Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries: The Failed Portuguese Dominion of the

Red Sea
Author(s): Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner
Source: Northeast African Studies , 2012, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2012), pp. 1-28
Published by: Michigan State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41960556

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and
Missionaries: The Failed Portuguese
Dominion of the Red Sea

Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner, PhD,

Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies ,

University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

ABSTRACT

The co
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failed
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involve

Northeast African Studies. Vol. 12. No. 1. 2012, pp. 1-28. ISSN 0740-9133.
© 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.

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2 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

In the early sixteenth century the Portuguese emerged as the domi

power in the Indian Ocean. Once the Lusitanians had opened and sec
the all-sea route to India at the end of the fifteenth century, their rise in
east occurred rapidly and swiftly. Within a time span of less than ten y
the seamen of King Dom Manuel I captured key positions from which th
came to dominate the trade that flowed across the Indian Ocean and the

Arabian Sea: Kilwa, Sofala, and Cochin (1505), Goa (1510), Malacca (1511),
and Hormuz (1515). A few years after these conquests, the Portuguese
added to their possessions important positions in north west India: Damão
(Daman, 1531), Salsette, Bombay (Mumbai), and Baçaim (Vasai, 1534),
and Diu (1535).
During their expansion in the east, the conquests and friendship treaties
were mostly favorable to the Portuguese Crown, except in the Red Sea area.
The Portuguese showed an early interest in this area, and one of the chief
reasons for their eastwards expansion was to control the trade that flowed
through the Red Sea and Egypt. As early as 1505 they sent their navy to
the Gulf of Aden, and in 1507 they erected a fortress at its mouth on the
island of Socotra, which was, however, soon abandoned. Further attempts
to dominate the Red Sea ensued through the 1510s, 1520s, and 1530s, and
in the same years a costly diplomacy with Christian Ethiopia was carried out
in order to establish an alliance with the Solomonid monarchy. Yet in spite
of huge investments and decades of efforts, those who ended up dominating
the Red Sea, from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, were the archrivals
of the Portuguese, the Ottomans.
This article surveys the activities of the Portuguese in the Red Sea.
From hazardous naval incursions to the mission of Jesuit fathers in Christian

Ethiopia between 1556 and 1632, the different stages of the Portuguese
involvement are presented. The work scrutinizes the background to the
Portuguese Red Sea policy and analyzes the different strategies the Estado
da India and the Portuguese Crown enforced in their effort to control these
territories. Finally, taking the Red Sea chapter as a case study, an attempt
is made to articulate the two different policies pursued by the Portuguese
in Asia; warmongering and conversion missions, or put another way,
geopolitics and evangelizing.1

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries , and Missionaries ■ 3

1. The Years of Grand Geopolitical Schemes

and Adventurous Diplomacy

The early Portuguese involvement in the Red Sea had economic, political,
and religious underpinnings. The area was economically important because
a great deal of the spice trade between Europe and Asia flowed through its
waters. Moreover, ports like Jeddah, Mocha, and Aden played an important
role as markets or transshipment places for the Red Sea trade at different pe-
riods of time, and this could only but have drawn the attention of Portuguese
interested in acquiring profitable taxation posts. Politically speaking, the
western shores of the Red Sea hosted the Solomonid monarchy of Christian
Ethiopia, which in fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe was believed to be
the kingdom of the powerful Prester John, a potentially important ally for
the Europeans in the lands of Crescent. Last but not least, the Red Sea was
the gateway to the heart of Islam, the Hejaz, and the destruction of its main
holy sites was a cherished project of the Portuguese monarchy. Especially
during the rule of King Dom Manuel I (1495-1526), eschatological dreams
and material profits, or messianism and mercantilism, drove the Portuguese
to the Red Sea.2

The first known direct contact of the Portuguese with the Red Sea region
was the expedition of Afonso da Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã, organized under
the auspices of King Dom João II (1581-95). The two envoys left Portugal
in 1487, headed to Egypt, and visited many of the ports in Arabia and the
Indian Ocean that the Portuguese navigators strove to occupy a few decades
later. One of the two envoys, Covilhã, eventually reached Christian Ethiopia
and settled there.3

But it was with the opening of the all-water road to India in 1498 that
the Portuguese presence in the Red Sea area intensified. In about 1502,
the Lusitanians sent their first ships near Bab-el-Mandeb. In 1505, a royal
regimiento urged the first Viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, to raise a
fortress at the mouth of the Red Sea.4 Afonso de Albuquerque accomplished
this the next year, occupying the fortress of Suk on Socotra island and
rechristening it São Miguel. The small mosque on the island was similarly
renamed Nossa Senhora da Vitoria, 'Our Lady of the Victory.'5 About the
same time, Tristão da Cunha, commander of the Portuguese armada, landed
three envoys to the negus on the Somali coast - João Sanches, João Gomes

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4 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

and the Maghrebi Sidi Mafamede - who eventually were received a

Christian Ethiopian court around 1508. 6
In Socotra, the belligerence of the locals and the island's minor stra
importance pushed the Portuguese to abandon it merely five years aft
had been taken.7 However, the Portuguese were still overly optimistic
their prospects at this stage. In Europe, by way of Dom Manuel Ts
ganda machine, royal courts and the papacy began to learn of and
the Portuguese achievements.8 In the East, the Christian Ethiopian
looked favorably at Portuguese diplomacy and were soon to reciprocate
sending their own envoys to Europe. Portuguese prowling at the mouth
the Red Sea had scared merchants, thereby stopping the flow of trade
jeopardizing the Mamluk finances in Cairo, which were largely relia
taxation.9 Intelligence gathering10 and a few naval incursions had show
Lusitanians that no power could match their naval dominion. The l
polities - the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria in the north, and the
of the Rasūlids in the south, the Yemenite Banū Tāhir dynasty - were
position to challenge the Portuguese warships and their firearms.11
Nonetheless, the Mamluks quickly reacted to the threat posed by
kafir. The Mamluk ruler Al-Ghawri engaged in diplomatic contacts
the Ottomans and the Venetians in order to gain their support, an
addition, took action to protect the Hejaz and the Muslim holy sites.12
two Mediterranean powers eventually offered their support, and in
under emir Husayn Mušrif al-Kurdî "Mirocem," work on the fortificat
Jeddah began.13 At about the same time, the Mamluk sultan establishe
Fifth Corps ( al-tabaqa al-Khamisa ), a company of harquebusiers prima
aimed at checking the Portuguese in the Red Sea.14 In 1507, emir Husay
a joint Mamluk-Ottoman fleet to India in order to join the anti-Portug
coalition of the Sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat and the Samoothiri R
of Calicut. The expedition scored an initial success off the port of Chau
March 1508, but ended in disaster at the battle of Diu in 1509.
It was in this context that the Portuguese led the first incursion of
European navy into the Red Sea in 1513. Behind this action was their r
victory at Diu and the arrival in India of an envoy from Christian Eth
the Armenian Mateus, who was eventually dispatched by Albuquerq
Dom Manuel I. Mateus relayed to his Portuguese hosts the willingn
the Christian Ethiopians to form some sort of alliance and possibly
tional strategic information on the Red Sea and Ethiopia's natural harb

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 Conquistadores , Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 5

Massa wa and Arquico (Hargigo).15 In early 1513, with a force of about 20

sails and 2,700 men, Albuquerque, then governor of Portuguese India, set
sail for the Red Sea with the goal of establishing a Portuguese dominion
there. The project failed, however, and neither Aden nor Jeddah could be
taken. In what was to be one of the most comic scenes of the early expansion,
whilst scaling the walls of Aden, the ladders of the Portuguese assaulters
broke and the momentum of the attack was lost.16 After this setback, the
expedition crossed Bab-el-Mandeb, aiming to attack Jeddah, but this project
had to be abandoned due to unfavorable winds. The expedition then stayed
for some time on Kamaran island, and on the way back to India sacked the
small ports of Zeila and Berbera.17
A short-lived symbolic victory for the Portuguese was the christening
of the small island of Mayyun (Perim), which dominates the gate of Bab-
el-Mandeb, as Vera Cruz, "True Cross."18 It is pertinent to recall that this
action, which was often practiced during the Iberian expansion and that
included the erection of a cross, was accompanied by a supernatural vision
the Portuguese crew allegedly experienced during their wanderings along
the Ethiopian coast. The vision was first recalled by Albuquerque and later
by the chronicler Gaspar Correa, and the two reported in similar terms that
the Holy Cross was seen by the Portuguese crew high in the sky towards
the land of the Prester John.19 The Portuguese commander interpreted this
vision as a favorable omen for the Red Sea adventurism he promulgated.
This visionary boost and the continued full confidence in his naval
power made Albuquerque pursue his Red Sea adventurism. Until his un-
timely death in 1515, the governor kept hosting ambitious militaristic plans
and trying to win the full support of his king. In a letter addressed to Dom
Manuel from December 1513, he suggested the occupation of Massa wa
off the Eritrean shore and of Jeddah. In his own words, "once Jeddah was
won, there will be neither a house nor an inhabitant left in Mecca, and it is
granted that the alfenados [the henna-dyed ones, i.e., the Muhamedans] will
abandon it since it is merely a day's journey from Jeddah. In my opinion
Sir, the issue of Mecca is an easy thing; its destruction can be rapidly ac-
complished."20
On the Mamluk side, their defeat at Diu was the prelude to the fall of
the whole Mamluk empire. In about 1511, at the request of the Mamluks,
sultan Selim I sent guns, gunpowder, and some naval supplies as well as
shipwrights and seamen to help rebuild the Mamluk Red Sea fleet.21 With

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6 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

this help the Mamluks, under the Turkish admiral Selman Reis, manage
attempt a desperate conquest of Yemen in 1516 and a successfully de
of Jeddah against the Portuguese one year later.22 But Ottoman assista
turned into a double-edged sword for the Mamluk state. In 1515, war b
out between Selim I and Al-Ghawri, and in 1517 Egypt fell to the T
becoming a pashalik of the Ottoman empire.23
In 1517, one more Portuguese armada visited the area. The exped
had been initially planned by Albuquerque, and at his death Lopo S
de Albergaria, the newly-appointed governor of India, took over the le
role. The Portuguese intended to send Dom Manuel Ts trusted aide, Dua
Galvão, as ambassador to Ethiopia to thwart Mamluk expansion in th
Sea. The Portuguese monarch, however, emphasized that a land figh
to be averted.24 But this expedition once again obtained neither diplom
nor military gains. At Aden, Lopo Soares did not take the offer of its
to establish a Portuguese position there and instead decided to attack J
dah. Yet when the Portuguese armada crossed the gates of Bab-el-Mand
it endured failure after failure. First, the armada occupied Kamara
destroyed the fortress built the previous year by Salman Reis,25 but it
then shut up by the monsoons, and heat and lack of drinking water m
it lose several men, including Galvão. After that, Lopo Soares head
Jeddah, but the defendants, led by the able admiral Salman Reis, re
his attack.26 The port of Zeila was once again a victim of Portuguese fru
tion, and it was sacked and burned. The Somali port did not recover fr
the recent unfriendly visits and lost henceforth its preeminent positio
favor of Aden.27

The Ottoman rise in Egypt dramatically changed the state of affairs

as far as Portuguese expansionism was concerned. As Michael Winter
emphasizes, "The Ottomans were better prepared to face the challenge,
since they had wide naval experience, rich resources, and, unlike the
Mamluks, an offensive strategy."28 The Ottomans aimed at gaining control
of the Red Sea as part of a larger strategy that had political, religious, and
economic underpinnings. First, the Red Sea region was traditionally bound
to their newly-acquired Egyptian pashalik. Second, the protection of the
holy sites of the Hejaz was an obligation of the Muslim powers and a source
of prestige; the ruler in charge of the Holy Sites could carry the honorable
title khãdim al-haramain al-šarifain, "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques."29
Third, economic prosperity in Egypt depended on the reestablishment of

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries , and Missionaries ■ 7

traditional trade routes crossing the Red Sea. Last but not least, Ottoman Red
Sea expansion was ultimately bound to a more global project comprised of
expanding the borders of the state into the Persian Gulf and Safavid Persia,
thus inevitably clashing with the Portuguese in their western frontiers in
Arabia and India. Henceforth, as the historian Brummett stresses, "Ottoman
universalist claims would intersect with those of the Portuguese - one
mighty seaborne empire against another."30

2. The Decades of Naval Patrolling

With the new geopolitical challenge, the Portuguese continued to pursue the
interests that had taken them to India, namely parasitizing Oriental trade
and courting Prester John, but they changed their tactics: they abandoned
the militaristic approach of Albuquerque, who after all had always had
few supporters in India, and turned to a more sensible employment of
their overstretched military forces and diplomacy.31 Diplomatic contacts
with the Ethiopian negus continued and in 1520 a large embassy, headed
by the fidalgo Rodrigo da Lima, was successfully sent.32 From India, they
also intensified contacts with Safavid Persia to set up a joint anti-Ottoman
policy in the Persian Gulf.33 Additionally, from about 1520 onwards the
Portuguese intensified a system that had already been practiced before,
which consisted of sending naval patrols to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden
(see Table).34 These patrols were sent from India with relative regularity
during the monsoon period for at least two decades, and typically consisted
of between five to ten sails, although larger armadas were also mobilized
for the same purpose. The patrol system stayed active at least until the
1550s, although Boxer places the moment when the Portuguese armadas
stopped patrolling in the Red Sea area around 1569. 35 A Portuguese soldier
who served between 1585 and 1586 in the Red Sea, Francisco Rodrigues
da Silveira, later explained that "as many years had elapsed since any fleet
of ours had sailed in the Red Sea, we had no accurate knowledge of the
prevailing winds, nor of the ports, anchorages, and watering-places."36
The question arises as to how effective the patrol system was. As it
appears, it was rather ineffective geopolitically speaking. Slowly but swiftly,
the Ottomans came to dominate the Red Sea. If Selim I occupied Egypt, it
was under his son,38 Suleiman the Magnificent, that the Egyptian pashalik

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8 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

Table: Portuguese Patrols to the Red Sea and

the Gulf of Aden, 1507-158637

YEAR COMMANDER(S) COMPOSITION REMARKS

1507 Tristão da Cunha/ 19 sails Sack of Barawa; occupation

Afonso de of Socotra; João Gomes, João
Albuquerque Sanches and Sidi Mafamede are
sent to the Preste

1509 Duarte de Lemos Visits Mogadishu, Socotra

1513 Afonso de 18 to 20 sails, Fails to take Aden; visits
Albuquerque 2,700 men Kamaran; exploration and sack
of Zeila and Berbera

1517 Lopo Soares de 36 to 43 sails (15 Duarte Galvão, Mateus are

Albegaria naus), 1,800 to taken to the Preste; some
5,400 men lançados go to the Preste;
attack on Jeddah, Kamaran;
burns Zeila, fails to occupy
Aden; Galvão dies on Kamaran
island

1518 Saldanha Burning of Berbera

1520 Diogo Lopes de 24 sails (and 10 Embassy of da Lima and
Sequeira naos), 1,800 men Mateus to the Preste; attempt
to attack Jeddah; visit to
Massawa; calls at Aden
1523 Luís de Menezes 7 to 9 sails Fails to take da Lima back to
India; plundering of al-Shihr;
visit Socotra, Dahlak; letters
handed to da Lima; sack of
Dhofar

1524 Heitor de Silveira 7 sails Fails to take da Lima back to

India; contacts in Aden
1525 Antonio de Miranda Fails to reach Massawa
de Azevedo

1526 Heitor de Silveira 5 sails, 600 to 700 Peaceful visit to Aden and trade
men "agreement"; attacks Dhofar;
reaches Kamaran; da Lima and
Sägga ZäJab are taken to India
1528 António de Miranda 20 sails, over Calls at Socotra, Qishn, Aden,
de Azevedo 1,000 men Zeila
1530 Heitor de Silveira 8 to 10 sails, 600 Calls at Aden and trade
men agreement there; calls at
Socotra, Cape Guardafui

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 Conquistadores , Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 9

1531 Manoel de 9 sails Attack on al-Shihr

Vasconcellos

1532 António de Saldanha 10 sails Calls at Mete and al-Shihr

1533 Diogo da Silveira 16 sails Calls at al-Shihr, Aden

1534 Fernando de Lima 2 sails Pillage of al-Shihr;
reconnaissance visit in Aden

1535 ? 4 sails Calls at Kamaran

1539? Manoel Rodrigues Defeat at al-Shihr; reaches

Coutinho Cape Guardafui
1540 Vasco da Cunha 12 sails Short visit to the Strait

1541 Estevão da Gama 12 sails, 3,000 Looting of Dahlak and Sawakin;

men calls at Massawa, Qusayr, Tor,
Suez; Christovão da Gama and
400 men go to Ethiopia
1543? 5 sails Failed attempt to reach
Massawa

1548 Alvaro de Castro 2 sails, 300 men Attempt to take Aden and
Qishn
1554 Cruises off Bab-el-Mandeb

1555 Manoel de 4 sails Cruises off Bab-el-Mandeb;

Vasconcellos/Fernão lands Diogo Dias and the
Farto Jesuits Fulgencio Freire and
Gonçalo Rodrigues on the
Eritrean shore

1556 Francesco Peixoto 2 rowing boats Takes Gonçalo Rodrigues back

to India

1557 Manoel Travassos 4 sails Lands Bishop Andrés de Oviedo

and five other fellows on the
Eritrean shore

1558 Alvaro de Silveira

1559 Constantino de 20 sails (2 naos) Cruises off Bab-el-Mandeb

Bragança
1560 Christovão Pereira 3 sails Reaches Massawa
Homem

1561 Intercepts a large Aceh ship off

Qishn

1564 Captures merchant ships near

Mecca

1586 Ruy Gonçalves da 26 sails (6 naus) Goes to Red Sea; defeat off
Camara Aden

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10 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

came to incorporate the main ports of the Red Sea: Sawakin in 1524; M
in 1535; and Aden, three years later - definitive control being ach
only in 1549.
As far as the recovery of traditional maritime routes through the
Sea is concerned, this issue is a matter of debate. Brummett has questi
whether the Portuguese impact on Middle East trade routes was as
as was assumed by such historians as Godinho or Lane. She argues co
lingly that in the time of Portuguese expansion, when waters were ins
much of the trade might have been diverted to overland routes, where
Portuguese definitely had no influence. After all, "the mechanisms of
like the mechanisms of conquest, were flexible, responding to variatio
economic practices already in place in the conquered territories."39
important as this view is, quantitative data indeed attests to a Port
impact, if short-lived, on Red Sea trade in the early sixteenth century
similarly points to a swift recovery towards 1540.40 By then, trade exch
between Jeddah, Aden, and Suez, on the one hand, and the ports of th
of Khambay, Malabar, and Bengal, on the other, had recovered thei
strength. Moreover, new military and commercial powers emerged
back of the Portuguese main positions in the East, chiefly the Aceh sult
on Sumatra island and the Mughal state in northern India. These p
intensified contacts with the Ottomans and actively sponsored commer
and religious exchanges with the Red Sea area.41
The revival of Red Sea trade was even sounder for the Portug
who participated in it. As Whiteway notes, "not many years after the
of Albuquerque all the Portuguese from the Governor downwards,
illicitly in pepper."42 The Portuguese ended up joining a system
though harmful to the interests of their king and opposed to their pr
Christian ideology, was highly profitable to their pockets.43 Moreover
the Portuguese took root in Asia and were integrated in the web of soc
cultural, and economic dynamics that predated their arrival, they ende
acting like the natives, supporting local and regional interests rather t
outdated imperial projects.44
Yet, if inefficient from the viewpoint of geopolitical gains, the pat
system might have been effective for more prosaic purposes. First, it
communication with Christian Ethiopia open, and it was thanks t
patrols that Portuguese-Ethiopian diplomacy was actively mainta
throughout a large part of the sixteenth century. Second, the patrol sy

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 11

might have worked well as an informal scheme to obtain revenues, both

for the Portuguese in India and for the crown, who had rights to a fifth of
the confiscated cargoes. The patrolling thus can be described as a sort of
state piracy, which added an extra profit to the more "legal" cartaz system.45
Finally, the system might have contributed to keeping Ottoman expansion-
ism at bay. The Portuguese thereby showed their prowess in open waters
and blocked the natural advance of the Ottomans into the Indian Ocean
and Arabian Sea.

An example of the dissuasive impact of the Portuguese patrols might

be provided by the patrol led in 1541 by Estevão da Gama, the son of the
discoverer of the maritime route to India. In mid-1538, the Ottomans,
captained by Hadim Suleiman Pasha, had laid siege to Diu, mobilizing the
largest fleet ever sent into the Indian Ocean.46 The siege eventually failed,
mostly due to Ottoman indecision, and the Portuguese retained control
of the port that had passed in their hands three years earlier. The ageing
viceroy of India, Dom Garcia de Noronha, hesitated as to which response to
take, but his successor, Estevão da Gama, moved quickly. In the winter of
1540 he gathered the Conselho de Estado and, with the support of the main
fidalgos and ecclesiastic authorities, organized a large armada to destroy
the Ottoman fleet in Suez. On 1 January 1541, the fleet left the port of Goa
and wandered for some months in the Red Sea. This armada was, once
again, unfruitful from the military viewpoint, and yet it nonetheless had
an impact. The Portuguese managed to send a small military expedition to
the Ethiopian highlands and thus contributed to supporting the Ethiopian
negus Gälawdewos in the war against the Ottoman-sponsored Muslim army
of Ahmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Gāzī "Grañ."47 More importantly, from this mo-
ment onwards the Ottomans were much more cautious in challenging the
Portuguese in the open seas. The expedition against Diu had served Suleiman
Pasha to strengthen the Ottoman position in the Arabian Peninsula and the
Yemen, chiefly with the occupation of Aden, Shihr, and Zabid in 1538, but
it also had made the Porte realize that challenging European powers in open
waters was doomed to fail.48 Each party was consolidating its positions on
opposite sides of the Indian Ocean, and a feeling of stalemate pushed the
two global contenders to engage in a series of peace negotiations.49
After the Portuguese victory at Diu, the Ottomans carried out a few
more incursions in 'Portuguese' waters, but none matched those of the
earlier decades. In 1546, a joint coalition between sultan Mahmud, Khoja

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12 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

Safar, and a small expedition of Ottoman janissaries from Mocha l

unsuccessful attack on Diu.50 Successive expeditions against Portu
interests were led, chiefly by Piri Reis in 1547-52 and Sefer Reis and S
Ali Reis in 1554-65. 51 This is, however, no sign that Ottoman expa
was halted. Indeed, as the recent work of Casale has shown, the Ottoma
chiefly under the rule of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, seem to have m
away from open military warfare and shifted to a more intensive
diplomacy in order to establish a "soft" world empire. 52

3. The Time of the Missionaries

The last chapter of Portuguese involvement in the Red Sea area w

religious mission carried out by Jesuit missionaries in Christian
pia.53 The Jesuit mission ran for about eighty years, from 1556 t
and reached its apogee during the 1610s and 1620s, when convers
important Ethiopian figures occurred and the Portuguese Patriarch A
Mendes was placed at the head of the Ethiopian church. In 1632, howe
the political succession at the head of the Ethiopian state paved the w
the expulsion of the missionaries and the termination of the religious
This endeavor enjoyed a special status within the Jesuit Asian Ass
but depended on Jesuit structures in India and was funded by the tr
of the Estado da India and the Portuguese crown. In view of these fac
can we relate the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia with the previous Por
activities in the Red Sea area?

The involvement of missionaries in European expansion and the colonial

enterprise is an obvious yet complex issue. During the Iberian expansion,
legions of friars and Jesuits preceded or followed in the footsteps of Por-
tuguese secular agents. At overseas centers like Goa, Macao, or Malacca,
the contribution of the religious men to the colonial cause was strong and
straightforward: they offered education and spiritual and physical relief,
and above all, they contributed to the creation of a sense of home and
civilization. In Goa, the presence of religious agents was so significant
that it can be argued that the hypertrophied network formed by dozens of
churches, convents, chapels, and other ecclesiastical infrastructure were the
very core of the colonial metropolis itself.54 Moreover, it was frequently the
case that religious figures played secular roles, not only as advisors but also

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 Conquistadores , Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 13

in leadership positions. Thus, the Jesuits controlled the customs of som

important ports such as Diu, Baçaim, Damão, and Chaul,55 and similarly
the powerful Augustinián friar Aleixo de Meneses was viceroy of India
between 1607 and 1609.

But with the so-called frontier missions, things are less easy. Did these
missions serve the colonial state? What profits did the Estado da India, their
main funder, obtain from them? From the point of view of direct benefits,
the answer must be in the negative: missionary expeditions were costly,
lengthy, and often very hazardous, and missionary settlements in distant
areas were difficult to maintain and in permanent need of funding. It thus
seems unlikely that these undertakings reported direct benefits to those
supporting them. Colonial administrators often complained of the costs
represented by the huge religious structures formed by missionary orders,
and missionary adventurism could only compound this problem.56 But next
to converting souls, missions also served to set up alliances, ensure the
metropolis was informed of things from the periphery, open trade routes,
and so on. If we consider that diplomacy and intelligence were crucial
elements for the survival of a modern state, then we might infer that as
adventurous as it might seem to the contemporary eye, frontier missions
had, in the context of the Estado da India, their reason to be.
If we focus on the Ethiopian mission, there is reason to assume that this
endeavor was, on the one hand, not entirely dependent on official policies
dictated from the Estado da India, and on the other hand, not entirely dis-
sociated from its interests. In a nutshell, the mission had primarily religious
goals but incorporated non-religious aspects, such as diplomacy, intelligence
gathering, and support to the Portuguese and their offspring living in
Christian Ethiopia. The hypothesis can be raised that such non-religious
aspects made it appealing in the eyes of secular authorities.
The Jesuit mission in Ethiopia was a by-product of the decades of
diplomacy and military activities of the Portuguese in the Red Sea. To be
sure, there is an older story that led to the Portuguese gaining an interest
in Christian Ethiopia: the quest for the mythical Prester John, which was
particularly active in Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
and the achievements of Italian diplomacy with Christian Ethiopian rulers
during the fifteenth century both come to mind.57 Yet it was the events of
the few years before that most decisively made missionary activities in the
Red Sea possible. During this period, Portuguese diplomacy with Christian

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14 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

Ethiopian rulers was kept alive, despite the mounting Ottoman vig
in the Red Sea. Even more crucially, in the 1540s a small Portuguese tr
settled in the Ethiopian highlands.58 The troop had arrived there i
above-mentioned armada of Estevão da Gama of 1541. The Portug
mixed with local women, formed families, and within a few decades of
arrival established small communities in a few Ethiopian areas, principa
in the provinces of Tagray, Dämbaya, and Goģģam, that claimed Portug
descent, numbering in total not more than three thousand individuals. It
primarily to minister to this lost "Catholic flock" that the Jesuit missio
established; this fact, which was repeatedly emphasized by the decision
ers in their correspondence, provided the justification to introduce Cat
fellows in an Orthodox land that was, after all, an ally of the Portugue
Moreover, during the eighty years of mission the Ethio-Portuguese pr
the priests with valuable logistical support and intelligence.
It could be argued that the failure to control the Red Sea milit
strengthened the project of mission to Ethiopia. During most of its exist
this project evolved under the dynastic union between the crowns of C
and Aragon and Portugal, the so-called Philippine rule (1581-1640).
II (I in Portugal) tried to put new energy into the Red Sea policy, an
same ruler pressed his agents and ambassadors in Lisbon to push forth
missionary undertaking in Ethiopia.59 Thus with the opening of the mis
ary era in Ethiopia, western ambitions for the area were not abandoned
took other methods.60 Next to "intelligence" reconnaissance, the missio
ies' most important geopolitical contribution was likely their very atte
to convert the negus. With this they would render him a direct ally of
Habsburgs, and by way of their skills in statesmanship form a mo
powerful Prince in the heart of Africa. Political decision-makers might
thought that with the religious subtleties of the Jesuit priests, the Esta
India could indeed be able to reach further than with the hands of sold
their zeal and ambition to convert numbers of natives could be a solution

the chronic shortage of people, means, and resources in India. The miss
could have been, therefore, the alternative continuation of politics and
Similarly, the Jesuits were no less aware of the geopolitical imp
tions of their presence in the area. Throughout their stay in Ethiopia,
idea of using power and force was never abandoned, and the mission
always kept in mind the project of sending a fleet to occupy Massawa.
Spanish missionary Pedro Páez (1564-1622), for instance, hinted a

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 15

to the Jesuit General in 1614, and evidence indicates that this issue was
amply discussed in private conversations with the Ethiopians. In 1618, the
same Páez reported that the negus knew that the conversion of Ethiopia to
Catholicism "could not be done without the [military] help he had already
requested."61
The idea of providing military support to Christian Ethiopia and or-
ganizing a military expedition to Massawa vividly appeared during the
dramatic moments prior to and following the expulsion of the missionaries.
Thus in 1635, when the mission had already been dismissed, the Jesuit
Jerónimo Lobo went on a diplomatic mission to the court in Madrid and
Lisbon with the aim of convincing political authorities to back military
plans for the Red Sea and Ethiopia.62 Lobo's mediation was successful, for
in 1636 and 1638 the king recommended that the governor of India send
"an armada comprising eight ships" to the Red Sea.63 Another exile from
Ethiopia, Manoel Barradas, wrote a detailed text on "The city and fortress
of Aden," embedded in a larger work of his named Tractatus tres historico-
geographici His intention in writing this piece was to show "how important
it was to conquer and govern it and how, from this place, the whole strait
of the Red Sea could be dominated."64

These were, however, the last attempts by the Jesuits, and by the
Portuguese at that, to set foot on the ever elusive shores of the Red Sea.
Henceforth, the obstacles they encountered were insurmountable. On the
one hand, Portuguese India had long ceased to be a powerful player in
the Indian Ocean world, and the Estado da India had neither the resources
nor the means to undertake more adventures in the Red Sea as the Jesuits

demanded.65 Thus, a few months after receiving the directive from Lisbon,
the Viceroy Pedro da Silva tactfully informed Philip IV that the military
project had to be postponed "until other things of greater importance would
not interfere in it."66 On the other hand, the Ottoman vigilance in its Red
Sea ports against Catholic subjects coming from Portuguese India, fuelled
as it was by lavish payments from Fasilädäs, was from 1633 onwards too
efficacious to be broken.67

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16 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

4. Impact and Aftermath

The some hundred and forty years of Portuguese activities in the Red Sea
area appear today in a similar light to how all Portuguese activities in the
East unfolded: greater ambitions, many promises, pompous and epic nar-
ratives, and few achievements. In assessing this period of the Portuguese
expansion, I am inclined to share the skepticism that Michael Pearson
expressed a few decades ago in a provoking paper on Portuguese activities
in the Indian Ocean: "One crucial element here is the very large gap between
Portuguese policy and Portuguese practice."68 In the Red Sea and in the
area of Bab-el-Mandeb, none of the implemented policies proved effective
to realizing dominion over a considerable span of time. The Portuguese ap-
proach in the Red Sea, like their overall policies in the East, was guided by a
mixture of ambition, self-confidence, and ill-conceived ideas.69 We perceive
in their expansion an overstatement of their capabilities, what Thomaz
nicely christened "grandeur de la petitesse,"70 and a rather simplistic
understanding of human dynamics in the East. As far as their official policy,
they seem to have believed that Indian and Arabian maritime life could be
controlled by establishing a few military positions theoretically overseeing
communication paths. But local, regional, and transoceanic networks were
simply too dynamic, too strong, and too flexible. As Brummett emphasized,
"Portuguese cannon could not cover all the sea lanes at once, nor all the
landing places," and the patrol system was only moderately effective.71 One
region was blocked from trading and soon another emerged to carry out
the same duties. Thus the idea emerges that had the Portuguese been able
to settle bases in the Red Sea ports, such as in Aden, Jeddah, or Kamaran,
their control would have not lasted long, and would have been on paper
rather than real, much like what happened in the Bay of Bengal and in
Southeast Asia.

This notwithstanding, the Portuguese presence in the Red Sea had

an impact, and it is worthwhile to assess it. First, Portuguese incursions
disrupted communication patterns. Some trade routes were diverted, albeit
only temporarily. This was the case with Red Sea routes to Calicut and
Malaka. But soon, however, alternative routes serving the same local or
regional needs and managed by the same people opened or gained force,
as with Gujarat and the sultanate of Aceh. The agents of trade might have
suffered more enduring consequences from Portuguese patrols. Michael

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 17

Pearson has indicated that, as a consequence of Portuguese anti-Muslim

zeal, Red Sea Muslims might have been replaced by Gujarati Muslims and
Hindu Banyans in the great Aden to Gujarat route.72 Evidence from Jesuit
missionary accounts from the early seventeenth century supports this view.73
Second, the human landscape of the Red Sea and adjoining areas changed
considerably: as a reaction to the increase in formal (Portuguese patrols)
or informal (Portuguese or Asian mercenaries) piracy, several coastal posts
were fortified or increased their defenses (this was the case with Jeddah,
Zeila, Aden, Kamaran), and a few were abandoned (Zeila temporarily).
Third, the rise of the Ottomans in the Red Sea and their involvement in
Indian Ocean geopolitics was in part a response to Portuguese policies in
the Middle East. As the work of Brummett and Casale has shown, it was
in the Red Sea and by directly confronting Portuguese sea power that the
Ottomans began to emerge as a global maritime power. There is strong
evidence that the Ottomans learnt from and were inspired by the deeds of
the Portuguese.74 Even the adventurous attempt by Özdemir Pasha and his
successors to set foot on the Eritrean highlands, whilst strongly interwoven
with the policies of the regional leader bcûpr nāgaš Yashaq, seems to have
been planned in opposition to or in imitation of the movements of the
Portuguese and Jesuit missionaries.75
Finally, the impact of Portuguese was also felt in the centuries that
followed. During modern colonial times, beginning in the mid-nineteenth
century, reports on Portuguese adventurism in the Red Sea circulated
widely. The European colonial media, travel writers, explorers, and military
leaders commented on this chapter of Portuguese expansion. The attitude
was then one of admiration for what the Portuguese had accomplished
or planned. The Lusitanians were seen as pioneers in the colonial race.76
Moreover, contemporary Portuguese accounts were scrutinized in search
of valuable information that could help design colonial policies.77 A new,
more powerful form of European colonialism mirrored itself in the old form
of colonialism represented in the sixteenth century by the activities of the
Portuguese conquistadores, mercenaries, and missionaries.

NOTES

1 . T
seve

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18 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

study on the first two decades of Portuguese activities is Jean-Louis

Bacqué-Grammont and Anne Krœll, Mamlouks, Ottomans et Portugais en Me
rouge: l'affaire de Djedda en 1517 (Le Caire: Institut Français d'Archéologi
Orientale, 1988); for the mid-sixteenth century period, see Timothy J.
Coates, "D. Joao de Castro's 1541 Red Sea Voyage in the Greater Context
the Sixteenth Century" in Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empi
ed. C.E. Farah (Lanham, MD: The Thomas Jefferson University Press, 19
263-85. A valuable study based on Arab sources is Robert B. Serjeant,
The Portuguese Off the South Arabian coast: Hadrami chronicles with Yemen

and European accounts of Dutch pirates off Mocha in the seventeenth century

(Oxford [u.a.]: Clarendon Press, 1963). Older accounts worth reading are
M. Longworth Dames, "The Portuguese and Turks in the Indian Ocean in
the 16th century," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1921): 1-28; and
E. Denison Ross, "The Portuguese in India and Arabia between 1507 and
1517," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4 (1921): 545-62.
2. The concept of this dual policy has been formulated by Luís Filipe Thom
"L'idée impériale manueline," in La découverte , le Portugal et VEurope : acte
du colloque , Paris , les 26, 27 et 28 mai 1 988, ed. Jean Aubin (Braga: Barbos
& Xavier [u.a.], 1990), 35-103; and Luís Filipe Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timo
(Linda a Velha: DIFEL, 1994), 192 et passim. It was later recalled in Sanj
Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese empire in Asia, 1500-1700 : A political and
economic history (London [u.a.]: Longman, 1993), 45-51.
3. A rather fanciful narrative of this expedition is Conde de Ficalho, Viagen
Pedro da Covilhan (Lisboa: A. M. Pereira, 1898); for the passages focusing
on Covilhã and Pavia's wanderings in the Red Sea, see 80-86, 1 23-32. I
also draw from Bailey W. Diffie and George Davison Winius, Foundations
the Portuguese empire: 1415 - 1580 (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Pres
1977), 154-65.

4. Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese empire, 227-28. Similarly,

in Dom Manuel's official chronicle, Góis explains that the main reason
behind the king's insistence in reaching the "Abyssinian Emperor" was
discussing with the latter "about preparing a war against the Turks, and
about his own plans to set up fortresses in the coasts of the Arabian and the
Ethiopian Seas"; Góis, quoted in Armando Cortesão, Esparsos (Coimbra: Acta
Universitatis Conimbrigensis, 1974), Vol. 1, 83.
5. The narrative of this episode is described in the somewhat deceiving
Geneviève Bouchon, Albuquerque. Le lion des mers d'Asie (Paris: Éd.

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 19

Desjonquères, 1992), 86-88. A more comprehensive study of the Portuguese

occupation of Socotra is Zoltán Biedermann, Soqotrœ Geschichte einer
christlichen Insel im Indischen Ozean vom Altertum bis zur frühen Neuzeit
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 65-76.
6. This embassy is mentioned in a letter of the Ethiopian regent Queen Eleni
and in various contemporary documents; see Damião de Góis, Chronica do
Feliçissimo rei dom Manuel [1566] (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade,
1954), Parte III, Ch. 59; also Cortesão, Esparsos, 77-81; J. Aubin,
"L'ambassade du Prêtre Jean à D. Manuel," Mare Luso-Indicum 3 (1976):
1-56, here 6-7. Eventually, only Sanches and Gomes reached the Ethiopian
court; see Armando Cortesão and Henry Thomas, trans., Carta das novas que
vieram a el Rei nosso Senhor do descobrimento do Preste João (Lisboa: Bertrand

1938 [Lisboa, 1521]), 25.

7. The unfitness of the island to control the maritime traffic between the Red

Sea and India was already emphasized by contemporary military leaders in

India; see Afonso de Albuquerque, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque seguidas
de documentos que as elucidam, Vol. 3 (Lisboa: Academia Real das Ciências de
Lisboa, 1903), 195-96, 242.
8. The Medici pope Leo X was ready to join the momentum and in the 1510s
approved several official documents in support of Portuguese policies in
the east; e.g., a Bull dating 14 September 1514 of Leo X to Dom Manuel
I, whereby the pope granted plenary indulgence to those serving in the
conquest in Africa, Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India; see das Relações
entre Portugal e a Pérsia 1500-1758 (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian,
1972), 44. Other papal documents concerning Christian Ethiopia appear
in O. Raineri, Lettere tra i pontefici romani e i principi etiopici (sec. XII -XX).

Versioni e integrazioni (Città del Vaticano: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2005),

46-57.

9. On the economic impact of the Portuguese blockade of the trade crossing th

Red Sea, see C.F. Petry, ed., The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1: Islamic
Egypt, 640-1517 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 461,
466-67, 494; and Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese empire in Asia, 1500-1700
66 (table 3.5). The mechanism through which the Mamluk sultans profited
from the maritime trade with India is ably summarized in R. S. Whiteway,
The rise of Portuguese power in India 1497-1550 (Westminster A. Constable,
1899), 7-8.
10. On intelligence use by the Portuguese, see Dejanirah Couto, "L'espionnage

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20 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

portugais dans l'empire ottoman au XVIe siècle," in La découverte , le Portu

et l'Europe. Actes du colloque célébrée à Paris le 26, 27 et 28 mai 1988 , ed. Je
Aubin (Paris: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 1990), 245, 249, 260; and
Dejanirah Couto, "The Role of Interpreters, or Linguas, in the Portuguese
Empire During the 16th Century," e-JPH [e- Journal of Portuguese History]
no. 2 (2003): 1-9.
1 1 . For the political situation in the Red Sea and Yemen, see Serjeant, The
Portuguese off the South Arabian coast, 2. The unfitness of the Mamluk war
machinery to face the Portuguese - and Ottoman - challenges is reported in
Petry, The Cambridge History of Egypt, 298, 467.

12. J. Thenaud, Le voyage d'outremer (Égypte, Mont Sinay, Palestine): Suivi de La

relation de l'ambassade de Domenico Trevisan auprès du Soudan d'Égypte 1512,
ed. Charles Schefer (Genève: Slatkine, 1971, reimpr. of 1884), lii-liv, and
5 n. 1 . The buildup of an international anti-Portuguese coalition, which
included the joint forces of Mamluks, Ottomans, and Venetians, is surveyed
in P. J. Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age

of Discovery (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994), 23,
112-21.

1 3. Works at Jeddah were completed by 1 51 3; see Bacqué-Grammont and Krœll

MamLouks, Ottomans et Portugais en Mer rouge, 1 and n. 6; Serjeant, The
Portuguese Off the South Arabian Coast, 1 62.
14. Petry, The Cambridge History of Egypt, 482-83.
1 5. The disposition of the Ethiopians towards an alliance with the Lusitanians
can be gleaned from at least two letters taken by the Ethiopian envoy
Mateus to Lisbon; they are reproduced in Luís Filipe Barreto, Por mar e terra :

viagens de Bartolomeu Dias e Pero da Covilhã (Lisboa: Presidência do Conselho

de Ministros, 1988), 40-42, 45-48.
16. The episode was later recounted by the commander himself to the king: see
the Letter of Afonso de Albuquerque to Dom Manuel I (4 December 1513),
in Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque seguidas de documentos que as elucidam,
ed. Afonso de Albuquerque (junior) (Lisboa: Acadademia Real das Sciencias,
1884), Vol. 1, 208-12.
17. News of the Portuguese expedition, however, arrived soon in Cairo (on 22
May 1513) and, according to Ibn Iyas, caused consternation among the
population and at the sultan's palace; Ibn-Iyas, Journal d'un bourgeois du
Caire, tr. Wiet, Gaston (France: Armand Colin, 1955), Vol. 1, 288.
18. Albuquerque, Cartas, Vol. 1, 226.

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 21

19. Albuquerque, Cartas , Vol. 1, 399; Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India (Lisboa:
Typographia da Academia real das sciencias, 1864 [Kraus Reprint, Nendeln/
Liechtenstein]), Vol. 4, 731.
20. Albuquerque, Cartas , Vol. 1, 170. On Albuquerque's messianism and
policies, see also Malyn D. Newitt, A history of Portuguese overseas expansion,
1400-1668 (London [u.a.]: Routledge, 2005), 85.
21. S. J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol 1: Empire

of the Gazis (Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 83; A. Hess,
"The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the Oceanic
Discoveries," The Amerìcan Histoňcal Review 75, no. 7 (1970): 1892-1919,
here 1908-09.

22. Bacqué-Grammont and Krœll, Mamlouks, Ottomans et Portugais en Mer rouge,

9 et passim.
23. On the implications of Ottoman assistance to the Mamluks during this
crucial period, see Brummett, Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy,
120-21.

24. See Bacqué-Grammont and Krcell, Mamlouks, Ottomans et Portugais en Mer

rouge, 23-24, 27.
25. Correia, Lendas da India, Vol. 2, 360; Bacqué-Grammont and Krœll,
Mamlouks, Ottomans et Portugais en Mer rouge, 43.

26. Hess, "The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the
Oceanic Discoveries," 1910; Brummett, Ottoman seapower and Levantine
diplomacy, 119; Bacqué-Grammont and Krœll, Mamlouks, Ottomans et
Portugais en Mer rouge, 5.

27. João de Barros, Da Asia-Decada III (Lisboa: Regia Officina Typografica,

1777), Parte 1, Ch. 5.
28. M. Winter, "Ottoman Egypt, 1525-1609," in The Cambridge history of Egypt:
Vol. 2: Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the end of the twentieth century, ed. M.W.

Daly and C.F. Petry, 1-33 (Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998),
4. The rise of the Ottomans as a main global sea power is discussed in Hess,
"The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire," 1905-07.
29. On the importance of this position within the Muslim world, see Brummett,
Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy, 6-8.

30. Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy, 7. An interesting

perspective on Ottoman geopolitics in the Mediterranean and the Middle
East is provided in Emre Evren, "Transportation and Economic Logic in the
Ottoman Empire," http://www.turkishnews.com/itumuk/info/petek/frame/

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22 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

subject6/article5.html (accessed 2 August 2011). Brummetťs seminal study

of the Ottoman rise as a global power is complemented by the recently
issued Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration (Oxford [u.a.]:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2010).
31. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire , 69. The departure by Portuguese
leaders in India from Dom Manuel and Albuquerque's messianic policies
from the 1520s onwards is discussed in Jean Aubin, "Le Prêtre Jean devan

la censure portugaise," Bulletin des Etudes Portugaises et Brésiliennes 41

(1980): 33-57, here 35.
32. The most comprehensive studies on Portuguese-Ethiopian diplomacy are
those by Jean Aubin: "Le prêtre Jean devant la censure portugaise," 33-57;
Jean Aubin, "Duarte Galvão," in Le latin et Vastrolabe: Recherches sur les

Portugal de la Renaissance, son expansion en Asie et les relations internationales,

ed. J. Aubin (Lisbonne-Paris: Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 1996),
11-48; and Jean Aubin, "L'ambassade du Prêtre Jean à Dom Manuel." The
wanderings of da Lima's embassy were narrated by one of its actors, the
cleric Francisco Álvares, in a honest and most informative account: Francisco
Álvares, Verdadeira informação das terras do Preste João das índias (Lisboa:
Impr. Nacional, 1883).
33. See Das Relações entre Portugal e a Pérsia 1500-1 758 (Lisboa: Fundação
Calouste Gulbenkian, 1972), xv.
34. On the establishment of this practice, see Fernão Lopes de Castanheda,
História do descobrimento e conquista da India pelos portugueses (Porto: Lello
& irmão, 1979), liv . III, Ch. VIII; and João de Castro, Le routier de Dom
Joam de Castro. L'exploration de la mer Rouge par les portugais en 1541, tr. A.
Kammerer (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936), 4-6.
35. C.R. Boxer, Portuguese Conquest and Commerce in Southern Asia, 1500-1750
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 419.
36. Boxer, Portuguese Conquest and Commerce, 420.
37. Naos refer to the great Portuguese Indiamen, carracks, and galleons ( carraca
and galeão ), of over 1 20 tons. See Álvares, Verdadeira informação das terras
do Preste João, Ch. CXLII; Bacqué-Grammont and Kroell, Mamlouks, Ottomans

et Portugais en Mer rouge, 21 , 24-25; João de Barros, Da Asia-Década II, liv.

VII, Ch. VI- VII; João de Barros, Década III, liv. VII, Ch. VIII; C. R. Boxer, "A
Note on Portuguese Reactions to the Revival of the Red Sea Spice Trade and
the Rise of Atjeh, 1540-1600," Journal of Southeast Asian History 10, no. 3
(1969): 415-28, here 417; Castanheda, História do descobrimento e conquista

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 Conquistadores , Mercenaries, and Missionaries m 23

da India, liv. IV, Ch. X; Correa, Lendas da India, Vol. 2, 336-60, 486-507,
583-90; Correa, Lendas da India, Vol. 3, 93-94, 378, 627, 635, 647-49;
Correa, Lendas da India, Vol. 4, 110, 161seq; Cortesão and Thomas, eds.,
Carta das novas , 37, 52, 98; Diogo do Couto, Da Asia-Década V (Lisboa: Regia
Officina Typografka, 1779 seq.), liv. II, Ch. VII-VIII, liv. V, Ch. IX; Diogo
do Couto, Da Asia-Década VII, liv. I, Ch. VII-VIII, liv. III, Ch. I, liv. IV, Ch.
IV; Diogo do Couto, Da Asia-Década X, liv. VII, Ch. IV, VII, XVII; Frederic C.
Lane, "The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Further Evidence of Its Revival in
the Sixteenth Century," American Historical Review 45, no. 3 (1940): 581-90,
here 586; Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, 18, 104-05;
and Dames, "The Portuguese and Turks in the Indian Ocean," 13.
38. Shaw emphasizes the role Selim I had in setting up Ottoman dominion in
the Red Sea; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 86.

The recent study of Casale suports his views: Casale, The Ottoman age of
exploration, 25-31. Bacqué-Grammont, on the contrary, downplayed the
role Selim might have had and attributed Ottoman expansion to his heir
Suleiman I; Bacqué-Grammont and Krœll, Mamlouks, Ottomans et Portugais en
Mer rouge, 20.
39. Brummett, Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy, 1 45, 1 60, 1 69,
178-79.

40. Frederic C. Lane, "The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Its Revival in the
Sixteenth Century," in Venice and History. The collected papers of Frederic
C. Lane (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), 25-34; Lane, "The
Mediterranean Spice Trade"; Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Os descobrimentos
e a economia mundial (Lisboa: Presença, 1982), Vol. 3, 132-33;
Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese empire in Asia, 66, 86; and Donald F. Lach,
Asia in the making of Europe, Vol. 1: The century of discovery (Chicago, 111.
[u.a.]: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965), 127-31.
41. Boxer, "A Note on Portuguese Reactions to the Revival of the Red Sea Spice
Trade," 416 et passim. On the dynamism of the hajj during the sixteenth
century and the important role played by Ottomans and Mughal India in
sponsoring it, see Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and sultans: The Hajj under the
Ottomans, 1517-1683 (London [u.a.]: I. B. Tauris, 1994), 132-33, 147, 157,
163; and M.N. Pearson, Pious Pilgrims: The Hajj in Earlier Times (New Delhi:
Sterling Publishers, 1994), 24-25, 91 et passim. A third author, Farooqi,
however, offered a rather dim image of the hajj, emphasizing that up to
nineteenth century Asian Muslim pilgrims were the victims of chronic

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24 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

bullying by the European powers; Nairn Farooqi, "Moguls, Ottomans,

pilgrims: Protecting the routes to Mecca in the sixteenth and seventee
centuries," The International History Review 10, no. 2 (1999): 198-220.
42. Whiteway, The rise of Portuguese power in India, 171. Similarly, in 15
Venetian consul in Cairo reported that Portuguese authorities and sold
authorised trade with Egypt "for their profit against the commands of
king, for they can make a living in that region only by selling cinnamo
cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger, pepper, and other drugs"; see Lane, "Th
Mediterranean Spice Trade," 589.
43. See Pearson, Pious Pilgrims, 101-04.
44. A valuable analysis of how Portuguese India was "going native" is M
N. Pearson, "India and the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,"
India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800, ed. A. Das Gupta and M. N. Pea
(Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1987), 71-93, here 78, 85.
45. On the cartaz system, see Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portugu
empire, 320-22; on the economic implications of the Red Sea patrols,
numbers provided in Pearson, Pious Pilgrims, 163-64.
46. Dames, "The Portuguese and Turks in the Indian Ocean in the 16th ce
15-20; Dejanirah Couto, "Les Ottomans et l'Inde Portugaise," in Congr
International Vasco da Gama et l'Inde (Lisbonne-Paris: Fondation Gulbe
1999), Vol. 1, 181-200; Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration, 56-63.
47. On the Portuguese military expedition to Christian Ethiopia, which
spanned from 1541 to ca. 1545, see Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner, "E
Portuguese Emigration to the Ethiopian Highlands: Geopolitics, Missio
Métissage," in Indian Ocean Worlds. Essays in Honour Of K.N. Chaudhuri
the Occasion of His 75th Birthday, ed. Stephan Halikowski Smith (Cam
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming), 2-33. There exist two
contemporary narratives on this episode: Miguel de Castanhoso, Histór
das cousas que o mui esforçado capitão Dom Cristóvão da Gama fèz nos rei
do Preste João com quatrocentos Portugueses que consigo levou [1564], ed

Augusto César Pires de Lima (Pòrto: Livr. Simões Lopes, 1936); Engl, t
Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 as narrated by Castanhos
with some contemporary letters, the short account of Bermudez, and certain

extracts from Corrêa, ed. Richard Stephen Whiteway (London: Printed fo

the Hakluyt Society, 1902, repr. 1967); and João Bermudez, Breve rela
da embaixada que o Patriarcha D. João Bermudez trouxe do Imperador d
Ethiopia vulgarmente chamado Preste João dirigida a el-Rei D. Sebastião (L

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 25

Typographia da Academia, 1875 [Lisboam: Francisco Correa, 1565]).

48. I tend to agree with Hess when he speaks of a stalemate being reached
between Ottomans and Portuguese: "Thus the Red Sea, and later on
the Persian Gulf, became the southern limit of effective Mediterranean

galley warfare, while the Indian Ocean became the home of the Atlantic
sailing ship. By the end of Selim the Grim's reign in 1520, the two naval
technologies took their place beside other forces in a historic division of
lands and seas separating the Portuguese and Ottoman empire"; see Hess,
"The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire," 1917. The impact of
this expedition is more positively assessed by Casale, The Ottoman age of
exploration, 63-69.
49. Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration, 66-68, 78-80, 114-15.
50. Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration , 76-77.
51. Dames, "The Portuguese and Turks in the Indian Ocean in the 16th century,"
20-27; Boxer, "A Note on Portuguese Reactions to the Revival of the Red Sea
Spice Trade," 421; Seijeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian coast, 20;
and Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration, 95 et passim.
52. Casale, The Ottoman age of exploration, 149-51.
53. On this mission, I address the reader to two doctoral dissertations published
recently on this subject: H. Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean
(Éthiopie): Stratégies, rencontres et tentatives d'implantation (1495-1633)
(Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian-Centre Cultural Calouste Gulbenkian,
2003); and Leonardo Cohen Shabot, The missionary strategies of the Jesuits in
Ethiopia (1555-1632) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009).
54. On the dominance of an ecclesiastical landscape in Goa, see Dejanirah
Couto, "Goa daurada, la ville dorée," in Goa 1510-1685: L'Inde portugaise,
apostolique et commerciale, ed. Michel Chandeigne (Paris: Autrement, 1996),
40-73, here 51.
55. M. B. Velez, "Notas sobre o poder temporal da Companhia de Jesus na India
Século XVII," Studia 49 (1989): 195-214, here 197.
56. By way of example, it is instructive to mention that in 1603, the Camara
(i.e., executive body of the municipality) of Goa complained of the power
of the Society of Jesus, "who have nowadays as big a revenue in this State
as amounts to half of the revenue of your Treasury"; see Charles R. Boxer,
Portuguese Society in the Tropics. The Municipality Councils of Goa, Macao,
Bahia and Luanda, 1510-1800 (Madison-Milwaukee: The University of
Wisconsin Press, 1965), 17.

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26 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

57. Given the lack of a comprehensive monograph on these episodes, the

standard study remains Renato Lefèvre, "Riflessi etiopici nella cultura
europea del Medioevo e del Rinascimento (Parte I)," Armali Lateranens
8 (1944): 9-89; Renato Lefèvre, "Riflessi etiopici nella cultura europe
del Medioevo e del Rinascimento (Parte II)," Armali Lateranensi 9 (194
331-444; and Renato Lefèvre, "Riflessi etiopici nella cultura europea d
Medioevo e del Rinascimento (Parte III)," Annali Lateranensi 11 (1947
255-342.

58. The military expedition that gave way to the settlement of some 150
Portuguese soldiers and mercenaries in Ethiopia in about 1 545 was the foc
of the above-mentioned contemporary narrative: Castanhoso, Historia das
cousas que o mui esforçado capitão Dom Cristóvão da Gama fèz. The troubled
hundred-year long existence of the Portuguese mixed race group in Ethiop
is surveyed in Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner, "Les fils de Christovão da
Gama: les Burtukan de l'Ethiopie," in Publications du 3ème Congrès du Résea
Asie, 26-28 Septembre 2007, Maison de la Chimie-Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales , (on-line publication: http://www.reseau-asie.com/cgi-bin/
prog/pform.cgi?langue = fr&Mcenter = colloque&TypeListe = showdoc&em
ail = &password = &ID_document = 447; Paris 2008); and Andreu Martínez
d'Alòs-Moner, "Early Portuguese emigration to the Ethiopian highlands."
59. See Lane, "The Mediterranean Spice Trade, 589; Andreu Martinez
d'Alòs-Moner, "In the Company of Iyäsus: The Jesuit Mission in Ethiopia,
1557-1632" (PhD Diss., European University Institute, 2008), 88-89; Mari
Alfonso Mola and Carlos Martinez Shaw, "Pedro Páez y la misión jesuita en
Etiopía en el contexto de la unión de las coronas de España y Portugal," in
Conmemoración del IV Centenario de la Llegada del Sacerdote Español Pedro
Páez a Etiopia. Actas del seminario internacional celebrado en Addis Abeba del

9 al 11 de diciembre de 2003 ([Madrid]: Agencia Española de Cooperación

Internacional, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas,
2007), 47-67, here 56-57.
60. It should be said that before the Ethiopian mission took off, some timid
proselytizing steps were undertaken in Socotra, which continued until the
next century; these are summarized in Biedermann, Soqotra, 116-26.
61. Camillo Beccari, ed., Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a
saeculo XVI ad XIX (Roma: C. de Luigi/Casa Editrice Italiana, 1902-17 [repr.
Louvain: Brepols Publishers, 1969]), Vol. 11, 410, also 333.
62. For a study of this mission, see Jerónimo Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos

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 Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries ■ 27

inéditos (Barcelos: Livraria Civilização, 1971), 59 et passim.

63. Beccari, Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales , Vol. 13, doc. 31.
64. Beccari, Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales, Vol. 4, 2, 327 et passim
65. On the difficulties the Estado da India faced since the late 1620s onwards, s
the Introduction to Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos , 56 et passim; and

A.R. Disney, Twilight of the Pepper Empire . Portuguese Trade in Southwest India

in the Early Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

1978), 50 et passim.
66. Beccari, Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales , Vol. 13, 155.
67. The blockade seems indeed to have been specifically aimed against
proselytism originating in Portuguese India. Throughout the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, several missionaries, mostly French and Italian,
managed to make their way into Christian Ethiopia; until the nineteenth
century this was, however, never an easy enterprise and a few paid with
their life; see Metodio Carobbio da Nembro, "Martirio ed espulsione in
Etiopia," in Sacrae Congregationis Propaganda Fide Memoria Rerum 350 anni
a servizio delle Missioni 1622-1972, Vol. I/l: 1622-1700, ed. J. Metzler,
(Rome/Freiburg/Vienna: Herder, 1971), 624-49. Christian Ethiopia's foreign
policy during this period, and specifically its relations with Muslim and
European powers, is, however, still in the shadows and much (to be sure
challenging) archival research awaits to be done, such as in Basbakanlik
Ottoman archives, Propaganda Fide, Archives du Ministère des Affaires
étrangères, and the archives of Mughal India.
68. Pearson, "India and the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century," 71.
69. I follow here Pearson's insightful assessment of Portuguese expansion;
Pearson, "India and the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century," 86 et
passim.
70. Thomaz, "L'idée impériale manueline," 83.
71. Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy, 155.
72. Pearson, "India and the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century," 74.
73. See Martinez d'Alòs-Moner, "In the Company of Iyäsus," 55-60.
74. See Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy, 17, 50, 179;
Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration, 37-40, 111-12.
75. The episode is recounted in Carlo Conti Rossini, "La guerra turco-abissina
del 1578," Ornente Moderno 1, no. 10-11 (1923): 634-36, 684-91; for a more
recent narrative, see Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration, 107-08.
76. In 1867, for instance, the Lieutenant of the British Royal Navy and explorer

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28 ■ Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner

Clements Markham, praising the deeds of the Portuguese in Ethiopia duri

a speech before the Royal Geographical Society, referred to Portugal with
the admiring term of a "hero nation"; see Clements Robert Markham, "On
the Early Portuguese Expeditions to Abyssinia," Proceedings of the Royal
Geographical Society of London 12, no. 1 (1867-68): 11-19. Almost a centu
later, during the apogee of the Africa Orientale Italiana, the scholar and
colonial civil servant Carlo Conti Rossini wrote that the Portuguese embas
to Ethiopia from 1 520 "marked the return of Ethiopia into the sphere of

European interests and also inaugurated the great period that culminated
with the Italian annexation of Ethiopia"; see Carlo Conti Rossini, "Portog
ed Etiopia," in Relazioni storiche fra Vlta-lia e il Portogallo . Memorie docume
XVIII (Roma: Reale Accademia d'Italia, 1940), 325.
77. I have dwelled on the reception of Portuguese activities in Ethiopia durin
colonial times in Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner, "Colonialism and Memor
The Portuguese and Jesuit Activities in Ethiopia through the Colonial-
looking Glass," Studies of the Department of African Languages and Cultures

[University of Warsaw] 41 (2007): 73-90.

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