THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRErespect, too. In addition to their stronghold in Goa, they established
outposts at Daman and Diu in Gujarat. At Hormuz they controlled the
Persian Gulf and at Malacca the trade route through the Straits.
The armed control of the Indian Ocean trade was relatively easy for the
Portuguese. They found a flourishing and unprotected free trade system
when they entered this ocean. Except for an occasional pirate bearing
rather primitive arms, there was nobody in these waters who had made it
his business to use force for the control of trade. The petty rulers who
controlled the ports around the Indian Ocean had never tried to use force,
because they knew that trade could easily shift to a more hospitable port.
For this reason they also had to be moderate with regard to customs duties
and similar charges.
With all this flexibility, the free trade system was nevertheless very
vulnerable. The Indian Ocean trade was not restricted to luxury goods
which one could easily forgo if the traffic was interrupted. Of course, gold
and ivory, precious textiles and spices did play a major role in this trade.
But there was also a considerable division of labour in the course of which
some ports had become entirely dependent on long-distance grain
shipments. The Portuguese noted with great surprise at Malindi (on the
East African coast) and at Hormuz that these ports were supplied with rice
and other produce from distant Gujarat. As no duties and other protection
costs distorted the price level in this free trade system, everything was
much cheaper here than in the Mediterranean where the Egyptians and the
Venetians operated a tight monopoly. The Portuguese projected
Mediterranean practice onto the Indian Ocean. They were keen observers
and quickly seized upon the strategic points from which they could control
the vast network of Asian maritime trade. Their fortified outposts served
as customs stations where Asian merchants had to acquire the letters of
protection (cartazes) which saved them from being attacked and ransacked
by the Portuguese on the high seas.
Tomé Pires, the author of the Suma Oriental and subsequently the first
Portuguese ambassador to China, noted as early as 1512 that he who holds
Malacca has his hands at the throat of Venice. In the early sixteenth
century the Portuguese virtually succeeded in strangling Venetian trade,
though they never achieved a complete blockade. For the royal pepper
monopoly it was sufficient that supply was tight for Venice, which
continued to get pepper via the Red Sea and the Levant. This kept up the
prices and assured a high profit. The Portuguese king never wanted to
undersell the Venetians, as they had at first suspected. He adjusted his sale
price to the Venetian one, while simultaneously forcing his Indian suppliers
to part with their pepper at a cheap rate. For the royal monopolist it was
an ideal system: buy the pepper at a cheap fixed price in India and sell at a
high fixed price in Europe. Once this system was established, it was very
well suited for subcontracting—thus saving the king trouble and giving