Vasco da Gama's Spicy Voyage

• ransocean1c onne • 1ons An unknown artist created a sixteenthcentury portrait of Vasco da Gama, who established a sea route between Portugal and India. The Exploration of the World's Oceans Motives for Exploration The Technology of Exploration Voyages of Exploration: from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Foundations of the Russian Empire in Asia Commercial Rivalries and the Seven Years' War Ecological Exchanges The Columbian Exchange The Origins of Global Trade Voyages of Exploration: from the Atlantic to the Pacific Trade and Conflict in Early Modern Asia Trading-Post Empires European Conquests in Southeast Asia EYEWITNESS: Vasco da Gama's Spicy Voyage n 8 July 1497 the Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gam a led a small fleet of four armed merchant vessels with 170 crewmen out of the harbor at Lisbon. His destination was India, which he planned to reach by sailing around the continent of Africa and through the Indian Ocean. He carried letters of introduction from the king of Portugal as well as cargoes of gold, pearls, wool textiles, bronzeware, iron tools, and other goods that he hoped to exchange for pepper and spices in India. Before there would be an opportunity to trade, however, da Gama and his crew had a prolonged voyage through two oceans. They sailed south from Portugal to the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa, where they took on water and fresh provisions. On 3 August they headed south into the Atlantic Ocean to take advantage of the prevailing w inds. For the next ninety-five days, the fleet saw no land as it sailed through some six thousand nautical m iles of open ocean. By October, da Gama had found westerly w inds in the southern Atlantic , rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and entered the Indian Ocean. The fleet slowly worked its way up the east coast of Africa, engaging in hostilities with local authorities at Mozambique and Mombasa, as far as Malindi, where da Gama secured the services of an Indian Muslim pilot to guide his ships across the Arabian Sea. On 20 May 1498-more than ten months after its departure from Lisbon-the fleet anchored at Calicut in southern India. In India the Portuguese fleet found a wealthy, cosmopolitan society. Upon its arrival local authorities in Calicut d ispatched a pair of Tunisian merchants who spoke Spanish and Italian to serve as translators for the newly arrived party. The markets of Calicut offered not only pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and spices but also rubies, emeralds, gold jewelry, and fine cotton textiles. Alas, apart from gold and some striped c loth , the goods that da Gama had brought attracted little interest among merchants at Calicut. Nevertheless, da Gama managed to exchange gold for a cargo of pepper and cinnamon that turned a handsome profit when the fleet returned to Portugal in August 1499. Da Gama's expedition opened the door to direct maritime trade between European and Asian peoples and helped to establish permanent links between the world's • • vanous reg1ons. Cross-cultural interactions have been a persistent feature of historical development. Even in ancient times mass migration, campaigns of imperial expansion , and long-distance trade deeply influenced societies throughout the world. As a result of those interactions, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity spread Vasco da Gama from their places of birth to the distant corners of the eastern hem isphere. Long before modern times, (VAHS-koh duh arteries of long-distance trade served also as the principal conduits for exchanges of plants, animals, and diseases. After 1500 c.E., cross-cultural interactions took place on a much larger geographic scale, and encounters were often more disruptive than in earlier centuries. Equipped with advanced technologies and a powerful military arsenal, western European peoples began to cross the world's oceans in large numbers during the early modern era. At the same time, Russian adventurers built an enormous Eurasian empire and ventured tentatively into the Pacific Ocean. Europeans were not the only peoples who actively explored the larger world during the early modern era. In the early fifteenth century the Ming emperors of China sponsored a series of seven massive maritime expeditions that visited all parts of the Indian Ocean basin. Although state-sponsored expeditions came to an end after 1435, Chinese merchants and mariners were prominent figures in east Asian and southeast Asian lands throughout the early modern era. In the sixteenth century Ottoman mariners also ventured into the Indian Ocean. Following the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, both merchant and military vessels established an Ottoman presence throughout the Indian Ocean basin. Ottoman subjects traveled as far as China, but they were most active in Muslim lands from east Africa and Arabia to India and southeast Asia, where they enjoyed especially warm receptions. Although other peoples also made their way into the larger world , Europeans linked the lands and peoples of the eastern hemisphere, the western hemisphere, and Oceania. Because they traveled regularly between the world's major geographic regions, European peoples benefited from unparalleled opportunities to increase their power, wealth, and influence. The projection of European influence brought about a decisive shift in the g lobal balance of power. During the millennium 500 to 1500 c. E. , the world's most powerful societies were those organized by imperial states such as the Tang dynasty of China, the Abbasid dynasty in southwest Asia, the Byzantine empire in the eastern Mediterranean region, and the Mongol empires that embraced much of Eurasia. After 1500, however, European peoples became much more prominent than before in the larger world , and they began to establish vast empires that by the nineteenth century dominated much of the world. The expansion of European influence also resulted in the establ ishment of global networks of transportation, communication , and exchange. A worldwide diffusion of plants, animals, diseases, and human communities followed European ventures across the oceans, and intricate trade networks gave birth to a g lobal economy. Although epidem ic diseases killed millions of people, the spread of food crops and domesticated animals contributed to a dramatic surge in global population. The establishment of global trade networks ensured that interactions between the world's peoples would continue and intensify. THE EXPLORATION OF THE WORLD'S OCEANS Between 1400 and 1800, European mariners launched a remarkable series of exploratory voyages that took them to all the earth's waters, with the exception of those in extreme polar regions. These voyages were very expensive affairs. Yet private investors and government authorities had strong motives to underwrite the expeditions and outfit them with advanced nautical technology. The voyages of exploration paid large dividends: they enabled European mariners to chart the world's ocean basins and develop an accurate understanding of world geography. On the basis of that knowledge, European merchants and mariners established global networks of communication, transportation, and exchange and profited handsomely from their efforts. Motives for Exploration A complex combination of motives prompted Europeans to explore the world's oceans. Most important of these motives were the search for basic resources and lands suitable for the Chapter 22 • cultivation of cash crops, the desire to establish new trade routes to Asian markets, and the aspiration to expand the influence of Christianity. Portuguese Exploration Mariners from the relatively poor and hardscrabble kingdom of Portugal were most prominent in the search for fresh resources to exploit and lands to cultivate. Beginning in the thirteenth century, Portuguese seamen ventured away from the coasts and into the open Atlantic Ocean. They originally sought fish, seals, whales, timber, and lands where they could grow wheat to supplement the meager resources of Portugal. By the early fourteenth century, they had discovered the uninhabited Azores and Madeiras Islands. They called frequently at the Canary Islands, inhabited by the indigenous Guanche people, which Italian and Iberian mariners had visited since the early fourteenth century. Because European demand for sugar was strong and increasing, the prospect of establishing sugar plantations on the Atlantic islands was very tempting. Italian entrepreneurs had organized sugar plantations in Palestine and the Mediterranean islands since the twelfth century, and in the fifteenth century Italian investors worked with Portuguese mariners to establish plantations in the I Transoceanic Encounters and Global Connections 481 Atlantic islands. Continuing Portuguese voyages also led to the establishment of plantations on more southerly Atlantic islands, including the Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome, Principe, and Fernando Po. The Lure of Trade Even more alluring than the exploitation of fresh lands and resources was the goal of establishing maritime trade routes to the markets of Asia. During the era of the Mongol empires, European merchants often traveled overland as far as China to trade in silk, spices, porcelain, and other Asian goods. In the fourteenth century, however, with the collapse of the Mongol empires and the spread of bubonic plague, travel on the Silk Roads became much less safe than before. Muslim mariners continued to bring Asian goods through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to Cairo, where Italian merchants purchased them for distribution in western Europe. But prices at Cairo were high, and Europeans sought ever-larger quantities of Asian goods, particularly spices. By the fourteenth century the wealthy classes of Europe regarded Indian pepper and Chinese ginger as expensive necessities, and they especially prized cloves and nutmeg from the spice islands of Maluku. Merchants and monarchs alike .'&'). ..)..• ~~ \tt~·· ,\1~~':J.\ t:JL\\4\ 1 u·a~ t..~\c:t\f-.\ 1-•0 1 .. I A detail from the Catalan Atlas, a magnificent illustrated representation of the known world produced about 1375, depicts a camel caravan traveling from China to Europe across the Silk Roads.