Age of Exploration | European Navigators Explore the New World Age of Exploration By the end of the 15th century many things were changing in Europe. The population started to grow more quickly and a new class of merchants emerged. They wanted to buy and sell expensive and valuable products from Asia—like gold, jewels and silk. In those days, people had no refrigerators to preserve their food. They dried meat and often used salt to make it last longer. To make food taste better they used spices , like pepper or cinnamon. For centuries Europeans brought these goods on a land route from Asia over thousands of dangerous kilometres . In the 15th century the overland routes were being controlled by the Turkish Empire, which made it even more difficult for European merchants to pass through. As a result, some European countries, like Spain and Portugal, decided to find out if there was a sea route to India . With the help of new kinds of ships that could sail faster and instruments , like the quadrant, they started the Age of Exploration. Portuguese exploration At the end of the 15th century the Portuguese started to explore the west coast of Africa . They set up trading posts and collected gold and silver.

They were convinced that by sailing around the coast of Africa they would find a route to India. In 1487 , the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias sailed around the southern part of the continent and got as far as the east coast of Africa, but a storm made him turn back. On his return voyage, he saw a piece of land that stretched out into the sea. The Portuguese named it the Cape of Good Hope because they were hopeful of finding a passageway to India. In 1497 Vasco Da Gama set out from Lisbon, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean. He reached the west coast of India in May 1498. He took some spices and gold back with him to prove that he had reached India. Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus was probably the most famous explorer of the era. He achieved fame by sailing west in search of a sea route to India. Instead of reaching India he discovered that there was an unknown mass of land in between, land that the Europeans knew nothing of. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451 and during his early years his father took him on various sailing trips and wanted to make a merchant out of him.

Like many navigators of that time, Columbus also wanted to sail to India and the Far East. He thought that if he sailed west he would also reach the Spice Islands of Asia and India. When he went to the king of Portugal to present his plan, but it was rejected. Queen Isabella of Spain admired young and brave men like Columbus and so she gave him three ships—the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria—and a crew of 90 men. Columbus left Spain on August 3, 1492. After two months of sailing westward, he landed on an island of the Bahamas, San Salvador, on October 12, 1492. Because he thought he had reached the islands near India he called the natives Indians . All together, Columbus made four voyages to the New World between 1492 and 1504. He explored the coasts of Cuba, Jamaica , Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. On his last two voyages, Columbus reached the mainland of Central and South America and travelled as far south as the mouth of the Orinoco River. After he came home from his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus fell ill and died in 1506.

Other Spanish Explorers During the early 1500s Spanish explorers travelled across most of Central and South America. They founded colonies and brought settlers to the New World. They also made the native Indians work for them. The Spaniards brought new products to the Americas ,like wheat, horses, cattle and sheep. In exchange , they grew plants that were not known in Europe, like corn and potatoes and brought them back to the Old Continent. In 1513 the Spanish explorer Vasco de Balboa landed in Panama, the part of Central America that is very narrow. With his men, he fought his way through 50 miles of jungle and was surprised to see a new sea , the Pacific Ocean. One of the most important Spanish conquistadors was Hernando Cortes. He conquered the Aztec empire in 1521. In 1532 and 1533 Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas. These natives ruled an empire that expanded from Columbia to the northern parts of Argentina. The Incas had great riches, vast amounts of gold and silver. When the Spanish got there they took all of it away from the Incas.

French and English explorers The French and the English concentrated their journeys on the northern part of the continent, because they thought that there also had to be a north-western route to India. In 1497, John Cabot, an Italian who sailed for England, landed on the east coast of Canada. In 1534 Jacques Cartier sailed down the St. Lawrence River and reached the Great Lakes . He claimed this territory for the king of France. During the 1600s the French and English began to set up colonies . The French concentrated on the St .Lawrence valley and the Great Lakes and founded towns like Montreal, or Detroit. At the end of the century Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette sailed down the Mississippi River. The land near the Gulf of Mexico was called Louisiana, in honour of the French king. Settlements like St. Louis or New Orleans show French origin. The first permanent settlement in North America was founded at Jamestown , Virginia in 1607. In 1610 Henry Hudson sailed around north-eastern Canada and discovered a huge body of water which he thought was the Pacific Ocean. Today it is known as Hudson Bay .

Amerigo Vespucci Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian-born explorer who explored the mainland of America at the end of the 15th century. A German mapmaker believed that Vespucci was the first to reach the New World ,so he suggested naming the new land America. Although Vespucci was probably not one of the greatest explorers of the time, he was the first navigator who explored South America. Magellan sails around the world In 1519 the Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan set out to find India by sailing around South America. He sailed for Spain because the Portuguese didn’t give him any money for this expedition. Magellan had 5 ships and a crew of 240. When he reached the southern tip of South America, he got into bad, stormy weather . Two of his ships were badly damaged and couldn’t continue the journey. With three ships he sailed through a strait, that later was named after him , the Strait of Magellan. When he reached the Pacific Ocean, he sailed for there months without any sight of land. Finally , in April of 1521 he landed on the Philippine Islands. Magellan got into a fight with native islanders and was killed there.

Only one ship could continue the voyage. It crossed the Indian Ocean and sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. With only twenty people on board it reached Spain three years after it had set out. Magellan's journey around the world BBC - History - British History in depth: Vasco da Gama Print this page The search for trade routes Vasco da Gama's pioneering sea voyage to India is one of the defining moments in the history of exploration. Apart from being one the greatest pieces of European seamanship of that time - a far greater achievement than Christopher Columbus's crossing of the Atlantic - his journey acted as a catalyst for a series of events that changed the world. By the middle of the 15th century, Portugal was the leading maritime nation in Europe, thanks largely to the legacy of Prince Henry the Navigator, who had brought together a talented group of mapmakers, geographers, astronomers and navigators at his school of seamanship at Sagres, in southern Portugal. Henry sponsored voyages of exploration south along the west African coast... but the southern extent of the continent remained unknown to Europeans. Henry's intention had been to find a sea route to India that would give Portugal access to the lucrative trade in spices from the Far East.

He had hoped to be aided by an alliance with the elusive Prester John, whose Christian empire was thought to exist somewhere in Africa and who might have provided assistance to Christians in any fight to overcome Muslim dominance of the Indian Ocean trade. For 40 years, Henry sponsored voyages of exploration south along the west African coast, resulting in a lucrative trade in slaves and gold - but the southern extent of the continent remained unknown to Europeans, and the Prince's dream was not realised. It was not until 1487 that Bartholomew Diaz set off on the voyage that finally reached the southern tip of Africa. By rounding the Cape of Good Hope, Diaz proved that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were not landlocked, as many European geographers of the time thought, and rekindled the idea that a sea route to India might indeed be feasible. To complement the sea voyages of Diaz, the Portuguese monarch King John II also sent Pedro da Covilha, a fluent Arabic speaker, out on a dangerous overland journey to India. Disguised as an Arab, Covilha gathered vital information on the ports of the east African and Indian coasts during his three-year journey.

It would, however, be a further ten years before the Portuguese were able to organise a voyage to exploit the discoveries of these two explorers. In the meantime, Christopher Columbus, sponsored by the Spanish, had returned to Europe in 1493 to announce that he had successfully found a route to the Orient by sailing west across the Atlantic. Top Rivalries A 16th-century Portuguese ship used in the Indian Ocean trade routes © The rivalry between Portugal and Spain for the control of trade with the Orient intensified. The Pope stepped in to arbitrate and in 1494, after year-long negotiations, the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed. This in effect drew an imaginary north-south dividing line through the Atlantic, some 1,770km (1,100 miles) west of Cape Verde, giving all the newly discovered lands to the west of the line to Spain and everything to the east of the line to Portugal. King John was delighted. The treaty meant that Portugal retained its control of the west African coastal trade and of the possible sea route to India. In 1497 King John's successor, Manuel I, appointed Vasco da Gama to lead a pioneering voyage to India.

In 1497 King John's successor, Manuel I, appointed Vasco da Gama to lead a pioneering voyage to India. Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, a small port in southern Portugal, in 1460 - the same year that Henry the Navigator died. His mother was of English ancestry. His father, Estevao da Gama, was head of one of Portugal's most noble families, had a distinguished military history, and was the provincial governor. When Vasco grew up he joined the navy, where he learned navigational skills and served with distinction in the war against Castille. Bartholomew Diaz personally supervised preparations for da Gama's voyage. The ordinary caravel used by Diaz was not considered sufficient - it was not robust enough, and had insufficient cargo capacity. The crew would also need better protection for the long journey ahead. The fleet consisted of four ships, two of which had been specially constructed. These were naos: square-rigged ships of shallow draught weighing about 200 tons. The flagship, St Gabriel, was captained by Vasco da Gama, and the St Raphael was under the command of his brother Paolo da Gama.

Berrio Nicolau Coelho commanded a lanteen-rigged caravel of about 100 tons, and the fourth ship was a store ship. The crew of 170 included three experienced pilots: Pedro de Alemquer, the pilot who had sailed with Diaz in 1487, Joao de Coimbra and Pero de Escolar. Top The first voyage to India Vasco da Gama and his fleet sailed from Lisbon on 8 July 1497. Bartholomew Diaz himself acted as pilot to the Canary Islands, which they reached on 15 July, and on to the Cape Verde islands. On board were the latest maps and navigational instruments. Between 26 July and 3 August the crew prepared for the next stage of their voyage without Diaz, who advised them to take an unusual course: west-south west in a huge loop out into the Atlantic to avoid the doldrums in the Gulf of Guinea. They were 965km (600 miles) from Brazil before the south-westerly winds blew them back towards southern Africa.

Vaco da Gama's passage to India © On 7 November they landed at St Helena Bay, 200km (125 miles) north of the Cape of Good Hope. They had been out of sight of land for 13 weeks - much longer than Columbus on his trans-Atlantic voyage - and had travelled a distance of more than 7,200km (4,500 miles) from Cape Verde. They would now be sailing in unknown waters, having almost reached the farthest extent of Diaz's explorations. Two days later, after leaving St Helena Bay, they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and landed at Mossel Bay, where they traded trinkets with local people in exchange for an ox. The store ship was burnt, and the supplies re-distributed among the other ships. They would now be sailing in unknown waters, having almost reached the farthest extent of Diaz's explorations. On Christmas Day 1497 the three remaining ships were sailing northwards along the east coast of what is now South Africa and called the country 'Natal'.

By 11 January 1498 they were exploring the mouth of Copper River ('Rio Cobre'), named after the copper ornaments worn by the local population. When da Gama tried to trade with the ruling Sultan, his paltry gifts were scorned. Moving slowly north east against a strong south-westerly current, they travelled 2,700km (1,700 miles) up the coast until, on 2 March 1498, they sailed into the port of Mozambique. This was one of a chain of Muslim city states, at the southernmost point of Muslim influence on the east African coast. When da Gama tried to trade with the ruling Sultan his paltry gifts were scorned. Despite sparing no expense to equip the expedition, the Portuguese had totally underestimated the quality of goods being traded in this part of the world - cotton, ivory, gold and pearls. They sailed on to Mombassa, 1,300km (800 miles) north, in the hope of more lucrative trade, but fared no better there.

Fortunately the ruler of Malindi was more welcoming, and during his stay there da Gama recruited a knowledgeable and efficient pilot, possibly the great Arab navigator Ahmed Ibn Majid, to show the explorers the route to India. Top Da Gama reaches India Da Gama tried to trade spices for trinkets © The 27-day crossing of the Arabian sea, via the Laccadive Islands to the Malabar Coast of India, was eased by the favourable monsoon winds, and the fleet arrived at Calicut on 20 May 1498. Da Gama's men were reduced to bartering on the waterfront to trade what goods they could for the homeward voyage. India's Malabar Coast was at the centre of the spice trade - it was the main outlet for Kerala's large pepper crop - and the place where ships from the Indonesian Spice Islands came to trade cloves with Arab merchants from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The newcomers stayed for three months, and were initially well received by the Hindu ruler, the Zamorin. But the Muslim traders also held considerable influence at court, and were unwilling to relinquish control of the spice trade to the Christian visitors - and once again the goods da Gama was offering to trade were inadequate.

Relations deteriorated, and da Gama's men were reduced to bartering on the waterfront to trade what goods they could for the homeward voyage. It was a terrible voyage back to Malindi. The pilot could not be found, the monsoons were against them and the 3,700km (2,300 mile) journey took three months. Da Gama's crew suffered terribly from scurvy and 30 men died. Only the kindness of the Sultan of Malindi saved the rest of the crew, with his gifts of fresh meat and oranges. But now, with too few men alive to sail three ships, the St Raphael was burnt. Keen to get home, the adventurers rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 20 March 1499, and sailed up the west coast of Africa. Paolo da Gama, who had been very compassionate to the sick and ailing throughout the voyage, finally succumbed to illness himself, and died on the Azores. Top Secondary voyages to India Vasco da Gama arrived in Lisbon on 18 September and rode in triumph through the city.

He had been away for more than two years, travelled 38,600km (24,000 miles) and spent 300 days at sea. Only 54 of the original crew of 170 had survived, but King Manuel was very pleased. What had been done once could be done again. The Muslim merchants were outraged at the attempt to steal their trade, and killed 50 of Cabral's men. A second voyage, involving 13 ships and 1,200 men, was immediately dispatched under Pedro Alvares Cabral to secure the sea route to India, and the fleet reached Calicut in under six months. This time the Portuguese were better prepared and brought lavish goods with which to tempt the Zamorin into a trade agreement. The Muslim merchants were outraged at this attempt to steal their trade, and killed 50 of Cabral's men. Cabral retaliated by burning ten Muslim cargo vessels and killing nearly 600 on board, and setting light to the wooden houses of Calicut in revenge. He then moved on to Cochin, where he established the first Portuguese trading post in India. He returned home in the summer of 1501.

Only seven ships and half his men survived the journey, but their cargo of spices was sufficient to break the monopoly on the European spice trade previously held by Arab and Venetian merchants. The following year, Vasco da Gama commanded Portugal's third major voyage to India. He set out with a fleet of 20 ships, including ten of his own and five each under the command of his uncle and nephew. Their task was to consolidate Portuguese dominance of the route to India, but it was to lead to one of the worst maritime massacres in history. Da Gama began a campaign of terror against Muslim shipping... After raids on several Muslim ports along the east African coast, da Gama began a campaign of terror against Muslim shipping off the Malabar Coast. Here he captured the Meri, a ship with 200 Muslim pilgrims on the return journey from Mecca, and set it alight. With some 400 men, women and children aboard, da Gama fuelled the fires for four days until all had died. He then moved on to Calicut, where he captured and dismembered 30 fishermen and let their bodies float in with the tide for their families to find.

Feared and hated, he left behind the first European naval force in Asian waters. Upon his return home in September 1503, da Gama was richly rewarded by the Portuguese for his efforts and was eventually appointed Viceroy of India. Vasco da Gama - Exploration - HISTORY.com Vasco da Gama A+E Networks Introduction The Portuguese nobleman Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) sailed from Lisbon in 1497 on a mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. After sailing down the western coast of Africa and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his expedition made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post of Calicut, India, in May 1498. Da Gama received a hero’s welcome back in Portugal, and was sent on a second expedition to India in 1502, during which he brutally clashed with Muslim traders in the region. Two decades later, da Gama again returned to India, this time as Portuguese viceroy; he died there of an illness in late 1524.

Google Vasco da Gama’s Early Life and First Voyage to India Born circa 1460, Vasco da Gama was the son of a minor nobleman who commanded the fortress at Sines, located on the coast of the Alentejo province in southwestern Portugal. Little else is known about his early life, but in 1492 King John II sent da Gama to the port city of Setubal (south of Lisbon) and to the Algarve region to seize French ships in retaliation for French attacks on Portuguese shipping interests. Did You Know? By the time Vasco da Gama returned from his first voyage to India in 1499, he had spent more than two years away from home, including 300 days at sea, and had traveled some 24,000 miles. Only 54 of his original crew of 170 men returned with him; the majority (including da Gama's brother Paolo) had died of illnesses such as scurvy.

In 1497, John’s successor, King Manuel I (crowned in 1495), chose da Gama to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of a maritime route from Western Europe to the East. At the time, the Muslims held a monopoly of trade with India and other Eastern nations, thanks to their geographical position. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon that July with four vessels, traveling south along the coast of Africa before veering far off into the southern Atlantic in order to avoid unfavorable currents. The fleet was finally able to round the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip in late November, and headed north along Africa’s eastern coast, making stops at what is now Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi (both now in Kenya). With the help of a local navigator, da Gama was able to cross the Indian Ocean and reach the coast of India at Calicut (now Kozhikode) in May 1498. Relations with Local Population & Rival Traders Though the local Hindu population of Calicut initially welcomed the arrival of the Portuguese sailors (who mistook them for Christians), tensions quickly flared after da Gama offered their ruler a collection of relatively cheap goods as an arrival gift.

This conflict, along with hostility from Muslim traders, led Da Gama to leave without concluding a treaty and return to Portugal. A much larger fleet, commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, was dispatched to capitalize on da Gama’s discoveries and secure a trading post at Calicut. After Muslim traders killed 50 of his men, Cabral retaliated by burning 10 Muslim cargo vessels and killing the nearly 600 sailors aboard. He then moved on to Cochin, where he established the first Portuguese trading post in India. In 1502, King Manuel put da Gama in charge of another Indian expedition, which sailed that February. On this voyage, da Gama attacked Arab shipping interests in the region and used force to reach an agreement with Calicut’s ruler. For these brutal demonstrations of power, da Gama was vilified throughout India and the region. Upon his return to Portugal, by contrast, he was richly rewarded for another successful voyage. Da Gama’s Later Life and Last Voyage to India Da Gama had married a well-born woman sometime after returning from his first voyage to India; the couple would have six sons.

For the next 20 years, da Gama continued to advise the Portuguese ruler on Indian affairs, but he was not sent back to the region until 1524, when King John III appointed him as Portuguese viceroy in India. Da Gama arrived in Goa with the task of combating the growing corruption that had tainted the Portuguese government in India. He soon fell ill, and in December 1524 he died in Cochin. His body was later taken back to Portugal for burial there. Tags Vasco da Gama reaches India - May 20, 1498 - HISTORY.com Vasco da Gama reaches India Share this: Vasco da Gama reaches India Author Vasco da Gama reaches India URL Publisher A+E Networks Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrives at Calicut on the Malabar Coast. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of Africa. With the aid of an Indian merchant he met there, he then set off across the Indian Ocean.

The Portuguese explorer was not greeted warmly by the Muslim merchants of Calicut, and in 1499 he had to fight his way out of the harbor on his return trip home. In 1502, he led a squadron of ships to Calicut to avenge the massacre of Portuguese explorers there and succeeded in subduing the inhabitants. In 1524, he was sent as viceroy to India, but he fell ill and died in Cochin. Related Videos The Europeans in India - mrdowling.com The Europeans in India The Caribbean The Europeans in India Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa to reach India in 1498. His journey paved the way for other European nations, including the Dutch, French and British. The Europeans came to India to trade for sugar, tea, cotton, ginger, pepper, and other spices, a blue dye called indigo, and jute. Jute is a tropical plant used for making rope. Eventually, India’s Mughal rulers became puppets of the British. In 1857, British troops exiled the last of the Mughul emperors after an uprising by the Indian people.

Nineteen years later, the British proclaimed Queen Victoria Empress of India. advertisement The British at first had no interest in changing the Indian way of life, but they eventually made many reforms. They outlawed suttee in 1829. Suttee was an Indian custom of a widow burning herself, either on the funeral pyre of her dead husband, or soon after his death. Sometimes, wives were sacrificed before their husband's expected death in battle. Some historians argue that the British exaggerated the frequency of suttee in India, but the question of its abolition became important to the Indian people. They argued that colonial rulers had no right to change Indian customs. The British believed that in making moral decisions, rulers must consult their own consciences, not those of their subjects. The British modernized India, but many Indian people believed the British did not respect the Indian way of life. The British built the largest railway system in Asia, constructed roads and irrigated large areas of land. They improved health care and prevented many famines. Despite the improvements, many Indian people were not happy with British rule. They resented outsiders controlling their affairs and the harsh taxes of their colonial rulers. The British forbade the Indian people from trading with other nations.

After years of often bloody fighting, India’s many ethnic groups united to evict the British in 1947, bringing self-rule to the subcontinent. Resources: Download this lesson as Microsoft Word file or as an Adobe Acrobat file . Lexile Measure 1070L Mean Sentence Length 15.05 Mean Log Word Frequency 3.29 Word Count 316 Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on India . Vasco da Gama (1465 – 1524) was a Portuguese explorer who became the first European to reach India by sea. Jute is a long, soft, shiny fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. Jute is used to make burlap, and gunny cloth. Suttee was an Indian custom of a widow burning herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. The term suttee means “good wife.” Though never widely practiced, there is evidence that suttee was practiced from as early as the fourth century before the common era to 1829, when it was outlawed by the British. by Dr. Neria H.

Hebbar Nearly three decades before Babur ventured into India through the Hindu Kush Mountains to establish his kingdom in Delhi, and more than a decade before Krishna Deva Raya became the famed king of the southern kingdom of Vijayanagara, a Portuguese sailor by name Vasco da Gama circled around the Cape of Good Hope and landed at the Port of Calicut, on the Malabar coast of India. The year was 1498. This single event was to portend a race for supremacy in trade in the next century between the Portuguese and the British, with the Dutch and the French also taking more minor roles. During the earlier half of the sixteenth century India was dominated by the Portuguese, who controlled the sea routes on the western shores of India, effectively blockading any ships belonging to other European nations. Only in the second half of the century, after the fall of Vijayanagara, did the Portuguese begin to fade, making way for the British to be more active in India. British merchants were primarily interested in spice trade in the Far East, and wanted to establish their trade posts in Java. But the Dutch had already established their stronghold there and the British, as an after thought, began looking toward India.

Little did the East India Company merchants know that they had struck gold in India, which would someday be a crown jewel of the British Empire. The Portuguese: A Vigorous Campaign The Portuguese sailed to India more for saving “heathen” souls than for profiting from spice trade. The Indian subcontinent was populated by Hindus and Muslims. Their souls needed to be saved, and salvation as only a Christian would know it, had to be offered to the misguided “heathens.” The Portuguese had persisted in finding nautical route to India in order to strike a blow against, mainly the Muslims who practiced the same religion as the hated “Moors.” After half a century of trying, the Portuguese finally succeeded in finding a route to the west coast of India. As to the goal of proselytizing “heathens,” the Portuguese never wavered, even up to the twentieth century. Vasco da Gama’s sturdy ship San Gabriel landed in the busy port of Calicut, which was ruled by a weak Hindu ruler, whose title was zamorin. Only two of Gama’s four ships had managed to reach Calicut. Unlike other ships that came ashore for buying goods, Vasco’ ships had twenty cannons mounted prominently on it.

Calicut was a thriving port where Arabs, Chinese and Hindu merchants from all over Asia and East Africa came to purchase pepper, ginger as well as gold, ivory and silk. Admiral da Gama kept a low profile and purchased low quality pepper and cinnamon, paying twice the price that other astute merchants paid, and returned to Portugal. After all this was a fact finding mission by da Gama, and there was nothing to be gained by tussling with the locals. The merchandise fetched a handsome 3000 percent profit in Europe. Soon eleven more ships were dispatched under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral. Six of them reached Calicut, sufficient in strength (with the ominous cannons on the ships’ bow) that forced zamorin to sign a treaty allowing Cabral to have a warehouse guarded by fifty four merchants, called factors, to purchase goods when prices were low and store them in the warehouse for export. However, on his return to Lisbon, Cabral plundered a Muslim ship in the high seas and in retaliation the Muslims plundered the factory, killing all the foreigners living there. Vasco da Gama returned in 1502, with fifteen heavily armed flotillas and bombarded the port of Calicut into rubble.

Eight hundred Muslims were tortured, cutting their hands and noses off first, and then sent to zamorin for his “curry.” Such torture and plunder had achieved its intended goal. The future factories established by the Portuguese remained safe. The Portuguese were mighty on the seas than on land anyway. They did not profess any ambition to acquire real estate, at least in the initial phase of their stay in India. After an agreement with Spain (Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494), the New World, the Americas, was left for the Spanish to exploit and India and Brazil were left for Portugal. The Catholic monopoly of Indian Ocean continued mostly for the entire sixteenth century as the Protestant fleets of the English and Dutch were still weak. The architect of the Portuguese Indian Empire was Dom Alfonso d’Albuquerque, viceroy of Portugal in the East from 1509 to 1515. In 1510 he seized control of the island of Goa from the Bijapur sultans without much of a fight. The cannons on the Portuguese frigates and prior attitudes of the Portuguese had convinced their Muslim adversaries that the defense of Goa was not worth the price.

Dom d’Albuquerque vigorously pursued the Muslims, taking care not to enlist them in his “Indian Army” which was assigned to defend Goa and other Portuguese interests. Vijayanagara Empire in the south established a working relationship with the Portuguese, especially because the remnants of the Bahmani dynasty, who had seceded and formed their own Muslim kingdoms (Ahmadnagar, Bidar, Bijapur and Golconda), were constantly at odds with Vijayanagara. The hatred of Muslims by the Portuguese found a willing accomplice with the Vijayanagara kings. Krishna Deva Raya (1509-1529) utilized the Portuguese to supply horses for his army, during his consolidation of power. The Portuguese guarded their superiority of Indian Ocean with zeal and enthusiasm. West coast of India and its various ports were constantly threatened by them. Most of the petty rulers all along the coast made peace with the Portuguese in exchange for free access to Portuguese trade ships. Albuquerque died in 1515, but not before seeing to it that his kin in Lisbon was the wealthiest monarch in Europe, form the spice trade that brought in close to 6000% profit on the investment.

As Portuguese power grew in India, crusading Christians worried that the “heathen” population of India will influence the noble Christians in a sinful way. The first Jesuit missionaries arrived in Goa in 1542 with the sole purpose of converting the heathens into Catholicism. However, they did not find the task easy. Francis Xavier showed his frustrations and contempt, when he wrote to Ignatius Loyola that “all these Indians nations are very barbarous, vicious, and without inclination to virtue, no constancy of character, no frankness.” However, sufficient number of Hindus had been converted to Catholicism, in addition to the offsprings of intermarriages (that was officially sanctioned and encouraged), that Inquisition was introduced to Goa in 1560. Following this action, the Portuguese power in India declined rapidly. Another blow to Portuguese power came after the victory of Muslim sultans of Deccan over Vijayanagara in 1565 during the battle of Talikot. After the destruction of the glorious city of Vijayanagara on the banks of Tungabhadra, the Muslims lost no time in attacking Portuguese strongholds in the south.

Things were not going well for the Portuguese at home either. In 1580 Philip II of Spain took possession of all Portuguese domains and unified them with Iberia under his rule, effectively closing Lisbon to Protestant European merchants. This prompted the British and the Dutch to more vigorously pursue alternate routes to India and before long the Portuguese lost their monopoly over the Indian Ocean. Many of the Portuguese who came to India came to settle in India with little expectation of returning home. The original purpose of their long journey may have been to proselytize or to act as spice merchants. But many of them were lured by India. Over several decades they found life in India offered them much more than what they could expect at home. Many of them entered into servitude with the many kings, especially in Deccan. They served as soldiers, advisors or mercenaries. Some of them were completely ‘Indianized’ wearing Indian clothes and eating Indian curry. Many of them married Indian girls and even converted to Islam. In official capacity the Portuguese remained in India and held on Goa until the 20thcentury. It was the last foreign power to be evicted from the Indian soil, fifteen years after India gained independence from the British.

The English: Sixteenth Century and Dismal Failures Compared to the Portuguese, the British had a dismal beginning in India. Sixteenth century was a century of failure for the English merchants. Constant skirmishes with the more powerful Portuguese naval fleet in the Indian Ocean had resulted in many defeats and losses. In 1553 an expedition through the northern route to Cathay resulted in disaster when all the seventy members of the crew were found frozen in the Siberian ice. Brave sea captains like Drake and Cavendish defied the Portuguese blockade and circled the globe but they were merely glorified pirates, killing and looting their foes without mercy. Two rival English merchant companies vied for monopoly on trade. Both obtained royal charter and Muscovy Company and East India Company competed with each other until late 18th century. In 1583 a merchant named Ralph Fitch was taken prisoner when a boat called Tiger was captured by the Portuguese. From his prison cell in Goa, Fitch wrote detailed accounts of life in around Goa. This valuable information was brought back to England in the form of letters he wrote home.

He accounted the strangeness in the behavior of the inhabitants.” Fitch also had visited Akbar’s Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and marveled at the opulence of the populace. His letters kindled a keen interest in the English, who were always looking for riches away from homeland. More valuable information was sent to the Protestant Europe by van Linschoten, the Dutch secretary of Archbishop of Goa. In 1592 he returned home with the valuable Portuguese navigation maps, which the Portuguese had thus far guarded with their lives. The maps were published both in Holland as “Sailing Guides to the Eastern Seas” and an English version was also published in England. The secret routes to India were now exposed and the Portuguese instantly lost that advantage they had for nearly a century. The Dutch made a concerted effort and succeeded in reaching Java. There they established a spice trade that proved to be enormously profitable. The English quickly followed and for a while the Dutch and the English shared the spice trade profits in South East Asia. In 1602 the Dutch formed United East India Company with 6.5 guilders, some ten times more than English had amassed from investors two years earlier with the blessing of Elizabeth I.

For a while the Catholics of Portuguese and Iberia (Spain) and the Protestants of England and Holland fought against each other for superiority and control of the Far East. The English and Dutch co-operation worked to the advantage of both in Java and the Spice Islands. Then in 1608 Captain William Hawkins dropped anchor at Surat, a bustling port city, which had served as the principal port of the Mughal Empire, at the mouth of River Tapti. Neither Hawkins nor his successors had little success in India. An attempt at striking a deal with Jahangir was futile. The Jesuits Portuguese pirates robbed and captured his crew. The first English merchants found the Indians had no desire to trade with the English and the English could not offer any attractive commodity except for specie, which was in short supply. Seventeenth Century: Slow and Steady During the seventeenth century fortunes slowly shifted towards the British merchants. The balance of power in the Indian Ocean changed in 1612 when captain Best arrived and blasted four Portuguese ships. The mighty cannons commanded more respect than all the gifts Hawkins had brought with him to lure Jahangir into a treaty.

Following this ambassador of King James I, Sir Thomas Roe had a more enthusiastic reception at the Mughal Emperor’s court in 1616. The Mughals now depended on the British to provide protection during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which thus far had been the service provided by the Portuguese. Permission was also given for the English to build their first factory in Surat in 1619. The Dutch were the most powerful nation in the world in 1650 due their enormous profiteering merchants in the South East Asia. Trouble soon erupted in the Spice Islands and the British merchants lost their favored view by the Dutch. The camaraderie ended when the Dutch suspected British of colluding with Portuguese and Japanese merchants. Following a massacre of ten English merchants, they were forced to abandon Spice Islands and look for alternatives. This single event led to the establishment of the British Empire in India and soon the world’s most powerful empire was to be born. This was not easy, however. An attempt at reaching eastern India along the Coramandal coast of Pulicat in 1611 was thwarted by Dutch fleet that was there to recruit slaves from India for their plantations in the Spice Islands.

Seventeenth century was the century when the John Company (as the British East India Company was referred to) saw the need to expand their bases in India so that the different parts of the country could be tapped into for more imports and profits. Bombay was part of a dowry settlement for Charles II when he married Catherine of Braganza in 1661. It was leased to the Company for 10 pounds rent per year. Bombay was to replace Surat as the main portal of entry in the West Coast for the British ships in 1687. A port in Coramandal coast was established in 1639 when the British purchased land from the Hindu king, who was ruling under the protection of Vijayanagara dynasty. This land was about thirty miles south of Pulicat and came to be called Madras. In 1642 a fort was built there that was named St. George. The beginning of the British Empire started meagerly at the fringes of the Mughal Empire at first. After the Portuguese strength faded in the Arabian Sea, the British filled it enthusiastically increasing their imports from India manifold.

Silk, indigo and saltpeter were the major exports from India coming from different parts of the country. Now the English merchants wanted a hub in the Northeast and the initial attempt started in Orissa. Chief merchant Ralph Cartwright won duty free trade from the Governor Aga Muhammad Zamman who was the deputy nawab of Bengal, literally by kissing his toes. In the grand Persian fashion, Cartwright was asked to kiss the extended toes of the nawab, before he was granted an audience. But what Cartwright gained by his submissive gesture was lost to the deadly disease called “fever disease” i.e. Malaria. The English merchants abandoned the Orissa ports in 1641. Meanwhile things were not going too well for East India Company at home. King Charles I chose to support another company called Courten’s Association, after receiving a sum of 200,000 pounds, to show favor of the crown. This Association, in its maiden voyage to reach India, deciding to practice piracy, plundered a Mughal ship. As a consequence the Company merchants in Surat suffered retaliation and a fine by the Mughals.

The stocks of East India Company in England had plummeted and the very foundation of the Company was shaky. Only after Charles I was beheaded in 1649 did the Company gain support from both chambers of British parliament. Under Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the British East India Company received its necessary funds and energy to keep it functioning. Charles II supported the company and Cromwell negotiated with Portuguese that effectively ended their monopoly of Arabian Sea. The new royal charter of 1657 gave the Company enormous powers in order to protect English subjects living in India, Including the power to make war and peace with non-Christian kings. It was given permission to mint coins and to monopolize trade that saw profits of upward of twenty five percent. Soon after, the new company inherited the Portuguese factory along the banks of Hughli located more than one hundred miles from Bay of Bengal. But it was not until 1690 that permission was granted by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to build a factory closer to Bay of Bengal on River Hughli. Here a shrine to Goddess Kali stood with steps going down the river for the devotees for ablution. The village was called Kali-ghat that came to be referred to as Calcutta.

A base in the northeast was now firmly established and Calcutta became the third city jewel of the British India along with Madras and Bombay. Time and again during the long history of India, the foreigners who had come to India with visions of transforming India and its inhabitants had always themselvels been transformed. They had invariably succumbed to the beguiling charm of India. The British in late seventeenth century were no exception. Many of them who were living a distance away from the main cities of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay were lured into Indian way of life. They wore Indian clothes and many men married Indian girls. Some of those who converted to Islam emulated the nobles by marrying many wives or maintaining a harem full of women. The British who were notorious for not bathing daily were introduced to the concept of Shampoo by their Indian consorts and this habit was later carried back to England, where the men who bathed every day were ridiculed by the locals. Many of the young British men belonging to working class families had come to India seeking their fortunes. They could not have dreamt of such luxury -servants, slaves and all - back in their homeland and had no intention of returning to England.

Apostasy became a concern serious enough to debate in the Imperial courts in England and the lords of the Company. The early Europeans who came to India in the sixteenth and seventeenth century were seduced and assimilated by India. This love affair with the Indian way of life did come to an end decades later when the Company firmly established its rule over the people of India and became its undisputed masters. The ruler and the subject grew miles apart and the ruler lived isolated in parts of the city he created called cantonments, with its clubs and parade grounds. Important Dates Vasco da Gama sets anchor in the port of Calicut on Malabar Coast 1498. Between 1498 and 1502 a factory was established in Calicut that worked as warehouse. Pedro Alvarez Cabral attacked a Muslim vessel and in retaliation the Muslims slaughtered the Portuguese merchants stationed in the factory. Vasco da Gama returned in 1502 to slaughter the Muslims. The architect of Portuguese Indian Empire, Dom Alfonso d’Albuquerque was the viceroy from 1509 to 1515. In 1510 he seized the island of Goa from Bijapur sultan.

Dom d’Albuquerque had close association with the Vijayanagara king, Krishna Deva Raya. 1542 first of the Jesuit missionaries arrived in India to proselytize Hindus and Muslims. Battle of Talikot in 1565. The victory of Muslim kingdoms over Vijayanagara Empire started the decline of Portuguese power in India. British in India In 1592 Portuguese secret navigational maps revealing sea routes in Indian Ocean were brought to Holland and published. In 1608 a British merchant ship dropped anchor in the port city of Surat. First English factory built in Surat in 1619. Land purchased on Coramandal coast in 1639. Named Madras, Fort St, George built in 1642. Royal Charter bestowed on British East India Company in 1657. The island of Bombay was gifted as dowry to Charles II in 1661. In 1668 it was leased to East India Company and soon Bombay replaced Surat as the western headquarter of the Company. Bengal operations began in earnest in 1658 when the existing Portuguese factory was taken over.

Calcutta was established after 1690 following permission from Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. 4-Sep-2005

Question: Who was the first European to reach India by sea?
Answer: Vasco da Gama