The quest for wealth and power brought Europeans to Indian shores in 1498 when Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese voyager, arrived in Calicut (modern Kozhikode, Kerala) on the west coast. In their search for spices and Christian converts, the Portuguese challenged Arab supremacy in the Indian Ocean, and, with their galleons fitted with powerful cannons, set up a network of strategic trading posts along the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. In 1510 the Portuguese took over the enclave of Goa, which became the center of their commercial and political power in India and which they controlled for nearly four and a half centuries. [Source: Library of Congress]
Portugal began expeditions in 1418. Vasco de Gama rounded Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and reached India in 1498. David Zax wrote in Smithsonian magazine: “Globalization began, you might say, a bit before the turn of the 16th century, in Portugal...It was Portugal that kicked off what has come to be known as the Age of Discovery, in the mid-1400s. The westernmost country in Europe, Portugal was the first to significantly probe the Atlantic Ocean, colonizing the Azores and other nearby islands, then braving the west coast of Africa. In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa, and in 1498 his countryman Vasco da Gama repeated the experiment, making it as far as India. Portugal would establish ports as far west as Brazil, as far east as Japan, and along the coasts of Africa, India and China.”
Portugal began expeditions in 1418. Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and reached India. The Portugese trading empire was established with seizure of Goa in 1510 and expanded with the capture of Malacca in1551. Portugal reached Japan in 1542. It would be a serious error to think that Portugal's global ambitions were purely benevolent, or even economic, says UCLA historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam: "The Portuguese drive was not simply to explore and trade. It was also to deploy maritime violence, which they knew they were good at, in order to tax and subvert the trade of others, and to build a political structure, whether you want to call it an empire or not, overseas."
When different cultures have encountered each other for the first time, there has often been misunderstanding, bigotry, even hostility, and the Portuguese were not alone in this regard. The Japanese called the Portuguese who landed on their shores "Southern Barbarians" (since they arrived mostly from the south)...Not long after Portuguese missionaries converted many Japanese to Christianity, Japanese military rulers began persecuting the converts, forcing them to tread on these fumi-e ("pictures to step on") to show they had renounced the barbarians' religion.
During the Age of Discovery Portugal was a tiny kingdom with less people that Tulsa Oklahoma has today. Portugal defined its borders in the 13th century, early by European standards. The Portuguese themselves were relatively open minded mix of many ethnic groups. Descendants of Celts, Iberians and Englishmen, they intermarried with Arabs, Africans and Asians. Christian, Jews and Muslims all lived in Portugal and the Muslim influence help enrich the Portuguese with knowledge of literature, exploration and geography that had been lacking in mediaeval Europe. [Source: The main source for this article is Merle Severy, National Geographic, November 1992]
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