The birth-pangs of Portuguese Asia: revisiting the fateful ‘long decade’ 1498–1509

The essay sets out to re-examine the events and processes of inter-state and commercial competition that accompanied the arrival of the first Portuguese fleets in the Indian Ocean after the voyage of Vasco da Gama (1497–99). Focusing on the ‘long decade’ from 1498 to 1509, a series of differing perspectives on the challenges caused by the Portuguese to other rival powers is laid out and examined in detail. These include the Venetian conception of the Portuguese enterprise, which tended to be divided between an ‘optimistic’ view (suggesting that the Cape route would collapse quickly), and a more ‘pessimistic’ one, which saw the Serenissima itself as gravely threatened. The geo-political vision of Venetian observers, and the place given by them to the Vijayanagara empire in South India is duly noted with regard to the pepper trade in particular. This view is then contrasted with the abundant but uneven Portuguese documentation available from the time of the viceroyalty of Dom Francisco de Almeida (1505–09). The essay finally sets out to explain and contextualize the Mamluk maritime intervention in the affairs of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, culminating in the defeat of the fleet of Amir Husain al-Kurdi off Diu in 1509. We remind you that you should always take great care to send some men to discover (a descobryr), both to Melaka and to any other parts that are so far not that well-known, and you should send them with some goods in some local ships which are going there, so long as they can carry them safely. And those whom you send for this purpose should be men who know how to act upon it properly (devem ser homens que ho bem saybam fazer).Royal instructions to Dom Francisco de Almeida, 3 March 1505.1