Western Civilization

“Christians and spices.” He found no Christians, but he

did find the spices he sought. Although he lost two ships

en route, da Gama’s remaining vessels returned to

Europe with their holds filled with ginger and cinnamon,

a cargo that earned the investors a profit of several

thousand percent.

Portuguese fleets returned annually to the area, seek-

ing to destroy Arab shipping and establish a monopoly

in the spice trade. In 1510, seeing the need for a land

base in the area, Admiral Afonso d’Albuquerque (ah-

FAHN-soh day AL-buh-kur-kee) (ca. 1462–1515), took

the lead in establishing a ring of commercial-military

bases on the western coast of India south of present-day

Mumbai (Bombay). The port at Goa became the head-

quarters for operations throughout the entire region.

The Portuguese now began to range more widely in

search of the source of the spice trade (see Images of

Everyday Life on p. 332). Albuquerque sailed into the

harbor of Malacca (muh-LAK-uh) on the Malay Penin-

sula, one of the main harbors in the spice trade, and

after a short but bloody battle, the Portuguese seized

the city and massacred the local Arab population. From

Malacca, the Portuguese launched expeditions farther

east, to China and the Spice Islands. There they signed

a treaty with a local ruler for the purchase and export

of cloves to the European market. The new trading

empire was now complete. Within a few years, the Por-

tuguese had managed to seize control of the spice trade

from Muslim traders and had garnered substantial

profits for the Portuguese monarchy. Nevertheless, the

Portuguese Empire remained limited, consisting only

of trading posts on the coasts of India and China. The

Portuguese lacked the power, the population, and the

desire to colonize the Asian regions.

Why were the Portuguese so successful? Basically,

their success was a matter of guns and seamanship. By

the sixteenth century, Portuguese fleets were heavily

armed and were able not only to intimidate but also to

inflict severe defeats if necessary on local naval and

land forces. The Portuguese by no means possessed a

Ptolemy’s World Map.Contained in the Latin translation of Ptolemy’sGeographywas this world

map, which did not become available to Europeans until the late fifteenth century. Scholars quickly

accepted it as the most accurate map of its time. The twelve “wind faces,” meant to show wind

currents around the earth, were a fifteenth-century addition to the ancient map.

ª

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330 Chapter 14 Europe and the World: New Encounters, 1500–1800

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