seizure. It imposed Portuguese control over trade.

Bombay: given to Charles II of England in 1661 as dowry on his marriage to Catherine of Braganza; the English leased it to the East India Company in 1668.

Contributions

Printing press in Goa (1556), among the first in India; Garcia da Orta's Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (1563).
New crops: tobacco, potato, chilli, maize, pineapple, papaya, cashew, groundnut; shipbuilding.
St Francis Xavier arrived in 1542; Jesuit missions; Goa Inquisition (1560).
Indo-Portuguese (Gothic and Baroque) architecture, e.g., the Basilica of Bom Jesus.

Decline: religious intolerance and the Inquisition, corruption, union of Spain and Portugal (1580) which dragged Portugal into Spanish wars, the rise of the Dutch and English, and the Marathas capturing Salsette and Bassein (1739). Shah Jahan expelled them from Hugli (1632).

End: India annexed Goa, Daman and Diu in December 1961 (Operation Vijay); Dadra and Nagar Haveli were freed in 1954 and integrated by the 10th Amendment (1961); Goa, Daman and Diu came under the 12th Amendment (1962).

Key Points

Vasco da Gama (1498); Cabral (1500); Almeida (Blue Water Policy); Albuquerque (Goa, 1510).
Capital shifted to Goa in 1530 (Nino da Cunha).
Cartaz system controlled Arabian Sea trade.
Introduced tobacco, potato, maize, chilli and the printing press (1556).
Goa liberated in 1961; Bombay to Charles II in 1661.

MCQs

Q1. Who captured Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in 1510? (a) Francisco de Almeida (b) Afonso de Albuquerque (c) Vasco da Gama (d) Nino da Cunha Ans: (b).

Q2. The "Blue Water Policy" is associated with: (a) Albuquerque (b) Francisco de Almeida (c) Cabral (d) Dupleix Ans: (b). Naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean.

Q3. Bombay was gifted to the English by the Portuguese as dowry in: (a) 1611 (b) 1639 (c) 1661 (d) 1668 Ans: (c). Catherine of Braganza's marriage to Charles II.